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I used to work at IBM and a new black engineer joined around the time I joined the team. We both got stuck with the grunt work and bonded over late night confe

by jmpman 7y ago

I used to work at IBM and a new black engineer joined around the time I joined the team. We both got stuck with the grunt work and bonded over late night conference room video game projector sessions, while running regression tests. I’ve gone on to a relatively successful career outside of IBM, but he was hit in a layoff, with his job sent overseas. Instead of continuing in tech, he moved home, and joined his fathers company as an accountant. I keep in touch and continue encouraging him to get back in tech, trying to hire him each time I have a position open on my team, but I’m finding that he hasn’t kept his skills up to date. I’d bend every rule to hire him, not because he’s black, but because he’s my friend. I just can’t get him past the loop. Later in my career, I used to travel to St Louis to meet with large customers. In a city with demographics of 47% black, I’d expect to be working with a sizable number of African Americans. Out of the 100 engineers I worked with, half were white and the other half were Asian. The only black employees I met were the security guards. Similar scenario in Atlanta. Although I did work with a number of Black engineers, their accent indicated a birth place of the Caribbean or Africa. It feels like the H1B system has become a barrier to entry for African Americans born in the US. Something should be done to make US students more attractive to employers than H1B. I don’t want a quota system, just a tax on H1Bs which make companies take a hard look at why they’re not hiring US citizens. The article indicates there’s not a pipeline problem. Something else is amiss.

onetimeposter1 7y ago
Americans are hurt by abuse of the H1B system. Companies will always hire inexpensive labor that they have leverage over and H1B gives them just that. It's necessary to put strict quotas on H1B because otherwise it will be abused, which is bad for both American and foreign workers. Luckily the Trump administration is cracking down on H1B abuse.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  The Trump administration is punishing immigrants of all types in every way they can (denying asylum to refugees from war or natural disasters, revoking previously granted asylum, separating children from innocent families and locking them in concentration camps, rounding up and deporting people with US-born kids for 20-year-old clerical errors, arresting people who visit hospitalized family members or pick up their kids from school or show up to their court appointments, banning visitors from whole regions of the world using flimsy pretexts, rolling back work authorization for spouses of H-1B holders, delaying or denying applications for green cards and citizenship, denying student visas, ...) And not just foreign immigrants, but also doing its best to punish US citizens from Puerto Rico, Native Americans, .... Racism, xenophobia, and spite are the primary drivers of administration immigration policy (Trump, Stephen Miller, and others have repeatedly told us this in their public statements; we should take them at their word). Any damage to companies specifically abusing the visa system is incidental.
  - leftyted 7y ago
    The insinuation that anyone who is skeptical of H1B is a xenophobe is insulting and lowers the level of the conversation. Criticisms of H1B are far older than Trump and the current political climate. If Trump does something right, it's still right, even though he's Donald Trump.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
hellocs1 7y ago
Any guesses on why Atlanta companies would rather hire African / Caribbean engineers than African American engineers?
- jmpman 7y ago
  That’s well beyond my knowledge of race issues. Maybe others have some data. I’ve seen it at a number of companies. To the point that before a black engineer speaks, Ive got a Bayesian probability precomputed on what accent I’m likely to hear.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  I have only a wild guess. Only the most successful people from another country are offered the opportunity to come here. So the random native Nigerian who has moved to the US is probably a better candidate than your random native American of any race.
  - kamaal 7y ago
    This. Many time this. As an Immigrant to the US who could not make it big and had to go back(to India). It's not the most successful people, it's the most successful people in the prime of their health, career, academic and family situations. It's like everything that makes one fall in the top most cohort of people in history needs to happen to an individual. It's not just individual ability or hard work or talent. Everything from health and family situations to personal career situations just needs to work. We are not just talking of the best people of the human race, we are also talking of the most luckiest. US immigration is a combination of all those great Human enterprise things plus a very brutal lottery system. In short a very powerful filter that just picks the most successful people and makes them succeed further.
Consultant32452 7y ago
Not just African Americans. In my experience Hispanics are just as non-existent in tech, and they are a larger percentage of the population than AAs.
- jmpman 7y ago
  I’ve worked with a much greater number of Hispanics. In my limited exposure, Hispanic women seem to do especially well.
- umvi 7y ago
  My guess is that it is a cultural thing. Black/Hispanic parents don't push their kids toward tech careers. Similar to how black/hispanic parents (in America) don't push their kids to learn to swim. The reason their cultures are this way are complex and span generations. Indian parents, on the other hand, aggressively push their kids into tech. Heck, a lot of my Indian co-workers don't even like programming but their parents basically forced them into it.
  - GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
    The stereotype that African American's can't swim isn't a failing on the parent's part. They were actively banned from public swimming pools, especially in the southern US. If your parents didn't grow up swimming, they're less likely to take you. Even today Black people in the south face discrimination at public / private pools.
    - umvi 7y ago
      It's not so much a stereotype as it is a statistical reality. And I never said it was a personal failing, I alluded that the reasons they don't push their kids to swim are complex. > If your parents didn't grow up swimming, they're less likely to take you. Furthermore, if your parents can't swim, they may harbor fear of the water or drowning and seek to "protect" their children by actively avoiding pools or swim lessons, and thus the cycle will continue for many generations.

by jmpman 7y ago

onetimeposter1 7y ago

Americans are hurt by abuse of the H1B system. Companies will always hire inexpensive labor that they have leverage over and H1B gives them just that. It's necessary to put strict quotas on H1B because otherwise it will be abused, which is bad for both American and foreign workers. Luckily the Trump administration is cracking down on H1B abuse.

jacobolus 7y ago
The Trump administration is punishing immigrants of all types in every way they can (denying asylum to refugees from war or natural disasters, revoking previously granted asylum, separating children from innocent families and locking them in concentration camps, rounding up and deporting people with US-born kids for 20-year-old clerical errors, arresting people who visit hospitalized family members or pick up their kids from school or show up to their court appointments, banning visitors from whole regions of the world using flimsy pretexts, rolling back work authorization for spouses of H-1B holders, delaying or denying applications for green cards and citizenship, denying student visas, ...) And not just foreign immigrants, but also doing its best to punish US citizens from Puerto Rico, Native Americans, .... Racism, xenophobia, and spite are the primary drivers of administration immigration policy (Trump, Stephen Miller, and others have repeatedly told us this in their public statements; we should take them at their word). Any damage to companies specifically abusing the visa system is incidental.
- leftyted 7y ago
  The insinuation that anyone who is skeptical of H1B is a xenophobe is insulting and lowers the level of the conversation. Criticisms of H1B are far older than Trump and the current political climate. If Trump does something right, it's still right, even though he's Donald Trump.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

hellocs1 7y ago

Any guesses on why Atlanta companies would rather hire African / Caribbean engineers than African American engineers?

jmpman 7y ago
That’s well beyond my knowledge of race issues. Maybe others have some data. I’ve seen it at a number of companies. To the point that before a black engineer speaks, Ive got a Bayesian probability precomputed on what accent I’m likely to hear.
Consultant32452 7y ago
I have only a wild guess. Only the most successful people from another country are offered the opportunity to come here. So the random native Nigerian who has moved to the US is probably a better candidate than your random native American of any race.
- kamaal 7y ago
  This. Many time this. As an Immigrant to the US who could not make it big and had to go back(to India). It's not the most successful people, it's the most successful people in the prime of their health, career, academic and family situations. It's like everything that makes one fall in the top most cohort of people in history needs to happen to an individual. It's not just individual ability or hard work or talent. Everything from health and family situations to personal career situations just needs to work. We are not just talking of the best people of the human race, we are also talking of the most luckiest. US immigration is a combination of all those great Human enterprise things plus a very brutal lottery system. In short a very powerful filter that just picks the most successful people and makes them succeed further.

Consultant32452 7y ago

Not just African Americans. In my experience Hispanics are just as non-existent in tech, and they are a larger percentage of the population than AAs.

jmpman 7y ago
I’ve worked with a much greater number of Hispanics. In my limited exposure, Hispanic women seem to do especially well.
umvi 7y ago
My guess is that it is a cultural thing. Black/Hispanic parents don't push their kids toward tech careers. Similar to how black/hispanic parents (in America) don't push their kids to learn to swim. The reason their cultures are this way are complex and span generations. Indian parents, on the other hand, aggressively push their kids into tech. Heck, a lot of my Indian co-workers don't even like programming but their parents basically forced them into it.
- GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
  The stereotype that African American's can't swim isn't a failing on the parent's part. They were actively banned from public swimming pools, especially in the southern US. If your parents didn't grow up swimming, they're less likely to take you. Even today Black people in the south face discrimination at public / private pools.
  - umvi 7y ago
    It's not so much a stereotype as it is a statistical reality. And I never said it was a personal failing, I alluded that the reasons they don't push their kids to swim are complex. > If your parents didn't grow up swimming, they're less likely to take you. Furthermore, if your parents can't swim, they may harbor fear of the water or drowning and seek to "protect" their children by actively avoiding pools or swim lessons, and thus the cycle will continue for many generations.