Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 510 posts

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#161

Post by StargazyPi »

Zikes wrote: post #58
StargazyPi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you pick out any problems in particular pointed out in this article, that are more frequently picked up on by women? Most of the common ones seem to be a company or manager's words not matching their actions. The sample sizes I've experienced may be fairly small so far (very few female colleagues, as ever), but I've seen men and women leave in equal measure for that type of transgression.

I don't know of any studies, anecdotes aren't data, and I don't know of any particular issues listed in the article that might affect women more than men. The only point I'm trying to make is the obvious one: men and women are different. It's a stupid point, taken at face value, but it's one that seems to get lost every time someone says "but men face those same issues" or "that doesn't seem like a gendered issue to…

Yeah, I agree that on aggregate, men and women have subtly different tendencies.

The reason I bring it up though, is that I don't see or experience any particular​ bias around most of the the issues in the article. Most of the points raised really don't seem like gendered issues.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#162

Post by warcher »

ck425 wrote: post #81
warcher wrote: post #16

I am (perhaps naively) encouraged at the familiarity of these engineers' daily gripes. That's progress, haha.

Hmm my takeaway from the familiarity was that it's harder for woman to manage up, which sucks. :(

I'm curious if you have a piece of the article that highlights that for you. I admit to skimming through it and thinking "Yeah, that's pretty much the gig."

Engineering is a hard job, there's no two ways about it. Tech managers have a doubly hard job, having to navigate a tech stack well enough to lead their team and the people skills to manage all their special snowflake devs on one hand (nothing gender or age related, I love all my lil babies, even the ones with gandalf beards and strong opinions on Richard Stallman) and some very difficult strategic objectives on the other. People who can be effective in that role are hard to find.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#163

Post by xienze »

spcelzrd wrote: post #149
ruleabidinguser wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or that women are intrinsically unable to perform in tech. The more accurate version of this is "women find less value in tech." It deserves more consideration than it gets. There are differences that aren't just cultural between genders, and its something that should be taken into account when forming a judgement on these issues.

Or it could be that "tech finds less value in women". Historically, your argument has been used to suppress women and minorities. It's weird that every time a group doesn't fit into an industry or a culture, that group is not white men.

> It's weird that every time a group doesn't fit into an industry or a culture, that group is not white men.

Teaching, nursing, child care. Care to take a guess which group doesn't fit into those industries?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#164

Post by LukaAl »

amorphid wrote: post #53

Get everyone focused on thinking about the team's mission, role, and what it takes to get the job done. Drill that into everyone's head and stick to it. Let everything else go. A mentor once told me that business fundamentally revolves around making money, saving money, saving time, and making customers happier. I like thinking about work that way, as it has nothing to do with religion, sex, gender, age, height, phas…

That's a recipe for disaster!

It works well for delivering your MVP and maybe the first version of your product. But then you want your employee to be empowered, to feel relevant and be able to take matters into their hands. Otherwise it doesn't scale. But happy and satisfied worker could step up to this level. Unsatisfied and soldier like employees cannot do that, they will be just soldiers that fear for their position. And not having even patriotism (that is what bond soldiers) work for them, the best will leave your company, the worst will stay.

That's one of the differences between being a manager and being a leader. A leader takes the hard questions into his hands.

But don't trust me, there are years of research in company organization saying that. Go out and read any article on HBS on the topic of leadership, workplace organization or CSR and you'll see that.

So, your mentor was wrong, sorry about that.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#165

Post by gurkendoktor »

logicallee wrote: post #47
DeusExMachina wrote: post #4

Am I wrong or all the issues seem to be not gender related but about management and they apply to both sexes?

Well, due to the outrageous skew in gender, I think you have to read these things more deeply. There are offices with 18 or 20 men and 0 women or 1 woman. That doesn't happen statistically - certainly not with the incentives of exceedingly high salaries and a field that is open to all (by means of a computer science undergraduate program.) Look at something that is much harder than becoming a software engineer: becom…

> There are offices with 18 or 20 men and 0 women or 1 woman. That doesn't happen statistically - certainly not with the incentives of exceedingly high salaries [...]

It's entirely possible that I am extrapolating from my own naivety, but do young men really get into software development for the money? I don't think any of my friends were thinking about our future salaries when we started programming after school. It's just this hobby that people will inexplicably pay us money for. I know this sounds like a cliché, but I've never seen data to the contrary.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#166

Post by amorphid »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #156
amorphid wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was a comment, not an employee handbook. Boss: "Hey, my partner​ and I would love it if you'd like to join us for drinks at my place on Saturday night." Employee (replies & CC's boss's boss): "I'm here to work, and this is making me extremely​ uncomfortable." ^^^ strive for that.

All work and no play makes Jill and Jack dull.

Get your work done and you can go home early.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#167

Post by mpweiher »

spcelzrd wrote: post #104
DeusExMachina wrote: post #4

Am I wrong or all the issues seem to be not gender related but about management and they apply to both sexes?

You're wrong. Every industry has management problems. Women leave tech at a rate much higher than they leave other industries. The only conclusion is that tech is a hostile environment for women, or that women are intrinsically unable to perform in tech.

> The only conclusion...

Yeah...no. That's such a distance that "leaping" to conclusions doesn't quite cover it. How about: women are (statistically) less interested in tech? So there is less intrinsic motivation, so extrinsic factors become much more important.

Not entirely coincidentally, that is exactly what surveys starting at high-school age right through professionals leaving the profession show. And "leaving" tech is often "getting promoted to management".

UPDATE: Note that even if this explanation were not the correct one (though I think it is the one that's most correct), it would still invalidate your assertion about other explanations being the only conclusions.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#168

Post by thaumasiotes »

webvictim wrote: post #111
mantas wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> payment inequality Perceived or real? I'm yet to hear about a company that has policy to pay women less. Most have personally-discussed salaries though. If some ladies are paid less, they probably don't haggle as well. What should we do? Deny custom salaries and personal raises?

There are no companies which have such a policy, because it's illegal.

Speeding is also illegal. True, there are no companies that speed, but I think that's just because they can't drive.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#169

Post by mpweiher »

spcelzrd wrote: post #149
ruleabidinguser wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or that women are intrinsically unable to perform in tech. The more accurate version of this is "women find less value in tech." It deserves more consideration than it gets. There are differences that aren't just cultural between genders, and its something that should be taken into account when forming a judgement on these issues.

Or it could be that "tech finds less value in women". Historically, your argument has been used to suppress women and minorities. It's weird that every time a group doesn't fit into an industry or a culture, that group is not white men.

Note that women now exceed men as college graduates. Meaning for every profession where men dominate, you must have other professions where women dominate more. Otherwise the numbers don't add up.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#170

Post by mpweiher »

spcelzrd wrote: post #74
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't even need to be "young males beating their chest". I've been in plenty of hostile reviews with completely harmless, introverted, soft spoken INTJ-types who simply can't get past some nitpick because it doesn't fit into their perfect, logical world view and refuse to budge an inch. Our industry has a personality problem as much or more as it has a sex problem.

> Our industry has a personality problem as much or more as it has a sex problem. The data suggests our industry has a massive sex problem. Refocusing the debate onto yourself is a blocking factor in solving this problem.

Nope, the data does not suggest that.
Post reply on HN