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Cher came from a hell of a background - the kind of thing that pretty often ends in an early grave. She wound up as a principle software engineer at Apple, whic
by roughly 5y ago
Cher came from a hell of a background - the kind of thing that pretty often ends in an early grave. She wound up as a principle software engineer at Apple, which, if you'll excuse the understatement, is a pretty solid title. She's clearly smart, capable, and capable of contributing. She also needs a more robust set of support systems around her than most of us rely on.
By and large, our industry does not reflect the broader population. By and large, our industry is young, male, white, and from a relatively wealthy background. By and large, our industry is populated by people who have faced remarkably little adversity in our lives (by and large - if this doesn't describe you, I acknowledge you and exempt you). For the most part, our pathologies are considered cute and are indulged in, because they're relatively cheap - we're grown-ass men wearing hoodies, decorating our desks with action figures, and eating our meals in the company cafeteria. The support system for whatever the fuck is wrong with us is Postmates and Uber.
If, as an industry, we want to keep preaching this notion of meritocracy that we use to excuse all kinds of weird shit we do and support, we need to take a hard look at Cher's situation. Cher did her part - she put in the fucking work, learned to code, got a job, and landed at a FAANG, and she did so under harder circumstances than any of us did. The thing is, Cher's story is closer to normal than ours - there are more people in the world by a mile who's story looks like Cher's than looks like ours. If we actually want our industry to be the meritocracy that we pretend it is, we need to do a lot more to support people like Cher.
- clavicat 5y ago
- Veen 5y ago> By and large, our industry is young, male, white Is it? This story is about Apple, and according to its figures 47% of employees are white and about two-thirds are male. If the two-thirds male figure is consistent across ethnicities, around 30% of Apple employees are white men. https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/21/apple-shares-2020-data-divers/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/21/apple-shares-2020-data-divers... If you filter that by tech workers, only 44% are white, about 74% of whom are men, which gives a slightly higher percentage of white men, but still about in line with the general population.
- roughly 5y agoThree notes on that: 1) The numbers in "R&D" are substantially worse - 30% URM, 23% female. I'd suspect if you scoped "R&D" down to just software, the numbers would get even worse. 2) I'd expect Apple's numbers here to be broadly higher than the industry at large - larger companies can afford DEI departments and put in more effort to improving their hiring practices. 3) The numbers for leadership are even worse, and that's echoed broadly across the industry - it's not hard to find a black engineer, but it's damn hard to find a black director; it's not hard to find a female engineer, but it's damn hard to find a female principle engineer.
- sawmurai 5y agoHow do you propose we should support people like her?
- roughly 5y agoI propose we hire and properly pay people who have the expertise to answer that question, listen to them when they talk and take the things they say seriously, and do the things they suggest we do.
- jjj123 5y agoI think making it as easy as possible to take extended mental health time off is important. My last job would go on and on about how you should take a “mental health day” if you need it, but what if you need a mental health six months? Also helpful: a culture where it’s okay to tell your boss about the mental health issues you’re having and what kind of support you need.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]