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Articles like this make me worried about my future as a blind programmer. I enjoy back-end database and web services development, not accessibility work. A lot

by jareds 8y ago

Articles like this make me worried about my future as a blind programmer. I enjoy back-end database and web services development, not accessibility work. A lot of the I'm a blind programmer articles I've scene appear to be blind developers who work on accessibility. I hope they work on accessibility do to interest not because everyone assumes if you a blind programmer accessibility must be the type of work you want to do.

bitwize 8y ago
A lot of the blind programmer articles I've seen are of the "l33t hax0r who can root your box by whistling into the phone" variety. So... the press is not entirely uniform.
- balls187 8y ago
  Whistler was one of the best characters in Sneakers.
mindfulplay 8y ago
I would take this article with a huge grain of salt. Amazon doesn't give two shits about blind or deaf or gay programmers. This is a nice fluff piece. The programmers there are under absolute stress and high-stakes programming. I doubt that this one story about one nice programmer can be generalized to Amazon. I would bet if you are a blind programmer you would have a much harder time even getting past the interview loop given how biased the whole company is with their Ayn Rand-ish tactics that would obviously not give two shits about diversity or disability.
- GabrielF00 8y ago
  I worked with one person at Amazon who had a significant physical disability. I can't speak for him, but he is highly valued by the organization because of the quality of his work.
  - mindfulplay 8y ago
    That's good! But in general they are not supportive of life. Work is all that matters.
ars 8y ago
People naturally assume you would be interested in accessibility work, but I suspect if you simply say that's not what you are interested in, and demonstrate normal levels of ability in other work you'll be fine. What could happen though, is if your ability is not in line with other programmers. For accessibility work people will hire you anyway (since you have unique experience), but for other work you'll have a hard(er) time. And since there is an implied assumption that a blind programmer will be less productive, you are probably right about being pushed toward accessibility work. The solution is of course obvious (and typical for any kind of disability): Show that your productivity is in line with others. People aren't malicious usually, just unaware.
- sdrothrock 8y ago
  > People naturally assume you would be interested in accessibility work This is the problem. It's like going to a black person and saying "oh man, I assume you must like fried chicken!" > Show that your productivity is in line with others. This also doesn't compute -- I can't think of a link between "you must be interested in accessibility work" and "we'd like you to work on that because your productivity is probably low." I've faced both of these problems as a mostly deaf developer -- people always assume I want to work on hearing-related things.
  - ars 8y ago
    > I can't think of a link between I explained that. It's not a link between low productivity and interest. It's a link between low productivity, and willingness to hire only for specialized work. (i.e. if not for the specialization they would not hire at all, since productivity is low.) The fix is to show there is no low productivity. I don't think you actually read what I wrote.
    - sdrothrock 8y ago
      I'm not trying to directly argue with you, so I may have missed the details of your post. I apologize for that. Some of the points you make made me want to speak about the general perception and assumption that a disabled person: 1. Must have an interest/insight into accessibility work 2. Must have a lower productivity due to the disability You even address the latter with: > And since there is an implied assumption that a blind programmer will be less productive and that "implied assumption" is what I want to talk about. To me, that assumption is very close to racial stereotypes -- assumptions about someone based on their appearance. To keep it in the "disability" sphere, it would be like assuming Stephen Hawking (a clear outlier) is a complete vegetable and unproductive due to his disability. While his disability no doubt makes him less productive at specific tasks impacted by it, his overall productivity is made up for in other ways. Many people want to put the onus on the disabled person to demonstrate that they're "normal" or "normally productive" in order to bust themselves out of a niche (accessibility work, a special team of "disabled people," a special reading level, etc.) rather than simply assuming that they are "normal" and waiting for a demonstration otherwise, as they would would with any other person. To me, it's too close to saying "well, we'll see if this black guy is normally productive -- if he's not, we'll put him in the 'urban brainstorming division.'" I'm speaking about this in an attempt to get a broader discussion on the idea as someone who's been pigeonholed exactly these ways in the past.

by jareds 8y ago

bitwize 8y ago

A lot of the blind programmer articles I've seen are of the "l33t hax0r who can root your box by whistling into the phone" variety. So... the press is not entirely uniform.

balls187 8y ago
Whistler was one of the best characters in Sneakers.

mindfulplay 8y ago

I would take this article with a huge grain of salt. Amazon doesn't give two shits about blind or deaf or gay programmers. This is a nice fluff piece. The programmers there are under absolute stress and high-stakes programming. I doubt that this one story about one nice programmer can be generalized to Amazon. I would bet if you are a blind programmer you would have a much harder time even getting past the interview loop given how biased the whole company is with their Ayn Rand-ish tactics that would obviously not give two shits about diversity or disability.

GabrielF00 8y ago
I worked with one person at Amazon who had a significant physical disability. I can't speak for him, but he is highly valued by the organization because of the quality of his work.
- mindfulplay 8y ago
  That's good! But in general they are not supportive of life. Work is all that matters.

ars 8y ago

People naturally assume you would be interested in accessibility work, but I suspect if you simply say that's not what you are interested in, and demonstrate normal levels of ability in other work you'll be fine. What could happen though, is if your ability is not in line with other programmers. For accessibility work people will hire you anyway (since you have unique experience), but for other work you'll have a hard(er) time. And since there is an implied assumption that a blind programmer will be less productive, you are probably right about being pushed toward accessibility work. The solution is of course obvious (and typical for any kind of disability): Show that your productivity is in line with others. People aren't malicious usually, just unaware.

sdrothrock 8y ago
> People naturally assume you would be interested in accessibility work This is the problem. It's like going to a black person and saying "oh man, I assume you must like fried chicken!" > Show that your productivity is in line with others. This also doesn't compute -- I can't think of a link between "you must be interested in accessibility work" and "we'd like you to work on that because your productivity is probably low." I've faced both of these problems as a mostly deaf developer -- people always assume I want to work on hearing-related things.
- ars 8y ago
  > I can't think of a link between I explained that. It's not a link between low productivity and interest. It's a link between low productivity, and willingness to hire only for specialized work. (i.e. if not for the specialization they would not hire at all, since productivity is low.) The fix is to show there is no low productivity. I don't think you actually read what I wrote.
  - sdrothrock 8y ago
    I'm not trying to directly argue with you, so I may have missed the details of your post. I apologize for that. Some of the points you make made me want to speak about the general perception and assumption that a disabled person: 1. Must have an interest/insight into accessibility work 2. Must have a lower productivity due to the disability You even address the latter with: > And since there is an implied assumption that a blind programmer will be less productive and that "implied assumption" is what I want to talk about. To me, that assumption is very close to racial stereotypes -- assumptions about someone based on their appearance. To keep it in the "disability" sphere, it would be like assuming Stephen Hawking (a clear outlier) is a complete vegetable and unproductive due to his disability. While his disability no doubt makes him less productive at specific tasks impacted by it, his overall productivity is made up for in other ways. Many people want to put the onus on the disabled person to demonstrate that they're "normal" or "normally productive" in order to bust themselves out of a niche (accessibility work, a special team of "disabled people," a special reading level, etc.) rather than simply assuming that they are "normal" and waiting for a demonstration otherwise, as they would would with any other person. To me, it's too close to saying "well, we'll see if this black guy is normally productive -- if he's not, we'll put him in the 'urban brainstorming division.'" I'm speaking about this in an attempt to get a broader discussion on the idea as someone who's been pigeonholed exactly these ways in the past.