4 ms·

I've made this point before, but... having done a ton of interviews for senior and principal software engineers, the candidate mix is already incredibly non-div

by IvyMike 12y ago

I've made this point before, but... having done a ton of interviews for senior and principal software engineers, the candidate mix is already incredibly non-diverse by the time it gets to me. I mean, maybe my management and hr is filled with racists and sexists, but my gut reaction is they seem like pretty progressive folks. I think the pipeline is messed up much, much earlier.

jamesli 12y ago
Right. If the pipeline is not as proportionally diversified as the general population, it is senseless to ask the final hires as proportionally diversified. If they dig deep and analyze the race diversity of women in tech, I bet the data would be more striking.
cbhl 12y ago
I really want to know the opposite question of this -- how many percent of qualified {hispanics, blacks, women, trans people, etc} are employed and receive {compensation, perks} relative to their peers? This is a tricky question for senior/principle software people, but perhaps as a proxy, we could look at the number of new grads at the Bachelor's, Master's and PhD levels that are employed {six months prior, one month prior, one month after, six months after} graduation, as broken down by gender and ethnicity. For example, if 95% of women are hired by one month before graduation day, that would suggest that we need to be looking at an earlier point in the pipeline (educating parents, additional funding at the elementary or high school level, teaching boys how to not sexually harass girls in middle school, etc.). On the other hand, if 20% of women are hired by six months after graduation day, then maybe that means there's something funny going on during the hiring process.
- ggchappell 12y ago
  That is an excellent idea. It would also be worthwhile to know the general field of employment; in particular, is it one to which the qualifications of interest are relevant.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> I've made this point before, but... having done a ton of interviews for senior and principal software engineers, the candidate mix is already incredibly non-diverse by the time it gets to me. Google's description of what they are doing about diversity seems to indicate that they see exactly that as the problem -- most of their actions discussed are about growing the pool of qualified candidates in underrepresented groups.

by IvyMike 12y ago

jamesli 12y ago

Right. If the pipeline is not as proportionally diversified as the general population, it is senseless to ask the final hires as proportionally diversified. If they dig deep and analyze the race diversity of women in tech, I bet the data would be more striking.

cbhl 12y ago

I really want to know the opposite question of this -- how many percent of qualified {hispanics, blacks, women, trans people, etc} are employed and receive {compensation, perks} relative to their peers? This is a tricky question for senior/principle software people, but perhaps as a proxy, we could look at the number of new grads at the Bachelor's, Master's and PhD levels that are employed {six months prior, one month prior, one month after, six months after} graduation, as broken down by gender and ethnicity. For example, if 95% of women are hired by one month before graduation day, that would suggest that we need to be looking at an earlier point in the pipeline (educating parents, additional funding at the elementary or high school level, teaching boys how to not sexually harass girls in middle school, etc.). On the other hand, if 20% of women are hired by six months after graduation day, then maybe that means there's something funny going on during the hiring process.

ggchappell 12y ago
That is an excellent idea. It would also be worthwhile to know the general field of employment; in particular, is it one to which the qualifications of interest are relevant.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> I've made this point before, but... having done a ton of interviews for senior and principal software engineers, the candidate mix is already incredibly non-diverse by the time it gets to me. Google's description of what they are doing about diversity seems to indicate that they see exactly that as the problem -- most of their actions discussed are about growing the pool of qualified candidates in underrepresented groups.