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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?

#241

Post by probablybanned »

jredwards wrote: post #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 th…

It's very likely to be down to differences in temperament, although I don't think it's self-assurance precisely. Typically, men are more driven to compete for status and place their career at the center of their lives, while women evaluate their situation more holistically.

This means they're less likely to put up with bullshit, and are more likely to be lured away to places that are less prestigious/competitive but allow them to actually have a life.

Generally speaking! I enjoy being pitchforked and set on fire, pseudonymously at least.

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

#242

Post by ruleabidinguser »

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.

Are you suggesting I have an interest in suppressing women and minorities? The only reason I'd want to do that is to decrease competition, and I can guarentee you that I share the same interest regardless of gender or ethnicity

My comment was out of an interest in not being lied to more than anything else.

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

#243

Post by in_cahoots »

sebcat wrote: post #143
ju-st wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Include paternity leave while you're at it.

If the question is "How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?" - how is paternity leave relevant (unless the father in the relationship works for the same company, I guess)?

As a woman, I'm much more likely to take the amount of maternity leave I desire if I think there's no professional penalty for it. Ensuring that men can take leave lowers the chance I'll be penalized for my decision since it's now a 'cost of doing business' and not a 'cost of hiring women'.

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

#244

Post by pmalynin »

SEJeff wrote: 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.…

>regardless of how many chromosomes they have

Thats not how it works.

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

#245

Post by LadyMartel »

songzme wrote: post #192
openasocket wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only woman engineer on the team spends the night sipping on her drink quietly wishing she found these topics more interesting or wishing she took more CS classes so she could appreciate the intensity of the conversation Women might have different interests than men, but why do you think they might be stymied by technical conversation? She's an engineer the same as the rest, unless she was hired because of token…

A friend graduated from a bootcamp and she loves coding. But sometimes there are conversations that goes deep into SSDs vs HDDs, bitcoin mining, and other topics unrelated to work that alienated her and she couldn't participate. I was trying to share what I learned from speaking with a few of my friends. Put yourself in the shoes of a woman who wanted a career change and joined a bootcamp. You learned the necessary s…

Are there stats that there are more women who career change and come from bootcamps or don't have as rigid technical backgrounds? Are bootcamp graduates not technical enough or interested in technical subjects? These generalizations are unsettling to me.

There's a general flow of conversation in any social situation that organically arises from the composition of the group of people involved. Unless your friend's teammates are jerks, she should be able to easily influence the direction of the conversation. Perhaps instead of suffering from an issue because she is a woman, she is simply too shy. Maybe this industry or society at large is bad at including shy people general.

How would a manager even know where to direct the discussion if the person who feels alienated doesn't speak up during the conversation? The last thing I want is a manager to try to point the discussion to movies, pop music, fashion, makeup, or whatever else women are supposed to like. I would absolutely be offended.

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

#246

Post by SEJeff »

pmalynin wrote: post #244
SEJeff wrote: 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.…

>regardless of how many chromosomes they have Thats not how it works.

Edited to fix, you're absolutely right. Thanks!

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

#247

Post by ju-st »

ashark wrote: post #198
sebcat wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the question is "How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?" - how is paternity leave relevant (unless the father in the relationship works for the same company, I guess)?

If only women have legally mandated paid time off for new kids it'll provide even more reproduction-related disincentive to hire women, which is reason enough for it to be relevant, I'd say.

Exactly! I have anecdata from German managers """jokingly complaining""" about how one can't hire young men any more because of their potential paternity leave. This is a good thing.

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

#248

Post by DanBC »

xienze wrote: post #157
spcelzrd wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. "Men fail to enter [teaching|nursing|child care] at a rate much higher than other industries. The only conclusion is that [teaching|nursing|child care] is a hostile environment for men, or that men are intrinsically u…

Each of those professions have considerable effort to increase the numbers of men working in them.

This is a tedious point, and it gets made every single fucking time there's a thread like this.

Use a search engine. You'd find, within a few moments, programmes across all of these industries to correct the gender imbalance.

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

#249

Post by humanrebar »

stackptr wrote: post #235
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…

Sounds like the convenient POV from someone already well represented in the industry. Dismissing issues of diversity as being tangential to the core business of, well, business, is sensible from an, ahem, business-perspective. And from a human perspective, really flawed and problematic.

From a human perspective, humans are really flawed and problematic.

That extends to even the most well-meaning diversity initiative. If nothing else, diversity initiatives create implicit filters for the types of people that are excited-to-ambivalent about diversity initiatives.

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

#250

Post by grad_ml »

jmcgough wrote: post #87
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…

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.

Nope. Uber case was plain simple case of sexual harassment. My question is, would Uber have arbitrated in same manner if female employees were accused of harassment? yes, they would have. It's not about women,men or trans. It's about equality at workplace. Should one be more sensitive to women employees concern than men? If yes, where is the equality?
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