The company I work for, Mendix, is a software development platform.  What’s unique is that it is based on low-code, a visual approach to delivering enterprise applications, and we’ve be at it for over a decade. Low-code is a hip buzz word these days, and for good reason: Gartner forecasts that by 2025, 70% of new apps will be developed with low-code, up from less than 25% in 2020. Even industries traditionally slow to adopt new technology, like Manufacturing and Insurance, are jumping on board.

Last week, I was chatting with a colleague about the intersection of low-code and diversity.  I made a simple comment – “Back when Mendix World was in person, there was a line for the ladies’ room…” – and their eyes widened.  They knew exactly what I meant.  It was a shibboleth for women at conferences – meaning, “this conference had so many women, you had to wait for the bathroom.”  To spell it out: this is incredibly unusual.

Since that experience, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which low-code might be a major catalyst to the long-overdue diversification of tech.  Was this bathroom line indicative of a shift in the tech population, or just an accidental moment that I’m reading too much into?

I am optimistic that low-code may be an area of tech – of software development in particular – that invites a more diverse population to participate.  There are a few reasons why: 

1. 1. The raison d’être of low-code is to democratize software development and its associated domains. The whole idea of this discipline (movement?) is that more people can participate in software development because it provides an additional layer of abstraction from the nitty-gritty.  So the barrier to entry is much lower than it has been with traditional software development.
   2. People who work on low-code projects are usually closer to, or at least more exposed to, the business need or problem they are trying to solve. This rewards delivering business value rather than rewarding lines of code or creating and managing esoteric complexity.  (A little diversion here – geeking out can be cool, too.  I like to reminisce about having written a Scheme interpreter in Scheme back in college, which is more recursion than most people want to deal with. But when esoteric complexity and geek cred become the only yardstick by which contribution is measured, a less diverse workforce rises to the top.)
   3. More low-code developers come from backgrounds either in a business discipline (like marketing or legal) or a data analysis background (like BI or Ops).  Both of these areas have significantly more women than traditional software development. If low-code is really the next wave of software development, the fact that it is sourcing talent from more diverse areas of the business is good news for the diversity of the future workforce.   

And lest we forget – the urgency to diversify software development has never been greater.  More software will be delivered in the next five years than had been in the last twenty years.  Even if all that software could be delivered by a mostly homogenous workforce (which it can’t, no matter how fast people can code), the increasing role software will play in every domain – from healthcare to education to finance – means we can no longer accept AI models trained on homogenous datasets or user behavior interpretations that tacitly assume demographics about their users.

Look, (most) software developers aren’t evil. I truly believe that most developers are trying to deliver the best code that they can. But someone has to be in the room to say, “that gender field needs to be perpetually editable” or “that AI model is assuming skin tone is lighter than eye color,” and low-code is a mechanism that opens the door for more people to enter that room.

Low-code is not a panacea – just like it won’t solve all the challenges of software development without accompanying cultural change, it also won’t unilaterally solve tech’s diversity problem. But it wedges the door open a bit more, makes a little more space at the table, and puts a broader set of people who want to participate in software development in a position to do so.

This week, dozens of my colleagues from across the US (and Europe) are visiting our Boston office.  I’ll be in the office several days in a row – in fact, more days consecutively since the pandemic started over two years ago.  There have been a few gatherings in person since March of 2020, but none this large or for this many days.

I’m excited – it reminds me of how I used to feel before attending a big kickoff or conference.  But, like the night before those types of events, I’m also bracing myself for the week – the social aspects of it. That is, not ‘socializing,’ but how exhausting what used to be a normal week of in-person interactions can be.

What makes this hard?  We’ve become accustomed to work interactions being scheduled, planned, scoped, and chosen (or declined) intentionally through calendar management. 

• This week, spontaneous meetings and interactions will be the norm. “Water cooler conversations,” hallway bump-ins, and overhearing colleagues discussing things will all be how we communicate this week.  I miss those things.  Also I dread them.  But I want them.

We’ve become accustomed to taking a break after a long, tough conversation with a walk outside, a tussle with the dog, or a moment with a loved one.

• This week, the set of interaction will be more immersive.  Sure, there’s the option of walking around the office to stretch my legs, or ducking outside for a quick walk.  Sometimes I even sneak the dog into work.  But it’s not the same as being in my own home.

Look, if I had to make a binary choice between perpetually working remotely, or returning to pre-pandemic office culture and travel, I’d choose the latter.  But we’re not choosing between those things.  We’re moving into a phase of perpetual, shifting, changing, lumpy, hybrid work. Different patterns of travel and of interaction.  And that’s new.

I know I’ll come out of this week satisfied and exhausted. I’m excited to meet new colleagues and team members I’ve only known over Zoom. I’m excited to have meetings in person with several people in the same room. I’m excited to celebrate recent accomplishments, and talk about future vision, in person. And I’m also nervous about adjusting to all of it.

As I write this, “We Don’t Talk about Bruno” is playing in the next room, and now that I stop to listen, it’s also playing downstairs, on two separate warring devices with about a 3-bar offset. 

So there are ways in which nothing can be too much compared to my current “workplace.”