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Breaking the Bro Code
- 1. | Dom Breaking the Bro Code
- 2. Dominique DeGuzman Twilio Software Engineer Dom@twilio.com @itshella_dom
- 3. The Dom
- 5. • Denial • Denial of skillset • Denial of sexuality • Anger • Unwelcomed Brogrammer commentary • Bargaining • Brocoming one of them • Depression • Becoming unhappy in the workplace • Acceptance • Learning to work with the brogrammer
- 6. Not every non-nerdy guy is a brogrammer & brogrammers are not exclusively straight white males
- 9. Careers are not ladders. It’s rock climbing.
- 11. Thank you
Editor's Notes
- This is awesome. It’s not every day that I am greeted by so many people. We’ve had talks by Founders CEOs, Directors, editors and a bunch of amazing people. Hi, I’m Dom. I am a software engineer at Twilio focused on infrastructure monitoring, development tools and general engineering platform. I am incredibly grateful to share this space with all of you incredible folks.
- You can find my online here. Also. If you happen to take a picture of me on stage, you can send or tag me at @itshella_dom. Cuz. My mom would totally love to see that. I am here to talk a little about how I got to where I am and the somethings I’ve learned along the way.
- To be honest, I am not much for slides and I didn’t know what to put on this. A little bit of history. I am not one of those people who always knew what they wanted to do. I was not one of those people that followed one track and landed my dream job. I didn’t have a background in anything related to science, technology, engineering or math. In fact, I was pretty much the exact opposite. My parents tried to push me into those fields and I responded with taking up absolutely anything else. In college, I was just the type of person that would wander from class to class if I heard something I liked. I wanted to avoid “growing up” so I took random classes that I enjoyed. My college transcript includes broadcasting, communication, sexualities, gender studies, linguistics, adventure classes… you name it. It got to the point where the University had me create a major just so I would graduate. So… I graduated with a degree in Communicative Analysis with Concentration on Heteronormativity and the Absence of Lesbians in Mainstream Media. Yep. During all that time, I worked in a retail electronic store, but I would have never guessed that this is where I would end up. Jumping ahead a few years after graduation, I started working in one of the largest tech companies in the Bay Area. I don’t need to get into or show statics of the tech industry being highly male dominated. We can go on for hours about diversity and injustices and although I would LOVE to, I am more here to share my experience in the technical industry as a millennial. I am here to talk about…
- The Brogrammer. Let’s start off with defining the brogrammer. Traditionally, technical departments were dominated by not just men, but “nerdy” men. Now the at the tech industry is booming, that has shifted. Instead, the frat boys you thought you left in college have packed their flip flops and shitty beer and have moved to the desk next you. The guys that used to flood into Finance, Business and Sales careers are now “crushing it in Ruby” and playing beer pong in the office between deployments. This is not only shifting the dynamic and culture of working in these industries but it’s beginning to shape it. This is largely responsible for incredibly sexist and misogynistic stories and events like Hackers & Hookers and the “Maven is my girlfriend” incident. I’ve been in the San Francisco tech industry just about the same time as the start of the rise of the brogrammers. In this time, I’ve identified five very distinct stages I would feel when working with a brogrammer.
- The first stage is denial. Whether it’s a blatant denial of your skillset for being a woman, being younger, not graduating from an ivy league school or the denial of being a lesbian. The interesting thing is that the brogrammers I have worked with like to think of themselves as “accepting”. Don’t even get me started on “I dated a bi-girl once” as a means of trying to start a conversation on level ground. Most commonly, I felt my lesbianess being ignored when I was treated like “one of the guys”. Please, don’t ask me to participate in judging or disrespecting women. We may both like women, but I actually respect them. The second stage is anger. There was one time that a bro-worker and I were both looking to leave the company we were working for. We had the same skillset and interviewed for the same positions. I got the position and he didn’t. We went out for a drink to congratulate me on my new position. After a few drinks, he told me, “you know, I’m not surprised they chose you. You’re great at what you do and plus you’re a hat trick.” I’m a what? And he says, “You know, a hat trick, in hockey when you score three consecutive goals. Like a three pointer. Three for one. You’re a gay, a person of color and a girl. I’m not a diversity goldmine like you are, it will probably be harder for me to get another job”. First of all, just because I’m a lesbian does NOT mean I know sports references. And secondly, do you know how much anger I was filled with having to sit there and hear his pity party that he didn’t get the job because he was a straight white man? And every now and then you will hear things like that that sound as if they are well meaning but really just stirs up anger. The third stage is bargaining. I have been the only female in in my teams for a long time and there are times where you do want to connect with your coworkers. And I started to become one of them. I have a lot of stories for this one. All incredibly too embarrassing to share. Can you guess the fourth stage? Depression. I wasn’t happy being one of the bros just to fit in. I wasn’t happy hearing dick jokes all the time. But finally, you reach a stage of acceptance. So, looking at this … my experience with brogrammers were very similar to dealing with grief. But I didn’t want to come here and just be negative, so we’re going to shift a little. Yes, I have had negative experiences working with brogrammers. Yes, you will most likely have to work with a brogrammer. But there’s a lot that I have learned and taken away from those experiences that have definitely benefitted me in my career and that’s what I wanted shift focus to.
- It is very important to note these two things. The definition of brogrammer has evolved but has kept it’s negative connotations. The way to think about the terminology is thinking that this industry was history of being dominated by “nerds” and is now being redefined to include people from all backgrounds and styles. While there are the brogrammers that I have had to deal with in the past, there are a lot of non traditional nerds that I work with that are some of the best people and best allies I have ever met. They enable to solve my own problems and trust that I don’t’ need any hand holding. On the opposite sides of that, not every brogrammer is male. Hell, I was a bit of a brogrammer for a while and I am definitely not the only one out there.
- How many people here think that they are lucky to be where they are in their career? So I am torn with that. We are lucky to be where we are, but it wasn’t luck that got us here. When I first started as a systems admin, I had a permanent panic attack for months. All the guys I worked with were breezing through everything while I was still stuck on my first ticket. I was terrified that someone would find out that I had no idea what I was doing. It was worse when I would ask someone for help and he would come from across from the campus to solve my problem for me. For years, I thought I had this huge secret that I didn’t know what I was doing because I kept needing to ask for help and all of my brogrammer coworkers never asked for help. It wasn’t until years later that I started having lunch with other women engineers did I find out that that is normal. Most of the women I encounter constantly felt as though they were hiding that they didn’t know what they were doing when in actuality, we were doing just fine. I was becoming my own worst critic that I couldn’t even see I was doing better than some of my counter parts, I was just working on different projects, except my builds didn’t fail. Being constantly around competitive and boasting brogrammers will definitely make you question your confidence but everyone here should remember that you aren’t lucky, you’ve earned to be where you are. You have the skillset, the mindset and the only thing the brogrammers have over you is a surface level of confidence. We are just as good as they are, if not better.
- When I first started out as a software engineer, some of the requests I would get from users or PMs would just sound impossible. They would say, “We would like Application A… to talk to Application B… using Communication C” But this is how I would hear it, “We would like you to draw two red circles using only straight lines and green ink”. And there would be a time where you would need to reach out for help. The immediate reaction when asked for help is for them to take keyboard control. They want to solve the problem. You keep control of the keybard, you don’t git push, no svn commit; you sit with a person and you find the solution together. This was my way of reiterating that I was not some damsel in distressed. I was not someone that needed to come in and save the day. I had the skillset, but I wasn’t too proud to ask for help. Asking for help is a lot different then asking for a solution and pretending to follow along while someone else does all the work. One of the things you’ll hear around Twilio is “Draw the Owl.” This is from an old meme that said, “how to draw an owl. First, draw two circles… then draw the rest of the fucking owl.” The point being, you’re given some tools, maybe some instruction but it’s up to you to finish the job.
- I know there is the saying to “climb up the ladder” at work but brogrammers have taught me a little differently. While I always knew careers are not so linear, brogrammers will find out how to get where they want by any other path. If they wanted to go into tech leads or management and it wasn’t available on their team, they went to get to other teams or companies, they would go around and convince other people that they were right for the position and have people back them up. My professional background is so all over the map from my first job making jam to my current job in code magic. If we had to have a metaphor for careers, think of your career as rock climbing. Rock climbing is hard, it’s not always straight up. Sometimes you will hit a plateau but you have to make your own path and there are a lot of risky moves. Remember, you’re next move may not be the position directly above you and there may not be a direct path to the top.
- This is one stereotype I know hold truth. Bros everywhere love to high-five. High-fives are pretty awesome. Brogrammers high five over everything. Fixed that bug? Yeah! High five! Product release without an incident? Yeah! High Five! Got a beer form the fridge? High five! High fives are a way of congratulating, of acknowledging work well done. Whether it’s high fives, an acknowledgement from upper management or even a +1 on a commit, these types of positive reinforcement helped me get over my imposter syndrome and helped me in feeling valued as a team member. This also helped me in giving positive feedback to others and together our team fosters a culture of acknowledgements and constructive feedback.
- So we’ve talked about the brogrammers, my negative experiences but more importantly the things I’ve learned from working with these brogrammers. Again, I am really happy to have had this opportunity to speak with ya’ll. Thank you for listening.