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> Some of this is almost certainly related to discrimination and lingering aftereffects of past discrimination. Certainly possible. I think the divide between

> Some of this is almost certainly related to discrimination and lingering aftereffects of past discrimination. Certainly possible. I think the divide between right and left on this issue is in their perception of how much this is the case. I’d be in favor of rigorous research on this topic. My own experience in the tech industry at many companies leads me to believe that if there is discrimination, it must be either historical or occurring earlier in the pipeline than tech company hiring. It’s been fairly consistent in my experience for thumbs to be put on the scales rather heavily to hire from historically disadvantaged groups, and clear bold statements have been made to exclude majority populations from interview pipelines that would be recognized as howling racism and sexism if applied to any other group. > Naively picking who appears most capable, especially based on metrics that are strongly influenced by class, may instead just be perpetuating these biases. It seems to me that we’re currently getting the worst of all possible worlds. The way we’re influencing the interview pipeline excludes low income people from the majority demographics and assists high income people from non majority demographics, with the overall effect of selecting for class above all else. I say all this as a kind person who wishes well for everyone and wants everyone to have the opportunity to self actualize to the best of their ability.

quesera 4y ago
These last few years have been the easiest times to get a job, or get funding, in the tech industry, in 20 years. And white and Asian males remain significantly advantaged over any other group, although the other groups don't seem to be as disadvantaged as they were 20 years ago. If that is not your experience, we must live in different worlds. Mine is SF/SV, with offices in other large cities in the US.
- klipt 4y ago
  If you submit identical software engineer resumes, one with a typically white male name and one with a typically white female name, do you think one will get more interview opportunities? That seems like something that could be experimentally tested. My guess is the women's resume will get more interviews because tech companies really want to hire women software engineers.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > one with a typically white male name The study you're mentioning has been done many times. The studies do tend to find that females do slightly better, but trivially so compared to the difference between typically white and black names. e.g. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w9873/w9873.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w9873/w9873... The thing that this study found was that not only do blacks receive many fewer callbacks at baseline... they found that blacks' prospects improved less than whites' do when additional qualifications are added. That is, if you're black, you start as a disadvantage and you benefit less from efforts to improve your employability.
    - klipt 4y ago
      > That is, if you're black, you start as a disadvantage and you benefit less from efforts to improve your employability. Or, that the best thing to improve your employability is adopting a typically white female name?
      - mlyle 4y ago
        > Or, that the best thing to improve your employability is adopting a typically white female name? - I don't think that would actually work that well. - Suggesting people should reasonably pretend to be white to get employment basically concedes that the game is broken, and it's kind of offensive to boot. - While women may get (barely) more callbacks, I think we have filters earlier in life that make them less likely to end up with tech work; and we have filters later in life that tend to lower their economic compensation.
        klipt 4y ago
        > concedes that the game is broken Duh? Why do you think immigrants to Anglo countries named Giovanni or Juan or Janek, have, since forever, changed their names to John? > While women may get (barely) more callbacks, I think we have filters earlier in life that make them less likely to end up with tech work Which suggests the optimal strategy is to either be a girl with a very enthusiastic tech parent who helps you overpower those toxic feminine norms. Or to be raised as a boy and then transition to a woman when you start working?
mlyle 4y ago
> I’d be in favor of rigorous research on this topic. There's a lot of pretty high quality research. Unfortunately, it can only tell you about things that are correlated, but it can't establish causation. You can only run observational trials of various kinds-- case control studies, looking at time series data, etc. > My own experience in the tech industry at many companies leads me to believe that if there is discrimination, it must be either historical or occurring earlier in the pipeline than tech company hiring. OK-- and if there's some 25 year old who has faced discrimination "earlier in the pipeline"-- what is the proper redress? If candidate A measures 90% as good as candidate B, but candidate B had a much easier road to get to this point, which candidate has more potential? I'm a teacher and I see it "earlier in the pipeline". By middle school, a whole bunch of kids have figured out that typical engineers don't look like them, and they should maybe consider doing something else-- irrespective of class. Some of my highest performers have been in these groups. > with the overall effect of selecting for class above all else. I don't think this is very true of most interventions. But it's true that it's true to some extent for some.

quesera 4y ago

These last few years have been the easiest times to get a job, or get funding, in the tech industry, in 20 years. And white and Asian males remain significantly advantaged over any other group, although the other groups don't seem to be as disadvantaged as they were 20 years ago. If that is not your experience, we must live in different worlds. Mine is SF/SV, with offices in other large cities in the US.

klipt 4y ago
If you submit identical software engineer resumes, one with a typically white male name and one with a typically white female name, do you think one will get more interview opportunities? That seems like something that could be experimentally tested. My guess is the women's resume will get more interviews because tech companies really want to hire women software engineers.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > one with a typically white male name The study you're mentioning has been done many times. The studies do tend to find that females do slightly better, but trivially so compared to the difference between typically white and black names. e.g. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w9873/w9873.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w9873/w9873... The thing that this study found was that not only do blacks receive many fewer callbacks at baseline... they found that blacks' prospects improved less than whites' do when additional qualifications are added. That is, if you're black, you start as a disadvantage and you benefit less from efforts to improve your employability.
  - klipt 4y ago
    > That is, if you're black, you start as a disadvantage and you benefit less from efforts to improve your employability. Or, that the best thing to improve your employability is adopting a typically white female name?
    - mlyle 4y ago
      > Or, that the best thing to improve your employability is adopting a typically white female name? - I don't think that would actually work that well. - Suggesting people should reasonably pretend to be white to get employment basically concedes that the game is broken, and it's kind of offensive to boot. - While women may get (barely) more callbacks, I think we have filters earlier in life that make them less likely to end up with tech work; and we have filters later in life that tend to lower their economic compensation.
      - klipt 4y ago
        > concedes that the game is broken Duh? Why do you think immigrants to Anglo countries named Giovanni or Juan or Janek, have, since forever, changed their names to John? > While women may get (barely) more callbacks, I think we have filters earlier in life that make them less likely to end up with tech work Which suggests the optimal strategy is to either be a girl with a very enthusiastic tech parent who helps you overpower those toxic feminine norms. Or to be raised as a boy and then transition to a woman when you start working?

mlyle 4y ago

> I’d be in favor of rigorous research on this topic. There's a lot of pretty high quality research. Unfortunately, it can only tell you about things that are correlated, but it can't establish causation. You can only run observational trials of various kinds-- case control studies, looking at time series data, etc. > My own experience in the tech industry at many companies leads me to believe that if there is discrimination, it must be either historical or occurring earlier in the pipeline than tech company hiring. OK-- and if there's some 25 year old who has faced discrimination "earlier in the pipeline"-- what is the proper redress? If candidate A measures 90% as good as candidate B, but candidate B had a much easier road to get to this point, which candidate has more potential? I'm a teacher and I see it "earlier in the pipeline". By middle school, a whole bunch of kids have figured out that typical engineers don't look like them, and they should maybe consider doing something else-- irrespective of class. Some of my highest performers have been in these groups. > with the overall effect of selecting for class above all else. I don't think this is very true of most interventions. But it's true that it's true to some extent for some.