This week, thousands of women and nonbinary technologists were supposed to walk into the Grace Hopper Celebration in Anaheim, California. Instead, the doors are closed. The tech industry named some of its most powerful AI chips after Grace Hopper. This year, it could not sustain the conference that bears her name.

AnitaB.org canceled this year’s celebration after individual registrations and sponsorship commitments fell short of what it needed to run the event. The celebration was first held in 1994, co-founded by computing pioneer Anita Borg. Last year, it drew nearly 15,000 attendees from more than 60 countries. The loss is bigger than a few days on the technology industry’s calendar. The Grace Hopper Celebration was not merely a conference or a symbolic celebration of women’s contributions. It was part of the industry’s career infrastructure, and when budgets tighten, convenings are often the first to go.

For students and early-career technologists, that infrastructure matters. Research from Girls Who Code and the Burning Glass Institute, set to be released next month, shows the entry-level door for software engineers has narrowed. From early 2022 to early 2026, the share of software-developer postings open to people with two years of experience or less fell from 19.3% to 14.1%, a 27% decline. This makes a conversation with a recruiter or mentor, or having a community of peers, more important than ever. Those people can give someone the confidence and information to remain in a field where they are underrepresented.

At Girls Who Code, we see and hear stories like this often among our 425,000 alumni.

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