Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

It is extremely common for something like "women-friendly policies" to be code for "we talk a good game, so shut the fuck up and quit making us look bad, you whiny bitch."

I do not have a tech job, but I have taken classes on things like social psychology. Attempts to address sexism, racism, etc often suffers from a problem of tokenism. This is not just the problem described in Dedeh Howard's "Black Mirror" of "We already have one black model on staff, so there is no room for you" but also just looking good superficial BS that amounts to metaphorically including pink decor, but not actually promoting women or taking them seriously.

At some point, I saw an article on HN by a woman who wrote that, no, she will not show up at your thing and be the woman talking about women in tech. It isn't her area of expertise. If you want her there to talk about the actual tech she actually knows something about, she is happy to sign up for that. But, no, she won't give speeches on women in tech. This is a widespread form of tokenism where women in tech only get invited to talk about the issues women in tech face for being women in tech while never being invited to actually talk about tech per se. It is hugely soul sucking and suffers from the problem of being belittling and demeaning in a way that makes it hard to rebut or complain about.

I am a woman working in operations. Here is my opinion. It's just an opinion, but it's something.

I don't think work environments are singular entities that should be read as a whole. They consist of stories, experiences, individuals and the like. I apologize if this comes across as condescending. But I think you are feeding a personal bias or fear, and that you may limit yourself by thinking too broadly about the topic.

Think of your goal from the contrary. Even if during an interview, someone you are getting along with -- or someone you get "good vibes" from -- says exactly what you want to hear and you leave feeling awesome and respected, that cannot guarantee an absence of toxicity in the future.

So why even have a formal vetting process, I wonder? What more depth can you possibly get from a process like this? People come and go. People change. People make mistakes. People project their own insecurities. People have differing opinions and cultures. Unfortunately, that includes differing treatment of minorities in some cases.

I'm not trying to be a sympathizer to anyone who is bigoted, but human nature is unavoidable. Instead of trying to protect myself indefinitely (impossible, imo) I empower myself by reminding myself that I have a choice too.

If I'm uncomfortable or if I feel something is toxic to the extent that my personal life is going into shambles, I don't need to defend myself. I just make changes that are good for me. I'll turn down the job offer where I got 'bad vibes' or, if I'm already employed and going through discrimination that can't be solved by civil conversation or HR, I'll seek employment elsewhere -- I don't mean to imply jumping from job-to-job is easy, though. But if I'm really that miserable, it's probably worth it. Then -- I'll try to be wary of the things that made me miserable, and be mindful of them in future interviews/jobs, with the full expectation that things may change for better or worse.

It all comes down to compromise; and everyone has their limits.

I could use my own experiences to try and tell you how to read people or vet them but... it simply wouldn't be relevant to you as an individual. Ultimately, there are far too many subjective variables at play. If I rattle on and on about "red flags I learned from being sexually harassed", I'd be worried I'd give you irrelevant things to be biased about.

It sounds like you know which things you want to avoid. So I'd suggest to be candid, and initiate conversations such as "How does your team deal with discrimination? Have you ever had to deal with toxicity against a certain minority?" You have every right to want to discuss these things, but only YOU can determine what a 'non BS' answer is.

tl;dr ... YMMV. Be wary of personal biases. Try to be pragmatic, and maybe determine a list of "deal-breakers" for your workplace's social life / experience.

> I feel like I keep getting the same canned PR response of how great the culture is (for assumedly white dudes)

I am not sure what being white has to do with anything -- I find it a bit worrying that you're concerned about discrimination but are placing blame on one race and sex so easily. Don't play the same game you are expressing distaste for. That is not fair to yourself or anyone else.

Hopefully my perspective helps. Again sorry if this comes off as condescending, I mean the best, I'm just not super great with compassion in text. Good luck out there.

I think that emphasis on passion during interview suggest culture that takes tech more like identity affair then pragmatic one. It probably means a lot of overtime because people signal passion by staying late and planning/negotiation are cold. It means choosing cool tech instead of good tech. It means a lot of semi mandatory out of work activities.

This has nothing to do with gender, but one might prefer something different.

I've given up finding that great company culture. Bro cultures, and yes even female jealousy, but the dealbreaker for me is work inflexibility. I get utterly exhausted working in open office environments, and I swing from absolutely crap in small talk to excitable gushing about last night's TV (that nobody watches.) People apparently don't like randomised personalities! I figured that the life of a salaryperson may just be wrong for me...

Now I split my time 30:30:30 on contracting, developing my edtech baby and reading/ art/ learning. The 10% is allocated for family and the blue days.

At the risk of misleading others, please remember that every person has a unique pattern. It seems a lot like retiring but believe me it's not haha. I have to work extra hard in finding and maintaining my contracts, just so I can support my edtech project with enough cash and time.

And, although flexibility is what I was looking for, it's very easy to become idle. In the first few months, I struggled - but this I suppose is a much needed exercise in taming my short attention span (!) It's still too early to tell - it's been ten months now - but as an individual, learner and founder, I think I'm happier and made far more progress than before. And at last my baby is growing! ;)

Hmm. So I ran away rather than deal with toxic/ mediocre environments ... but perhaps this is the best!

>I'm starting to think that there's something more insidious going on with an almost aggressively enforced "open office" culture in high tech.

Hanlon's razor is useful here. The most likely reason for open offices isn't because of discrimination; it's simply cheaper to pack everyone in a single room than to give everyone a space of their own.