[terrywilcox]

You've missed the bus on female nerds vs. male nerds.

My wife is a senior Oracle DBA. She's very technical. She has great Unix skills on top of her Oracle knowledge.

I know plenty of women like that in tech. Intelligent, highly skilled, motivated. In fact, almost all of the women I've worked with in software development fit that description.

On the other hand, the majority of men I've worked with in software development are just putting in time. They're working 15/30, collecting their pay, running their fantasy football league from their desk. They don't really understand what they do, but there's always someone willing to carry them.

Why the imbalance? The women who aren't interested in tech move on to something else, leaving behind the good ones. The men who aren't interested in tech linger on, becoming a burden (Wally!).

I wish the uninterested, uninspired men would move on as well. It's no fun having a team lead who spends his days surfing porn, YouTube, and NASCAR.

[diolpah]

This is so far removed from my experience as to make me wonder if you live on the same planet I do.

Specifically, I have met one female developer in my entire life, and I have been in a hiring position for 11 years now.

Additionally, I have yet to meet even one male developer who cares about NASCAR, fantasy football, or works to simply punch the clock.

In my world( that would be the web technology and retail automation industries of Orange County and Phoenix ), female developers effectively don't exist, and male developers care deeply for the technology they use and create.

[terrywilcox]

I live in Calgary where, despite the old boy network, we have a large number of female IT professionals and engineers. They still face barriers, but it's improving.

Your hiring experience sounds unusual. You never get resumes from women? You never interview guys who sound good on paper, but turn out to be duds?

[diolpah]

You raise an interesting point on the male developers, and I admit I may be suffering from filter bias - I have interviewed plenty of guys who have no passion for the business, but never hired them, so I am making claims about the guys I actually work with.

As for the females, I can honestly say I have received maybe one or two resumes from a female for a developer position, in my life.

[terrywilcox]

If you're not receiving resumes from women, you may want to examine your job advertising, benefits, and reputation in the industry.

The way you advertise jobs will have a large influence on the type of people who apply. Word of mouth through your all-male developer network isn't likely to reach female developers. The tone of your ads may discourage women from applying (a PDF study: dbem.ws/Sex%20biased%20ads.pdf).

The benefits you offer may also discourage women. Vacation time, flexible hours, and maternity leave tend to be as important to mothers or would-be mothers as health and dental coverage (as a father those things are also important to me, but I know dads who don't care). If you've got benefits that only a young single guy could love, you'll get young single guys applying.

And then there's your reputation. Software development is a surprisingly small, connected industry. If you've only interviewed one female developer in 11 years (the maximum if you've only ever met one), that statistic is out there. Perhaps women don't apply because they've heard you don't hire women or don't even interview them.

If you're not getting female developers applying for jobs, you're missing out on half the talent out there. You may want to check your network on LinkedIn and find out where they are working and why. And more importantly, why they're not interested in working for you.