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I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

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Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#21

Post by jtchang »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

I actually see it as calling more attention to the start of the pipeline. If you have a broken tech stack with bugs up and down the toolchain from the physical hardware up to the software you kinda do want to fix the base layer first. Though there are arguments to be said to attack the bugs from the standpoint of the entire system.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#22

Post by tptacek »

jasode wrote: post #10
tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

>, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. Fascinating how different readers take away different salient points. For me, her main buildup was hiring women to meet a "diversity goal" resulted in pressures to hire some women who couldn't do the work . This creates a perverse feedback loop that unfairly taints future women candidates who could do the wo…

Because the piece isn't very well written†, it's unclear whether the "infinite loop" of mediocrity she's referring to is something she actually observed, or something she surmises is possible. She is clear and specific, presenting numbers, when talking about things she was personally involved in.

Since the cycle of increasing mediocrity has a prominent float in the parade of horribles conjured by the "anti-diversity" (for lack of any better term) side of this debate, I'm left assuming she didn't see that occur. But she could also clear that up easily.

Finally, an obvious point: evaluation of the performance of an individual software developer is one of the great unsolved problems of software engineering. Virtually all performance evaluation done today is at root subjective. Subjective performance evaluations are easily tainted by prejudice; in fact, you have to work hard not to taint them.

If you think that's different at Google, re-evaluate: Google also runs one of the most famously capricious hiring programs in the industry. Despite constant rituals and genuflection towards data-driven decision making, Google continues to thrive based on its status as a premiere destination for new software developers, despite running a hiring process renowned for the quality of the people it has alienated. There is ample evidence of Google having scaled broken processes.

† 99% of what I write isn't well-written either, in case this sounds like a jab at the author, who I am not familiar with.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#23

Post by Icedcool »

"In the name of diversity, when we fill quotas to check boxes, we fuck it up for the genuinely amazing women in tech."

Awesome. A plea towards hiring based on quality, rather than quotas.

Towards a group that is judged by the content and quality of their character rather than some of the variation of an attempt to combat discrimination through discrimination.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#24

Post by humanrebar »

orclev wrote: post #16
tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

No, the core of the article was pointing out that setting arbitrary quotas for female hires and then sacrificing your standards in order to meet those quotas does more harm than good. Fundamentally there are two issues that need addressing, firstly trying to get more qualified female applicants which is why she recommends focusing on early education and college STEM programs. Secondly there's the issue of how to addr…

> ...I mean hiring junior level candidates, not trying to shove a more senior female developer into a lower level position...

The word "shove" aside, I wish more companies would hire senior people for junior roles if they want them. One of the big problems with the American (and I presume Western) job market is the unwillingness to train people unless they're straight out of college. It seems that moms (and less often, dads) who take time off to raise the young ones would benefit from a new approach.

Of course, the employer and employee need to be on the same page about day-to-day duties, expected career growth, and so on. But that seems like a solvable problem.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#25

Post by klenwell »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

It also conflates the hiring needs of a large mature corporation like Google with those of a struggling startup:

We try hard, but again find ourselves with a 98% male candidate pool. You should know that we are an early stage startup that cannot afford market salaries. Despite that, we paid premium salaries to bring a few women who did well in our interviews. But, they lacked the energy to put us into overdrive.

A lot gets muddied in these few lines. One way to read this: as a startup, we usually pay below-market salaries. But we really wanted some experienced women on the team, so we offered them market salaries. They weren't ready to sign on to 60-70 hour weeks like the men on our team. So we let them go.

With the salty language, I gather the real intent of this blog post was to ride the tails of the Google memo backlash and draw attention to her startup. And maybe find some more male engineers to join her startup at below-market salaries.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#26

Post by ploggingdev »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

> The piece culminates in a recommendation that we focus our diversity efforts on college admissions and earlier stages in the pipeline. But that's a cop-out. We should work on all stages of the pipeline.

Here's the problem : the candidate pool consists of 90% men and 10% women so the gender ratio at companies tends to represent that ratio. How do you propose we fix this to reach a healthier balance of something close to 50-50 without encouraging more women to join tech?

In other words, aiming for 50-50 when the candidate pool is 90-10 is suboptimal. So I agree that work needs to be done at all stages of the pipeline, but as the author suggests, the way to fix this issue is to encourage more women to join tech at the earlier stages. How is this a cop-out?

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#27

Post by TarpitCarnivore »

My one complaint with this is the authors tone as it relates to her daughters interest in design. I understand the main focus of diversity in tech is in engineering, but it kind of felt it was implying she wouldn't have a place in tech by going into design.

If the point of this is to fix the problems from the bottom, or the 'pipeline', wouldn't some of that also have to do with breaking down the stigma that programming is all that matters in tech?

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#28

Post by quxbar »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

I was way into photoshop as a kid having free access to all kinds of software (thanks, mom!) but now I'm incredibly glad I'm a programmer and not in any profession that uses photoshop or similar tools. Thank goodness people didn't insist I was only cut out for the arts :)

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#29

Post by huhtenberg »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

> its kernel is an anecdote

The kernel is what comes before the anecdote, which is just that - an anecdote. One would be hard pressed to view it as an argument for anything.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#30

Post by rootedbox »

Poorly written. Also does not contain facts to back up what she see's in the market.

I think this article just shows more that CEO's and upper management lack the facts to properly asses their own hiring pipeline and what may be the actual problem to their hiring diversity.

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