WomenInTech. "Experience has shown that everything depends on the person, not their gender," — young women from Central Asia on stereotypes in the IT industry

Nazira Egizbaeva, city — Almaty, head of QA at tekmates, LinkedIn , @nazira.aidarkyzy

About Me

Photo source: digitalbusiness.kz

We develop digital services for businesses. As a manager, I oversee several areas.

The first is people management. I analyze the team's situation, determine how many specialists are needed, and what skills and experience they should possess. I select and interview candidates, and after they join, I train them in our processes and help them adapt. I also work extensively on team atmosphere: resolving conflicts if they arise and trying to prevent them.

The second area is team development and motivation. I help define professional goals, create development plans, regularly evaluate performance, and provide feedback. I also train people in new testing tools and develop our internal mentoring system so that experienced team members share knowledge with younger specialists.

As a head, I naturally manage the team—setting goals, guiding, identifying priorities—and analyze the department's effectiveness. I also consult on QA matters during pre-sales. This is also an important part of my job.

How I entered the IT profession

Before transitioning to IT, I worked as the Chief Manager of the Innovation Technologies Department at Sberbank: I implemented new digital products for the bank's retail network. I led several projects and worked with different teams, including outstaff developers from Moscow.

The guys shared their experience and discussed many different ideas. That's when I became interested in development. Then I went on maternity leave and started learning Python development with Django. This direction was recommended to me by my husband—a developer with over 20 years of experience.

I completed a one-year backend development course at Vault 77 school. Then I interned at Robarin as a Django developer. We didn't have a dedicated tester on our team. We wrote code ourselves and checked the application's correctness.

My path in testing began with writing unit tests, checking individual parts of the code: functions, classes. The tests were aimed at ensuring that a specific piece of code worked "as intended," without taking external dependencies into account.

Then I realized that end-to-end testing was needed and started studying testing in general. As a tester, you design scenarios based on test cases that simulate real user actions and check that the application works correctly. When you understand that the product has been tested and the expected result meets the user's need, you see the wow effect from your work. I especially like that.

About stereotypes

When hiring QA engineers at my previous job, I received requests to consider men rather than women. I was argued that women are weak and emotional, while men are stable and emotionally mature.

Experience has shown that everything depends on the person, not their gender. Therefore, judging solely by a specialist's gender is definitely incorrect.

Obstacles for women in IT

I haven't encountered serious obstacles on my path. If you work qualitatively and achieve your goals despite various barriers, you grow and can achieve results. The main thing is to be able to learn lessons from different situations.

However, there is one difficulty I haven't been able to overcome yet—maintaining a balance between work and life. This is especially difficult when you are a mother and a wife.

Recommendations for those just starting their journey:

— always strive for your goal, despite the difficulties you may face

— meet and communicate with people who have gone through the same path and can share their experience

— surround yourself with positive people

— do not focus on negative thoughts

— maintain a balance between work and life.

Anastasia Bogdanova, 24 years old, city — Tashkent, IT project manager at Express24, @baby_an.jpg 

About Me

In 2020, I joined G-Core as a QA engineer in the computer games industry without any experience. I worked at the company for three years and gained immense experience. When you say you work in game development, the first question you get is: "Do you play all day there?" No.

We rarely played; we did so during internal playtests to monitor server load, play with different ping levels, and check if the client would crash. But even here, you don't just play; there were cases where you launched 10 clients on different accounts across two monitors, and on each, you had to perform specific checks. Overall, the work was initially monotonous. I joined without experience, and I was given ready-made test cases to perform checks. There were checks for payments, the shop, the hangar, tank customization, and different battle modes. After a year and a half, I passed Wargaming's certification, and I was transferred to more serious tasks. I tested features that had not yet been released. It was cool to learn about certain features before everyone else, write tasks for them, and check them ourselves.

A turning point came in my life. Initially, my dream was to work in game development, but I became a project manager. I realized that I was more interested in monitoring processes, communicating with the team, and working to ensure that all team members were on the same page.

How you entered the IT field

In 2016, I entered the technical college at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, majoring in "Programming in Computer Systems." After graduating from the technical college, I didn't stop there; I went to work as an intern in QA and pursued higher education in the "Applied Informatics" faculty. After three years of working as a QA, I realized that I was in the wrong place.

My experience at Express24 has been thrilling. Starting work as a project manager, I was impressed by the atmosphere of collective work and the drive for constant improvement.

Express24 is a company where there is something unique every day. What makes Express24 unique? First of all, it is our rapid delivery. We understand that time is the most valuable asset, so we offer fast and reliable delivery that allows clients to receive their orders in the shortest possible time.

Secondly, we have an excellent team of professionals. We unite talented and energetic people who strive for a common goal—to make Express24 the best place for work and customer service.

About stereotypes

The stereotype is more about appearance. I never looked and don't look like someone from IT.

Obstacles for women in IT

The difficulty of becoming "one of us." If you go to work in a male-dominated team, you should understand how colleagues sometimes communicate or joke with each other. Misunderstandings from the male team and intrusive attention. There are few women in leadership positions, which creates the illusion that men in this field are much better.

Recommendations for those just starting their journey

Never stop learning. Study new technologies, skills, and work methods that can help you become more successful in your field.

Don't be afraid of anything! There is nothing impossible in this life; the main thing is the goal and desire.