5 ms·

How many woman engineers are in your team as a percent of total?

junon 5y ago
How much does being a woman affect your ability to engineer? Should a woman only be hired because they're a woman, even if they're a poor engineer? That seems way more sexist than the alternative.
- pizza234 5y ago
  An alternative interpretation is that by opening more positions for women, they're trying to make a societal improvement, by opening doors to people (women, in this case), that meet too many closed doors. Given their (in relative terms) failure, one could say that this is a complex problem, and addressing one issue is unfortunately not enough. > even if they're a poor engineer? This is not something GP wrote. They wrote they had significant issues because, in a sense, they created a problem (hiring methodologies) in order to solve one that didn't previously exist (gender bias).
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  I would say reasonably. Products benefit from broad points of view. Companies should avoid making soap dispensers that don't work on black skin because they didn't hire black people. The cliche is that tech companies are aiming to change the world. Software has real impacts on humans. Maybe the group of people "changing the world" should be a bit more diverse than just Dudes.
  - jononomo 5y ago
    "products benefit from a broad point of view" lol
    - JustResign 5y ago
      Let's not let Hacker News be a place where we misquote someone with a low-effort reply :)
thu2111 5y ago
More importantly: who cares? The point of classical equal rights is the MLK, "my children won't be judged by the colour of their skin". The moment you ask a question like that, you are deliberately rolling back his vision by implying that a 100% male engineering group is a severe problem that needs a solution. It's not. It's an entirely expected statistical outcome given the demographics of people who study the profession. And it's inherently political to ask your question because by doing so, you're implying the answer matters, which is very much a political and left-wing stance. Whereas what's actually been encoded in law and up until very recently, culture, is that it's not even an allowed question to ask at all. This blog post by Basecamp is excellent. What a fantastic company it must be to work for. It's too late now because I'm starting my own company and am fully dedicated to that, but part of the reason for doing so was the feeling that there weren't enough (any?) companies with these sorts of policies in the world. I'll add Basecamp to the small list of software firms I'd be willing to work at in future.
- mempko 5y ago
  > which is very much a political and left-wing stance Then I have to ask, is it then a political and right-wing stance NOT to ask these questions?
- matwood 5y ago
  > The moment you ask a question like that, you are deliberately rolling back his vision by implying that a 100% male engineering group is a severe problem that needs a solution. What if someone was judged by the color of their skin or their gender by the system? There are plenty of studies that show how the LSAT/SAT for example, is biased in favor of whites. The school may say they only admitted those with the highest scores and didn't look at skin color, but skin color ended up built into the score. So while the system should correct for this eventually, companies are attempting to correct for this issue now.
- educaysean 5y ago
  If the status quo was that we were already living in a gender-blind, race-blind society, your comment would be correct. The truth is that we don't know if the 100% male engineering group is a result of perfectly executed meritocratic interview process or a result of systematic bias. It's probably wrong to make blind assumptions either way, but if we're going to make assumptions anyways then we should lean towards the latter.
tarsinge 5y ago
How many women are engineers as a percent of total engineers? Given the current ratio in my generation (mid thirties) we are at least decades away of having a significant ratio of senior engineers candidates, so I'm not sure your question is relevant to assess anything.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  strong female engineers exist, so i would ask why you're not seeing them as candidates.
  - zwily 5y ago
    He didn’t say they had zero female engineers.
TearsInTheRain 5y ago
I think we are at about 10% right now in a department of a bit less than 100 engineers. A quick google search shows the industry is at 25%. I would be curious to know what the current graduating classes of engineers is at. My guess would be 30%? Requiring our recruiters to hit 40% means more work for fewer candidates for a marginal benefit for our company. To be fair I would expect more female engineers to show a benefit in the retention rates of female engineers so I think this initiative could be net positive for the company but I also doubt the people pushing for this are being data driven.

How much does being a woman affect your ability to engineer? Should a woman only be hired because they're a woman, even if they're a poor engineer? That seems way more sexist than the alternative.

pizza234 5y ago
An alternative interpretation is that by opening more positions for women, they're trying to make a societal improvement, by opening doors to people (women, in this case), that meet too many closed doors. Given their (in relative terms) failure, one could say that this is a complex problem, and addressing one issue is unfortunately not enough. > even if they're a poor engineer? This is not something GP wrote. They wrote they had significant issues because, in a sense, they created a problem (hiring methodologies) in order to solve one that didn't previously exist (gender bias).
madeofpalk 5y ago
I would say reasonably. Products benefit from broad points of view. Companies should avoid making soap dispensers that don't work on black skin because they didn't hire black people. The cliche is that tech companies are aiming to change the world. Software has real impacts on humans. Maybe the group of people "changing the world" should be a bit more diverse than just Dudes.
- jononomo 5y ago
  "products benefit from a broad point of view" lol
  - JustResign 5y ago
    Let's not let Hacker News be a place where we misquote someone with a low-effort reply :)

thu2111 5y ago

More importantly: who cares? The point of classical equal rights is the MLK, "my children won't be judged by the colour of their skin". The moment you ask a question like that, you are deliberately rolling back his vision by implying that a 100% male engineering group is a severe problem that needs a solution. It's not. It's an entirely expected statistical outcome given the demographics of people who study the profession. And it's inherently political to ask your question because by doing so, you're implying the answer matters, which is very much a political and left-wing stance. Whereas what's actually been encoded in law and up until very recently, culture, is that it's not even an allowed question to ask at all. This blog post by Basecamp is excellent. What a fantastic company it must be to work for. It's too late now because I'm starting my own company and am fully dedicated to that, but part of the reason for doing so was the feeling that there weren't enough (any?) companies with these sorts of policies in the world. I'll add Basecamp to the small list of software firms I'd be willing to work at in future.

mempko 5y ago
> which is very much a political and left-wing stance Then I have to ask, is it then a political and right-wing stance NOT to ask these questions?
matwood 5y ago
> The moment you ask a question like that, you are deliberately rolling back his vision by implying that a 100% male engineering group is a severe problem that needs a solution. What if someone was judged by the color of their skin or their gender by the system? There are plenty of studies that show how the LSAT/SAT for example, is biased in favor of whites. The school may say they only admitted those with the highest scores and didn't look at skin color, but skin color ended up built into the score. So while the system should correct for this eventually, companies are attempting to correct for this issue now.
educaysean 5y ago
If the status quo was that we were already living in a gender-blind, race-blind society, your comment would be correct. The truth is that we don't know if the 100% male engineering group is a result of perfectly executed meritocratic interview process or a result of systematic bias. It's probably wrong to make blind assumptions either way, but if we're going to make assumptions anyways then we should lean towards the latter.

tarsinge 5y ago

How many women are engineers as a percent of total engineers? Given the current ratio in my generation (mid thirties) we are at least decades away of having a significant ratio of senior engineers candidates, so I'm not sure your question is relevant to assess anything.

madeofpalk 5y ago
strong female engineers exist, so i would ask why you're not seeing them as candidates.
- zwily 5y ago
  He didn’t say they had zero female engineers.

TearsInTheRain 5y ago

I think we are at about 10% right now in a department of a bit less than 100 engineers. A quick google search shows the industry is at 25%. I would be curious to know what the current graduating classes of engineers is at. My guess would be 30%? Requiring our recruiters to hit 40% means more work for fewer candidates for a marginal benefit for our company. To be fair I would expect more female engineers to show a benefit in the retention rates of female engineers so I think this initiative could be net positive for the company but I also doubt the people pushing for this are being data driven.