Striking a balance

Though he thinks men have inherent advantages in the world of programming, Pu, the IT business owner in Chengdu, is willing to hire a certain number of women.

"One consideration is to achieve a gender balance. The other is that female programmers are more careful and detail oriented, and products developed by them have fewer bugs," he said.

Li believes that in addition to their careful approach, female programmers have better communication skills than their male peers.

"The development of a product involves a lot of communication, and female programmers can usually communicate more efficiently and effectively using a milder and less direct manner," she said.

The only disadvantage with female programmers, according to Li, is their relatively poor stamina.

"Some people summarize the working pattern of our industry as '9-9-6', which means we need to work from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. But the reality is that my work always starts before 9 am, sometimes at 8:30 am, while rarely ending at 9 pm," she said.

Li added that occasionally she has to stay up late or even all night to ensure that tasks are all completed on time, especially when a product gets close to its launch date.

"It's really a challenge for a woman's physical stamina, and maybe also a challenge of spiritual strength," she said.

"On a couple of occasions when I finished work and wanted to make a video call to my parents in the taxi home, I found that it was very late and they were already asleep. That made me a little lonely and homesick.

"Those are the few times I feel jealous of friends who have relatively relaxing and less stressful jobs, such as accountancy or as airline cabin crew. At all other times, I'm happy with my job because it's so rewarding, both materially and intellectually."