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A good read for some additional context on caste discrimination in the American tech industry: https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidden-cas

A good read for some additional context on caste discrimination in the American tech industry: https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidden-caste-system/amp https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidde...

sitkack 4y ago
Not just caste discrimination, but also sexism. I have worked at least three companies where if there were Indian women, the vast majority were in QA.
- 30944836 4y ago
  I noticed the text of your comment ins grey, which means someone downvoted you. I disagree on first take of your comment, because QA to me doesn't represent a lower-tier of anything. It's a tech job. Women being in tech is good. Indian people being in tech is good. Will you share a bit more about your thinking? Why do you see this as being discrimination? Sidenote: I once glanced around a team I was working on a few years ago and found most of the product/program managers were gay or lesbian. Didn't strike me as discrimination, since there are, of course, gay and lesbian hardware engineers, gay and lesbian software engineers... it just happened that we all found each other on a particular team. So that's why I think that's what's going on here, but I'm eager to hear your thoughts, as they differ from mine.
  - sitkack 4y ago
    The comment is only at zero, it means nothing. I made no qualitative statement about QA being beneath anything. Most developers equate QA is beneath them. I also think QA is just as valid and not beneath dev, but I have also held nearly every roll in modern software companies. How we view QA doesn't mean that is how the tech job market sees it. Pay is lower, qual is lower and at companies that have a sizeable Indian workforce, I have witnessed that QA heavily skews female. I didn't even notice until I have been on interview loops with Indian men that I thought were nice and that I had professional and personal respect for and this weird tiger came out when it came to interviewing women (for dev roles) that didn't come out when interviewing men. This is just anecdotal, not all not all. This comment itself is going to get flagged or downvoted, but I can't put a caveat on every sentence. https://feminisminindia.com/2020/03/02/sexism-in-engineering-colleges/ https://feminisminindia.com/2020/03/02/sexism-in-engineering... > A couple of women who I knew had studied STEM subjects but had changed their career trajectory after graduating, explained the systemic sexism that women face in universities in India which deterred them from pursuing it any further. And then I see those pressures in the hiring loop (for devs), we didn't interview QA, it would make sense that they get pushed into QA or get pushed out entirely. Sexism in tech is much stronger than men realize, women are fully aware.
    - adolph 4y ago
      > equate QA is beneath them I think the status quality of jobs is an interesting aspect of discrimination. Why do certain jobs have higher or lower status? If the perceived status of various jobs was flatter, would various discriminatory schemes (intentional or not) continue to operate? Would differences in income persist? My hypothesis is that demographic clusters of people within certain occupations are in part affinity and in part discriminatory which operate as a yin-yang. Another hypothesis is that the existence of under-represented demographic segments in certain fields of study/occupation such as STEM means that the over-represented demographic segments are under-represented in other fields. Changing representation has classically focused on importing under-represented folks into high status fields. This effectively overstuffs some fields which decreases effectiveness. A better approach would be to make the other fields more attractive/high status so that the over-represented demographic segments in fields like STEM grow interest in other fields.
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        My hypothesis has always been that job status is largely driven by compensation and difficulty obtaining the position. If these are the drivers, I don't know how you would equalize status without overturning the job market at Large
      - LargeWu 4y ago
        One aspect I've noticed throughout my career is that the engineering problems QE engineers face are generally more straightforward, with well-defined parameters, and common patterns. The skills required to be a successful QE engineer require, generally, less breadth and depth of expertise than some other disciplines of engineering. I think it's a natural landing place for people who know how to write some code, but struggle to view problems at multiple levels of abstraction.
- lexapro 4y ago
  There seem to be more women in QA in general. Genuinely asking: Is this also sexism?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - havblue 4y ago
    I think QA is inherently unpopular. "Oh God are you really going to make me document this before you sign off???"
  - lyaa 4y ago
    At least partly. When I was starting out, I would apply to dev positions only to get offers to interview for lower-paid QA positions. After changing to a gender-neutral nickname and removing all female-identifying terms from my resume, I got the interviews for dev positions.
    - walkhour 4y ago
      You claim "at least partly" and then proceed to prove it with anecdotal evidence. You'd need to prove it with a study similar to the ones that send identical CVs to companies, just changing one thing, which is what they want to discover if there's bias against.
      - caente 4y ago
        I think anecdotal evidence is almost literally what "partly" means.
        walkhour 4y ago
        Obviously not, see my other comment. Anecdotal evidence is part of the evidence, it doesn't allow you to claim part of the explanation is your anecdotal evidence.
      - drewcoo 4y ago
- washadjeffmad 4y ago
  There are people in QA who are Patel. We have women from India who work at all levels, from ED to L1. All pillars are necessary. The biggest problem I've encountered is that they are sometimes socially isolated because Western colleagues don't know how to approach them, when they're really easy to talk to and have a lot to say!
  - rgrieselhuber 4y ago
    >There are people in QA who are Patel What does this mean? I thought Patel was a surname.
    - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
      https://archive.ph/K9lux https://archive.ph/K9lux / https://theprint.in/india/who-are-patels-and-how-they-have-become-a-driving-force-behind-govts-in-gujarat/733361/ https://theprint.in/india/who-are-patels-and-how-they-have-b...
      - rgrieselhuber 4y ago
        Fascinating, thanks. What's the closest parallel in the Western world?
        vijaybritto 4y ago
        I'm afraid there is none. Also its better if people from the west do not try to draw parallels with their experiences and culture. It simply doesn't match. This would help you understand the caste system and once you do, you would literally see it in any place where Indians live/work. The revelations would be mind boggling for sure. For ex, if there are a bunch of Indians in a work place and a few of them are from lower caste, they will not be invited for lunches, dinners or any socialising event by their upper caste counter parts. Implicit untouchability. I have read that in the US tech companies this is far too common and since their white (only white specifically. Because they don't care about what their black/asian/latino colleagues think.) colleagues don't understand caste, there are no repercussions for any discrimination.
- avensec 4y ago
  I am a Director-Level in Engineering/QA/Quality Engineering. I currently lead a team where our ratio of Female Indian women is higher than any other engineering group at the company. Every Quality Engineering team I have been apart of has had a higher ratio of females, but not necessarily of any specific background. My N=1 experience is that this can be related, but not always directly about discrimination or sexism. I would need to include cultural oppression, personal confidence, and others to accurately reflect a summation. I do not doubt that bias or discrimination exist, just that I culturally do my best to have a positive influence. A few years ago I wanted to understand better, so I asked for feedback from a previous amazing Indian female SDET (whose husband is the CTO of one of the big retail chains). She explained a lot to me about how a woman's position being higher than a mans was culturally challenging. She also had self-doubts about her ability to thrive in a mostly-male driven engineering organization. I worked with her on a transition into a Development team, and the resistance came mostly from her fears of cultural bias and discrimination. The Dev team took less than five minutes to round-table agree that she was fit for the position. The bias and discrimination exist, but localized, the teams I've worked with are always very supportive and welcoming.
  - unixhero 4y ago
    I was test manager (never again) on a large enterprise system (never again) and half of our QA team offshore in India were all females; I didn't reflect on that at the time.
    - harperlee 4y ago
      If you mean 50% of the india-based team was female, rather than all of the 50% of the team that were based in india, that shouldn’t be surprising?
      - unixhero 4y ago
        I realize my sentence was unclear. My onshore team were all males, all offshore (all India, Bang8, Bang7) QA team members were female.
- notsureaboutpg 4y ago
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  Is QA lower tier work in most places? Isn't that bass-ackwards?
  - delecti 4y ago
    It is definitely viewed as lower tier, which is unfortunate because it's incredibly valuable.
    - bena 4y ago
      Something can be both. Incredibly low-skilled and easy yet valuable.
      - delecti 4y ago
        I said QA is viewed as lower tier, not less skilled. QA, especially SDET style QA, is plenty difficult, but gets very little respect.
        bena 4y ago
        Yes, there are levels of QA. But QA, at its most difficult is also software development, but for the most part, is not. I would say, that on average, QA is a lower skilled profession than software development. If I were to make an analogy, QA is the nurse to the developer's doctor. And, yes, it is a lower tier. You hire developers before QA and fire QA before developers. But, like you said, it deserves respect. Just like all professions. And I'd say that a competent QA staff is the sign of a successful organization. Because while you can have your developers test, it's better to move those responsibilities off their plate so they can focus on their core work. Just like you could have your employees take out the trash and sweep up, but once you're beyond the "5 people in a garage" setup, you're going to hire a cleaning service. To the point of the higher up comments. It is an issue. Even if QA were more difficult, challenging, etc than development, we can't get around the fact that it is perceived as supplemental to development. It is a place where organizations put people who want to be developers but the organization doesn't want to be developers. Or a dumping ground for 1x developers. And it seems, a way to tweak diversity numbers without actually doing anything.
- geodel 4y ago
  Correct. Until I read feminist theory, QA is relatively easy job, good pay and anyway I hate coding. After I read, its deep rooted institutional bias against women to not be allowed to work in high paying, high prestige software development jobs.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    not feminist- progressive. The feminists are fine with QA jobs because they allow for a lot of life flexibility.
- mountainriver 4y ago
  Yeah I worked at vmw and they have a huge caste/sexism problem. Funny how liberal Americans stand by and let it happen
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Because for us Westerners this form of discrimination is, well, invisible. It is based on subtle things we don't see. It stays within a group, that to us, seems completely homogenous. Plus, how many Westerners actually are aware the Indian caste system exists at all? men discriminating and harrassing women? Sexism, check. White discriminating people of color? Racism, check. One Indian being a dick to another Indian? A personal thing between those two people. Only that ot is not, it is so much more, we Westerners just don't see it. And since we don't see it we have a pretty solid chance of intervening on the wrong side, if we intervene at all.
    - mountainriver 4y ago
      Agree there is a ton of nuance, at vmw I didn't notice it till I heard about it, then I did, but like you said its really hard to know how to intervene
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      I had another comment but deleted it. Effectively, the idea was "Don't be a dick." That is a reason right there where a person can intervene if they are in a position to do so. However, the issue as you raise it is that this is not a law. There are laws about sex, racism etc that can help people in low power situations exercise some power. But we don't have that equivalent knowledge/ability regarding caste.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I worked at two companies where the engineering base is about 90% male yet over half our managers were female. I also think it's counterintuitive to fixate on this stuff. It doesn't have to be sexism- it could be a fluke.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
- vijaybritto 4y ago
  Interesting fact: Talk to Indian upper caste women who claim to be feminists about caste; you'll be shut down quickly. I have had countless arguments only to be named "mansplainer". The activism from powerful groups will flow in the same social structure which does not affect their power.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    This sounds extremely similar the ~century-ago situation in American feminism. Lesser right for women of "lesser" racial, religious, social, etc. backgrounds were, ah, not much of a concern.
    - pasabagi 4y ago
      It's also the same the other way around: a lot of male anti-racism activists / communists / etc were very sexist. Some still are. I still think it's nice that feminists are, today and historically, generally ahead of the curve when it comes to these things.
      - int_19h 4y ago
        Quite a few people who are into the "revolution" stuff are there because of the associated macho masculinity. It's no coincidence that Che Guevara is such a popular icon. Generally speaking, the more authoritarian someone on the left is, the more likely they are to be sexist. Stalinist tankies are the rock bottom.
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    Hell, I have had conversations with my immigrant mother-in-law where she complains later immigrants hang out only with each other, only speak their own language and should be deported. In her own language. Just after she's asked us to take her to her ethnic group gathering that is pretty much her only social outing... Hypocrisy has many shades and people compartmentalise attitudes with issues.
  - sshlocalhost98 4y ago
    what ?? Got any source, you can’t just be spewing venom all the time!
- MauroIksem 4y ago
  We have Indian women in QA as well where I work why is this a thing??
- salawat 4y ago
  QA Director here. I actually had a pretty balanced department that only slightly favors women. As a male QA/QE I tend to hire for detail orientation with a back up of actually caring, and a level of either assertiveness or grit in holding the line. Anecdotal survey of 10 years of QA, and I haven't found any corrrlation with sex and QA, except that women have tended to be easier to work with on average, and the men I work with are either really good, or meh. Amusing historical point though: programming was considered women's work originally.
bobobob420 4y ago
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > There is no caste discrimination in US , he literally lives in a 2 million dollar home Would you similarly reject the hardships of a successful black American? If he's facing such animus, why do you think it stops elsewhere? FYI, there are studies [1] and a lawsuit [2] documenting caste discrimination in America. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_United_States#Studies_on_caste_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_Un... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit-idUSKBN2423YE https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit-idUSKBN2423...
  - bobobob420 4y ago
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > We are talking magnitudes of didference There are no magnitudes. One person’s sorrow doesn’t diminish another’s. > indians who have a 99 percent employment rate and some of the highest salaries Ah, got it. Because some Indians do well none of them have any legitimate claims or qualms. Quite literally a racist surmisement, but at this point I should not be surprised.
- civilized 4y ago
  > There is no caste discrimination in US What makes you think you're qualified to make such a blanket statement? Especially since caste discrimination is pervasive in India and immigrants tend to bring their culture with them. I just don't think you could know this, and I wonder what else might be motivating you to make vast generalizations about things you don't know.
  - bobobob420 4y ago
hef19898 4y ago
It seems that, in some cases, immigrants import their biases with them, and stick to them instead of adopting cultural aspects of their host countries. This can, in a sense, make them less open minded and tolerant than non-immigrants. You can see examples of this all the way back to Gean immigrants to Russia and South America. I have no problem with this, after all immigrants are by no means obliged to be assimilated. It becomes a problem when politics come to play. E.g. Turkish nationalism, Erdogan has pretty solid approval ratings among German based Turks. This doesn't affect German culture much, so. In case of Indian nationalism, heavily leaning on India's caste system, it is different. Indian immigrants tend to end up in managemebr positions more often than, e.g., Turks do. So they affect company policies and culture more. And in the case of caste discrimination, something most non-Indians have a hard time understanding, it can co-opt whole organisations. And in the case of social media it can have a massive impact on culture in general. That's why those talks, like the cancelled one at Google, are so important.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  > Erdogan has solid approval ratings among German based Turks This is nothing unusual for emigrants to support the preserving, conservative and strong-arm political position for their former home countries because many feel obligated to do so. The demographics of formerly rural Turks that immigrated to Germany is also relevant but I think the feeling of obligations for such "defensive" choices is a main driver. You can see this trend with a lot of immigrants, Turks are just an example here.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It's also common among Russians, but having witnessed it personally more than once, I don't think it's the case of "obligations". Most of those people sincerely believe in all that propaganda their mother country churns out.
- kadayadi 4y ago
  Modi and RSS have super high support from western Indians. https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/united-states-presidential-election-2020-hindu-candidate-tulsi-gabbard-rss-bjp-links https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/united-states-presid... - using this they have even been trying to influence US politics.
thelit 4y ago
As a Dalit myself, I wrote a Dalit 101 for non Indian audience. https://thelit.substack.com/p/dalit-101 https://thelit.substack.com/p/dalit-101
- thebeardisred 4y ago
  Thanks for writing that!
- okdood64 4y ago
  Hey there! Thanks for writing this. One question I've always had is, how do you know you're Dalit if you were born outside of India? How do others? Especially, say, when meeting other Indians in some tech company in the US?
  - thelit 4y ago
    If you’re a Dalit, you’d know. As I mention in the post, membership to a caste is granted by birth. If both your parents are Dalit, you’re a Dalit too. How do others know: it’s not obvious. Dalits either change their last name to something common enough to not have any caste indicator. They’d avoid any discussion on caste. So effectively, they hide but there are some who don’t and keep their last name. Still, not every other Indian could tell, but a more caste conscious Indian who belongs to the same region can tell. On top of it, it’s common among Indians to just plainly ask other what their caste is.
    - devnonymous 4y ago
      Note that there are other 'cues' as well that casteists use to identify your caste, such as the food you eat (veg/non-veg), the social rituals/ceremonies or religious practices you engage in. In fact, you'd see enough Brahmins (in the US!) wear the scared thread[1] and embrace the entire identity of being at the 'top' of the caste system that knowing that you are a non-brahmin is sufficient for them to treat you as a Dalit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana
rramadass 4y ago
That article has been discussed on HN before and it is more paranoia than fact.

sitkack 4y ago

Not just caste discrimination, but also sexism. I have worked at least three companies where if there were Indian women, the vast majority were in QA.

30944836 4y ago
I noticed the text of your comment ins grey, which means someone downvoted you. I disagree on first take of your comment, because QA to me doesn't represent a lower-tier of anything. It's a tech job. Women being in tech is good. Indian people being in tech is good. Will you share a bit more about your thinking? Why do you see this as being discrimination? Sidenote: I once glanced around a team I was working on a few years ago and found most of the product/program managers were gay or lesbian. Didn't strike me as discrimination, since there are, of course, gay and lesbian hardware engineers, gay and lesbian software engineers... it just happened that we all found each other on a particular team. So that's why I think that's what's going on here, but I'm eager to hear your thoughts, as they differ from mine.
- sitkack 4y ago
  The comment is only at zero, it means nothing. I made no qualitative statement about QA being beneath anything. Most developers equate QA is beneath them. I also think QA is just as valid and not beneath dev, but I have also held nearly every roll in modern software companies. How we view QA doesn't mean that is how the tech job market sees it. Pay is lower, qual is lower and at companies that have a sizeable Indian workforce, I have witnessed that QA heavily skews female. I didn't even notice until I have been on interview loops with Indian men that I thought were nice and that I had professional and personal respect for and this weird tiger came out when it came to interviewing women (for dev roles) that didn't come out when interviewing men. This is just anecdotal, not all not all. This comment itself is going to get flagged or downvoted, but I can't put a caveat on every sentence. https://feminisminindia.com/2020/03/02/sexism-in-engineering-colleges/ https://feminisminindia.com/2020/03/02/sexism-in-engineering... > A couple of women who I knew had studied STEM subjects but had changed their career trajectory after graduating, explained the systemic sexism that women face in universities in India which deterred them from pursuing it any further. And then I see those pressures in the hiring loop (for devs), we didn't interview QA, it would make sense that they get pushed into QA or get pushed out entirely. Sexism in tech is much stronger than men realize, women are fully aware.
  - adolph 4y ago
    > equate QA is beneath them I think the status quality of jobs is an interesting aspect of discrimination. Why do certain jobs have higher or lower status? If the perceived status of various jobs was flatter, would various discriminatory schemes (intentional or not) continue to operate? Would differences in income persist? My hypothesis is that demographic clusters of people within certain occupations are in part affinity and in part discriminatory which operate as a yin-yang. Another hypothesis is that the existence of under-represented demographic segments in certain fields of study/occupation such as STEM means that the over-represented demographic segments are under-represented in other fields. Changing representation has classically focused on importing under-represented folks into high status fields. This effectively overstuffs some fields which decreases effectiveness. A better approach would be to make the other fields more attractive/high status so that the over-represented demographic segments in fields like STEM grow interest in other fields.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      My hypothesis has always been that job status is largely driven by compensation and difficulty obtaining the position. If these are the drivers, I don't know how you would equalize status without overturning the job market at Large
    - LargeWu 4y ago
      One aspect I've noticed throughout my career is that the engineering problems QE engineers face are generally more straightforward, with well-defined parameters, and common patterns. The skills required to be a successful QE engineer require, generally, less breadth and depth of expertise than some other disciplines of engineering. I think it's a natural landing place for people who know how to write some code, but struggle to view problems at multiple levels of abstraction.
lexapro 4y ago
There seem to be more women in QA in general. Genuinely asking: Is this also sexism?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- havblue 4y ago
  I think QA is inherently unpopular. "Oh God are you really going to make me document this before you sign off???"
- lyaa 4y ago
  At least partly. When I was starting out, I would apply to dev positions only to get offers to interview for lower-paid QA positions. After changing to a gender-neutral nickname and removing all female-identifying terms from my resume, I got the interviews for dev positions.
  - walkhour 4y ago
    You claim "at least partly" and then proceed to prove it with anecdotal evidence. You'd need to prove it with a study similar to the ones that send identical CVs to companies, just changing one thing, which is what they want to discover if there's bias against.
    - caente 4y ago
      I think anecdotal evidence is almost literally what "partly" means.
      - walkhour 4y ago
        Obviously not, see my other comment. Anecdotal evidence is part of the evidence, it doesn't allow you to claim part of the explanation is your anecdotal evidence.
    - drewcoo 4y ago
washadjeffmad 4y ago
There are people in QA who are Patel. We have women from India who work at all levels, from ED to L1. All pillars are necessary. The biggest problem I've encountered is that they are sometimes socially isolated because Western colleagues don't know how to approach them, when they're really easy to talk to and have a lot to say!
- rgrieselhuber 4y ago
  >There are people in QA who are Patel What does this mean? I thought Patel was a surname.
  - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
    https://archive.ph/K9lux https://archive.ph/K9lux / https://theprint.in/india/who-are-patels-and-how-they-have-become-a-driving-force-behind-govts-in-gujarat/733361/ https://theprint.in/india/who-are-patels-and-how-they-have-b...
    - rgrieselhuber 4y ago
      Fascinating, thanks. What's the closest parallel in the Western world?
      - vijaybritto 4y ago
        I'm afraid there is none. Also its better if people from the west do not try to draw parallels with their experiences and culture. It simply doesn't match. This would help you understand the caste system and once you do, you would literally see it in any place where Indians live/work. The revelations would be mind boggling for sure. For ex, if there are a bunch of Indians in a work place and a few of them are from lower caste, they will not be invited for lunches, dinners or any socialising event by their upper caste counter parts. Implicit untouchability. I have read that in the US tech companies this is far too common and since their white (only white specifically. Because they don't care about what their black/asian/latino colleagues think.) colleagues don't understand caste, there are no repercussions for any discrimination.
avensec 4y ago
I am a Director-Level in Engineering/QA/Quality Engineering. I currently lead a team where our ratio of Female Indian women is higher than any other engineering group at the company. Every Quality Engineering team I have been apart of has had a higher ratio of females, but not necessarily of any specific background. My N=1 experience is that this can be related, but not always directly about discrimination or sexism. I would need to include cultural oppression, personal confidence, and others to accurately reflect a summation. I do not doubt that bias or discrimination exist, just that I culturally do my best to have a positive influence. A few years ago I wanted to understand better, so I asked for feedback from a previous amazing Indian female SDET (whose husband is the CTO of one of the big retail chains). She explained a lot to me about how a woman's position being higher than a mans was culturally challenging. She also had self-doubts about her ability to thrive in a mostly-male driven engineering organization. I worked with her on a transition into a Development team, and the resistance came mostly from her fears of cultural bias and discrimination. The Dev team took less than five minutes to round-table agree that she was fit for the position. The bias and discrimination exist, but localized, the teams I've worked with are always very supportive and welcoming.
- unixhero 4y ago
  I was test manager (never again) on a large enterprise system (never again) and half of our QA team offshore in India were all females; I didn't reflect on that at the time.
  - harperlee 4y ago
    If you mean 50% of the india-based team was female, rather than all of the 50% of the team that were based in india, that shouldn’t be surprising?
    - unixhero 4y ago
      I realize my sentence was unclear. My onshore team were all males, all offshore (all India, Bang8, Bang7) QA team members were female.
notsureaboutpg 4y ago
jonnycomputer 4y ago
Is QA lower tier work in most places? Isn't that bass-ackwards?
- delecti 4y ago
  It is definitely viewed as lower tier, which is unfortunate because it's incredibly valuable.
  - bena 4y ago
    Something can be both. Incredibly low-skilled and easy yet valuable.
    - delecti 4y ago
      I said QA is viewed as lower tier, not less skilled. QA, especially SDET style QA, is plenty difficult, but gets very little respect.
      - bena 4y ago
        Yes, there are levels of QA. But QA, at its most difficult is also software development, but for the most part, is not. I would say, that on average, QA is a lower skilled profession than software development. If I were to make an analogy, QA is the nurse to the developer's doctor. And, yes, it is a lower tier. You hire developers before QA and fire QA before developers. But, like you said, it deserves respect. Just like all professions. And I'd say that a competent QA staff is the sign of a successful organization. Because while you can have your developers test, it's better to move those responsibilities off their plate so they can focus on their core work. Just like you could have your employees take out the trash and sweep up, but once you're beyond the "5 people in a garage" setup, you're going to hire a cleaning service. To the point of the higher up comments. It is an issue. Even if QA were more difficult, challenging, etc than development, we can't get around the fact that it is perceived as supplemental to development. It is a place where organizations put people who want to be developers but the organization doesn't want to be developers. Or a dumping ground for 1x developers. And it seems, a way to tweak diversity numbers without actually doing anything.
geodel 4y ago
Correct. Until I read feminist theory, QA is relatively easy job, good pay and anyway I hate coding. After I read, its deep rooted institutional bias against women to not be allowed to work in high paying, high prestige software development jobs.
- dekhn 4y ago
  not feminist- progressive. The feminists are fine with QA jobs because they allow for a lot of life flexibility.
mountainriver 4y ago
Yeah I worked at vmw and they have a huge caste/sexism problem. Funny how liberal Americans stand by and let it happen
- hef19898 4y ago
  Because for us Westerners this form of discrimination is, well, invisible. It is based on subtle things we don't see. It stays within a group, that to us, seems completely homogenous. Plus, how many Westerners actually are aware the Indian caste system exists at all? men discriminating and harrassing women? Sexism, check. White discriminating people of color? Racism, check. One Indian being a dick to another Indian? A personal thing between those two people. Only that ot is not, it is so much more, we Westerners just don't see it. And since we don't see it we have a pretty solid chance of intervening on the wrong side, if we intervene at all.
  - mountainriver 4y ago
    Agree there is a ton of nuance, at vmw I didn't notice it till I heard about it, then I did, but like you said its really hard to know how to intervene
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    I had another comment but deleted it. Effectively, the idea was "Don't be a dick." That is a reason right there where a person can intervene if they are in a position to do so. However, the issue as you raise it is that this is not a law. There are laws about sex, racism etc that can help people in low power situations exercise some power. But we don't have that equivalent knowledge/ability regarding caste.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
I worked at two companies where the engineering base is about 90% male yet over half our managers were female. I also think it's counterintuitive to fixate on this stuff. It doesn't have to be sexism- it could be a fluke.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
vijaybritto 4y ago
Interesting fact: Talk to Indian upper caste women who claim to be feminists about caste; you'll be shut down quickly. I have had countless arguments only to be named "mansplainer". The activism from powerful groups will flow in the same social structure which does not affect their power.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  This sounds extremely similar the ~century-ago situation in American feminism. Lesser right for women of "lesser" racial, religious, social, etc. backgrounds were, ah, not much of a concern.
  - pasabagi 4y ago
    It's also the same the other way around: a lot of male anti-racism activists / communists / etc were very sexist. Some still are. I still think it's nice that feminists are, today and historically, generally ahead of the curve when it comes to these things.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Quite a few people who are into the "revolution" stuff are there because of the associated macho masculinity. It's no coincidence that Che Guevara is such a popular icon. Generally speaking, the more authoritarian someone on the left is, the more likely they are to be sexist. Stalinist tankies are the rock bottom.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  Hell, I have had conversations with my immigrant mother-in-law where she complains later immigrants hang out only with each other, only speak their own language and should be deported. In her own language. Just after she's asked us to take her to her ethnic group gathering that is pretty much her only social outing... Hypocrisy has many shades and people compartmentalise attitudes with issues.
- sshlocalhost98 4y ago
  what ?? Got any source, you can’t just be spewing venom all the time!
MauroIksem 4y ago
We have Indian women in QA as well where I work why is this a thing??
salawat 4y ago
QA Director here. I actually had a pretty balanced department that only slightly favors women. As a male QA/QE I tend to hire for detail orientation with a back up of actually caring, and a level of either assertiveness or grit in holding the line. Anecdotal survey of 10 years of QA, and I haven't found any corrrlation with sex and QA, except that women have tended to be easier to work with on average, and the men I work with are either really good, or meh. Amusing historical point though: programming was considered women's work originally.

bobobob420 4y ago

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> There is no caste discrimination in US , he literally lives in a 2 million dollar home Would you similarly reject the hardships of a successful black American? If he's facing such animus, why do you think it stops elsewhere? FYI, there are studies [1] and a lawsuit [2] documenting caste discrimination in America. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_United_States#Studies_on_caste_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_Un... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit-idUSKBN2423YE https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit-idUSKBN2423...
- bobobob420 4y ago
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > We are talking magnitudes of didference There are no magnitudes. One person’s sorrow doesn’t diminish another’s. > indians who have a 99 percent employment rate and some of the highest salaries Ah, got it. Because some Indians do well none of them have any legitimate claims or qualms. Quite literally a racist surmisement, but at this point I should not be surprised.
civilized 4y ago
> There is no caste discrimination in US What makes you think you're qualified to make such a blanket statement? Especially since caste discrimination is pervasive in India and immigrants tend to bring their culture with them. I just don't think you could know this, and I wonder what else might be motivating you to make vast generalizations about things you don't know.
- bobobob420 4y ago

hef19898 4y ago

It seems that, in some cases, immigrants import their biases with them, and stick to them instead of adopting cultural aspects of their host countries. This can, in a sense, make them less open minded and tolerant than non-immigrants. You can see examples of this all the way back to Gean immigrants to Russia and South America. I have no problem with this, after all immigrants are by no means obliged to be assimilated. It becomes a problem when politics come to play. E.g. Turkish nationalism, Erdogan has pretty solid approval ratings among German based Turks. This doesn't affect German culture much, so. In case of Indian nationalism, heavily leaning on India's caste system, it is different. Indian immigrants tend to end up in managemebr positions more often than, e.g., Turks do. So they affect company policies and culture more. And in the case of caste discrimination, something most non-Indians have a hard time understanding, it can co-opt whole organisations. And in the case of social media it can have a massive impact on culture in general. That's why those talks, like the cancelled one at Google, are so important.

raxxorraxor 4y ago
> Erdogan has solid approval ratings among German based Turks This is nothing unusual for emigrants to support the preserving, conservative and strong-arm political position for their former home countries because many feel obligated to do so. The demographics of formerly rural Turks that immigrated to Germany is also relevant but I think the feeling of obligations for such "defensive" choices is a main driver. You can see this trend with a lot of immigrants, Turks are just an example here.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It's also common among Russians, but having witnessed it personally more than once, I don't think it's the case of "obligations". Most of those people sincerely believe in all that propaganda their mother country churns out.
kadayadi 4y ago
Modi and RSS have super high support from western Indians. https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/united-states-presidential-election-2020-hindu-candidate-tulsi-gabbard-rss-bjp-links https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/united-states-presid... - using this they have even been trying to influence US politics.

thelit 4y ago

As a Dalit myself, I wrote a Dalit 101 for non Indian audience. https://thelit.substack.com/p/dalit-101 https://thelit.substack.com/p/dalit-101

thebeardisred 4y ago
Thanks for writing that!
okdood64 4y ago
Hey there! Thanks for writing this. One question I've always had is, how do you know you're Dalit if you were born outside of India? How do others? Especially, say, when meeting other Indians in some tech company in the US?
- thelit 4y ago
  If you’re a Dalit, you’d know. As I mention in the post, membership to a caste is granted by birth. If both your parents are Dalit, you’re a Dalit too. How do others know: it’s not obvious. Dalits either change their last name to something common enough to not have any caste indicator. They’d avoid any discussion on caste. So effectively, they hide but there are some who don’t and keep their last name. Still, not every other Indian could tell, but a more caste conscious Indian who belongs to the same region can tell. On top of it, it’s common among Indians to just plainly ask other what their caste is.
  - devnonymous 4y ago
    Note that there are other 'cues' as well that casteists use to identify your caste, such as the food you eat (veg/non-veg), the social rituals/ceremonies or religious practices you engage in. In fact, you'd see enough Brahmins (in the US!) wear the scared thread[1] and embrace the entire identity of being at the 'top' of the caste system that knowing that you are a non-brahmin is sufficient for them to treat you as a Dalit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana

rramadass 4y ago

That article has been discussed on HN before and it is more paranoia than fact.