How would you are feeling if Google shut down for a day? With certainty, lots of your burning questions would go unanswered. If a query and reply website like Stack Overflow skilled the identical destiny, many programmers would such expertise excessive frustration–I do know I’d!
Stack Overflow attracts over 50 million programmers every month, the place they be taught and share data amongst friends. It’s a group I depend on in my position as a Knowledge Analyst at Traackr.
Final month, we introduced that Traackr is the first influencer marketing platform to integrate Stack Overflow data and GitHub content, enabling our clients to search out influential builders and actual consultants within the engineering trade. That is big for the organizations trying to develop and nurture their developer evangelists and influential group packages.
I used to be a part of the workforce that labored on this integration and curiously, I needed to surprise, “Who’re the highest contributors to Stack Overflow?” So I seemed to Traackr to search out out.
Analyzing 1000’s of Matters on Stack Overflow to Uncover High Contributors
With the intention to supply the platform’s high contributors, we gathered 1000’s of Stack Overflow tags in areas related to the Stack Overflow group, together with:
- Programming languages
- Algorithms
- Generally used software program instruments, and so forth.
After analyzing these subject tags on Stack Overflow, I came upon that solely ~2 p.c of the highest answerers are identifiable as ladies (‘high answerers’ as outlined by Stack Overflow itself), which I assumed was attention-grabbing, albeit just a little disappointing. On the identical time, I discovered nice leaders amongst these 2 p.c, and right here is my choose of the ten most influential ladies on Stack Overflow, proficient in numerous technical fields.
- Michelle Tilley
- Linda Lawton
- Kirti Thorat
- Deborah Kurata
- Chiu-Ki Chan
- Jennifer Marsman
- Lea Verou
- Kate Gregory
- Christina Arasmo
- Carol Skelly
These rock-stars are additionally energetic on their blogs, Twitter, and GitHub accounts, and so forth., which, along with their ‘popularity’ and ‘individuals reached’ on Stack Overflow drives their Attain and Resonance on Traackr’s platform.
Recognizing the Main Females in STEM
STEM jobs are growing faster than any other U.S. sector, however 84 % of the working professionals presently in science and engineering jobs within the U.S are white or Asian males.
Because of this, many main tech firms are lacking out on the super advantages of getting a various workforce that brings a wide-range of concepts, experiences and approaches to the desk–essential parts for creating an modern spirit.
As a query and reply website for skilled and fanatic programmers, Stack Overflow is a group the place many newbies basically learn to code, so it’s positively inspirational for ladies who learn to code on Stack Overflow to see ladies amongst its high contributors.
Discovering What Led These Girls to their Careers in Programming
To be taught much more about these ladies, I reached out to them to listen to their tales about what led them to their careers in programming. Two tales actually stood out to me, as a result of they spotlight the significance of ongoing schooling and studying–simply the kind of factor Stack Overflow makes potential!
“The best way I began getting desirous about laptop science is just a little foolish, I used to be in highschool at the moment and my elder sister determined to take up Laptop Science for her Masters and in doing so we obtained our first laptop at dwelling. She would spend a variety of time programming on it and me being me, I assumed it was my proper to hassle her on a regular basis. I’d learn her notes, watch her programming and begin prompting from behind her whereas she was coding. That have truly made me tremendous desirous about laptop science, it was like a complete new world for me the place I might make a pc do issues. It was magic! I like difficult myself and downside fixing provides me a thrill. Programming permits me to just do that, determine environment friendly methods to resolve a given downside. I like to be taught new issues and that is one of many the explanation why I like working as a developer. Know-how retains altering and there’s all the time one thing new that I can be taught, it by no means will get boring. Not too long ago, I’ve been engaged on creating Knowledge Science expertise and entering into R programming. At all times continue to learn, it is enjoyable!” – Kirti Thorat
“After I was 11, we visited some household within the US. I used to be into computer systems already, so my uncle took me to CompUSA. I used to be obsessive about fonts on the time, so I used to be in search of software program that might let me design my very own fonts. Sadly, I could not discover something of the like, solely CDs with font collections. Nonetheless, throughout that search, some software program known as Multimedia Fusion caught my eye. It enabled you to construct purposes visually, with out writing any code. I all the time appreciated making issues, and coding appeared very daunting on the time, so that actually appealed to me. Fortunately, my mother purchased it for me, I feel it was about $100. A couple of 12 months after utilizing it for a number of hours a day, I made a decision I used to be able to be taught an actual programming language. For anybody questioning, I did ultimately discover font design software program, a couple of decade later :).” – Lea Verou
Reflecting on my Personal Journey into Programming
For many people, newbie {and professional} programmers, the journey began considerably by chance.
In highschool I cherished constructing easy web sites, and with my primary data of HTML and net design, I created a fan web site for Hollywood actor Edward Furlong, which grew to become fairly in style (embarrassing and proud reminiscence on the identical time).
After getting a level in linguistics, I began working in localization, and, ultimately, my profession took me to knowledge evaluation. I depend on Stack Overflow myself every time I have to debug my automation scripts or be taught a brand new know-how, so figuring out the highest contributors was an attention-grabbing investigation.
The significance of recognizing ladies in STEM has additionally been on my thoughts for a very long time, so, naturally, I used to be particularly curious to be taught concerning the influential ladies on Stack Overflow. It was an awesome pleasure for me to study lots of them, not solely the highest 10 within the listing above, and I used to be completely satisfied to have an opportunity to achieve out and chat with a few of them.
Be taught Extra about Traackr’s Stack Overflow Integration
I’m proud to be a part of the workforce that by no means stops innovating, and enabling Traackr’s integration with Stack Overflow knowledge and GitHub content material is only one of such modern tasks. If you happen to’d wish to be taught extra, get in touch with us.
