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

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

#171
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Your post is completely off base. No one said anything about removing code reviews. They said remove the culture of aggressive and mean code reviews. No one said to remove the opportunity to express one's love of geeky things or organic conversation during happy hour. They said to tone that down, and be more inclusive, so other members of the team can express their love of things they like. Meritocracy is a red h…

> No one said anything about removing code reviews. They said remove the culture of aggressive and mean code reviews. In practice, that means making code review comments unclear and extremely passive aggressive. I'd rather have plain, clear statements than statements that on the surface are pleasant and helpful but that are actually meant to be emotional and professional shivs. I've been both. > No one said to remove…

"In practice, that means making code review comments unclear and extremely passive aggressive."

No, it doesn't. It only means that if the only way you can express yourself is by being mean.

"I'd rather have plain, clear statements than statements that on the surface are pleasant and helpful but that are actually meant to be emotional and professional shivs. I've been both."

Again, you can have plain, clear statements without being mean. Just because you aren't capable of writing them doesn't mean the rest of us aren't.

"he proposal is to prevent conversations flowing naturally according to the normal implicit rules of conversation and instead steer the conversation to "inclusive" topics. You know what I'd do in that situation? Grab a bunch of my coworkers and head off to the nearest pub to have the conversation we want to have. Congratulations, you've tried to help and made things worse."

No, you've just proven that you aren't willing to include other coworkers in your discussion. You've also proven that you aren't able to have a discussion about anything that isn't a few topics that you care about, and aren't willing to listen to others talk about what they care about. You're the one that comes out looking bad here.

"This idea is both trendy and dangerous. Some ideas are better than others. I don't want to be around people who think that asbestos and plastic are both perfectly good materials for medical devices and that we should reach a compromise position to ensure that everyone is heard. If person A consistently proposes ideas that work and person B is genial, but constantly proposes ideas that don't work, A has more merit."

Again, you're making false choices here. The idea that you have to choose between someone being nice but not good, and someone who is good but mean. There is absolutely no reason for that.

"This argument is circular."

No, it really isn't. And you haven't provided anything to claim that it is.

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are quite a few who do it for just the money. And there's nothing wrong with that, either.

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

#173

How can Hospitals help retain Male Nurses? (male nurses: ~8%) How can Schools help retain Male Teachers? (male teachers: ~20%) How can we help Males dying on the job? (male on the job deaths: ~90%+)

I wonder what your point is.

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

#174
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like women are aliens with concerns that are completely divorced from male employees. They just have a superset of concerns that also includes the potential for gender discrimination from coworkers and managers.

There are likely a similar set of male specific issues as well, so it seems presumptuous to call it a superset.

Supersets are not exclusive.

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

#175
post #20

1) Discourage your work 'culture' from being built around aggressive tech code reviews/debates/arguments/chat where young males love to beat their chest 2) Some flexibility on hours/location when children come. Women have a harder 'stop' than men do on their child bearing age, which frequently coincides with moving into senior development roles.

I'm male, barely progressive, of below average couth, and probably seem like a dinosaur to younger colleagues when it comes to gender issues, but I think your item #1 is without question the most endlessly frustrating and pointless source of tedium in the software business and its only gotten worse during the last 20 years. I've found myself finding more common ground with young women on my teams than with the young…

[deleted]

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

#176
My dev organization had, at one point, a fairly respectable gender ratio (relative to other orgs, which isn't saying much). Over time, the women in our dev org have had a much higher attrition rate, because they've moved on to other opportunities. I've never heard a complaint from any of them that women were treated differently here.

I have a suspicion that women who get into tech tend to be more self-assured than the average individual (by virtue of the fact that they're willing to fight what looks like an uphill battle to get into the field). And that those people are also more likely to look around for a better opportunity and not be afraid to grab it. Which would make them inherently difficult to retain.

(I also have a feeling that talking about women in tech in any kind of generality is a good way to get pitchforked and set on fire, so I hope I haven't said anything out of line.)

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

#177
Let me reframe the question to be my thoughts on how to solve the "problem".

Q: How can managers help retain technical engineers

A: Treat them fair and pay them what they are worth regardless of how many of which chromosomes they have. When people treat them unfairly or discriminate, stand up for them and show them that you care. Don't penalize them for their genetic ability to make more humans if they so choose to.

Other than the obvious of more money, most employees will feel loyalty towards those are loyal to them.

I didn't read TFA as I think the question is a bit wrong even if it is meant to be well received.

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

#178

Wow. So in the name of getting women women into tech, we need to abandon * Code reviews, design documents, and anything else that might provide a forum for "chest thumping" * Opportunities to express one's love of traditionally geeky things * Organic conversation during happy hour * Meritocracy (since diversity pushes end up being affirmative action in practice) Maybe women in tech are less common than men in tech no…

Maybe women in tech are less common than men in tech not because of some fundamental unfairness, but because fewer women want to be in tech.

A bit of advice to any of you youngsters blowing it off as "maybe women just don't want to be in tech": I worked with plenty of women in this field in the 80s. Not so many now. And of those women in the field currently, they're a different breed than those I worked with 30 years ago. (To put it gently, they strike me as women more suited to put up with mens' bullshit.)

So, no, I don't buy the "maybe women don't want to do tech" excuse, unless you're willing to argue that all the women got together at their annual conference and announced that they're not doing tech anymore. I propose a simplistic explanation: women don't want to be in tech for the same reason I'm tiring of it, and this is having to put up with a constant stream of alpha male man-children. We, as an industry, used to be professionals. Now it's just a big frat party. (The issues are much deeper, IMO, and I admit to vastly oversimplifying.)

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

#179
post #177

Let me reframe the question to be my thoughts on how to solve the "problem". Q: How can managers help retain technical engineers A: Treat them fair and pay them what they are worth regardless of how many of which chromosomes they have. When people treat them unfairly or discriminate, stand up for them and show them that you care. Don't penalize them for their genetic ability to make more humans if they so choose to.…

OK, so, in concrete terms, how do you propose people treat their employees equally regardless of sex? Empirically that is not currently what happens, and probably not because someone twirling his mustache said "let's deliberately discriminate against women."

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the mentality that leads to drama explosions like at Uber. They were all focused on making money and building a big company. Because of this, they ignored the "little things" like building a HR department that could support women when they were put in bad situations.

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.

CC's boss's boss?

A bit passive-aggressive for a friendly gesture isn't it?

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