How was it to break the stereotype of game development being a world of men?

Why are there so few woman game developers? Unlike many women professionals, my journey has been relatively smooth.

I'm lucky to have parents that believed in and supported me in all the things I chose to do. My mother was a banker, and my father a programmer. I do take after my father from a career choice point of view, but am equally inspired professionally by my mother's grit. Being a working woman in 90s India wasn't easy by any stretch.

But while luck is often thought to be blessings bestowed upon people, I firmly believe that luck can be engineered too. Over the years, I've learnt that opportunities present themselves to people who actively work toward their desires. I think the word serendipity could partly describe my career thus far.

I grew up in your typical middle-class family. I completed my engineering from St. Francis Institute of Technology in Mumbai and followed that up with a Master's degree at Colorado State University. I returned to India in 2010 and started work as a researcher. While the work was satisfying, I didn't feel challenged enough. I've always been the kind that thrives in difficult environments and I kept my eye out for something that could push me to do better each day.

I believe it's always important to seek actively. Don't get me wrong; I don't mean it in the sense of actively looking for a new job. What I feel is that one shouldn't settle for satisfactory. In order for someone to achieve their true potential, one needs to be challenged; more so for women. We're always made to feel that we shouldn't expect much or that we should be happy with whatever we get. While most of us see through that, we don't believe in it strongly enough. And that's when the battle is half lost.

What I feel is that one shouldn't settle for satisfactory. In order for someone to achieve their true potential, one needs to be challenged.

While at my first job, I kept looking out for interesting projects to work on. That's when I got introduced to Roby John. For a little context, Roby is my co-founder at SuperGaming where he is the CEO. At the time (2011), he was building mobile games and educational games as one of the founders of another Software company. I wasn't into gaming at the time, but the idea of building for mobile devices excited me. It was a new platform and I felt that there's a massive opportunity for me to learn. I interviewed for the role of developer.

They weren't impressed with my assignment and I got rejected. But I'm not the kind to take no for an answer. So I went back home and worked on it again. Suffice to say, I got the role. Perseverance is what helped me when I didn't succeed initially. It's also what got me to where I am today.

But that's only a part of it. We're faced with difficult decisions when looking for a new job. Does one optimise for a higher pay, a better designation, a balanced work-life, a bigger challenge, a promising company, a good manager? The variables are numerous. While I was young and hadn't yet experienced enough of the world, I'd gotten into the habit of decisiveness.

The team the company and Roby in particular, is why I decided to apply for the role. Very often, a woman's opinion is dismissed and they are made to feel inferior. With Roby and team, they looked beyond my gender. What they saw and what they were looking for was a match. A developer is what they needed on the team, a developer that wouldn't take no for an answer. A developer who would make mistakes but then look to the ends of the earth for a solution. For me, this was the clincher. While the other variables mattered, what was most important was being acknowledged for my skills and what I brought to the table. When I look back on this decision, I realize that it is one of the biggest contributors to my career trajectory.

Very often, a woman's opinion is dismissed and they are made to feel inferior. With Roby and team, they looked beyond my gender.

I could put it down to sheer luck that I found  that job, but that would be doing injustice to the fact that I did dozens of interviews to find that needle in the haystack. My decision to join the team was deliberate. They were doing very exciting work. The opportunity to work on multiple areas of development which would have not happened at a larger organisation was an irresistible challenge. My advice for women looking to navigate their professional lives, it's important that you work with people who see your gender as only one part of a multi-faceted identity. You're also a developer or a product manager. That you're a woman is important to bring diverse perspectives.

In a world that has a scary majority of men that make up the workforce and an even more skewed management layer, it's hard to find people that treat you as an equal. But it's worth pursuing. It has worked for many of the most successful women, and while I'm far from successful, I do think my transition from developer to cofounder at SuperGaming is an example of this.

The percentage of developers who are women is extremely low. And in the gaming industry, it's probably even lower. I'm quite proud of the fact that I lead engineering at a gaming company. It's likely an anomaly, although that shouldn't be in the first place. I hope some of the insights from my journey can inspire more women to seek for what they deserve. I'd love to see more women in engineering and gaming because the products we build are a reflection of those that build it.

Christelle D’cruz is the Co-Founder of  Engineering, SuperGaming. The views expressed are the author's own.