Meet Lia Adriana, a female developer who thinks we need better language to talk about tech

Women are underrepresented in Indonesia’s IT departments for various reasons, but there are pioneers. In this series, Tech in Asia talks to young women who have decided to make coding their career.

Lia Adriana, developer at Tiket.com

Lia Adriana, is a developer at Tiket.com, a popular Indonesian travel booking site. She started studying IT in college at her brother’s recommendation.She hadn’t been exposed to coding before that, but took an interest in web applications while schooling. Adriana realized then that she could learn to build unique and cool websites herself.

Q&A

TIA: What was the career path that led up to you joining Tiket.com?

Adriana: I was working at Streetdirectory, and a Tiket.com manager contacted me via LinkedIn. After consideration, I thought it would be nice to try working in a different business and learn new things.

What’s your daily work routine?

My work here revolves around the back end and front end of the Tiket.com website. I implement new features, update the current system, fix bugs, set up third party API connections, and do reporting.

What area of programming interests you most? Where do you see yourself going in the next couple of years?

I’m interested in web programming. My expertise is in PHP. Someday I want to learn mobile programming. I have always wanted to have my own online shop, but never have time to actually build one. Maybe in a couple of years, I’ll have one.

Did you ever feel lonely as a female developer? How did you deal with it?

Yes, sometimes. There were times when I’m the only female developer in my company. But this has never been an issue for me. Beside there are other female employees.

What do you think works best to introduce more young women to coding and IT jobs?

There’s a stereotype that IT jobs are boring and too serious, and we need to change that. Working in this field can be fun and exciting too.