I have been a software developer for four years now. I have worked across two countries, two industries, and several teams. I have had good experiences and uncomfortable ones. I have learned things the hard way that I wish someone had told me before I started.
This is not a post about how difficult it is to be a woman in tech. It is a post about what I actually wish I had known. Some of it is practical. Some of it is about mindset. All of it is true.
You will have to prove yourself more than once
Not just when you join a new company. Not just when you join a new team. Repeatedly, in small ways, in the same rooms with the same people. This surprised me. I thought once I had demonstrated what I could do, that would be it.
It is not it. You keep demonstrating. And eventually you realise that the solution is not to prove yourself harder. It is to stop needing the validation in order to do good work. That shift is genuinely freeing, even if it takes time to get there.
