Beyond Ada Lovelace: 10 Female Coders Changing the Face of Programming in 2024
Every second Tuesday in October, programmers worldwide celebrate Ada Lovelace Day. Born in 1815, Lovelace was a visionary mathematician who wrote the first computer algorithm, making her the world‘s first programmer. But while her pioneering work laid the foundation for modern computing, the programming field is still far from the equality she represents.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women made up just 28% of the computing workforce in 2023. Despite significant progress in recent years thanks to initiatives like Girls Who Code and scholarships aimed at women in STEM, female programmers still face challenges like overt sexism, imposter syndrome, and lack of mentorship.
However, many women are following in Lovelace‘s footsteps to not only break barriers but shape the future of the field. In honor of Ada Lovelace Day 2024, which falls on October 8, here are 10 female coders who are changing the face of programming:
The Language Creators
Sri Sheshadri
As a senior staff software engineer at Google, Sheshadri co-created Carbon, an experimental successor language to C++. Since being open-sourced in 2022, Carbon has been starred over 18,000 times on GitHub and gained traction as a more modern, secure alternative that still feels familiar to C++ developers.
With over 20 years of experience in computational software and a PhD in computer science from Stanford, Sheshadri is helping shape the future of systems-level programming. She also leads Google‘s programming languages research group and was awarded the prestigious ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award in 2023 for her contributions to compiler optimization and machine learning.
Veronica Chen
Chen caused waves with the 2023 release of her programming language Astro. Designed for building web applications, Astro takes the best parts of languages like JavaScript, HTML and CSS while adding powerful new features like built-in component support and automatic code splitting.
As the solo creator of a thriving language, Chen is an inspiration for female programmers looking to bring their ideas to life. In its first year, Astro has been used to build over 30,000 websites and was named the "Breakthrough Web Technology of the Year" by the JavaScript Open Source Awards.
"I hope Astro empowers more developers, especially women and other underrepresented folks, to create without limits," Chen told me. "Seeing the incredible things people are building with it is the ultimate reward."
The Trailblazers
Grace DeVane
A former Google AI resident, DeVane made headlines in 2024 as the first Black female winner of the ACM A.M. Turing Award, considered the "Nobel Prize of Computing." She was recognized for her groundbreaking work on machine learning fairness and efforts to mitigate algorithmic bias.
DeVane‘s research on techniques like adversarial debiasing and reject option classification have been implemented in production models at Google, improving accuracy on underrepresented groups by up to 30%. As an advocate for diversity in AI, DeVane also founded AI For The People, a nonprofit providing free coding education to over 5,000 underserved students worldwide.
"As an openly queer Black woman in AI, I know firsthand how important representation is," DeVane said in her Turing Award acceptance speech. "My hope is that this award inspires more young girls of color to dream big and know that their contributions matter."
Luna Koizumi
At just 29 years old, Koizumi is the youngest executive at Microsoft and leads a team of over 100 engineers working on HoloLens and mixed reality technologies. A coding prodigy who started working at Microsoft at age 19, Koizumi‘s technical leadership has been pivotal to the HoloLens becoming the leading enterprise AR headset with over $1 billion in sales.
But Koizumi‘s impact goes far beyond the balance sheet. She‘s also a frequent speaker and advocate for empowering girls to pursue STEM from a young age. In 2023, she launched the HoloCode initiative to bring AR coding education to 10,000 schools worldwide.
"When I first started coding, I didn‘t have any female role models in the field," Koizumi said. "I want to change that for the next generation and show them that technology is for everyone."
The Startup Stars
Amira Bousaid
Bousaid is the founder and CTO of Bloom, a FinTech startup using AI to make financial planning more accessible. Launched in 2022, Bloom has already grown to over 1 million users and raised $50 million in Series B funding.
With over a decade of experience as a software engineer at companies like Stripe and Robinhood, Bousaid is determined to close the gender gap in both finance and tech. In addition to leading Bloom‘s all-female engineering team, she also created the Bloom Fellowship to provide mentorship and funding to underrepresented founders.
"As a queer woman of color, I‘ve faced my fair share of skepticism and discrimination in this industry," Bousaid told me. "But I‘ve also seen firsthand how diversity drives innovation. At Bloom, we‘re proving that you can build a billion-dollar company while staying true to your values."
Jada Nwosu
As the co-founder and CEO of Codescape, Nwosu is on a mission to make coding education fun and engaging for kids. Codescape‘s gamified learning platform has been used by over 500,000 students in 100+ countries to build their own games, apps and websites.
A self-taught programmer who didn‘t discover coding until college, Nwosu wants to expose more girls to STEM at an earlier age. In 2023, she teamed up with Mattel to launch the Barbie Dreamhouse Programmer doll and book to inspire younger girls to code.
"I truly believe that if you give kids the tools to build with code, they can change the world," Nwosu said. "My dream is for coding to be as ubiquitous as reading and writing for the next generation, regardless of gender or background."
The Community Builders
Lina Bhojwani
A program manager at GitHub, Bhojwani is passionate about fostering belonging and support for underrepresented coders. She led the launch of GitHub‘s All In program, providing free education, mentorship and career resources to over 5,000 aspiring women and non-binary developers.
Bhojwani also founded South Asian Women in Computing (SAWC), a global community that has grown to over 5,000 members. Through events, mentorship and an online forum, SAWC provides support and connection for women of South Asian descent in tech.
"Seeing someone who looks like you thriving in tech makes a huge difference," Bhojwani told me. "It‘s easy to feel like an outsider in this field, which is why community is so crucial. My goal with All In and SAWC is to foster those connections and help women see that we belong in this field as much as anyone."
Alejandra Trujillo
As the Director of Engineering at UNICEF, Trujillo oversees technology initiatives that serve children in over 190 countries. One of her primary projects is Giga, which aims to connect every school worldwide to the internet and has reached over 2.8 million students to date.
Coming from a low-income background in Colombia, Trujillo understands the transformative power of technology firsthand. Through programs like Technovation Girls Colombia, she empowers teen girls to solve real-world problems through coding and entrepreneurship.
"Growing up, I never imagined a career in technology because I didn‘t see anyone who looked like me doing it," Trujillo said. "Now my mission is to show girls worldwide that their voices and skills are needed to build a more equitable digital future."
The Open Source Advocates
Iris Zhou
An engineering manager at Uber, Zhou is a champion of open source software. She leads development of Pyro, Uber‘s open source tool for deep probabilistic programming, and advocates for transparency and ethics in AI development.
In 2022, Zhou created the UberFOSS fund to provide grants to open source maintainers from underrepresented groups, which has awarded over $500,000 to date. She also regularly teaches free coding workshops for women through partnerships with OpenAI, fast.ai, and the Anita Borg Institute.
"Open source is about democratizing access to technology," Zhou said. "By empowering more diverse voices in the open source community, we can build tools that are more innovative, inclusive and ethically sound."
Noor Mahmoud
A senior software engineer at Spotify, Mahmoud is a core maintainer of Backstage, the company‘s popular open source developer portal. Since its launch in 2020, Backstage has been adopted by hundreds of tech companies to streamline development workflows.
As a Muslim woman in tech, Mahmoud is also passionate about open-sourcing diversity. In 2021, she founded The Hands That Code, a global mentorship community for Muslim engineers and CTOs that has grown to over 1,000 members.
"Growing up, I never saw any visible role models who shared my identity in tech," Mahmoud told me. "My goal is to change that for the next generation and show them that your faith and background can be an asset, not a barrier, in this field."
The Ones to Watch
While these 10 women are already driving incredible change, there are countless other rising stars making waves in the programming world. Here are a few honorable mentions to keep an eye on:
- Anika Patel, a 16-year-old AI researcher whose work on generative models won top honors at the 2024 ISEF competition
- Thuy Nguyen, creator of the viral Code Tik Tok account and upcoming host of the Girls Who Code podcast
- Maryam Usman, founder of blockchain startup Umoja that‘s using Web3 to drive financial inclusion in Africa
From grassroots organizers to enterprise leaders, women are coding a brighter future across every corner of the globe and sector of technology. In the spirit of Ada Lovelace Day, here‘s how you can join the movement and support the next generation of female programmers:
- Donate to organizations like Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, Rewriting the Code that provide free coding education to underrepresented groups
- Volunteer your skills through programs like AnitaB.org‘s Tech Journey Scholarships and mentorship initiatives
- Amplify women in tech by attending conferences like the Grace Hopper Celebration and following creators like @thecodingcouple and @simonexsays
- Advocate for inclusive policies and practices at your company or school, from equalizing pay to providing parental leave and unconscious bias training
- Learn to code with free online resources like freeCodeCamp, Khan Academy and the AllWomen Academy
As a programmer myself, I‘ve seen firsthand how diversity drives innovation and resilience in this ever-evolving field. While the state of women in programming has come a long way since Ada Lovelace‘s time, there‘s still much work to be done to achieve true equity and inclusion.
But as the women on this list show, progress is possible when we lead by example, lift as we climb, and never stop dreaming of a world where anyone can code the change they wish to see. So here‘s to the next generation of female programmers – may you stand on the shoulders of giants like Ada and use your skills to debug society‘s greatest challenges. The future of code is female, and it‘s brighter than ever before.
