Why the gender gap in software engineering
Published on: Sunday, September 19, 2021
By: Saila Saidie
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As a Sabahan herself, Faezrah always wanted to empower other Sabahan women.
According to Rambutan Code Academy (RCA) CEO Faezrah Rizalman, there are only two women who enrolled in RCA’s Full-Time Full Stack Software Development Programme which started early last month.
Due to this, Faezrah decided to give them a 50 per cent scholarship for the course, and she had offered a partial scholarship worth RM1,000 for the part-time course of Full Stack Software Development, recently.
“As a woman, I realised that there’s a need to support women and guide them in technology,” she said to Daily Express during an exclusive interview.
Faezrah learned how to code when she was 14 and began to use a computer when she was eight. Her passion in technology had made her want to further study in computing, however, her family was against it as they did not see much future in the field.
She listened to her parents and went to London to study in law. Although she attended University of Buckingham, graduating with a bachelor degree in law, her passion was always in technology.
After her graduation, she enrolled in a 12-week intensive coding boot camp in Europe and ventured into the tech industry as a career. Now a business owner, Faezrah runs her own school which teaches Sabahans how to code in a few months, similar to what she learnt previously.
“Although I considered myself self-taught since I learned HTML, CSS and a bit of Javascript, played around with PHP + WordPress when I was a teenager, my knowledge and skills or the lack of was nothing compared to what they teach in the boot camp. And the boot camp was highly selective and accepted only exceptional applicants into the course. So, I believe in the process. I am confident that it works, having experienced it myself,” she said.
In the male-dominated industry, Faezrah used to be the only woman who worked as a junior software engineer in one of the hottest tech firms in Kuala Lumpur. She once felt to give up, once thought she was a fraud and even once experienced imposter syndrome.
Currently, most of the coding school’s employees are men as fewer women are applying for the jobs and Faezrah also hired those who graduated from her academy, most of them are men.
“I’ve been through it. So, I know the traits of the people I’m looking for when hiring for the roles; people I want to work with and be in my team and it doesn’t matter if they are women or men.
“I have seen my fair share of training junior engineers, be it as another team member or as a manager,” said Faezrah, who also owns Pandan Digital, an innovative software solution in the State.
As a Sabahan herself, Faezrah always wanted to empower other Sabahan women with technology, especially the rural women farmers. And this had made her create a mobile app and e-commerce platform called Bayu Harvest, which connects these farmers with buyers looking for locally-grown agricultural products and to move their produce into a high-value supply chain.
Her invention also won an international contest which was organised by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) in Chile, three years ago.
“In 2019, I won or rather received the Apec Digital Prosperity Award in Chile. Apec is an inter-governmental forum for 21 member economies, held annually, and the location of meetings is rotated among the members.
“The award was supposed to be announced in the Leaders’ Week in Santiago in November 2019, but it was cancelled due to a series of massive demonstrations and riots in October the same year,” she said, adding that announcement and award ceremony was then held in Langkawi, in December 2020 at the first Senior Officials Meeting (SOM).
She said the Sabahans should grab the opportunity when it presents itself and when they see an opportunity coming their way, they must be ready to take the leap.
“One of the lessons the pandemic has taught us is we have befriended technology, and there’s no going back. The Covid-19 pandemic is fast-tracking digital transformations in companies as they are trying to become more resilient to future outbreaks and disruptions.
“We’ve been forced to learn new technologies, new tools and software just to carry out our day-to-day jobs, showing that we all need to have some degree of digital literacy no matter what industry we’re in. So, take actions to upskill or reskill yourself,” she added.
She also urged the Sabahans, both men and women, to be a maker, a creator, an innovator as the future is for those who can make, create, innovate, and less for those who just use. If nothing goes their way, then they should start doing it.
That’s the only way for them to move forward as a nation.
Faezrah said they should learn how to code as it is the language of the future, and coding is no longer (only) for people who want to build stuff or become engineers. Coding should now be seen as crucial as the ability to speak (basic) English in order for one to future-proof their careers.
“Code improves your logic skills, not necessarily math, but just logical thinking, and fosters creativity. It also teaches you how to do problem-solving, as coders usually learn how to break down complex problems into simpler ones.
“These are the necessary skills you need not only in the digital world, but in any industry you want to be in,” she said, adding that they should also teach their children how to code because coding prepares them for the careers of the future, and teaches them how to become future makers.
However, there is still a deficient number of coding boot camp in Sabah, and it is a new concept in Sabah. Faezrah was once told that she was ahead of her time here in Sabah and that she had to do a lot of awareness, campaigns and explanations about what she was trying to do.
Despite all the criticism, Faezrah managed to build RCA, the first coding school in Sabah.
The academy focuses on digital education, specifically coding/software engineering and offers boot camp style courses exclusively which are different from other training centres.
Although she is an introvert, she has forced herself to go all out and build more connections with the people in order to stay relevant, to future-proof her own business, to take responsibility for her company and the people.
Being a CEO, she has a duty of care to her customers and a responsibility not to take someone’s life savings if she does not honestly believe she can turn them into a computer developer.
“At Rambutan Code Academy, we won’t stop helping the students until they have successfully landed a tech job, joined or found a start-up. Making them graduate is not enough. We are doing more than that,” she said confidently.
Faezrah also valued the students’ commitments more than their money, even though she is a businesswoman. Her academy only accepted seven students out of 30 applicants who applied for the Full Stack Software Development Programme in March because many of them have their own full-time jobs and could not attend classes during the day.
When asked why she was willing to do so, she said her main goal is to nurture more local tech talents and prepare them to be job-ready and future-proof their career in the shortest time possible, and this requires the students’ commitments.
“If they fail to land a tech job, does that not mean I fail to produce the products I say I am capable of producing?
“For the students: at every stage of their journey through the course, I’ll always aim to challenge them. So, what they learn each day will be more challenging than the day before. So – what do I get from all of this? It’s the commitment above all. This process needs someone who is persistent and motivated,” she said.
“That’s why in Rambutan Code Academy coaches are called coaches; not teachers, not lecturers. We don’t teach people how to code; we mentor them how to learn to code. When they fall, our coaches will be there to tell them to get back up. When they are stuck, the coaches will guide them so they can get unstuck,” she added.
''As a woman, I realised that there’s a need to support women and guide them in technology. – Faezrah''
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