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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

#51

Post by xenihn »

magic_beans wrote: post #31

> 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. Worse, they were starting to drain the energy from the rest of the team. Eventually, we had to do the right thing for the company and let them go. This is one of the most disturbing thing's I've ever read in an article proclaiming to promote change in the tech gender gap.…

>What exactly does it mean to "lack energy" and to "drain energy" from other people?

Yeah, it's annoying that she's forcing readers to interpret that. I would guess that she means that they weren't able to perform their job responsibilities adequately, and others had to pick up the slack.

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

#52

Post by humanrebar »

orclev wrote: post #34
humanrebar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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 ofte…

Sorry, I think there's some confusion about the usage of the word senior there, I meant senior in terms of skill level, not in terms of age. Age shouldn't be a factor at all, it doesn't matter if you're a fresh college graduate or a 60 year old so long as you have the skills to do the job. What you don't want to do is take a highly skilled worker and then hire them into a low skill position, they'll get bored/frustra…

> ...I meant senior in terms of skill level, not in terms of age...

No worries. I understood your meaning. I also meant that. I meant that hiring managers, in my experience, are more likely to give an outright "no" to an underqualified senior person than to offer them a junior role.

If the person took some time off, decided to switch industries, decided to switch specialties, or just figured out they were in a rut, giving them a junior role and letting them work their way back into an expert role should be a consideration.

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

#53

Post by corporateslave3 »

ardit33 wrote: post #33
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…

Riiigght... It takes years to become decent, and almost a decade to become 'really good'. Most junior engineers (first year off the school), or interns are a net negative for the first year. Including the folks that just went to hacker/training type of programs. Hence most startups avoid them, and only large companies have the means to absorb them in large numbers. The only good right after school engineers I have wo…

I dont think this is true. There's a reason fresh engineers are paid so much, they are almost immediately valuable.

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

#54

Post by ballenf »

ng12 wrote: post #11
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…

> But that's a cop-out. We should work on all stages of the pipeline. Only if you believe in diversity for diversity's sake, and it's important to realize that not everyone does. Personally I'm much more concerned about equal opportunity for underrepresented groups than what my coworkers actually look like. If you really, really care about diversity it's very easy to be involved. I can guarantee you there's a program…

I'm involved in one and I can guarantee you that it's about 1000 times easier to blog about the issue than teach programming principles to kids.

My average student is a 14-year-old black female who wants to learn web dev. It should go without saying, I've not seen even a hint of ability difference based on gender or race. We cover JS as well as HTML/CSS -- this is not a design class, but a real development class where kids are writing native markup and code.

The program is free and held at the public library. All students are there because they want to learn. I thought some might come due to parental pressure, but I haven't seen that.

It's exhausting and rewarding.

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

#55

Post by mberning »

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 pipeline is a huge problem. The numbers just aren't there currently to support a 50/50 diversity goal. It is far from a copout. It is addressing the problem at the source.

The real copout is is saying that much of software engineering does not require a degree. That might be true in a very narrow sense as far as computer science degrees go. But people still need education and degree or certification programs. We don't need a lowering of standards or removal of standards that is the copout.

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

#56

Post by alexandercrohde »

JimboOmega wrote: post #46
Icedcool wrote: post #23

"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.

So quotas are terrible, yes. But what if there are still biases in hiring? That someone sees a woman and assumes this or that about her based on gender alone? My own experience as a transgender person is that there are people who, as my gender presentation has shifted, really seem to view me as less competent. Not in a "girl's can't code" way, but like steadily viewing me as more junior, needing more hand holding, gi…

So how would you counteract that stereotype/bias?

Author would suggest lowering the bar [for women] would only reinforce such stereotypes, do you agree or disagree?

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

#58

Post by arkitaip »

mistermann wrote: post #47
magic_beans wrote: post #31

> 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. Worse, they were starting to drain the energy from the rest of the team. Eventually, we had to do the right thing for the company and let them go. This is one of the most disturbing thing's I've ever read in an article proclaiming to promote change in the tech gender gap.…

You don't sound curious, you sound angry, as if you somehow already KNOW the answers to your questions. Do you feel highly certain that she is lying? To understand one's mind, you should observe it.

Maybe you can address the issues instead of playing armchair psychologist.

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

#59

Post by wutbrodo »

tptacek wrote: post #40
GlennCSmith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where the author's reasoning is weak. A female tech lead / founder tried the standard way to get better representation of women at Google: try to hire more women, and found out there weren't enough highly qualified candidates to significantly move the numbers in the desired direction. Then as a founder herself, she tried to hire a higher percentage of women, and found there weren't enough candidates. She…

Again: everyone knows the candidate pool is overwhelmingly comprised of men. There's no real dispute anywhere about this fact. It's not part of the debate; there is no debate about it. Nobody can reasonably believe it's realistic to expect parity in hiring in the immediacy, and all the available evidence suggests --- like you'd expect! --- that Google doesn't expect that either. That makes that part of the argument i…

> Nobody can reasonably believe it's realistic to expect parity in hiring in the immediacy, and all the available evidence suggests --- like you'd expect! --- that Google doesn't expect that either.

You're clearly entirely unaware of the context of any of the diversity conversations that have gone on in tech in the last 5-10 yrs, including those internally and externally at Google. You're correct that expecting employer demographics to immediately exactly reflect US population demographics is stupid. You're wildly incorrect that it's uncommon.

As just one example of the top of my head, Google released their diversity a couple of years ago and coverage was almost universally: "Google has a serious diversity problem", "Google needs to do a lot better".

The actual gender numbers? Non technical employees were split down the middle and technical employees almost exactly reflected percent of CS degrees by gender.

Something isn't a straw man if it's an argument that's constantly made and carries a lot of influence.

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

#60

Post by whyaduck »

ploggingdev wrote: post #26
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 clos…

I can't speak for Google, but I work for a large SV company with an aggressive diversity program, and the goal is to hire to match the demographics of the pipeline of qualified candidates, not the population at large.
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