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It would be so great if attitudes were changing quickly in a positive direction. In tech, it is still impossible to get your first job after a career change as

It would be so great if attitudes were changing quickly in a positive direction. In tech, it is still impossible to get your first job after a career change as a woman, a person of color, or a person over say 35. Many of these people fall into one or all three of these categories. In addition to that, they have this ridiculous other hurdle to clear, and tech is still trying to figure out if women can do any technical work at all. It is great that people are making resources like this-- and for veterans, but I'm afraid that without penalties or major financial advantages for companies supporting "equality" and "diversity" it's gonna take longer than anyone actually has before homelessness. i wish we could find a way to get financial penalties/incentives for moral action to amplify the voices of the marginalized in tech. Ideas? Any takers on a partnership toward this? I'm fed up with companies not being held to account on this score. I may have to join Rosie O'Donnel's womens' party, since it seems it may take that kind of measure.

civilian 9y ago
Tech is far less sexist and racist than you think it is. This article isn't about tech specifically, but I think it does demonstrate that if anyone, there is positive-sexism [ed: for women] happening when it comes to recruitment in western workplaces. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria... Right now the demographic make up of companies don't match the population, that's true, but these companies do tend to match the demographics of trained programmers. The difference in demographics is from people choosing not to enter tech. If you want to fix the problem, work on training pipelines into tech. The best way to summarize our different viewpoints is probably "Wanting Equality of Opportunity vs. wanting Equality of Outcome". And-- you assume that if the outcome of tech-demographics is different than the population, then it must be due to racism/sexism. There are other cultural and socio-economic factors that influence the demographics of tech.
- leesalminen 9y ago
  > positive-sexism What does that even mean? Isn't all sexism bad?
  - civilian 9y ago
    Sexism in favor of the people we're talking about. So, mainsteam thought views women as being the oppressed ones, but the study shows that women tend to get hired at a higher rate than men, simply by having a female name. Another example of positive-racism-- being a white dude visiting China, I got into night clubs without paying. :-/ But cab drivers also consistently added 50-100% onto the fare.
    - leesalminen 9y ago
      Maybe it'd be worded better as "reverse sexism"? Implying that it's "positive" doesn't do any social justice but incites the us vs them, 0 sum game train of thought.
      - gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
        If it's treating people differently on the basis of their gender then it's probably easier to just call it what it is - sexism. Then you can start justifying why this specific incidence of sexism might be a social good.
        leesalminen 9y ago
        Fair enough!
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  not even slightly surprised someone piped in with "tech is far less racist and sexist" than I think it is. Being less of that than I think it is would get an afirmative, supportive response, rather than the knee-jerk denial I have come to expect.
  - civilian 9y ago
    Sorry, I just don't see the evidence. I haven't seen it in my personal experience, and I already laid out my take on the demographics. Is there evidence I'm missing? Besides my willingness to ask for evidence? :]
    - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
      so you aren't seeing evidence of institutional racism, sexism, and ageism in tech? Not in your personal experience? When was the last time you reached out to someone in a marginalized group where you work and asked them about it? You might start with that, in fact we could all start right there. And maybe open with empathy and the assumption that their experience of these is true, rather than demanding evidence. I write you now as evidence of these myself, and how do you respond? How does anyone respond in this thread? Is there overwhelming empathy affirmation and support or is there indignant denial of a person's experience?
      - civilian 9y ago
        Nope. I see a lot of support for women and minorities in tech-- both in the form of mentoring events, hiring initiatives, networking events, and general cheerleading. I've talked to a lot of women and minorities in casual friendly drinking contexts, and I haven't heard any horror stories. You're right that I should specifically ask them if they've been on the receiving end of bias, and I'm going to. Maybe I'm just in test-writing mode, but, if there's a bug, we ought to be able to write a test for it. If there is bias in tech, we ought to be able to see it in data. Maybe we need to look at 1st-job hiring rates? Maybe we need to look at people who drop out of tech after their first year and don't return? But I haven't seen it. I'm not asking you to do this data analysis, I just figured that... there are a lot of people examining this, and it should have been uncovered by now. How have you experienced racism, sexism or ageism in tech?
- abeisgreat 9y ago
  You're forgetting to account for people who would be starting out in tech then find an environment that's impossible to work in so they leave the field. These smart, awesome people never get to be "trained programmers" because attitudes like this allow casual, often unintentional behaviors to ruin their days. Claiming this is a funnel problem is short sighted. We definitely need people in the funnel, but we also need to ensure they have an amazing time as they integrate into tech culture.
  - hueving 9y ago
    The computer science graduation stats are heavily skewed male. It happens way before the company hiring and first job phase so taking punitive actions at the hiring level is idiotic.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  I don't know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only conclude what they feel from the state of their institutions.--James Baldwin
  - hueving 9y ago
    Presumably your definition of white is the convenient one that includes Asian people, right? Tech hiring has jack all to do with racism when the big companies are matching the ratios coming out of uni with CS degrees.
    - runako 9y ago
      Obligatory reminder that tech companies at scale are nowhere near 100% CS grads. In most companies where I've worked (me: CS grad) over the last ~20 years, CS (and related) grads were the distinct minority of overall staff. The population benchmark for "tech hiring" probably should look more like "college graduates" than "people with CS degrees."
    - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
      That was James Baldwin speaking. I figured he had enough gravitas to present an idea, but even James Baldwin gets pushback on hacker news!
      - dang 9y ago
        Would you please stop posting these cheap meta snipes to HN about HN? It's tedious, plus it's incongruent to diss a community while you're participating in it. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do.
        s73ver 9y ago
        "plus it's incongruent to diss a community while you're participating in it." No. Your attitude here is the crappy one. Without being called out, a community will never grow. It's entirely appropriate to call out a community for the issues it has. And yes, the HN community has a HUGE problem with not recognizing sexism and racism in the industry. Far too many are willing to take the, "I don't see it, so it doesn't exist" point of view, which not only means that things won't improve, but means that they will likely get worse, as those who are doing the bad things are noticing that they can get away with it. If you don't want people to take snipes at your community, maybe you should look at why people are taking snipes at it, and work to be better.
thephyber 9y ago
> In tech, it is still impossible to get your first job after a career change as a woman, a person of color, or a person over say 35. Nope. This is hyperbole (although not completely unfounded). My department hired a junior female of color coder of color after she completed a coding bootcamp. She wasn't a diversity hire, she was simply the best person for the job at the time. We legitimately needed to fill the position and luckily the company was willing to take a risk on a junior dev. In her previous short career, she was a public school teacher. She's not a "rockstar", a "ninja", or a 100x programmer (neither am I), but she's reasonably good at programming and is curious and driven enough to teach herself whatever she doesn't know. BTW, we are an early-stage, funded cybersecurity company with a fantastic product in San Jose, CA.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  fantastic, that is at least one point for the team! way to go!
jdavis703 9y ago
One of the first ideas might be to talk with people who meet those categories. I for one do not feel marginalized by my company or the tech industry in general (there are a lot, in fact too many, bad apples I've encountered, but the entire industry isn't rotten). In fact I would say I dealt with more bias when I worked in the government than in private tech companies. For starters what you can personally do is not purchase or use services from companies you feel are unethical. Explain to your network why for example you won't use Uber or Reddit or whatever other company you're fed up. If you can get enough other consumers to see from your view you'll force these companies to change. This just recently happened with health food junkies, now we have McDonald's at least paying lip service to healthy eating and serving things like kale. One thing that won't work if you're a tech outsider is shaming people who work in the industry. It's hard to collaborate with people if they feel your tone is hostile.

civilian 9y ago

Tech is far less sexist and racist than you think it is. This article isn't about tech specifically, but I think it does demonstrate that if anyone, there is positive-sexism [ed: for women] happening when it comes to recruitment in western workplaces. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria... Right now the demographic make up of companies don't match the population, that's true, but these companies do tend to match the demographics of trained programmers. The difference in demographics is from people choosing not to enter tech. If you want to fix the problem, work on training pipelines into tech. The best way to summarize our different viewpoints is probably "Wanting Equality of Opportunity vs. wanting Equality of Outcome". And-- you assume that if the outcome of tech-demographics is different than the population, then it must be due to racism/sexism. There are other cultural and socio-economic factors that influence the demographics of tech.

leesalminen 9y ago
> positive-sexism What does that even mean? Isn't all sexism bad?
- civilian 9y ago
  Sexism in favor of the people we're talking about. So, mainsteam thought views women as being the oppressed ones, but the study shows that women tend to get hired at a higher rate than men, simply by having a female name. Another example of positive-racism-- being a white dude visiting China, I got into night clubs without paying. :-/ But cab drivers also consistently added 50-100% onto the fare.
  - leesalminen 9y ago
    Maybe it'd be worded better as "reverse sexism"? Implying that it's "positive" doesn't do any social justice but incites the us vs them, 0 sum game train of thought.
    - gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
      If it's treating people differently on the basis of their gender then it's probably easier to just call it what it is - sexism. Then you can start justifying why this specific incidence of sexism might be a social good.
      - leesalminen 9y ago
        Fair enough!
brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
not even slightly surprised someone piped in with "tech is far less racist and sexist" than I think it is. Being less of that than I think it is would get an afirmative, supportive response, rather than the knee-jerk denial I have come to expect.
- civilian 9y ago
  Sorry, I just don't see the evidence. I haven't seen it in my personal experience, and I already laid out my take on the demographics. Is there evidence I'm missing? Besides my willingness to ask for evidence? :]
  - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
    so you aren't seeing evidence of institutional racism, sexism, and ageism in tech? Not in your personal experience? When was the last time you reached out to someone in a marginalized group where you work and asked them about it? You might start with that, in fact we could all start right there. And maybe open with empathy and the assumption that their experience of these is true, rather than demanding evidence. I write you now as evidence of these myself, and how do you respond? How does anyone respond in this thread? Is there overwhelming empathy affirmation and support or is there indignant denial of a person's experience?
    - civilian 9y ago
      Nope. I see a lot of support for women and minorities in tech-- both in the form of mentoring events, hiring initiatives, networking events, and general cheerleading. I've talked to a lot of women and minorities in casual friendly drinking contexts, and I haven't heard any horror stories. You're right that I should specifically ask them if they've been on the receiving end of bias, and I'm going to. Maybe I'm just in test-writing mode, but, if there's a bug, we ought to be able to write a test for it. If there is bias in tech, we ought to be able to see it in data. Maybe we need to look at 1st-job hiring rates? Maybe we need to look at people who drop out of tech after their first year and don't return? But I haven't seen it. I'm not asking you to do this data analysis, I just figured that... there are a lot of people examining this, and it should have been uncovered by now. How have you experienced racism, sexism or ageism in tech?
abeisgreat 9y ago
You're forgetting to account for people who would be starting out in tech then find an environment that's impossible to work in so they leave the field. These smart, awesome people never get to be "trained programmers" because attitudes like this allow casual, often unintentional behaviors to ruin their days. Claiming this is a funnel problem is short sighted. We definitely need people in the funnel, but we also need to ensure they have an amazing time as they integrate into tech culture.
- hueving 9y ago
  The computer science graduation stats are heavily skewed male. It happens way before the company hiring and first job phase so taking punitive actions at the hiring level is idiotic.
brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
I don't know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only conclude what they feel from the state of their institutions.--James Baldwin
- hueving 9y ago
  Presumably your definition of white is the convenient one that includes Asian people, right? Tech hiring has jack all to do with racism when the big companies are matching the ratios coming out of uni with CS degrees.
  - runako 9y ago
    Obligatory reminder that tech companies at scale are nowhere near 100% CS grads. In most companies where I've worked (me: CS grad) over the last ~20 years, CS (and related) grads were the distinct minority of overall staff. The population benchmark for "tech hiring" probably should look more like "college graduates" than "people with CS degrees."
  - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
    That was James Baldwin speaking. I figured he had enough gravitas to present an idea, but even James Baldwin gets pushback on hacker news!
    - dang 9y ago
      Would you please stop posting these cheap meta snipes to HN about HN? It's tedious, plus it's incongruent to diss a community while you're participating in it. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do.
      - s73ver 9y ago
        "plus it's incongruent to diss a community while you're participating in it." No. Your attitude here is the crappy one. Without being called out, a community will never grow. It's entirely appropriate to call out a community for the issues it has. And yes, the HN community has a HUGE problem with not recognizing sexism and racism in the industry. Far too many are willing to take the, "I don't see it, so it doesn't exist" point of view, which not only means that things won't improve, but means that they will likely get worse, as those who are doing the bad things are noticing that they can get away with it. If you don't want people to take snipes at your community, maybe you should look at why people are taking snipes at it, and work to be better.

thephyber 9y ago

> In tech, it is still impossible to get your first job after a career change as a woman, a person of color, or a person over say 35. Nope. This is hyperbole (although not completely unfounded). My department hired a junior female of color coder of color after she completed a coding bootcamp. She wasn't a diversity hire, she was simply the best person for the job at the time. We legitimately needed to fill the position and luckily the company was willing to take a risk on a junior dev. In her previous short career, she was a public school teacher. She's not a "rockstar", a "ninja", or a 100x programmer (neither am I), but she's reasonably good at programming and is curious and driven enough to teach herself whatever she doesn't know. BTW, we are an early-stage, funded cybersecurity company with a fantastic product in San Jose, CA.

brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
fantastic, that is at least one point for the team! way to go!

jdavis703 9y ago

One of the first ideas might be to talk with people who meet those categories. I for one do not feel marginalized by my company or the tech industry in general (there are a lot, in fact too many, bad apples I've encountered, but the entire industry isn't rotten). In fact I would say I dealt with more bias when I worked in the government than in private tech companies. For starters what you can personally do is not purchase or use services from companies you feel are unethical. Explain to your network why for example you won't use Uber or Reddit or whatever other company you're fed up. If you can get enough other consumers to see from your view you'll force these companies to change. This just recently happened with health food junkies, now we have McDonald's at least paying lip service to healthy eating and serving things like kale. One thing that won't work if you're a tech outsider is shaming people who work in the industry. It's hard to collaborate with people if they feel your tone is hostile.