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We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#261

Post by [deleted] »

artpepper wrote: post #216
hueving wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supply of women with related degrees from uni is too low. If only 20% of the candidates qualified on paper are women, then a perfectly blind hiring process would result in 20% women. Expecting something else implies some fundamental misunderstanding of math.

But something is driving women out of CS programs (unless you buy the argument that women just aren't interested in programming). Steps that make the profession as a whole less biased against women, might also help to encourage more women to major in CS.

[deleted]

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#262

Post by randyrand »

xenadu02 wrote: post #226
randyrand wrote: post #209

Someone off-topic but: Laws forbidding sexual and racial discrimination in hiring are a waste for everyone's time involved. Do I really want to work alongside someone that "isn't racist" or sexist just because the law forbids it? No of course not. I'd rather work next to people that aren't racist and sexists regardless of if the law forbids it. I want to work at companies where people actually want me. How difficult…

You are clearly completely incorrect... Like so obviously incorrect I'm almost shocked to see such a comment here on HN. Making discrimination illegal sends a social signal that the behavior is bad and shouldn't be tolerated. It emboldens those who are slightly anti-discrimination (but part of the majority group) to speak out against it instead of following the herd. The few cases where actual discrimination cases ar…

I disagree.

I don't think by making it illegal very much is done to actually combat the way people feel. Look at Trump's success. If anything the social justice type movements over the past few decades have only increased Trump's success.

So for questionable gain, you are forcing people to waste everyone's interview time, and -- god forbid if they are hired by racist/sexist people -- waste potentially months and years of their life.

yes you can prosecute after the fact. But You will never get those years back. It would be much more preferable to have taken another job in the first place.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#263

Post by etjossem »

killface wrote: post #218
onion2k wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some companies who believe an equal workplace should be 50% of each gender then you're right, but that doesn't make the system pointless. The idea of a "gender bias-free" hiring process isn't necessarily to make workplaces more equal or to promote diversity. The point is simply to remove a bias - to eliminate something that pushes you to hire someone who isn't the best candidate. Having a bias drives you to make…

But implicit in that "gender bias-free" hiring is the assumption that current hiring is gender biased to the point of needing technical solutions that simply remove the human element. If you have a manager who thinks women can't code, and you institute a blind hiring process, you're just going to put that newly-hired woman under a manager who thinks women can't code? What then? It really feels like the end solution t…

> you're just going to put that newly-hired woman under a manager who thinks women can't code

Yes. The problem is that the manager thinks women can't code, and the best way to solve that is to prove him wrong.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#264

Post by sdml »

hasenj wrote: post #237
alansmitheebk wrote: post #219

This is ridiculous. At some point we need to face up to the reality that most women in the US are just not interested in working in technology. There is no evil conspiracy to keep women out of tech. Maybe high school guidance counselors and parents don't encourage women to go into tech. Maybe there is someone to blame, but it's not the tech industry's fault.

or D. A female who is not in the top 30% in terms of facial attractiveness (or is socially impaired for other reasons).

How critically are you judging the facial attractiveness and "social impairement" of male developers?

This is a completely useless comment, and exactly the sexist kind of attitude that drives women out of tech.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#265

Post by School-Cotton »

killface wrote: post #215
xienze wrote: post #147

I honestly feel like this sort of thing is a waste of time. Let's pretend someone invents the perfect "gender bias-free" system: no names, no faces, voices are flawlessly transcribed on-the-fly so you can't pick up on speech patterns. What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear. So, stop wasting time w…

I am with you 100%. We keep trying to invent ways to skew the hiring towards women. Let's just stop trying to candy-coat it. You want gender ratios, so just hire based on gender ratios and deal with the fallout. This narrative that women are somehow grossly discriminated against in tech doesn't hold water anywhere I see. Every tech company is desperate to hire more women engineers to increase their diversity quotient…

> You want gender ratios, so just hire based on gender ratios and deal with the fallout.

That would be illegal, at least in the US.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#266

Post by etjossem »

omginternets wrote: post #175
xienze wrote: post #147

I honestly feel like this sort of thing is a waste of time. Let's pretend someone invents the perfect "gender bias-free" system: no names, no faces, voices are flawlessly transcribed on-the-fly so you can't pick up on speech patterns. What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear. So, stop wasting time w…

I'm always surprised by the strong underlying assumption that removing interviewer/managerial bias will result in a gender ratio of 50%. There's research to suggest that this assumption is flawed: [0] Moreover, the idea that anatomy and physiology don't condition preferences or behaviors flies in the face of everything we know about human biology and (embodied) cognition. Let's recognize gender/feminist theory for wh…

20% of CS degrees are awarded to women, but they get only 10% of entry-level software jobs.

Please stop blaming the pipeline for the difference. Interested, qualified women are being pushed away from the field by bias and attrition, and that's a problem we should be trying to solve.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#267

Post by sah2ed »

aphextron wrote: post #107
Bartweiss wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a particularly interesting one, because it's not susceptible to the usual charges of "no one cares because it's low pay/status". If you look to radiology rather than surgery, the gender imbalance is enormous. Suddenly we're looking at gender skew in two highly technical, prestigious, lucrative fields, and seeing that they prompt totally different types and amounts of discussion.

It's almost as if men and women have some fundamental differences in psychology that affect their preferred choice of career.

There's a documentary titled Brainwash: The Gender Equality Paradox that explored those differences [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#268

Post by etjossem »

omginternets wrote: post #221
xenadu02 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one introducing a 50% number, I haven't seen anyone make that assertion. There are structural problems that make the available talent pool unequal per-capita anyway (women being socially pressured out of software engineering, resulting in a lack of role models, etc. I'm sure there are plenty of other factors). Part of changing the dynamic will take decades because _currently_ a smaller percentage of all wo…

> You're the one introducing a 50% number, I haven't seen anyone make that assertion. "Gender gap" is a fancy way of saying "not 50%". More to the point, assumptions are often unstated, as I'm sure you know. I agree with you insofar as the mechanisms you point out are likely contributers to this so-called gap. Rather, I'm highlighting that -- unpopular though this notion may be in certain circles -- part of this effe…

> "Gender gap" is a fancy way of saying "not 50%".

No. Gender gap is underrepresentation relative to the qualified labor market. Right now the gender ratio in entry-level software engineering jobs does not represent the segment that would be interested in and qualified for them (CS grads).

The 10% difference between grads and junior developers is on us to fix.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#269

Post by whyaduck »

omginternets wrote: post #221
xenadu02 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one introducing a 50% number, I haven't seen anyone make that assertion. There are structural problems that make the available talent pool unequal per-capita anyway (women being socially pressured out of software engineering, resulting in a lack of role models, etc. I'm sure there are plenty of other factors). Part of changing the dynamic will take decades because _currently_ a smaller percentage of all wo…

> You're the one introducing a 50% number, I haven't seen anyone make that assertion. "Gender gap" is a fancy way of saying "not 50%". More to the point, assumptions are often unstated, as I'm sure you know. I agree with you insofar as the mechanisms you point out are likely contributers to this so-called gap. Rather, I'm highlighting that -- unpopular though this notion may be in certain circles -- part of this effe…

In practice, companies that are attempting to address the "gender gap" seriously are well aware of what the labor market looks like. Realistic goals are set to attempt to have the company's workers mirror the market - and not just in the broad "software engineer" category, but for skill levels within the org. "Bottom-up biological factors" aren't germane to the process.

Addressing disparity in the pipeline is a separate issue.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#270

Post by mplewis »

mpweiher wrote: post #260
artpepper wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But something is driving women out of CS programs (unless you buy the argument that women just aren't interested in programming). Steps that make the profession as a whole less biased against women, might also help to encourage more women to major in CS.

Why do you find that 'argument' hard to buy? I find it trivially true from observation and all empirical data I can find (if you remove the absolute)

Because without data, it's a circular argument.

"Women aren't interested in programming, so none of them go into programming professionally.

Why don't women go into programming professionally? Because they aren't interested."

Separate out whether women are interested from whether women are being forced out for other reasons (harassment, gender imbalance in the field, etc).

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