6 ms·

That sounds nice and all but the distribution of engineers doesn’t match population distributions. This leads to organizational pressure to hire based on popul

That sounds nice and all but the distribution of engineers doesn’t match population distributions. This leads to organizational pressure to hire based on population distribution. Doing so inevitably means hiring based on attributes other than skill.

jbmsf 4y ago
Fair, but: - The companies that make an effort get a lot closer to population baselines than the ones that just give up. - Organizational pressures are something leadership and management should be steering. I'd rather have hiring practices be an explicit choice than something that "just happens"
- serverholic 4y ago
  I don’t think you really understood what I said. If your goal is population distribution then you are inevitably hiring based on attributes other than skill. For example, women don’t make up 50% of the engineering talent pool so if your goal is 50% women then you have to lower standards to achieve that.
  - glandium 4y ago
    if your goal is 50% women then you have to lower standards to achieve that. You don't have to. But you'd remove them from the job market, making the pool smaller for other companies. IOW, a few companies can target 50% women, but that'll make it that much harder for other companies.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  If the % of woman developers is 10% and management creates hiring goal of 50% it detorts reality. It means hr has to work harder at filling those female roles which often reduce their checkboxes while increasing the checkboxes for everyone else. Now you have to leaving positions unfilled longer in hopes of finding a candidate who matches a gender. You've turned the hiring process into a broken mess and require 1000 times more candidates. Let's say you are successful. Let's say a class of companies are successful at this strategy. Lets use the example of faangs which are desirable places in terms of salary/brand. If faangs were successful at this that would reduce the % of female developers in other industry and assuming faangs are taking the best candidates that leaves the worst ones. Which then creates this reality where male programmers outclass female developers in these other industries. That makes it harder for women in general and makes this false impression that females are not as good as males. To help women you really need to treat them equally. Trying to reach a goal of unhealthy unnatural % industry wide means women will left holding the bag when the music stops.
  - jbmsf 4y ago
    That does sound frustrating, but I think you are conflating naive management practices with inclusive hiring.
    - slt2021 4y ago
      ipaddr is right that he described the actual situation with FAANGs scooping up all of high caliber underrepresented minority candidates (think black/women ivy league comp sci grads with high GPA). But this also creates a positive feedback loop when more and more women decide to switch industries and pursue IT/Engineering jobs via bootcamps, college degrees, etc. I noticed the number of female candidates in UX/UI, fullstack, QA, Data Analytics - has increased in last several years. Partly because the demand is still high for these professionals, partly because there is entire cottage industry of bootcamps churning out IT specialists en masse, partly these diversity hiring practices that opened up doors for women
      - sirsinsalot 4y ago
        Yes and anyone with an ounce of technical hiring ability avoids those bootcampers like wildfire. They churn out ego inflated beginners who think they're experts. The mentality peddled by bootcamps to sell their wares produces dangers "engineers" in my opinion. I have no formal education, I'm not coming from educational elitism here.
        cipheredStones 4y ago
        Regardless of whether you're coming from educational elitism, you're still making sweeping claims about big groups of people based on extremely limited evidence. I'm a bootcamp grad, and would not have gotten into the field if bootcamps did not exist. I'm about four years into my career now, currently working at a major well-reputed tech company, and haven't gotten an average-or-below annual performance review yet. (And one reason for that is that I tend to be cautious, critical, and thoughtful in my technical decisions.) There are a number of other people from my bootcamp class with similar results.
okaram 4y ago
If you think we have a perfect way to measure (or even to define) pure skill I have a bridge to sell you ... We're always hiring based on attributes other than skill. If we're lucky and purposeful, skill becomes a part of the hiring process.
- serverholic 4y ago
  [dead]

jbmsf 4y ago

Fair, but: - The companies that make an effort get a lot closer to population baselines than the ones that just give up. - Organizational pressures are something leadership and management should be steering. I'd rather have hiring practices be an explicit choice than something that "just happens"

serverholic 4y ago
I don’t think you really understood what I said. If your goal is population distribution then you are inevitably hiring based on attributes other than skill. For example, women don’t make up 50% of the engineering talent pool so if your goal is 50% women then you have to lower standards to achieve that.
- glandium 4y ago
  if your goal is 50% women then you have to lower standards to achieve that. You don't have to. But you'd remove them from the job market, making the pool smaller for other companies. IOW, a few companies can target 50% women, but that'll make it that much harder for other companies.
ipaddr 4y ago
If the % of woman developers is 10% and management creates hiring goal of 50% it detorts reality. It means hr has to work harder at filling those female roles which often reduce their checkboxes while increasing the checkboxes for everyone else. Now you have to leaving positions unfilled longer in hopes of finding a candidate who matches a gender. You've turned the hiring process into a broken mess and require 1000 times more candidates. Let's say you are successful. Let's say a class of companies are successful at this strategy. Lets use the example of faangs which are desirable places in terms of salary/brand. If faangs were successful at this that would reduce the % of female developers in other industry and assuming faangs are taking the best candidates that leaves the worst ones. Which then creates this reality where male programmers outclass female developers in these other industries. That makes it harder for women in general and makes this false impression that females are not as good as males. To help women you really need to treat them equally. Trying to reach a goal of unhealthy unnatural % industry wide means women will left holding the bag when the music stops.
- jbmsf 4y ago
  That does sound frustrating, but I think you are conflating naive management practices with inclusive hiring.
  - slt2021 4y ago
    ipaddr is right that he described the actual situation with FAANGs scooping up all of high caliber underrepresented minority candidates (think black/women ivy league comp sci grads with high GPA). But this also creates a positive feedback loop when more and more women decide to switch industries and pursue IT/Engineering jobs via bootcamps, college degrees, etc. I noticed the number of female candidates in UX/UI, fullstack, QA, Data Analytics - has increased in last several years. Partly because the demand is still high for these professionals, partly because there is entire cottage industry of bootcamps churning out IT specialists en masse, partly these diversity hiring practices that opened up doors for women
    - sirsinsalot 4y ago
      Yes and anyone with an ounce of technical hiring ability avoids those bootcampers like wildfire. They churn out ego inflated beginners who think they're experts. The mentality peddled by bootcamps to sell their wares produces dangers "engineers" in my opinion. I have no formal education, I'm not coming from educational elitism here.
      - cipheredStones 4y ago
        Regardless of whether you're coming from educational elitism, you're still making sweeping claims about big groups of people based on extremely limited evidence. I'm a bootcamp grad, and would not have gotten into the field if bootcamps did not exist. I'm about four years into my career now, currently working at a major well-reputed tech company, and haven't gotten an average-or-below annual performance review yet. (And one reason for that is that I tend to be cautious, critical, and thoughtful in my technical decisions.) There are a number of other people from my bootcamp class with similar results.

okaram 4y ago

If you think we have a perfect way to measure (or even to define) pure skill I have a bridge to sell you ... We're always hiring based on attributes other than skill. If we're lucky and purposeful, skill becomes a part of the hiring process.

serverholic 4y ago
[dead]