121–130 of 512 posts
* Ask if the company is involved in mentoring, community outreach, or any other type of philanthropic activity. If they do some things like Script Ed for example, they're probably nice people and not sexist d-bags.(Although I wouldn't assume that the inverse is also true).
* Ask if the company participates in any diversity initiatives or conferences.
HTH
If the C level including the CEO have (young) children, imo the workplace is saner.
Interestingly I'm not sure I agree with this. At a previous Job my boss (not CEO, but sub-org head) called from the hospital less than an hour before giving birth; showed up at work just days after. Without her, I think, actually intending it, this set up a quite bad precedent, that some people felt like they needed to follow. I think that got resolved after I left, but she'd not realized that other people thought sh…
I also felt like it really spoke to his personality and rubbed the workers in a bad way.
I look for existing diversity, and of underrepresented minorities not just gender diversity (IME this is often a better signal.) Especially in upper levels: the % of Software Engineer 1s matters a lot less than the % of architects and tech leads. Second (and I kind of hate to give this one away), I ask "what do you sacrifice when recruiting to ensure diversity?" The answer should be either "it takes us longer to recr…
I believe that noticing when that transition happens and swapping companies is key to persisting in the industry.
how do you know the 'great culture' is for assumedly white dudes (what does that mean even, white dude is not some singular set of human traits)? I'm female, I've been the first and the only woman on teams. I don't give a crap about it. I do my job and expect my colleagues to do the same. Any place with crap culture is crap culture for almost everyone, no matter gender-identity or race. I look for places where the em…
> Any place with crap culture is crap culture for almost everyone, no matter gender-identity or race. I can't agree with you. If you work for a company that makes negative assumptions about you because of your gender/race, you'll have a worse experience than when they make positive assumptions. It's about things like when you bring up an idea in a meeting, and it's totally ignored, and the guy across the table brings…
People who are not part of the discriminated group do see what's going on. However they are often powerless themselves to do anything other than leave. A toxic environment affects almost everyone exposed to it.
Disclaimer: I am women, but never stepped the foot in CA. Geography matters. I see ping pong tables and free beer as a red flag of sorts and seek workplace that is more formal. The idea is that the less it attempts to be personal/cool/cultural the less personal things (e.g. gender or peoples attitudes/biases or who-likes-who) matters and the more actual work matters. I have no stats to support this, just my guess and…
The part about ping pong and beer vs a more formal workplace is really interesting. I've been reading more about this lately. One story that struck me was about a journalist whose newspaper was purchased by a tech company, and the culture changed. She went from having a private office to working in a huge, open office environment. I'm putting this together from memory, but I remember her talking about how strange it…
There was a ping pong table in my college dormitory common room, and I grew to loath it. You couldn't do anything within earshot of it. Nobody could just tap the ball back and forth. Noooo. It's serve, back, SLAM! always followed by groans and whoops as loud as possible. I wouldn't join any company with a prominent ping pong table.
Woman at a ~100 person startup here - Wanted to comment because there are a lot of posts on here that seem to promote some idea that the company has to really push for women-friendly policies/activities to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to completely disagree with (save for policies that could be classified as human-friendly such as leave and flexible hours). I work at a mediocre startup (first en…
> company has to really push for women-friendly policies to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to completely disagree with. Could you elaborate a little bit more please, beyond the cringey paper-scissor activities?
Non-binary queer woman here. I can usually get a vibe at interviews about the company culture, from the people I talk to (my questions and their general personalities). The only team I've ever felt "normal" at was one where one of the interviewers was gay. My boss there had hired a bunch of really talented queer developers from his network, so half the team was queer. I guess I really liked the personalities of the p…