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> Could this be a direct indicator of a powerful subconscious bias in Amazon's existing hiring process? Yes, but only in the obvious sense that we all already

> Could this be a direct indicator of a powerful subconscious bias in Amazon's existing hiring process? Yes, but only in the obvious sense that we all already knew: tech companies hire more men than women for technology-focused roles. That's not to say it isn't an issue; it is, but it's nothing new, and almost certainly not unique to Amazon. Without significant oversight and manual tuning, any training dataset based wholly or in part on current employees is going to demonstrate a bias against women, because there are strictly fewer women. Moreover it's likely that (for a variety of reasons, both intrinsic and extrinsic) fewer women succeed in the interview process as a ratio compared to the number who actually apply.

hanselot 8y ago
> tech companies hire more men than women for technology-focused roles. More men are hired because more men eventually end up taking that branch in the RPG of life. Gender studies is not likely to land you a job at amazon, unless it is to feed bias into algorithms.
Spooky23 8y ago
I spent a number of years working in tech organizations where the male:female ratio was 60:40. Now I work in a similar org with the same rules where it's more like 85:15. The difference is that old place transitioned administrative staff to IT roles in the 90s/early 2000s when more things were computerized. Those admins, financial analysts, program analysts were more likely to be female and had degrees in liberal arts, accounting, business/finance, etc. In the newer place, they filtered based on computer-related degree upon hiring. That automatically excludes many women. Once hired, female candidates advance as well or better. Anecdotally, I've hired interns in recent years with no tech-specific qualifications as an experiment. If you select for "smart and gets things done" I don't see much of a disadvantage for many roles. You get some duds too, but it wasn't as dramatic a difference as I expected.
- hellogoodbyeeee 8y ago
  Do FAANG companies train software developers? I think they are big enough and opinionated enough organizations that they might be better at training a "FAANG quality developer" in a year or so than current University system can in four years. I wish companies were more willing to train willing applicants instead of trying to interview for capabilities.
mcguire 8y ago
"...any training dataset based wholly or in part on current employees is going to demonstrate a bias against women,..." "Demonstrate" may be the wrong word. How about "encode". And in the future, "enforce". [Edit] On second thought, it would seem like there would be a way to filter out a "raw proportions bias" (like 80% of the resumes in the data set are male) before training.

hanselot 8y ago

> tech companies hire more men than women for technology-focused roles. More men are hired because more men eventually end up taking that branch in the RPG of life. Gender studies is not likely to land you a job at amazon, unless it is to feed bias into algorithms.

Spooky23 8y ago

I spent a number of years working in tech organizations where the male:female ratio was 60:40. Now I work in a similar org with the same rules where it's more like 85:15. The difference is that old place transitioned administrative staff to IT roles in the 90s/early 2000s when more things were computerized. Those admins, financial analysts, program analysts were more likely to be female and had degrees in liberal arts, accounting, business/finance, etc. In the newer place, they filtered based on computer-related degree upon hiring. That automatically excludes many women. Once hired, female candidates advance as well or better. Anecdotally, I've hired interns in recent years with no tech-specific qualifications as an experiment. If you select for "smart and gets things done" I don't see much of a disadvantage for many roles. You get some duds too, but it wasn't as dramatic a difference as I expected.

hellogoodbyeeee 8y ago
Do FAANG companies train software developers? I think they are big enough and opinionated enough organizations that they might be better at training a "FAANG quality developer" in a year or so than current University system can in four years. I wish companies were more willing to train willing applicants instead of trying to interview for capabilities.

mcguire 8y ago

"...any training dataset based wholly or in part on current employees is going to demonstrate a bias against women,..." "Demonstrate" may be the wrong word. How about "encode". And in the future, "enforce". [Edit] On second thought, it would seem like there would be a way to filter out a "raw proportions bias" (like 80% of the resumes in the data set are male) before training.