Either be more specific (you, hacker, engineer, etc) or less specific (person, or leave off the pronoun?)? I mean, I don't think any of this is that important, and saying things like "the elevator has a 10 man capacity" is fine, but there is no reason not to try to be accurate when it costs little.
Your choices are: dudette, dudess, or dudine.
If anyone has a better alternative, do tell. I'm not too pleased with "dude" either.