221–230 of 512 posts
As a hispanic, gay guy, dealing with white straight people is exhausting and, since I can't just make them go away, this is the best arrangement for me.
If you feel you're underpaid, I encourage you to negotiate aggressively for what you feel you're worth. Amazon is full of resources to help you with that. As for culture, I'd say just ask. Ask what the team does for fun. That will more or less tell you if you will fit in or not.
I recommend not blaming individual women for the structural inequalities they face. The consequences for men and women negotiating (particularly "aggressively") are different. At the very least, someone perceived as a woman has to be prepared for backlash in a way that people perceived as men don't experience if they negotiate.
Silicon valley culture used to be that way, and is still that way. The cube farms was the prevailing best practice. Then the pendulum swung to the other side with the new kids entering the workforce and wanted open office, work families, and all that. Which then created the cargo culting from others entering the process. Now we're on the bubble of the pendulum swinging back. So it goes.
I agree also that we're likely at the full extension of the pendulum on the open office trend. The formal/informal observation for me is key, some people want work to be more like their college dorm. They are in fact "living" at work and eliminating any notion at all of a work/life balance. I expect, but can't predict, that this will change as they get older.
The Two Travelers and the Farmer North America A traveler came upon an old farmer hoeing in his field beside the road. Eager to rest his feet, the wanderer hailed the countryman, who seemed happy enough to straighten his back and talk for a moment. "What sort of people live in the next town?" asked the stranger. "What were the people like where you've come from?" replied the farmer, answering the question with anothe…
This parable is designed to illustrate the difference in outcomes based on perception. Gender and racial bias in tech are not based solely on individual perception but also behaviors of individuals within a culture. How can this parable be seen as addressing OP's question?
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…
One of the two made my life really uncomfortable when I surpassed his skill level Can you give us a sample interaction that concretizes this, if it doesn't compromise the anonymity of you, this individual, or your company? I think some men can fall prey to perpetrating this even subconsciously, and it could be very useful for a lot of people, myself included, to see an example.
All of that might be attributed to his own self-consciousness if it weren't for the fact that he was deferential to male engineers in code review, and during the height of the tension with me, during scrum he started openly criticizing/mocking a female contractor's work (on an entirely unrelated project that he knew very little about).
This is a pretty egregious example, but I could imagine that a much subtler version happens more often (possibly it's happened to me but it seems more pragmatic to assume it's not related to sexism if at all possible).
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…
Formality is bad. It is another layer of separation between you and the work. Way back when the original meaning of 'informal' simply meant your employer didn't care about non-work-related stuff like attire -- but its morphed into a culture of its own, destroyed perceptions towards those who really are results-oriented, and sent a lot of people down this path thinking formal is better. A lot of don't want suits at our workplace, but neither do we want ping-pong tables, or even beer (gasp!). We want to be left alone to do our work so we can go home on time and live a happy life.
I think we can thank business-management types, this obnoxious brogrammer culture, and all the not-really-a-computer-nerd-but-I-learned-to-code hacks for the culture we have now. Leave it to the muggles to ruin everything...
sigh
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…
> But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a diversity group and they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that really do not make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts, etc). That would make me uncomfortable. Not people who like art and thus do art&craft together, that is cool. But people who tie that to femininity for no good reason.
The comments about more formal workspaces are interesting. Adult-oriented workspaces may be more bland and superficially less creative, but a space where you can be left alone to get on with your work and where "culture" isn't being forced on employees seems like it could be more likely to give everyone freedom to simply be professional.
Have you considered working remotely? It's what I'm doing now and I don't have any regrets. As a hispanic, gay guy, dealing with white straight people is exhausting and, since I can't just make them go away, this is the best arrangement for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I meant it (well, they did...I'm just passing along conclusions) the other way around - having a boss where the wife has a career equal to his is a positive indication, while having one with a stay-at-home wife is a negative indication. The idea is that someone who has chosen to marry and stay married to a career woman is quite literally putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to women's equality: he's mak…
Is there any actual evidence of this?