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U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#431

Post by pps43 »

smnscu wrote: post #415
sokoloff wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent The "tell" that I'm primarily relying upon is that you often drop articles where a US-native speaker would use them. Just one example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13197570 (that was as far back as I went) I think most native US speakers would use "the gun industry" and "the film industry". Several later comments drop an "an" or "a" article as well. You also have a habit of using a comma splice rather…

That was an incredibly obvious example. My favorite telltale sign for native English speakers is the rampant misspelling of trivialities like it(')s, you(')r(e), etc. I've seen so many well educated peers fail at basic grammar, or misspelling common words (e.g. electrisity, from a CS undergrad) that I'm comfortable making this generalization.

The question was not whether I'm a native English speaker (obviously not), but whether I was educated in the US. I believe the latter is a much harder question.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#432

Post by dawnbreez »

wallace_f wrote: post #256
Frondo wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what, though? If we actually had equality of opportunity, it doesn't seem like we'd see the kind of disparity we do. Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. But then, when I listen to the stories women in tech (for example) tell, and they do tell a LOT of the same stories, it's clear we're p…

>it doesn't seem like Unfortunately, in our political climate one side of this debate has people who can say, "it seems like" and that's it. "It seems like" [...] 'we have a huge problem of sexism and racism' and if you argue against that you're this evil monster, as you described: >most people [don't] even give a shit about equality of opportunity, even those who pay lip service to it. I think most people don't want…

>Unfortunately, in our political climate one side of this debate has people who can say, "it seems like" and that's it.

The joke is that everybody does that. Most people are just totally blind to their own side's issues.

Now watch as people begin commenting to say that their side isn't like that..,

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#433

Post by uiri »

dijit wrote: post #406
deathanatos wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone whose both given and taken several interviews, this is highly abnormal. (Though, I'm essentially WASP, so perhaps I don't receive them.) There is (IMO) no legitimate reason to ask questions of race or ethnicity in a interview for a software engineer or similar (as it's simply irrelevant) … especially in today's world where we're trying to fix any discrimination in the field.

I have asked "are you eligible to work in " if their current location is outside of the country or it is known they are not citizens. Which I guess would be a question about race? in a way? I wouldn't ask a white person who spoke swedish and had a very swedish name as I'd assume they are swedish by birth.

Race, color, national origin and citizenship are all protected classes which are illegal to discriminate against in the US.

Race is orthogonal to nationality and citizenship. Especially in countries of immigrants like the US and Canada.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#434

Post by dijit »

uiri wrote: post #433
dijit wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have asked "are you eligible to work in " if their current location is outside of the country or it is known they are not citizens. Which I guess would be a question about race? in a way? I wouldn't ask a white person who spoke swedish and had a very swedish name as I'd assume they are swedish by birth.

Race, color, national origin and citizenship are all protected classes which are illegal to discriminate against in the US. Race is orthogonal to nationality and citizenship. Especially in countries of immigrants like the US and Canada.

OK, but if you're interviewing over skype with me and your name is Abdullah Izrahim and your address is Dubai... it's not unreasonable for me to ask if you're able to work in the EU...

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#435

Post by michael_bluth »

johnward wrote: post #428
jdavis703 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One white guy told me his buddies used the word "nigger," and why was this such a big deal? Another person started off saying "I can't ask you anything illegal, so let me ask you this," took a long pause, which was then followed up by a programming puzzle about monkeys. None of these questions were flat out illegal to ask, but from other software engineering interviews I've been in they're certainly not standard ques…

This happened at an interview? I find this highly unlikely. Maybe I'm just in my own bubble but I just can't imagine this scenario.

I'm having trouble believing anything he's said so far ...

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#436

Post by michael_bluth »

moduspol wrote: post #267
Frondo wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, the problem is bigger than a company. It goes deep, society-deep. And I don't think anyone would say "poor black kids have a fair shake, right up until Oracle doesn't hire them". Of course not. Some groups get shafted from birth, by being born into poor communities, by being born into communities where the police split their heads for looking the way they do. You're right, it's not just on some tech com…

> What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!" It's because we've been in roles in companies like these, dealt with diversity and hiring policies that seemed ineffective, counter-intuitive, and bureaucratic, yet there still always seems to be this cloud over us that assumes we're all secretly just racist…

Well put, moduspol

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#437

Post by talmand »

dsr_ wrote: post #413
wallace_f wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break. You are insane if you think auto mechanics, miners, truck drivers, plumbers, construction workers, landscapers, or working on fishing vessels, or other physically demanding, laborious jobs, are not preferred more by men than women. 5 women and 1 court case (and no lawyer ever set up a lawsuit like that, right?) does not change all of those facts. You need to realize that your worldview and own person…

The heaviest thing an auto mechanic typically lifts is a tire. Everything else is going to be lifted by a hoist, because no human, male or female, can pull an engine out of a car. Auto mechanic is, in fact, a skilled job involving a mental model of a very complex system, diagnosis, testing, research, and tool usage. Modern mining is done primarily by machines which are tended to by mechanics. Ever wonder why there ar…

I'm curious as to how you would address the industries that are heavily female with males being underrepresented. Is there institutional bias in those instances?

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#438

Post by driverdan »

foo101 wrote: post #315
driverdan wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can get a job at Oracle you can get a job somewhere else. Why would you choose Oracle over the other company?

Are you serious? Do you work for Oracle or have you taken their interviews? Oracle has many many departments. Do you know about Server Technologies (the RDBMS department)? When I applied for Oracle Server Technologies in 2016, I found their interviews to be of the same difficulty level as that of Amazon and Google. They expect a single candidate to know everything from real world work involving Linux kernel details a…

Did you misread my question? If Oracle is as hard to get into as Google or Amazon as you claim then you can get past an interview at another company too. There's no reason to choose Oracle.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#439

Post by aswanson »

sqlplus wrote: post #292
aswanson wrote: post #181

Who in their right mind would want to work for oracle in 2017? That's like fighting for a gig at DEC circa 1997. They're doing candidates a favor by refusing them entrance on the Titanic.

I am a fierce critic of Oracle ( see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13432376 ). But I know many people who in their right mind would want to work for Oracle. * People who love RDBMS technology. Oracle's Database division is big and has a lot of veteran and very skilled software developers and architects who work with the Database kernel code. New employees can also work on this code. I am sure a lot of people w…

Sounds like interesting work, thanks for the insight.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#440

Post by xtreme »

ergothus wrote: post #84
bduerst wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B workers can, and routinely do, switch companies. Their new employer has only to file the paperwork to transfer their visa, so your assumptions about retaining H1B workers are not very accurate.

I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but I've had experiences at both ends of the H1B chain. In one workplace & location in the US: The H1B workers were...not very good. Adequate, and hard working, but not highly skilled and they were brought in mainly because the location didn't want to/couldn't pay wages good enough to hire skilled US-based talent. There the H1B workers were (in general) fearful and unwilling to c…

I think creating a separate visa category for students graduating from US institutions would be useful. Currently F-1 students who intend to stay back and work in the US get lumped together with incoming H1B workers. I am not saying that foreign educated workers are worse, just that it is a useful distinction to make.
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