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You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#191

Post by noobiemcfoob »

ori_b wrote: post #119
avita1 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without sounding condescending, how old are you? I had my head more "fundamentals of CS" when I was just leaving school and also never failed a technical interview. After spending some time in industry, I don't think about those types of problems as much. If I were to do the same technical interviews I did back then today, I'm almost certain I wouldn't do as well.

I'm 29, and I'd say I'm much better at CS fundamentals today than I was when I was just graduating school.

I feel similarly, yet I'd agree with the parent that I'd do worse on a technical interview by virtue of not practicing the common toy problems.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#192

Post by mzw_mzw »

ucarion wrote: post #165
throwaway420 wrote: post #148

I'm waiting with great anticipation for the politically correct outcry to solve the problem of not enough women being represented in the mining, construction, sanitation, logging, or deep sea fishing industries, or for there be a popular movement to get more men into teaching or nursing where they're also dramatically underrepresented there. Let's see if there's any intellectual honesty here, or maybe there's somethi…

It's not just political correctness. The socially optimal future is one in which anyone, regardless of race and gender, can become a software engineer. Someday, we're going to put in effort to move from our current world to this better future. Software engineering is a highly-desirable, well-paying, forward-looking job and it's still early days. Why not give it a shot? There are of course many PC-police types who can…

>Why not give it a shot?

A) because the evidence of institutionalized discrimination in the field is scanty at best.

B) because the techniques suggested for "giving it a shot" frequently involve cruel social manipulation, elimination of meritocracy, and accusing innocent people of sexism or even sexual assault.

C) because "giving it a shot" also suspiciously often involves handing over money and power to sociopaths who spend their time agitating and attacking others, not writing software.

Look -- the bad guys have poisoned the well, here. If you genuinely and sincerely think the industry needs to change, the first people you're going to have to go through to make it happen are the ones who claim they're on your side.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#193

Post by johncolanduoni »

finid wrote: post #162
xorgar831 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this, if you don't have that level of representation it leads to social problems down the line. The bloodshed in Iran and Iraq are shining examples of the extremes of what can happen. Democracy only works as much as it can provide an outlet for friction from different groups by allowing them an equal share of the system.

The bloodshed in Iran and Iraq are shining examples of the extremes of what can happen. That leaves me scratching my head. I know that Iraq is a mess, but how is that because of diversity, or lack of it? And about Iran. There's bloodshed there?

The link I can see is when some religious/ethnic group has disproportionate representation in government.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#194

Post by aries1980 »

mrkurt wrote: post #22
forgottenpass wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe age has turned me into a cynic Nah man. Even a half-honest business person will tell you the business incentive for making and funding diversity goals is about expanding the hiring pool. The fact it overlaps with a popular social goal is just an added bonus for marketing and internal feel-good. Maybe the businesses are true believers in diversity, or maybe they're cold, calculating, and just hiring the true bel…

The individuals probably are acting on a moral belief, but an organization can't do things out of the goodness of its heart.

> but an organization can't do things out of the goodness of its heart.

Why not?

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#195

Post by mzw_mzw »

theoh wrote: post #151
throwaway420 wrote: post #148

I'm waiting with great anticipation for the politically correct outcry to solve the problem of not enough women being represented in the mining, construction, sanitation, logging, or deep sea fishing industries, or for there be a popular movement to get more men into teaching or nursing where they're also dramatically underrepresented there. Let's see if there's any intellectual honesty here, or maybe there's somethi…

If certain activities have a huge effect on how the world operates, which is kind of the premise of Y Combinator (software is eating the world, etc.) then it's important that the people who call the shots are representative of the people who are affected. This has to happen from the bottom up, since for obvious reasons you can't parachute in "untrained diversity" at a management/strategy level.

I would hope we're not parachuting in "untrained diversity" at the lower levels, either. Everyone should be held to the same standards.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#196

Post by Yhippa »

Terr_ wrote: post #184
throwaway420 wrote: post #148

I'm waiting with great anticipation for the politically correct outcry to solve the problem of not enough women being represented in the mining, construction, sanitation, logging, or deep sea fishing industries, or for there be a popular movement to get more men into teaching or nursing where they're also dramatically underrepresented there. Let's see if there's any intellectual honesty here, or maybe there's somethi…

> mining, construction, sanitation, logging, or deep sea fishing industries Given that we're talking about "tech", I think your argument would be stronger if you used examples where physical strength is seldom an important factor in job-performance.

> teaching or nursing

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#197

Post by mzw_mzw »

Animats wrote: post #5

The big result there is this: "Poor performances in technical interviewing happen to most people, even people who are generally very strong. However, when we looked at our data, we discovered that after a poor performance, women are 7 times more likely to stop practicing than men." On the hiring side, "For the specific case of an online job posting, on average, 1,000 individuals will see a job post, 200 will begin th…

>Given that level of rejection, the key here is to get women to know the odds and keep trying.

Now that's an important fact that tends to get overlooked. Ninety-nine percent of the agitation about increasing "representation" tends to focus on accusing everyone of misogyny and attempting to destroy existing culture. But increasing the confidence level of female applicants, so they aren't put off by immediate rejection, could be a much less destructive way of achieving the goal.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#198

Post by ryanx435 »

douche wrote: post #161
throwaway420 wrote: post #148

I'm waiting with great anticipation for the politically correct outcry to solve the problem of not enough women being represented in the mining, construction, sanitation, logging, or deep sea fishing industries, or for there be a popular movement to get more men into teaching or nursing where they're also dramatically underrepresented there. Let's see if there's any intellectual honesty here, or maybe there's somethi…

There are efforts to try to get more men into teaching and nursing. Unfortunately, teaching pays shit and requires a four year degree and student teaching to get a teaching certificate, so it's not the most attractive option. Those other blue-collar traditionally masculine jobs have a hard dependency on brute strength that most women can't satisfy. Physiology is almost as cruel a mistress as physics.

a large part of construction is now entirely machine based. how much strength does it take to drive a dump truck? or operate a crane? or drive a bulldozer?

the answer is that it is the same amount as driving an every day car: almost none.

I don't know enough about the other industries to comment.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#199

Post by pzh »

zigzigzag wrote: post #90
pzh wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I remember reading that Google and Amazon engineers have an average time on the job of about 1 year. It seems most people just want to work there so they can put it on their resume, or maybe once they pass the interview process, they are confronted with the reality that not all jobs there are so glamorous--e.g. people probably imagine they'd be working side by side with Jeff Dean and his likes, but then the…

Without a doubt that stat is because these companies have grown so fast. It's not that people leave after a year, it's that they have added tons of engineers in the last year (and have done so repeatedly for the last few years). I worked at Google. Turnover was really low. 10 year average stay doesn't sound unreasonable for me if you select only the employees that have left.

Maybe I misunderstand the metric, but isn't turnout calculated as the average tenure of people who leave? If the companies just add more engineers, this shouldn't affect the metric (unless you also count the tenure of people who are actually still working there, but that doesn't sound like a good way to estimate churn rate...)

If that's the case, it seems there is quite a bit of confusion about this: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-07-29/why-are-g...

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#200

Post by kasey_junk »

throwaway420 wrote: post #148

I'm waiting with great anticipation for the politically correct outcry to solve the problem of not enough women being represented in the mining, construction, sanitation, logging, or deep sea fishing industries, or for there be a popular movement to get more men into teaching or nursing where they're also dramatically underrepresented there. Let's see if there's any intellectual honesty here, or maybe there's somethi…

Personally I'm happy to make an argument that given a lack of evidence that gender plays a negative roll, we have a moral imperative to eliminate unfair and discriminatory barriers to entry because its the right thing to do.

But lets say that isn't a compelling argument for you. Our industry has a disastrous success rate. Something is wrong. Most software is not getting written correctly, on time, or on budget. On top of this, it is nearly impossible to fill positions with qualified applicants.

Given that, there is a pretty strong argument that we should change the way we hire software developers and an obvious way to change it is to be more inclusive. If the current population isn't getting the job done, lets open the population up to others.

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