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I’m sure I’ll be downvoted to oblivion but I enjoy working on diverse teams rather than a bunch of people exactly like me. The comments about DEI here are large

I’m sure I’ll be downvoted to oblivion but I enjoy working on diverse teams rather than a bunch of people exactly like me. The comments about DEI here are largely negative about the premise but there are legitimate benefits to having teams mirror the populations they write software for. It’s a shame people don’t do a little critical thinking about why it matters and instead spout right wing talking points. In practice though it’s all theater. When I asked if we could at least interview some people from under-represented groups for a new position I got a “we’ll look into it.” And they didn’t.

CoastalCoder 4y ago
> there are legitimate benefits to having teams mirror the populations they write software for. I've heard that claim, but I don't know of many concrete examples. Can you share some?
- secondcoming 4y ago
  Some UI designs might not work for people who are colour-blind, or have poor eyesight, for one example.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    That's not the kind of 'diversity' that's being encouraged though.
- emj 4y ago
  EDIT: I have no idea how this was seen as an attack comment. First of all your question is terse and I think you need to expand a bit more so we can understand exactly what you want to know. For example are there any of the very few examples in this thread that you do not agree with? As always when this is discussed people get into the "holier than thou" argument some thing like: "they are not for diversity because they do not think my aspects are important enough". Feel free to use them as good examples of why diversity is needed. I think you can find at least four arguments for diversity by reading the negative comments in this thread.
  - spoiler 4y ago
    Why attack the person asking a question, instead of giving examples? It's not productive, and you just come off as pretentious and are pushing the discussion into an unproductive direction. How would you have liked the question to have been phrased? This isn't rhetorical, btw. I'm genuinely curious now. I found one about facial recognition not working for black people, and another that comes to mind in a similar vein is that the new Goole Pixels phones seem to do some camera razzle dazzle to make skin tones more accurate. Another example that comes to mind is Overwatch's dev team is fairly diverse, which leads to really authentic hero designs in the game. I think the last one is probably the best one out of the three I listed. The first two required more diverse models not developers IMO. But I'll keep them until people contribute more examples.
    - emj 4y ago
      Did not know that about Overwatch, I've only played a little and the heros did seem to have been given some care. The bar is low for most games though. I care about understanding other people, if you ask a question with no context, I have no clue of what aspect interest you, and we will never be able to have a conversation. If you read the comments in this thread, the examples I see are mostly about inter personal relations that is something that has always been a big cost at all my workplaces. That is completely different from your examples.
      - spoiler 4y ago
        I think we both agree that diversity is good. I've made great friends through work, but not the majority of them. My friendship group is largely diversified by having "graduated" the friendships from knowing them online to meeting them in person, or meeting people at festivals. So, maybe I appreciate workplace diversity less in that aspect. If it's a common vector for one to diversify their environment, then it might be boon. I do think the way it's currently done is a bit... Shallow, lazy? For lack of a better analogy, it reminds me of a fad diet. But that's not really a constructive criticism on the topic, since I don't know what we should do better either
- stbenjam 4y ago
  How about HP’s face tracking web cam that didn’t work on black people?
secondcoming 4y ago
Why would you need permission to include people from under-represented groups in your hiring process? Are they specifically excluded, or did you really want to only interview people from these groups?
- stbenjam 4y ago
  I don’t pick the candidates internal recruiters send us…I’m also just an engineer. Manager screens first.

CoastalCoder 4y ago

> there are legitimate benefits to having teams mirror the populations they write software for. I've heard that claim, but I don't know of many concrete examples. Can you share some?

secondcoming 4y ago
Some UI designs might not work for people who are colour-blind, or have poor eyesight, for one example.
- luckylion 4y ago
  That's not the kind of 'diversity' that's being encouraged though.
emj 4y ago
EDIT: I have no idea how this was seen as an attack comment. First of all your question is terse and I think you need to expand a bit more so we can understand exactly what you want to know. For example are there any of the very few examples in this thread that you do not agree with? As always when this is discussed people get into the "holier than thou" argument some thing like: "they are not for diversity because they do not think my aspects are important enough". Feel free to use them as good examples of why diversity is needed. I think you can find at least four arguments for diversity by reading the negative comments in this thread.
- spoiler 4y ago
  Why attack the person asking a question, instead of giving examples? It's not productive, and you just come off as pretentious and are pushing the discussion into an unproductive direction. How would you have liked the question to have been phrased? This isn't rhetorical, btw. I'm genuinely curious now. I found one about facial recognition not working for black people, and another that comes to mind in a similar vein is that the new Goole Pixels phones seem to do some camera razzle dazzle to make skin tones more accurate. Another example that comes to mind is Overwatch's dev team is fairly diverse, which leads to really authentic hero designs in the game. I think the last one is probably the best one out of the three I listed. The first two required more diverse models not developers IMO. But I'll keep them until people contribute more examples.
  - emj 4y ago
    Did not know that about Overwatch, I've only played a little and the heros did seem to have been given some care. The bar is low for most games though. I care about understanding other people, if you ask a question with no context, I have no clue of what aspect interest you, and we will never be able to have a conversation. If you read the comments in this thread, the examples I see are mostly about inter personal relations that is something that has always been a big cost at all my workplaces. That is completely different from your examples.
    - spoiler 4y ago
      I think we both agree that diversity is good. I've made great friends through work, but not the majority of them. My friendship group is largely diversified by having "graduated" the friendships from knowing them online to meeting them in person, or meeting people at festivals. So, maybe I appreciate workplace diversity less in that aspect. If it's a common vector for one to diversify their environment, then it might be boon. I do think the way it's currently done is a bit... Shallow, lazy? For lack of a better analogy, it reminds me of a fad diet. But that's not really a constructive criticism on the topic, since I don't know what we should do better either
stbenjam 4y ago
How about HP’s face tracking web cam that didn’t work on black people?

secondcoming 4y ago

Why would you need permission to include people from under-represented groups in your hiring process? Are they specifically excluded, or did you really want to only interview people from these groups?

stbenjam 4y ago
I don’t pick the candidates internal recruiters send us…I’m also just an engineer. Manager screens first.