In honor of Women’s History Month, Pragmatics is proud to celebrate the unique stories of our outstanding female employees who are supporting missions of national importance.
Meet Women in Information Technology. Explore their profiles and get personal with women from a diversity of backgrounds, expertise, and experience who are essential to our growing team at Pragmatics.
Nandini’s first exposure to the world of programming was a school project at college, where she learned Pascal, a programming language, and found the logical thinking and problem-solving aspect fascinating. In order to keep pursuing her interest and turn it into a career, she expanded her knowledge on more programming languages, such as C and Visual Basic. She eventually took up her first job as a programmer in 1996.
In 2009, Nandini joined Pragmatics and later became a member of the GCSS-J team, whose members come from a diversity of backgrounds. Their determination towards problem-solving creates an environment of trust. “Since I joined Pragmatics, all the groups I have been on are very diverse compared to my previous teams,” says Nandini, “because Pragmatics focuses on hiring people with the right skills.”
“Like many other fields, there are challenges in this field, too,” Nandini explained, “It is disappointing not to see an increase of women in technical roles since I started my career.” Although she works in a company where diversity is valued, Nandini holds a broader outlook across the industry and is concerned with the attrition of women in technical roles. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), computer science research jobs will grow 19% by 2026. Despite the high job demand, computer science remains a male-dominated field worldwide.
Nandini working on GCSS-J team to support missions of national importance
Her tips for aspiring women in Information Technology? Don’t be intimidated by the need for continuous learning of new technologies and overcome any challenges during this journey. “I believe that qualities like confidence and perseverance have helped me to be successful in the field and so will help any other woman,” says Nandini.
Women do not need additional nor different characteristics to be successful in the field of Computer Science. I would say the most critical quality is the confidence that we are equally capable of performing the job as men.
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To improve gender parity in this field, women need to empower women. “I try my best to provide help and encouragement to female co-workers to be successful in their job,” she explained, “I would also like to participate in programs that encourage girls to code at a very early age.” As a mother, she has always encouraged her daughter and girls in the family to work hard and challenge themselves to excel in academics, sports, and professions.
It will be beneficial if business leaders make conscious efforts to believe in women equally as men and provide opportunities for growth.
Outside of work, Nandini has a broad range of hobbies, among which she loves to explore places with beautiful natural settings the most. Her favorite city is Queenstown, New Zealand, a town famous for its picturesque landscape with lakes, mountains, vineyards, and cattle farms.