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

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

#61

Post by munificent »

kazinator wrote: post #25
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #15

Disclaimer/warning: Straight white male responding. But it seems to me that an environment that is toxic for women is also an environment that I would find at least somewhat toxic - not because the crap is hitting me , but because there's a bunch of crap. So what I look for might be useful to you. I'm older - 55 - and some of what I have is just "hey, this feels like that place that I worked, and it was pretty crummy…

Free beer is an attractor only to completely stupid people. Stupid, on multiple fronts. Firstly, even if you like beer, it's bad for your health to have daily, unfettered access to it. Secondly, it's cheap. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together puts an objective dollar value on these sorts of free perks. A beer is worth so many dollars; how many a week of them could you reasonably enjoy? You'd be stupid to be p…

> Firstly, even if you like beer, it's bad for your health to have daily, unfettered access to it.

Only if you lack the maturity and self control to handle that.

In my home, I have daily, unfettered access to bourbon, gin, beer, wine, tequila, and more. And, yet I am as healthy as I have ever been. Because I'm an adult and don't choose to get wasted every day simply because I can.

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

#62

Post by notalaser »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #51
notalaser wrote: post #35

Full disclosure: white dude, not a minority of any kind in my country. Five years ago, I would have said that the percentage of women in an office isn't necessarily a good indicator of anything. Nowadays, this would be my first advice: ask how many women work there. With maybe one exception, all the places I've worked in that had very few women were terrible places to work in. Most of them were unpleasant to work in…

At what scale does this advice start? I worked for and with a few almost-all-male startups that just hadn't run into female hires in their first year / ±10 employees. Great work environments, ended up hiring women in the following years.

Good point -- that's one of the reasons why I think it's "just" a red flag. The one place that I mentioned what exactly like that -- small company, couldn't afford too much wage, hiring mostly students or fresh graduates, often based on recommendations. The structure of the team was largely a reflection of our own social networks and of the bias inherent in hiring third-year students. For almost an year, it was a six-man effort. There was only one woman in our team.

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

#63

Post by watwut »

thex10 wrote: post #30

I am a woman of color and to be honest I totally lucked into it. From the perspective that I work for a large, old company: * Get a sense of how the company embraces (or doesn't embrace) flexible work arrangements. Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids and make up the hours that night or on a different day without having to jump through hoops and/or get looked at like they have two heads? My theo…

Hm, there might be something on this. Best workplace I was at had dudes working 4 days out of five because of personal activities that fifth day - no repercussions. People tended to do their own thing in a lot of ways.

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

#64

Post by dang »

blmportland wrote: post #50

That's so racist. And why are you even answering, you're a fucking white male.

We've banned this account for trolling. Posting like this will eventually get your main account banned as well.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14490968 and marked it off-topic.

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

#65

Post by mariani »

cbanek wrote: post #33

Woman in high pressure tech here. First, the most important person is your direct manager. Ask recruiters specifically "did I meet with the person I'd be reporting to? If not I would like to meet them." This is the most key person, and if they are not your ally, no matter what the rest of the company thinks, you are sunk. Ask about other women at the company, or if the team has had women but they've left. If they thi…

+1 direct manager importance

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

#66

Post by striking »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #51
notalaser wrote: post #35

Full disclosure: white dude, not a minority of any kind in my country. Five years ago, I would have said that the percentage of women in an office isn't necessarily a good indicator of anything. Nowadays, this would be my first advice: ask how many women work there. With maybe one exception, all the places I've worked in that had very few women were terrible places to work in. Most of them were unpleasant to work in…

At what scale does this advice start? I worked for and with a few almost-all-male startups that just hadn't run into female hires in their first year / ±10 employees. Great work environments, ended up hiring women in the following years.

Yeah, if the company is less than ten people, I'd say that's probably fine. Even though it hasn't been all too difficult for our team (I think the parent poster meant companies that have had a chance to choose from a large and diverse group of people; but have ended up hiring people of only one, less diverse group anyway; whether by making poor choices or by driving away the other groups of people.

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

#67

Post by jarmitage »

mysterydip wrote: post #54
jarmitage wrote: post #44

Ideas for questions - What % non-white male at junior, senior, management, executive and board levels? - Are all employees bias trained? - What is an example of an equality issue the company faced in the last year and how did they respond? - What is the pay gap between genders, and if not equal and when will it be equal? - How is the company contributing to addressing industry wide systematic bias? (meetups, philanth…

While these are all important questions, I wonder if there's a different way to word them. My first reaction if I was looking to hire would be "this candidate is looking to make waves, better find someone else that won't be constantly emailing HR." And I know that's not what you're meaning.

Yep, ideas quickly noted down, not suggestions for wording or approach to communication!

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

#68

Post by watwut »

_b8r0 wrote: post #21

I understand where you're coming from entirely, but I think that if you approach your search with the same approach that came across in your post, you're never going to find anything that'll make you happy. Other people might accuse you of having an attitude, but to me it looks like a combination of frustration and exasperation. If you're looking to not experience something, you're not focused on the experience you w…

The thing is, spending few months in an environment where they underestimate you every time it matters or pick on you daily is quite a hit and it is good idea to avoid it. Among other things, the way you need to behave there is different (don't speak unless 150% sure, don't brainstorm, don't be creative, don't problem solve) and then it takes effort to unlearn those habits - that affects you even more then it being unpleasant.

Especially if you are young and should be learning from seniors. While it can happen to anyone (including proverbial white dudes - really I have seen that) a women is more at risk.

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

#69

Post by eof »

tptacek wrote: post #12
galkk wrote: post #7

I do think that you should change your attitude first, and try to expect best from people, not the worst. I worked in 3 of big4 (Google/Microsoft/Amazon) and you need to try hard to find any harassing environment. Usually, if it's bad, it's bad for everyone, due to project/managerial conditions. All companies have trainings that teach you to prevent harrasment and give ways to report it. Especially now, when woman ca…

But yeah, original poster, totally don't worry that the culture you're considering moving into might be hostile to your presence.

Being concerned is not the same thing as acting from the assumption that everywhere is fucked and finding non-toxic culture is like a needle in a haystack.

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

#70

Post by tptacek »

eof wrote: post #69
tptacek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But yeah, original poster, totally don't worry that the culture you're considering moving into might be hostile to your presence.

Being concerned is not the same thing as acting from the assumption that everywhere is fucked and finding non-toxic culture is like a needle in a haystack.

My point, which I made a little snarkily, is that these aggressive responses to the concern, which judge the concerned person simply for asking the question, are part of what creates the perception that SFBA is hostile.
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