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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?

#311

Post by kristineberth »

ruleabidinguser wrote: post #242
spcelzrd wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't interpret that comment as a suggestion that you have an interest in suppressing women and minorities. But you might have a subconscious interest in maintaining your own worldview, wherein you're part of a group of people that 'gets' or 'finds value in' tech, and others aren't.

The subconscious forces that shape the way people think about these issues are the most pernicious.

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

#312

Post by emodendroket »

hajile wrote: post #299
emodendroket wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I suggested a handful of measures that don't involve "implicit bias training," which I agree is unlikely to work, but I question your claim that there isn't any evidence for implicit bias. If you want to conclude that either women are just inherently inferior or else that they aren't but it's ok to systematically underpay them then I guess that's your prerogative but I'm not really interested in going down such…

I would argue that women and men are different both physically and psychologically and have different interests arising from these differences. I would further argue that negotiation is a skill that some people have and others do not. Should we refuse to reward someone for their skill in negotiation? Should we even try? On the first count, the brains of men and women are structurally different (women have drastically…

> If men and women are identical, why do we need women in STEM? The men we have would work just as well

Because it is inherently unjust to discriminate against people because of characteristics that have no bearing on the job, such as their race and their gender. If you don't accept this premise I don't think we can have a productive discussion because it's the basic principle I'm basing my argument on.

> In the long term, the negotiation skillset will simply turn into more profit in other ways and the level of control required to prevent this from happening is so draconian as to be unthinkable.

Maybe. So what? Careless drivers are still more likely to injure themselves than careful ones even if we make everyone wear a seat belt; it does not follow that making everyone wear a seat belt is pointless.

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

#313

Post by jknoepfler »

shawn-furyan wrote: post #278

It is a continual frustration to me that the male-dominated tech community is so bad with these issues. Predictably, the top comment on this post that tries to move forward on a very real problem that has been empirically established is an appeal to stick with the status quo. I'm sorry, but companies have always focused on making money. Saying that the way to handle this very specific problem is to focus on making mo…

I share your frustration, but I've found the landscape to be more complex than most people are willing to give it credit for.

For example, my partner and I disagree on the value of things like "Girls who Code" or "Women in Computer Science" groups. I (male) tend to think "can't hurt seems like a decent idea, I'm sure there are unique challenges faced by people with two X-chromosomes in computer science that I'm not aware of, I'll take people's claims that it's valuable on face value - if smart people are doing it in reasonably large numbers, and I can't see obvious harm, then I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to disparage it."

She, on the other hand, despises those groups. She hates being singled out for her sex, and thinks sex shouldn't even be on the table for discussion. She just wants to work and be respected as an engineer, has never had any problem being respected as an engineer by her peers, and feels insulted every time she's invited to do something "on behalf of people with vaginas," (her words).

Interestingly, she also despises overtly feminine genderization and tends to think people who call themselves "girls" and dress/perform in an overtly feminine way are stupid (and acknowledges that this is unfair)... so I don't know. Is the whole thing targeted at the gendering of engineering rather than the physical sex of programmers? I don't really know. I don't think the people participating in it have a very clear view of that either, judging from the conversations I have with people.

At the end of the day I just try to take encourage everyone to blind themselves as much as possible when evaluating applications, reviewing code (impossible, generally), or assigning grades.

edit:

after thinking about this a little more I should specify that we're both pretty standard-issue silver-spoon white Midwestern liberals, and acknowledge that our personal views/experience on sex in computer science might miss a whole chunk of the spectrum of women's experience in communities where gender and sex are a bigger deal. My community expects women to be good at math and science every bit as much as men; that's not everyone's situation.

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

#314

Post by mantas »

emodendroket wrote: post #218
RHSeeger wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe a "Costco auto club" model, where the price is set up-front with no haggling, would be a good idea. Reddit tried to do this but it was kind of tied up with all the other issues they had. Not 100% sure on this one. The negative to that is (unless every company plays by those same rules) you're limiting yourself in who you can hire. The more expensive (and, presumably, more skilled) developers will go work some…

I don't know. Maybe you just offer competitive salaries for everyone and everyone wants to work for you. Maybe your superstars actually get a different title and responsibilities and you're just more upfront about how you decide. I think there are plenty of companies out there with a pretty narrow band for any given position and this way of doing things eliminates the anxiety about whether you negotiated well or not.…

HN doesn't allow to go that deep in comment thread, thus replying there...

> How do you figure? If they're able to pass whatever company's interview and negotiation is no longer a factor it seems more likely that salaries will become more equitable. I'd guess the correlation between negotiating skill and technical skill is small at best.

In 2-tier (technical + negotiation) interview, candidates have to show they're good enough technically first. Then they negotiate their worth. In what you propose, they'd have to negotiate their worth right away. If company isn't willing to pay, why would they hire said person for higher wage?

Even purely technical job interview is sort of haggling. Well, aside from bullshit whiteboard tests which suck left and right.

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

#315

Post by anothercomment »

peterwwillis wrote: post #309
anothercomment wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not "obviously" something wrong. Would you say there is obviously something wrong with the plumbing industry that keeps women away? Or is it just that the smell of shit is too unpleasant? Likewise, some aspects of tech could simply be unpleasant to women, and there are reasons why men are more likely to put up with unpleasant work (like the need to feed a family). I have personally experienced a lot of unple…

For any given job where biology is not a factor (which is all of them except weight lifting and highly athletic sports), cultural norms are. Women take care of children, typically, and their shit does not smell like roses. So you need a new hypothesis.

So you think women don't go into plumbing because of cultural norms? Really?

Ok, I wish somebody would study that and find the reasons. The baby argument doesn't hold, though, because it makes a huge difference if it is your own baby.

Better comparison would perhaps be care of the elderly, which involves cleaning up shit but also has a social component.

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

#316

Post by shawn-furyan »

peterwwillis wrote: post #309
anothercomment wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not "obviously" something wrong. Would you say there is obviously something wrong with the plumbing industry that keeps women away? Or is it just that the smell of shit is too unpleasant? Likewise, some aspects of tech could simply be unpleasant to women, and there are reasons why men are more likely to put up with unpleasant work (like the need to feed a family). I have personally experienced a lot of unple…

For any given job where biology is not a factor (which is all of them except weight lifting and highly athletic sports), cultural norms are. Women take care of children, typically, and their shit does not smell like roses. So you need a new hypothesis.

This is a 14 day old troll account. I would recommend against expending much effort to persuade a troll, or taking it seriously at all.

That being said, you're correct, but the troll is offering ridiculous arguments because it is trying to spread FUD, not because it is genuinely trying to elucidate the issues.

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

#317

Post by mantas »

emodendroket wrote: post #237
hajile wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. That's not the problem of anybody except the person who does not negotiate aggressively. 2. People respond differently to men and women (a fact that seems to be true across all species). We don't have a clear, testable model for why this happens. 3. Implicit bias is not scientific and not relevant. Sorry for the lengthy write-up, but this should be called out for being farcical and/or psychologically dangerous. Im…

Well I suggested a handful of measures that don't involve "implicit bias training," which I agree is unlikely to work, but I question your claim that there isn't any evidence for implicit bias. If you want to conclude that either women are just inherently inferior or else that they aren't but it's ok to systematically underpay them then I guess that's your prerogative but I'm not really interested in going down such…

> Because it is inherently unjust to discriminate against people because of characteristics that have no bearing on the job, such as their race and their gender. If you don't accept this premise I don't think we can have a productive discussion because it's the basic principle I'm basing my argument on.

Is it ok to discriminate based on one's personal characteristics?

I'm pretty sure woman who is technically good as well as good negotiator gets equal salary as man with same abilities. Women (and men) who are bad negotiators are discriminated because of their personal characteristics, not because of their gender.

Or are you saying that certain skills should not be valued in job market, because they're less prevalent in one of the genders' iconic image?

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

#318

Post by nradov »

Most of this is good input for managers but the first answer from Adele complaining about "getting disorganized braindumps or single line descriptions from stakeholders rather than the thoughtful, detailed specs they’ve promised" seems misguided and counterproductive. It's simply unrealistic to expect customers and customer proxies (product owners / business analysts) to supply detailed specs. Their minds don't work that way and complaining about it just leads to frustration on both sides. Instead take the disorganized braindump as a starting point for the real requirements analysis process. If the stakeholders were capable of writing thoughtful, detailed specs on their own then they wouldn't need you and could just outsource the engineering work to the lowest offshore bidder.

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

#319

Post by emodendroket »

Jach wrote: post #253
emodendroket wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's a whole different rant but, really, you read about grown men texting their female coworkers incessantly with crude sexual propositions and you have to wonder how they ever came to believe this was acceptable behavior.

Presumably it's like spam, it works some percentage of the time and the consequences for it not working aren't severe.

Well, until your behavior is the cause for a massive lawsuit, anyway.

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

#320

Post by Arizhel »

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…

I think this can happen to a lot of people, depending on the discussion. Personally, I've taken almost no CS classes; I'm a EE by degree and moved into programming (mainly embedded) on-the-job.

So when people start getting into heavy CS discussions about algorithms or whatever, that can alienate me to an extent too. I've read the basics and all and picked up a lot, but only what I really needed to know for this kind of work. I'm more interested in getting hardware to work and programming near the hardware level than some B-tree or whatever.

Another thing that really alienates me: when men at work talk about sports. I don't give two shits about spectator sports, and I think they're a complete waste of time. I'm a male, of course, but unlike many men I really hate sports and sports fanaticism. I don't see this too much at work (as it seems my attitude toward sports isn't that uncommon among men in tech), but I do see it now and then, especially with older and more outgoing/managerial type men.

So I don't think it's entirely a male vs. female issue: certain groups of people working together will frequently have certain common interests, which will not be shared by other people in that workplace. If I worked with a bunch of women and they all started talking about some current TV show, I'd also be alienated, because I don't own a TV or watch any current TV shows (except Game of Thrones...). Should I insist that women refrain from talking about TV shows? That seems a bit extreme.

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