26 ms·

Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

126 points by samsolomon 12y ago

ronald_dregan 12y ago
lol well yea if i ran a company id want my competitors to hire women too. that way, my product would be superior in quality.
protonfish 12y ago
Maybe Joel needs to add another point to his "test" 13. Do you foster Junior/Mentor relationships?
- onezeno 12y ago
  And get rid of hallway usability tests.
  - protonfish 12y ago
    Not sure why you think that. I have found getting feedback from team members before user testing finds a lot of low-hanging issues.
    - onezeno 12y ago
      I'd be okay if it just said "usability testing". In my company that's just a part of the testing phase. But no way I'm just going to grab someone walking down the hall. I assume people are busy enough.
      - lumpypua 12y ago
        > But no way I'm just going to grab someone walking down the hall. I assume people are busy enough. That seems like a kind of joyless approach to life.
      - ryanSrich 12y ago
        Is this meant to be taken literally? Fog Creek companies work remotely. How would you even physically grab someone in the hallway? As for how we do internal testing, we simply ask around on Slack and get a solid group of people to test for us before moving forward. Works out great.
- marrs 12y ago
  I genuinely think you should put that to him. Not enough organisations recognise the value of junior developers imo.
- mason240 12y ago
  What company is not going to check that box? I've worked for a company that claimed they did and it was always talked about internally in their "look how great our culture is" corporate-speak. Some developers even had the title of "mentor," but there wasn't any actual time allocated for it and no one ever took it seriously. In my entire time there I never met with my "mentor."
  - s73v3r 12y ago
    The same can be said for just about every item on the Joel test
boothead 12y ago
Any softare company that has their developers working on a component called DonutCounter has my vote as an awesome palce to work! :-)
easytiger 12y ago
Headlines?
skywhopper 12y ago
I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's willingness to apply. And it probably will help, but that amount of experience is unlikely to change someone's basic perception of their ability to succeed in a high-stakes one-chance prove-yourself situation.
- tghw 12y ago
  It doesn't draw the connection directly, but part of the training program deals with technical interviews and getting the fellows more practice, and hopefully more comfort, with them. My guess is that once people have been through some mock interviews, the intimidation factor goes down quite a bit.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- mason240 12y ago
  >attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. This is classic horseshoe theory, where extremists on both ends of a spectrum actually wrap around and start to sound the same. In this case they both believe that women are delicate flowers who can't handle the pressure, stress, and competition of the working world like men can.
  - cauterized 12y ago
    There's a difference between "lower self-confidence" and "can't handle pressure, stress, and competition". It's also possible that even women who have high self confidence in their abilities are less confident that they will be judged positively by others. There's plenty of research to the effect that men will apply to a job if they meet 40% of the listed requirements, whereas women won't until they meet 90%. And when you don't meet someone's default expectations of what kind of person a "software developer" (or a "nurse" or a "CEO") is, you often have to work harder to prove that you are one. But also, why does the working world have to be competitive rather than collaborative?
jnbiche 12y ago
I agree that lack of gender diversity in tech is an obvious problem, and I laud Fog Creek for trying to address this problem. However, I'd like to strongly emphasis the fact that one of the main problems Fog Creek identified as hindering the most talented female developers from applying to Fog Creek, is also a huge problem that prevents many of the most talented male developers from applying to Fog Creek. Ironically, these companies, with their legendarily difficult and arduous application processes, are selecting for mediocre developers: 1) We all know that the Dunning-Kruger effect is real: there's an abundance of quantified and repeatable psychological research that demonstrates that the least skilled individuals are on average the most likely to estimate their skill to be above average. Likewise, the most skilled individuals are the most cautious in estimating their skill level. So who applies for more of these types of jobs? Well, based on what I've heard, Google, Fog Creek, and many other top employers receive a huge number of grossly unqualified applicants. And while I'm sure they'd like to think they're getting the majority of their desired candidate pool to apply, research on Dunning-Kruger, as well as anecdotes like the one on the article, all suggest that's probably not the case. This isn't the first time I've read about a top employer asking a highly-desired employee why they'd never applied in the past, and receiving as an answer, "oh, I didn't think I'd make it through your interview process". (btw, I love watching these kinds of interactions) 2) The most qualified developers can make a nice consultant salary without ever having to go through the headache of a demeaning 5-day interview process that often treats developers like disposable commodities. Why would you want to subject yourself to that kind of process if you're making $100,000-200,000 a year as a contract software dev (which is the range my colleagues working contract tend to make, depending on their hours and expertise)? So whenever I get an email from employers like Facebook, I say thanks but no thanks. This is not to say that these employers never get highly-skilled employees. That's obviously not the case. But they get a very specific type of highly-skilled applicant: from top CS departments, coming right out of college. They're much less likely to get a highly-skilled dev to apply who has taken an alternate route to the top of his or her profession. So what happens on average? "Top" employers like Google, Facebook, and smaller "desirable" employers like Fog Creek, effectively scare off a large number of the devs they want the most, both male and female. And they simultaneously attract a large number of unqualified applicants. Yet again I ask: maybe the software developer interview process is completely broken? Are employers in enough pain yet that they're willing to revisit their hiring process? Or does it need to get worse?
geebee 12y ago
Several people have already mentioned it here, but I'm also very pleased to read this line: "Hall asked a simple question: Why didn't Chipps, a brilliant engineer, ever apply to work at Fog Creek? Chipps said she didn't think she would make it through their rigorous testing process." I do think that the grueling and intimidating software interview process is a very serious problem in our field. This one sentence hints at the extent of the harm.
- mooreds 12y ago
  It's tough though, because when you are a small company that expects developers to jump in and be productive, you do need some kind of process. That process can be referral based, in which case testing isn't as necessary because you can rely on past shared experience, but that obviously limits your talent pool. When you are interacting with an unknown (or a less known) person, you have to have some kind of vetting process. And with a small company culture, typically false negatives are far less harmful than false positives.
  - protonfish 12y ago
    Only if you have a policy of not having positions for Junior programmers. Fog Creek has the same hypocrisy as any other company that demands X years of experience from applicants but consider it somebody else's problem how they get that.
    - thedufer 12y ago
      Until very recently, the vast majority of Fog Creek's devs came through the internship program. Which is restricted to people who are going back to school afterwards (and, with a few exceptions, is only for undergrads).
    - moron4hire 12y ago
      As a business owner who is a developer and hires developers: getting my experience was my responsibility. It's now yours. And you won't do it on my dime. I'm not in the business of using money to make developers. I'm in the business of using developers to make money. The jobs I offer are not because I want to give someone a job, they're because I want someone to come do a job for me.
matart 12y ago
As a younger male about to finish his software engineering degree and start applying I agree with these points. I am intimidated at the rigorous testing some companies use. I don't have the confidence that others might have in there ability. I am ultimately looking for a mentoring workplace ( just to start) where I can build my confidence quickly and start producing for the company.
- marktangotango 12y ago
  >>just to start One place I worked at had a senior dev slash architect who really enjoyed mentoring green developers. This company did tend to hire people straight out of college, and this guy was really good at bringing them up to speed. It was really quiet nice to behold. The problem was, the hires that were 'good' tended to leave after a year or two, leaving the less talented and motivated to muddle along. I think this is why you rarely see this nowadays.
  - dripton 12y ago
    I don't think that has anything to do with mentorship. I think it's just that most companies don't give most young programmers big enough raises to reflect their increased value on the open market. Lots of companies don't want to hire new grads, so there's a significant price premium for hiring someone with a couple years of experience. The companies that are willing to hire new grads aren't always willing to give annual raises that reflect that price premium. So lots of programmers with a couple of years of experience see that they can get a 20% raise by switching jobs. So they switch jobs. (This happens with programmers later in their career too, but the difference between 8 and 10 years of experience is much less dramatic than the difference between 0 and 2. If a company gives the same annual raise to all its programmers in the same performance band regardless of experience, that raise may be too small for the newest ones, even if it's just right for the middle ones.)
png_hero 12y ago
30 person engineering team, and no junior devs?
- LunaSea 12y ago
  Chhht it's only ageism if it concerns older people. Paying older people arbitrarily more without any real reason is not an issue.
dominotw 12y ago
There is a war for Women Dev's in silicon valley. Google's HR head mentioned in a podcast that they are simply poaching female devs' from smaller players to get their diversity numbers up. This puts smaller players at a major disadvantage as VC's have started tying their funding with diversity numbers. There is no way a startup can compete directly with Goog for the female dev's who are in major short supply. This diversity madness is putting SV at a major disadvantage.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  > This diversity madness is putting SV at a major disadvantage. On the contrary, evidence suggest Silicon Valley is putting itself at a disadvantage by failing to attract talented women. Other non-SV technology markets do far better: http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/women-tech-problem-silicon-valley.html http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/women-tech-problem-silico...
- im2w1l 12y ago
  If it's not too much trouble, could I ask for sources on 1) >Google's HR head mentioned in a podcast that they are simply poaching female devs' from smaller players to get their diversity numbers up. and 2) > VC's have started tying their funding with diversity numbers.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  If VC do anything but focus on getting investment in the best companies they are not fulfilling their fiduciary duty to their investors - even if that anything is saving starving children in Africa.
moron4hire 12y ago
I have a very small consulting company. Both of my employees right now were non-traditional students when they finished their CS degrees. Actually, I'm not even sure the one guy has finished his degree yet. Regardless, neither of them had their degrees when they started working for me. And honestly, I didn't really even know. I never asked them for a resume and they never provided one. I don't really test the people I hire. I get to know them on a personal level. I meet them at parties, at meetups, conferences, etc. I then ask if they'd like to make a little side money with a freelance gig. We talk about the work, and if the person says they can do it, I give them a task. A real task, it goes right into the project I'm working on. It usually takes about a week or two. And if they do a good job, I ask them to do more. If they don't, I pay them for the work they did, thank them, and don't mention they were ever interviewing for a more long-term relationship. This has been so incredibly much better of an experience than the hiring processes I was involved with as a working stiff. Resumes that don't say shit. Stupidly simplistic coding tests. Interviewing anxiety. All of it, a nightmare. And it didn't seem to make any difference. We would put more and more effort into hiring, to the point I was spending 10 to 15 hours interviewing and reviewing candidates a week, for weeks on end. It was having a detrimental impact on my performance, without any correlated impact on the performance of the people we hired. So when I went independent, I decided that, if the results are really, actually random, then that means the inputs have no impact. So I threw away the interviewing process. I just ask people, "can you do this job"? And really, I don't need to know anything else. That's what it all boils down to. They can lie on their resume just as much as they can lie to the question. They can cram on interview questions the night before. They can be really good at regurgitating academic theory but complete crap at thinking creatively. So I just ask, "can you do this job?" And then I let them prove it.
- pkaye 12y ago
  I think this method doesn't work in all situations. For example in embedded programming. First there are not many of those who actually work in this field so unlikely to just meet up with them. Most are stabily employed. Secondly, there is lots of proprietary hardware and knowledge. Third, hard to work on a trial job when you are already working. Lastly there are a good number of people who are just not skilled enough and will waste your time during the trial period.
xigency 12y ago
I applied for a job at Fog Creek Software in 2012 where I was accepted for an internship, and I would have to say the application process was difficult, but fair. I was told that there were hundreds of applicants, so being one of five interns selected seemed rather prestigious at the time, but it was still just an opportunity to work on my skills as a developer. I don't think there is anything that would preclude women from getting technical jobs at a company like Fog Creek except maybe, as was said in the article, a self-selecting attitude. These companies are looking for well-rounded individuals and people who are competent with their skills. It's nothing beyond impossibility to get a job there, it just takes determination.
- NotOscarWilde 12y ago
  > I applied for a job at Fog Creek Software in 2012 where I was accepted for an internship Does this mean you applied for a position but you were offered an internship instead?
  - gecko 12y ago
    No; they don't do that. He means he applied for an internship and got an internship.
ssenko 12y ago
There is no diversity problem in tech.
ripb 12y ago
There are more women than men in employment in the US, where is the daily articles on that? And the effort to tackle that? And the constant shaming of companies that employ more women than men? There are 1.4x the amount of women graduating college than men. Where are the daily articles on that massive issue? Where is the effort to do something about that? Where is the constant headlines on how many more women are graduating than men, put in a very negative light as the lack of quote underlined "diversity" in the tech industry is? This absolute, unrelenting and incredibly transparent (tech = money, status currently) narrative being sharted at everyone in the tech industry on a daily basis is driving me toward getting out of it altogether. But hey, lets ignore some massive issues on the table in favour of constantly debating why women who never showed an interest in the industry can't pick and choose the finest and most well paid positions in that industry and see where that gets society in 10 years' time.
- krschultz 12y ago
  This absolute, unrelenting and incredibly transparent (tech = money, status currently) narrative being sharted at everyone in the tech industry on a daily basis is driving me toward getting out of it altogether. It's not being thrown at the tech industry. It's people within the industry calling out the problem that we have. It's very telling that you think of the industry as a community under siege.
  - ripb 12y ago
    >It's not being thrown at the tech industry. It's people within the industry calling out the problem that we have. It's very telling that you think of the industry as a community under siege. Actually, the vast majority of it is being carried out by people on the fringe of the industry in roles as "journalists" and similar who've never spent a day working within it. And yes, I see the tech industry as being under siege.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- Fomite 12y ago
tempestn 12y ago
> Fog Creek doesn't get any immediate benefits I'd say articles like this one are pretty significant benefits. I doubt they overlooked the PR benefits of this program. (Which of course doesn't mean it isn't still a great thing. Just that "no benefit" is a bit of a stretch.)

126 points by samsolomon 12y ago

lol well yea if i ran a company id want my competitors to hire women too. that way, my product would be superior in quality.

protonfish 12y ago

Maybe Joel needs to add another point to his "test" 13. Do you foster Junior/Mentor relationships?

onezeno 12y ago
And get rid of hallway usability tests.
- protonfish 12y ago
  Not sure why you think that. I have found getting feedback from team members before user testing finds a lot of low-hanging issues.
  - onezeno 12y ago
    I'd be okay if it just said "usability testing". In my company that's just a part of the testing phase. But no way I'm just going to grab someone walking down the hall. I assume people are busy enough.
    - lumpypua 12y ago
      > But no way I'm just going to grab someone walking down the hall. I assume people are busy enough. That seems like a kind of joyless approach to life.
    - ryanSrich 12y ago
      Is this meant to be taken literally? Fog Creek companies work remotely. How would you even physically grab someone in the hallway? As for how we do internal testing, we simply ask around on Slack and get a solid group of people to test for us before moving forward. Works out great.
marrs 12y ago
I genuinely think you should put that to him. Not enough organisations recognise the value of junior developers imo.
mason240 12y ago
What company is not going to check that box? I've worked for a company that claimed they did and it was always talked about internally in their "look how great our culture is" corporate-speak. Some developers even had the title of "mentor," but there wasn't any actual time allocated for it and no one ever took it seriously. In my entire time there I never met with my "mentor."
- s73v3r 12y ago
  The same can be said for just about every item on the Joel test

boothead 12y ago

Any softare company that has their developers working on a component called DonutCounter has my vote as an awesome palce to work! :-)

easytiger 12y ago

Headlines?

skywhopper 12y ago

I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's willingness to apply. And it probably will help, but that amount of experience is unlikely to change someone's basic perception of their ability to succeed in a high-stakes one-chance prove-yourself situation.

tghw 12y ago
It doesn't draw the connection directly, but part of the training program deals with technical interviews and getting the fellows more practice, and hopefully more comfort, with them. My guess is that once people have been through some mock interviews, the intimidation factor goes down quite a bit.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mason240 12y ago
>attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. This is classic horseshoe theory, where extremists on both ends of a spectrum actually wrap around and start to sound the same. In this case they both believe that women are delicate flowers who can't handle the pressure, stress, and competition of the working world like men can.
- cauterized 12y ago
  There's a difference between "lower self-confidence" and "can't handle pressure, stress, and competition". It's also possible that even women who have high self confidence in their abilities are less confident that they will be judged positively by others. There's plenty of research to the effect that men will apply to a job if they meet 40% of the listed requirements, whereas women won't until they meet 90%. And when you don't meet someone's default expectations of what kind of person a "software developer" (or a "nurse" or a "CEO") is, you often have to work harder to prove that you are one. But also, why does the working world have to be competitive rather than collaborative?

jnbiche 12y ago

I agree that lack of gender diversity in tech is an obvious problem, and I laud Fog Creek for trying to address this problem. However, I'd like to strongly emphasis the fact that one of the main problems Fog Creek identified as hindering the most talented female developers from applying to Fog Creek, is also a huge problem that prevents many of the most talented male developers from applying to Fog Creek. Ironically, these companies, with their legendarily difficult and arduous application processes, are selecting for mediocre developers: 1) We all know that the Dunning-Kruger effect is real: there's an abundance of quantified and repeatable psychological research that demonstrates that the least skilled individuals are on average the most likely to estimate their skill to be above average. Likewise, the most skilled individuals are the most cautious in estimating their skill level. So who applies for more of these types of jobs? Well, based on what I've heard, Google, Fog Creek, and many other top employers receive a huge number of grossly unqualified applicants. And while I'm sure they'd like to think they're getting the majority of their desired candidate pool to apply, research on Dunning-Kruger, as well as anecdotes like the one on the article, all suggest that's probably not the case. This isn't the first time I've read about a top employer asking a highly-desired employee why they'd never applied in the past, and receiving as an answer, "oh, I didn't think I'd make it through your interview process". (btw, I love watching these kinds of interactions) 2) The most qualified developers can make a nice consultant salary without ever having to go through the headache of a demeaning 5-day interview process that often treats developers like disposable commodities. Why would you want to subject yourself to that kind of process if you're making $100,000-200,000 a year as a contract software dev (which is the range my colleagues working contract tend to make, depending on their hours and expertise)? So whenever I get an email from employers like Facebook, I say thanks but no thanks. This is not to say that these employers never get highly-skilled employees. That's obviously not the case. But they get a very specific type of highly-skilled applicant: from top CS departments, coming right out of college. They're much less likely to get a highly-skilled dev to apply who has taken an alternate route to the top of his or her profession. So what happens on average? "Top" employers like Google, Facebook, and smaller "desirable" employers like Fog Creek, effectively scare off a large number of the devs they want the most, both male and female. And they simultaneously attract a large number of unqualified applicants. Yet again I ask: maybe the software developer interview process is completely broken? Are employers in enough pain yet that they're willing to revisit their hiring process? Or does it need to get worse?

geebee 12y ago

Several people have already mentioned it here, but I'm also very pleased to read this line: "Hall asked a simple question: Why didn't Chipps, a brilliant engineer, ever apply to work at Fog Creek? Chipps said she didn't think she would make it through their rigorous testing process." I do think that the grueling and intimidating software interview process is a very serious problem in our field. This one sentence hints at the extent of the harm.

mooreds 12y ago
It's tough though, because when you are a small company that expects developers to jump in and be productive, you do need some kind of process. That process can be referral based, in which case testing isn't as necessary because you can rely on past shared experience, but that obviously limits your talent pool. When you are interacting with an unknown (or a less known) person, you have to have some kind of vetting process. And with a small company culture, typically false negatives are far less harmful than false positives.
- protonfish 12y ago
  Only if you have a policy of not having positions for Junior programmers. Fog Creek has the same hypocrisy as any other company that demands X years of experience from applicants but consider it somebody else's problem how they get that.
  - thedufer 12y ago
    Until very recently, the vast majority of Fog Creek's devs came through the internship program. Which is restricted to people who are going back to school afterwards (and, with a few exceptions, is only for undergrads).
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    As a business owner who is a developer and hires developers: getting my experience was my responsibility. It's now yours. And you won't do it on my dime. I'm not in the business of using money to make developers. I'm in the business of using developers to make money. The jobs I offer are not because I want to give someone a job, they're because I want someone to come do a job for me.

matart 12y ago

As a younger male about to finish his software engineering degree and start applying I agree with these points. I am intimidated at the rigorous testing some companies use. I don't have the confidence that others might have in there ability. I am ultimately looking for a mentoring workplace ( just to start) where I can build my confidence quickly and start producing for the company.

marktangotango 12y ago
>>just to start One place I worked at had a senior dev slash architect who really enjoyed mentoring green developers. This company did tend to hire people straight out of college, and this guy was really good at bringing them up to speed. It was really quiet nice to behold. The problem was, the hires that were 'good' tended to leave after a year or two, leaving the less talented and motivated to muddle along. I think this is why you rarely see this nowadays.
- dripton 12y ago
  I don't think that has anything to do with mentorship. I think it's just that most companies don't give most young programmers big enough raises to reflect their increased value on the open market. Lots of companies don't want to hire new grads, so there's a significant price premium for hiring someone with a couple years of experience. The companies that are willing to hire new grads aren't always willing to give annual raises that reflect that price premium. So lots of programmers with a couple of years of experience see that they can get a 20% raise by switching jobs. So they switch jobs. (This happens with programmers later in their career too, but the difference between 8 and 10 years of experience is much less dramatic than the difference between 0 and 2. If a company gives the same annual raise to all its programmers in the same performance band regardless of experience, that raise may be too small for the newest ones, even if it's just right for the middle ones.)

png_hero 12y ago

30 person engineering team, and no junior devs?

LunaSea 12y ago
Chhht it's only ageism if it concerns older people. Paying older people arbitrarily more without any real reason is not an issue.

dominotw 12y ago

There is a war for Women Dev's in silicon valley. Google's HR head mentioned in a podcast that they are simply poaching female devs' from smaller players to get their diversity numbers up. This puts smaller players at a major disadvantage as VC's have started tying their funding with diversity numbers. There is no way a startup can compete directly with Goog for the female dev's who are in major short supply. This diversity madness is putting SV at a major disadvantage.

ForHackernews 12y ago
> This diversity madness is putting SV at a major disadvantage. On the contrary, evidence suggest Silicon Valley is putting itself at a disadvantage by failing to attract talented women. Other non-SV technology markets do far better: http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/women-tech-problem-silicon-valley.html http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/women-tech-problem-silico...
im2w1l 12y ago
If it's not too much trouble, could I ask for sources on 1) >Google's HR head mentioned in a podcast that they are simply poaching female devs' from smaller players to get their diversity numbers up. and 2) > VC's have started tying their funding with diversity numbers.
tomjen3 12y ago
If VC do anything but focus on getting investment in the best companies they are not fulfilling their fiduciary duty to their investors - even if that anything is saving starving children in Africa.

moron4hire 12y ago

I have a very small consulting company. Both of my employees right now were non-traditional students when they finished their CS degrees. Actually, I'm not even sure the one guy has finished his degree yet. Regardless, neither of them had their degrees when they started working for me. And honestly, I didn't really even know. I never asked them for a resume and they never provided one. I don't really test the people I hire. I get to know them on a personal level. I meet them at parties, at meetups, conferences, etc. I then ask if they'd like to make a little side money with a freelance gig. We talk about the work, and if the person says they can do it, I give them a task. A real task, it goes right into the project I'm working on. It usually takes about a week or two. And if they do a good job, I ask them to do more. If they don't, I pay them for the work they did, thank them, and don't mention they were ever interviewing for a more long-term relationship. This has been so incredibly much better of an experience than the hiring processes I was involved with as a working stiff. Resumes that don't say shit. Stupidly simplistic coding tests. Interviewing anxiety. All of it, a nightmare. And it didn't seem to make any difference. We would put more and more effort into hiring, to the point I was spending 10 to 15 hours interviewing and reviewing candidates a week, for weeks on end. It was having a detrimental impact on my performance, without any correlated impact on the performance of the people we hired. So when I went independent, I decided that, if the results are really, actually random, then that means the inputs have no impact. So I threw away the interviewing process. I just ask people, "can you do this job"? And really, I don't need to know anything else. That's what it all boils down to. They can lie on their resume just as much as they can lie to the question. They can cram on interview questions the night before. They can be really good at regurgitating academic theory but complete crap at thinking creatively. So I just ask, "can you do this job?" And then I let them prove it.

pkaye 12y ago
I think this method doesn't work in all situations. For example in embedded programming. First there are not many of those who actually work in this field so unlikely to just meet up with them. Most are stabily employed. Secondly, there is lots of proprietary hardware and knowledge. Third, hard to work on a trial job when you are already working. Lastly there are a good number of people who are just not skilled enough and will waste your time during the trial period.

xigency 12y ago

I applied for a job at Fog Creek Software in 2012 where I was accepted for an internship, and I would have to say the application process was difficult, but fair. I was told that there were hundreds of applicants, so being one of five interns selected seemed rather prestigious at the time, but it was still just an opportunity to work on my skills as a developer. I don't think there is anything that would preclude women from getting technical jobs at a company like Fog Creek except maybe, as was said in the article, a self-selecting attitude. These companies are looking for well-rounded individuals and people who are competent with their skills. It's nothing beyond impossibility to get a job there, it just takes determination.

NotOscarWilde 12y ago
> I applied for a job at Fog Creek Software in 2012 where I was accepted for an internship Does this mean you applied for a position but you were offered an internship instead?
- gecko 12y ago
  No; they don't do that. He means he applied for an internship and got an internship.

ssenko 12y ago

There is no diversity problem in tech.

ripb 12y ago

There are more women than men in employment in the US, where is the daily articles on that? And the effort to tackle that? And the constant shaming of companies that employ more women than men? There are 1.4x the amount of women graduating college than men. Where are the daily articles on that massive issue? Where is the effort to do something about that? Where is the constant headlines on how many more women are graduating than men, put in a very negative light as the lack of quote underlined "diversity" in the tech industry is? This absolute, unrelenting and incredibly transparent (tech = money, status currently) narrative being sharted at everyone in the tech industry on a daily basis is driving me toward getting out of it altogether. But hey, lets ignore some massive issues on the table in favour of constantly debating why women who never showed an interest in the industry can't pick and choose the finest and most well paid positions in that industry and see where that gets society in 10 years' time.

krschultz 12y ago
This absolute, unrelenting and incredibly transparent (tech = money, status currently) narrative being sharted at everyone in the tech industry on a daily basis is driving me toward getting out of it altogether. It's not being thrown at the tech industry. It's people within the industry calling out the problem that we have. It's very telling that you think of the industry as a community under siege.
- ripb 12y ago
  >It's not being thrown at the tech industry. It's people within the industry calling out the problem that we have. It's very telling that you think of the industry as a community under siege. Actually, the vast majority of it is being carried out by people on the fringe of the industry in roles as "journalists" and similar who've never spent a day working within it. And yes, I see the tech industry as being under siege.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
Fomite 12y ago

tempestn 12y ago

> Fog Creek doesn't get any immediate benefits I'd say articles like this one are pretty significant benefits. I doubt they overlooked the PR benefits of this program. (Which of course doesn't mean it isn't still a great thing. Just that "no benefit" is a bit of a stretch.)