“For me, the film I stop when I want was a stab: I was unable to see it to the end, because I can’t grasp the ironic aspect, but only the painful one”. To speak is Lorena Liuzzo, 38 years old, hydraulic engineer and researcher who left her university career to become a full stack web developer, that is, capable of creating sites and applications by creating both the user interface (the front-end) and what is not seen and “runs” on the server (back-end).
Not a small leap. Especially if we consider that in Europe only 18% of ICT specialists are women, that this percentage drops to 14.8% in Italy, and that our country ranks 25th (out of 27) in the Women in Digital Scoreboard 2020. , the index that measures the participation of women in the digital economy (source: European Commission).
Numbers that underline a severe imbalance, but also the exceptional nature of the stories of Lorena and her colleagues Silvia Marai and Micaela Cataldo: three different and distant women (even geographically), but united by the desire to change and the choice to do so by learning to code, program and build Web sites. And then, again, from having attended the Hackademy, an intensive 3-month course dedicated to programming organized by Coding Factory italiana Aulab. In their testimonies, words that bode well for the near end of the prejudice that programming “a thing for men” would like.
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Lorraine is a brain on the run: not so much and not only for the two-year parenthesis abroad in an English university, but for the human journey that, after years of study and money invested, pushed her on a completely different path. Away from a context where “there are people who give everything for an academic career, even giving up family, and then they find themselves old and precarious without being able to do anything else », towards a profession that today sees companies contending with offers for the few specialists available.
«I finished the course on 25 November 2020 and already on 9 December I was hired in the company where I currently work. But first I was contacted via LinkedIn by seven other, whose offer I declined ”, Lorena explains, without hiding a certain satisfaction.
“I wasn’t happy, I didn’t feel fulfilled, I wanted a more challenging job: at 33 it was time for a change»Echoes Silvia, an industrial expert with 10 years of experience in the purchasing department of a company. Completely lacking in programming, but passionate about IT, Silvia first did some free online courses, then she found the courage to leave her job and undertake a new training path and a new career: «In addition to programming itself – he explains – I like the agile working methodology and the collaborative environment that is established. It happened with my colleagues from the course, and I can now find him in the company ».
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Silvia comes from a provincial professional background, purely male, where being a woman and asking for help was difficult and sometimes embarrassing. “Now, on the other hand, I work in a very inclusive company – he explains – where women and men are present at fifty percent and we constantly compare and help each other”. Also thanks to the fact that you work remotely: “Behind a computer we are all the same – observes Silvia – no matter age, sex or origin: what matters, and what you really see, is only what you know how to do”.
Finally, there are also those who choose to become a full stack web developer because they feel the need to complete their professional profile and want more stability. Micaela, 27, has a degree in Business Administration and three years of experience in marketing working in an agency, she was a freelance with a VAT number: “With the course I put order in the programming knowledge that I had gained in the field and I acquired new ones,” she explains. So he found a permanent job almost immediately a Milano, which he reached by leaving Rende (Cs) and the football team with which he played in Serie A. A sacrifice, of course, thanks to which today, however, he finally feels “fulfilled and satisfied” after having positively changed the way he sees the future.
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