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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?

#331

Post by jredwards »

probablybanned wrote: post #241
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…

self-assurance is probably the wrong descriptor.

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

#332

Post by yourapostasy »

Chris2048 wrote: post #206
yourapostasy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does software engineering have a gender problem, or a social validation problem? It is no secret that women in nations where software engineering is likely to be a significant source of employment are far more socially attuned than men are; whether this is by nurture or nature is grist for another mill at another time. It is also no secret that software engineers rank lower on social validation than doctors. Empirica…

Putting "It is no secret" before a claim doesn't validate it, please provide some support/context for "[female devs] are far more socially attuned than men are". Also, a phrase like "doctor's orders" is common, because most members of the public will have occasion to see a doctor, the profession having existing for a long time. There's no saying "CTO's orders", yet this is obviously a position of power. Also, your ob…

Start here, and expand outwards in related searches:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_emotional_i...

Saying "C-level's orders" doesn't carry anywhere the same weight as "software engineer's orders". Given a technical decision, what weighting is the CFO's decision given over the software engineer tasked with understanding the problem domain? I deliberately chose CFO because it is a common refrain on HN and elsewhere that software engineers are summarily overridden by non-technical management on technical decisions. How frequently are doctors overridden on medical decisions by non-medicine-trained hospital administrators? I don't know the precise answer to that, but doctor/nursing friends don't complain about it.

I'm pointing out a possible line of inquiry that doesn't seem to come up in these discussions. Given the relatively low status of IT in most non-tech companies I work with, compared to Sales and Finance for example (where women are better represented than in coding and technical IT, yet sales and finance cultures can be notoriously misogynist in many orgs), it isn't an unreasonable question to pose whether or not that relative low status of programming turns off women in the general non-tech business world, which vastly outweighs our small echo chamber of strongly-tech-focused companies.

An observation I've been chewing upon. The US pharmaceutical /medical sales environment is heavily represented with women, with a blatantly cynical unspoken industry practice of hiring easy on the eyes women. This is an openly misogynist atmosphere, with getting hit on just a part of their daily sales calls, but women are not driven away by it to the point where beautiful medical sales women no longer is a cliche. Incentives matter. Might there also be the possibility the programming world's negatives outweigh the compensation, and at some point, the compensation can outweigh the negatives?

A related question is why, with so much money on the line, and as direct revenue generators, are so many women programmers in tech-focused companies relating consistently depressing stories of exclusion? In other words, are there no financial consequences for managers mishandling such valuable revenue generators in general, or is it only when the revenue generator are women?

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

#333

Post by falcolas »

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…

When the first response FTA indicates that the "biggest factor [...] has been when an employer promises changes to how the tech team is managed and then doesn’t deliver on them", the comment of "manage better" is absolutely relevant.

The only real bits which are solely relevant to women in the whole thing DO revolve around sexual harassment, which leads me to believe that an enforced policy of "don't harass people" would go a long way.

We're not perfect yet. There are stupid men through the industry who sexually harass women. There are stupid men and women who have internal biases against women. There aren't enough women studying tech in the colleges to provide a truly diverse workforce in tech.

These are all problems which need to be addressed, but they will not be positively addressed by shaming people: comments like "the male-dominated tech community is so bad with these issues", "men might be silently stewing over their existence", and "It is a cowardly oblique swipe at these sort of organizations" don't advance the conversation, they attempt to shame people into agreeing with you.

WRT Girls Who Code; it is not small nor local anymore. It's nationwide and well represented in tech company volunteer activities, so I've found. At least for women; they frown on male volunteers in my experience.

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

#334

Post by mantas »

emodendroket wrote: post #323
mantas wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

The way the system is set up now puts the candidate at a disadvantage because he or she has no idea what the company is willing to pay or what their criteria are. In a situation where the cards are laid on the table -- here is the position or positions and here is the salary or salaries -- both parties have the same information and are free to focus entirely on the question of competence. A lot of the negotiation pro…

Which is neither gender, nor tech issue.

IMO negotiating is part of relevant skillset. Especially for more senior (= better paid) positions. One has to know not only how to write code, but back up his decisions as well. Or prevent others from causing issues.

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

#335

Post by belorn »

anothercomment wrote: post #292
draw_down wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. These issues get talked about so much in our industry, but I don't understand how they're supposed to change if the way we're expecting to fix it is just "business as usual, but uh, don't do discrimination". Obviously there is something wrong with how we got here.

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…

I would say that there is something obvious wrong that is causing society to have 87.5% (Swedish statistics) of citizens, equal amount women and men, working in professions that has serious gender segregation in favor of their own gender. The trend is that the remaining 12.5% men and women that actually work in a gender equal environment (minimum 40% of each gender) is continuing shrinking and we have yet to see how far gender segregation will go until it start to reverse.

I sincerely doubt that the 43.75% of professions that is male dominated is purely caused by genetic aspect, nor the other 43.75% of profession that is female dominated. What I have heard it seems more like it is a combination of the flip of a coin and culture, through the question is then if culture simply adapted to segregation or if it caused it.

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

#336

Post by jredwards »

FT_intern wrote: post #268
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…

> relative to other orgs, which isn't saying much If your org has a higher female % than the population it sources its applicants from, would that not raise more suspicions of sexism?

We have something akin to an in-house dev bootcamp, and the population we source applicants to that from is a different team at our company that has a pretty good gender balance.

But even if that were not the case, I'm inclined to reject your subtle insinuation that gender balance in the field isn't a problem companies should worry about.

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

#338

Post by mantas »

emodendroket wrote: post #327
mantas wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

On what basis are you "pretty sure" of that? http://fortune.com/2016/05/02/woman-negotiation-success/ If you want to reply to a comment further downthread you can click on the timestamp. I do not know why it works that way but replying to a common parent is confusing.

That article just says women negotiate less/worse. I'm saying good negotiator will get paid regardless of gender. Wether women can negotiate as good as men is another question. But as I said in another comment, this is skill issue, not gender issue. Wage gap studies that have controls throughout the board show there's no significant pay difference. My anecdata confirms that.

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

#339

Post by mratzloff »

fwefwwfe wrote: post #211
Chris2048 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean?

Maybe each gender could have a set that's the superset of their common needs. Or maybe it was meant that the superset can equal the original set.

Correct on the former.

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

#340

Post by mantas »

emodendroket wrote: post #312
hajile wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You gotta wear seat belt because careless driver can bump into you too. Or careless deer which is even worse.
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