4 ms·

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is a valid question. If Facebook is attempting to meet diversity quotas, which certainly exist, by pulling fro

by iplaw 9y ago

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is a valid question. If Facebook is attempting to meet diversity quotas, which certainly exist, by pulling from a limited pool of qualifying candidates, in some scenarios, they will necessarily need to employ lower qualified candidates. I'm NOT NOT NOT saying that women in general cannot code, or produce lower quality code, or anything of the like. I AM saying that there are fewer female developers than male developers and, assuming an equal distribution of skill level between the two groups, there will necessarily be fewer highly qualified female coders than highly qualified male coders. Thus, if Facebook wants a 50:50 male-to-female ratio, they will necessarily have fewer highly qualified female developers IF the number of positions to be filled by females exceeds the number of highly qualified female applicants, but the number of positions to be filled by males does not exceed the number of highly qualified male candidates.

evgen 9y ago
This only matters if the different skill distributions would make it likely that a lesser-skilled candidate does not meet the standards needed to produce good code at that level. In my experience this is not the case. When you are hiring for one of the big-5, the candidates that make it through the first-pass screening by the recruiters are usually people who any other company would hire on the spot. When you get down to making a decision among the top few from any crop of candidates it really is a coin flip. Every engineer at Facebook likes to think that they are there because they are 'the best of the best', but having sat through far more hiring reviews at Facebook than I ever thought I would have to put up, with the simple fact is that for every person you see walking around the campus there were two or three other people who the job offer could have just as easily gone to were it not for a whole host of non-code/non-dev reasons; these reasons can range from gender to the sloppy handwriting on the whiteboard to the fact that when I came in to do your manager interview I happened to be a little annoyed that the cafe had run out of lox for my morning bagel. In my experience, the least qualified female engineers I encountered were more qualified than the lower quartile of male engineers and they worked a hell of a lot harder to boot.
- ramblerman 9y ago
  > In my experience, the least qualified female engineers I encountered were more qualified than the lower quartile of male engineers and they worked a hell of a lot harder to boot. lol, that's so ridiculously sexist, can you imagine making the opposite statement in today's climate. To top it off it's based off your one anecdote, I don't even know how to respond to this.
  - evgen 9y ago
    It is quite obviously an anecdote and not hard data (which the claim referenced in the original article provided), but it is an anecdote based upon direct observation rather than a whining response from someone with neither observational data or empirical data.
bluehazed 9y ago
I've found the female/nb developers that I've encountered tend to be extremely talented/above average developers, so I don't think this is as much of an issue as you think. I suspect it has something to do with the people willing to navigate what is generally a field somewhat hostile to women and gender non-conforming people being particularly interested in the field and dedicated to working hard in it.
DanBC 9y ago
> If Facebook is attempting to meet diversity quotas, which certainly exist, by pulling from a limited pool of qualifying candidates, in some scenarios, they will necessarily need to employ lower qualified candidates. You make it sound like existing hiring practices find the best candidates, but we know that they don't. We know traditional hiring practices are bullshit.
- maverick_iceman 9y ago
  No, that's wrong. Traditional hiring practices are good at separating the wheat from the chaff. Only the incompetents who are rejected bitch about it.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > Traditional hiring practices are good at separating the wheat from the chaff. But that's not the point parent is making. They're saying that traditional practices find the very best, not that they avoid the worst.
tzs 9y ago
> This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is a valid question. You didn't actually ask a question in that comment.

by iplaw 9y ago

evgen 9y ago

This only matters if the different skill distributions would make it likely that a lesser-skilled candidate does not meet the standards needed to produce good code at that level. In my experience this is not the case. When you are hiring for one of the big-5, the candidates that make it through the first-pass screening by the recruiters are usually people who any other company would hire on the spot. When you get down to making a decision among the top few from any crop of candidates it really is a coin flip. Every engineer at Facebook likes to think that they are there because they are 'the best of the best', but having sat through far more hiring reviews at Facebook than I ever thought I would have to put up, with the simple fact is that for every person you see walking around the campus there were two or three other people who the job offer could have just as easily gone to were it not for a whole host of non-code/non-dev reasons; these reasons can range from gender to the sloppy handwriting on the whiteboard to the fact that when I came in to do your manager interview I happened to be a little annoyed that the cafe had run out of lox for my morning bagel. In my experience, the least qualified female engineers I encountered were more qualified than the lower quartile of male engineers and they worked a hell of a lot harder to boot.

ramblerman 9y ago
> In my experience, the least qualified female engineers I encountered were more qualified than the lower quartile of male engineers and they worked a hell of a lot harder to boot. lol, that's so ridiculously sexist, can you imagine making the opposite statement in today's climate. To top it off it's based off your one anecdote, I don't even know how to respond to this.
- evgen 9y ago
  It is quite obviously an anecdote and not hard data (which the claim referenced in the original article provided), but it is an anecdote based upon direct observation rather than a whining response from someone with neither observational data or empirical data.

bluehazed 9y ago

I've found the female/nb developers that I've encountered tend to be extremely talented/above average developers, so I don't think this is as much of an issue as you think. I suspect it has something to do with the people willing to navigate what is generally a field somewhat hostile to women and gender non-conforming people being particularly interested in the field and dedicated to working hard in it.

DanBC 9y ago

> If Facebook is attempting to meet diversity quotas, which certainly exist, by pulling from a limited pool of qualifying candidates, in some scenarios, they will necessarily need to employ lower qualified candidates. You make it sound like existing hiring practices find the best candidates, but we know that they don't. We know traditional hiring practices are bullshit.

maverick_iceman 9y ago
No, that's wrong. Traditional hiring practices are good at separating the wheat from the chaff. Only the incompetents who are rejected bitch about it.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > Traditional hiring practices are good at separating the wheat from the chaff. But that's not the point parent is making. They're saying that traditional practices find the very best, not that they avoid the worst.

tzs 9y ago

> This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is a valid question. You didn't actually ask a question in that comment.