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"There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in the US." That is a blatant falsehood it only exists due to "culture fit" where you can only hire a skilled

by VLM 10y ago

"There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in the US." That is a blatant falsehood it only exists due to "culture fit" where you can only hire a skilled tech worker if they're also a 20-something white male Stanford grad living in SV or maybe NYC. Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys, but on the coasts they are not allowed in the industry at this time. No matter how far left wing tech people socially signal, that kind of person will never ever hire a woman or PoC. Yet here in the TrumpenReich rural heartland far from the coasts I've worked with a cool (South AFAIK) Korean dude and a Jamaican and I know some awesome female IT professionals. If you want to hear about how great women and PoC are, you have to move to the coasts, but if you want to actually get a job with women and PoC you need to go right wing heartland, which sounds weird but is so true. I live in one of the most segregated metro areas in the country far from the coasts, yet my neighborhood has a higher percentage of blacks than Google employees has a percentage of blacks. Huh. Klan-land is more diverse than coastal tech, you wouldn't guess that from how far left they talk. I know I sound harsh but PoC and women are wasting their time trying to get jobs on the coasts; tech industry is far too racist and sexist to hire them. They can get jobs away from the coasts and in my experience they do really well. My experience with decades of corporate speak indicates that corporations always talk the opposite of what they do. In the heartland we don't have "womens coding classes" and PoC outreach because we don't need them, instead of providing lip service we actually hire them instead.

mhurron 10y ago
> Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys Why do you believe women and minorities are worse workers than whites?
- jawilson2 10y ago
  I'm assuming this was dripping with sarcasm.
- VLM 10y ago
  That was sarcasm. If read with an emphasis on the 'much' not the 'worse', even if you give the coastal tech employers the benefit of the doubt WRT the direction of the greater or less than symbol, the absolute value of the difference in performance observed has been unmeasurably small over the last couple decades. The coasties seem to claim its just a cost of doing business that companies will fall apart if a woman is hired or a black is hired, but my personal experience far from the coasts is they do just fine. I just find the whole situation comparing coastal culture and midwest development culture frustrating. Endless coastal complaining about how there's a shortage of skilled employees, because they only hire 22 yr old white boys. The heartland away from the coasts is not experiencing that crippling lack of talent, because we don't have crippling levels of racism and sexism. Endless self congratulatory crowing from the coasts about having outreach programs to get women and PoC into coding, not that it matters, because coastal tech companies only hire white men. Meanwhile they denigrate the heartland away from the coasts for not being liberal enough and not having enough "programs" to get women and PoC into coding, yet we have the only employers who actually hire women and PoC so we don't need the programs to being with! There should be a bot on HN where any time someone complains about lack of skilled employees it replies with "STFU and hire some PoC and women instead of white frat boys"
  - dhoe 10y ago
    So this is intriguing, I've never heard of the heartland as a great place for diversity. Do you have any evidence for this situation you describe?
Lord_Yoda 10y ago
Some of the few I have met who were from the MidWest were not willing to move, others who wanted did get the job. I did not see this coming in their way. Obviously, I am speaking from my limited experience.
bruceb 10y ago
http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/11/29/asian-workers-now-dominate-silicon-valley-tech-jobs/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/11/29/asian-workers-now-domi... (admittedly from 2012)
actsasbuffoon 10y ago
I can only speak for the Boston tech scene, but I've gotten to work with a number of highly skilled women, people of color, and people born in other countries. I'd say ~80% of the women I've interviewed have been offered jobs. The biggest problem is that it's hard to find candidates who aren't white guys. I can't hire people who don't come in for interviews! Unfortunately I have seen some solid 40+ year-old engineers turned away by other team members due to "culture fit." Fortunately my current company has been great about this.
- vthallam 10y ago
  >I can't hire people who don't come in for interviews! This. Many companies i know strive to hire them to maitain diversity, but again you find very few of them. This question goes back to STEM education in US.

by VLM 10y ago

mhurron 10y ago

> Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys Why do you believe women and minorities are worse workers than whites?

jawilson2 10y ago
I'm assuming this was dripping with sarcasm.
VLM 10y ago
That was sarcasm. If read with an emphasis on the 'much' not the 'worse', even if you give the coastal tech employers the benefit of the doubt WRT the direction of the greater or less than symbol, the absolute value of the difference in performance observed has been unmeasurably small over the last couple decades. The coasties seem to claim its just a cost of doing business that companies will fall apart if a woman is hired or a black is hired, but my personal experience far from the coasts is they do just fine. I just find the whole situation comparing coastal culture and midwest development culture frustrating. Endless coastal complaining about how there's a shortage of skilled employees, because they only hire 22 yr old white boys. The heartland away from the coasts is not experiencing that crippling lack of talent, because we don't have crippling levels of racism and sexism. Endless self congratulatory crowing from the coasts about having outreach programs to get women and PoC into coding, not that it matters, because coastal tech companies only hire white men. Meanwhile they denigrate the heartland away from the coasts for not being liberal enough and not having enough "programs" to get women and PoC into coding, yet we have the only employers who actually hire women and PoC so we don't need the programs to being with! There should be a bot on HN where any time someone complains about lack of skilled employees it replies with "STFU and hire some PoC and women instead of white frat boys"
- dhoe 10y ago
  So this is intriguing, I've never heard of the heartland as a great place for diversity. Do you have any evidence for this situation you describe?

Lord_Yoda 10y ago

Some of the few I have met who were from the MidWest were not willing to move, others who wanted did get the job. I did not see this coming in their way. Obviously, I am speaking from my limited experience.

bruceb 10y ago

http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/11/29/asian-workers-now-dominate-silicon-valley-tech-jobs/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/11/29/asian-workers-now-domi... (admittedly from 2012)

actsasbuffoon 10y ago

I can only speak for the Boston tech scene, but I've gotten to work with a number of highly skilled women, people of color, and people born in other countries. I'd say ~80% of the women I've interviewed have been offered jobs. The biggest problem is that it's hard to find candidates who aren't white guys. I can't hire people who don't come in for interviews! Unfortunately I have seen some solid 40+ year-old engineers turned away by other team members due to "culture fit." Fortunately my current company has been great about this.

vthallam 10y ago
>I can't hire people who don't come in for interviews! This. Many companies i know strive to hire them to maitain diversity, but again you find very few of them. This question goes back to STEM education in US.