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> When I compare it to how I started programming right out of college, making more money for 40hr weeks and no on-call, I feel embarrassed. I hope he realizes

> When I compare it to how I started programming right out of college, making more money for 40hr weeks and no on-call, I feel embarrassed. I hope he realizes his experience is also a rather privileged one. Many people, in particular women and black people, have a much different experience.

saagarjha 7y ago
Even if women and black people make a fraction of what a white, male software engineer would, they’re still comparatively quite well off. That’s how much a software engineer makes.
- lilyball 7y ago
  The point is women and black folks generally don't get jobs. It doesn't matter how much a software engineer salary is if you can't even get hired. Or they do get hired but for the really shit positions. And a "fraction of" an entry-level male software engineer position is in fact shit pay.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    70% (or whatever the fraction is) of 100k isn’t horrible. I don’t know much about hiring rates for underrepresented groups, so I won’t comment there.
jefftk 7y ago
It feels to me like I fell into programming, like it just happened that I graduated college with a skill that was highly in demand. But how did I end up here? Because of my race and gender people were more likely to see me as a potential engineer and take my efforts seriously. Because my parents could afford a computer in the 1980s there was one around for me to learn on. Because they could afford good schooling for me there were classes where I could practice this skill and study the theory behind it. It's hard to know the chain of causality that led to me getting into programming, but it's substantially less likely that I'd be here if I'd not had these advantages along the way. If you think of privilege as something you have that makes you a bad person, if you know the word and know it applies to you but you try to hide and dismiss your privilege, to find axes along which you have less of it, that's only marginally more helpful than if you were to deny your privilege entirely and insist that all your accomplishments in life have been due to your efforts alone. Having privilege puts you in position where you have an outsized ability to effect change. The best response to privilege is to turn it to fixing the situation that led you to having these major advantages over others. If I look at my situation, my race, class, and gender privilege have been helpful, but my nationality privilege is by far my biggest unearned advantage. Someone at the poverty line in the US earns more than 90% of people in the world, even after adjusting for money going farther in poorer countries. This is not to minimize the suffering of people in the US, along any dimension, but to illustrate the extent of the problem and the work required. With so much need, how could I possibly justify keeping my luck to myself? So I earn to give. I can't reject my privilege, I can't give it back, the best I can do is use it to give back. -- https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-privilege-of-earning-to-give https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-privilege-of-earning-to-give

saagarjha 7y ago

Even if women and black people make a fraction of what a white, male software engineer would, they’re still comparatively quite well off. That’s how much a software engineer makes.

lilyball 7y ago
The point is women and black folks generally don't get jobs. It doesn't matter how much a software engineer salary is if you can't even get hired. Or they do get hired but for the really shit positions. And a "fraction of" an entry-level male software engineer position is in fact shit pay.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  70% (or whatever the fraction is) of 100k isn’t horrible. I don’t know much about hiring rates for underrepresented groups, so I won’t comment there.

jefftk 7y ago

It feels to me like I fell into programming, like it just happened that I graduated college with a skill that was highly in demand. But how did I end up here? Because of my race and gender people were more likely to see me as a potential engineer and take my efforts seriously. Because my parents could afford a computer in the 1980s there was one around for me to learn on. Because they could afford good schooling for me there were classes where I could practice this skill and study the theory behind it. It's hard to know the chain of causality that led to me getting into programming, but it's substantially less likely that I'd be here if I'd not had these advantages along the way. If you think of privilege as something you have that makes you a bad person, if you know the word and know it applies to you but you try to hide and dismiss your privilege, to find axes along which you have less of it, that's only marginally more helpful than if you were to deny your privilege entirely and insist that all your accomplishments in life have been due to your efforts alone. Having privilege puts you in position where you have an outsized ability to effect change. The best response to privilege is to turn it to fixing the situation that led you to having these major advantages over others. If I look at my situation, my race, class, and gender privilege have been helpful, but my nationality privilege is by far my biggest unearned advantage. Someone at the poverty line in the US earns more than 90% of people in the world, even after adjusting for money going farther in poorer countries. This is not to minimize the suffering of people in the US, along any dimension, but to illustrate the extent of the problem and the work required. With so much need, how could I possibly justify keeping my luck to myself? So I earn to give. I can't reject my privilege, I can't give it back, the best I can do is use it to give back. -- https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-privilege-of-earning-to-give https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-privilege-of-earning-to-give