4 ms·

I don't think "diverse" experiences and opinions (at least the ones related to race and gender) matter as a software engineer. Race/gender does not affect the e

I don't think "diverse" experiences and opinions (at least the ones related to race and gender) matter as a software engineer. Race/gender does not affect the experiences and opinions that do matter. The ones that do matter are related to topics like specific technology backgrounds (PhD in distributed systems vs. machine learning), functional vs. OOP, Java vs. C++, etc. It might matter to a small degree in product management, although technically every little detail can matter. Race/gender are also poor boundaries to segment for diverse experiences and opinions. Upper middle class, liberal black people benefit the most from affirmative action. They aren't much different from upper middle class white people. Software engineering is already diverse by the most divisive measure: by country of origin which completely eclipses differences between races and genders.

mining 10y ago
> Race/gender does not affect the experiences and opinions that do matter. How about things like (the admittedly heavily-used) example of Apple's health app lacking a period tracker?
- FT_intern 10y ago
  That's a project management issue, not a software engineering one
  - oarsinsync 10y ago
    > Software engineering is already diverse by the most divisive measure: by country of origin which completely eclipses differences between races and genders. That would suggest that there is no need for gender diversity in international politics, and that a group of men, each representing their own country, provides all the necessary diversity needed. > That's a project management issue, not a software engineering one Software engineers should be involved in project design. Coder monkeys can get away with "I code what I'm told without providing any further input to anything else".
    - FT_intern 10y ago
      Specialization for the most part yields higher efficiency. Engineers have not been trained gauge audience needs. It is as inefficient for an engineer to be involved in product design as it would be for the PM to be involved in the actual coding. >Coder monkeys can get away with "I code what I'm told without providing any further input to anything else". Being a coder monkey has nothing to do with influence in product development. You can have no influence on the product being created, and still have complete autonomy over the technology used to create the product. You contribute feedback on the technology side: implementing this feature will take X time and result in Y cost in run time. The product is generic. Two completely different projects with the same X, Y, Z constraints end up with almost identical engineering solutions.
  - mining 10y ago
    Sure, but project management teams presumably also have a diversity problem, and engineers can certainly be a part of feature creation / selection.

mining 10y ago

> Race/gender does not affect the experiences and opinions that do matter. How about things like (the admittedly heavily-used) example of Apple's health app lacking a period tracker?

FT_intern 10y ago
That's a project management issue, not a software engineering one
- oarsinsync 10y ago
  > Software engineering is already diverse by the most divisive measure: by country of origin which completely eclipses differences between races and genders. That would suggest that there is no need for gender diversity in international politics, and that a group of men, each representing their own country, provides all the necessary diversity needed. > That's a project management issue, not a software engineering one Software engineers should be involved in project design. Coder monkeys can get away with "I code what I'm told without providing any further input to anything else".
  - FT_intern 10y ago
    Specialization for the most part yields higher efficiency. Engineers have not been trained gauge audience needs. It is as inefficient for an engineer to be involved in product design as it would be for the PM to be involved in the actual coding. >Coder monkeys can get away with "I code what I'm told without providing any further input to anything else". Being a coder monkey has nothing to do with influence in product development. You can have no influence on the product being created, and still have complete autonomy over the technology used to create the product. You contribute feedback on the technology side: implementing this feature will take X time and result in Y cost in run time. The product is generic. Two completely different projects with the same X, Y, Z constraints end up with almost identical engineering solutions.
- mining 10y ago
  Sure, but project management teams presumably also have a diversity problem, and engineers can certainly be a part of feature creation / selection.