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My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

latimes.com

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Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#81

Post by smt88 »

goog-anon wrote: post #79
goldcd wrote: post #8

I was happily nodding along, until I got to: "Somehow, he managed to obtain copies of the IBM entrance examination questions and answers, which he surreptitiously shared with promising young black job applicants. He coached them on passing the exam and succeeding in their interviews. Many were subsequently hired." I'm sure this helped contribute to an increase in black hires, but is a stupidly short-sighted thing to…

Black engineer here at a FANG. I do this all the time with black candidates who interview. In fact I use my round to coach them on the upcoming rounds and give them stellar feedback afterward. I know many would think this is ethically egregious, but it is only balancing the unbelievable prejudice against them by Asian interviewers who would not pass a black candidate under any circumstance.

Please do the world a favor and blow the whistle (or at least speak anonymously to a journalist) instead of trying to subvert a broken system.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#82

Post by kls »

carapace wrote: post #72
kls wrote: post #29

Tangentially related to the article but I think my story is a good reality check for myself and others about racism. Now I am one of those individuals that ascribe every malty or advantage to racism but I absolutely agree that in form it still exists and sometimes those perpetuating it do not even know they are doing it. Anyways on to my story and on to one of the absolute best things that ever happened to me in my l…

> (TLDR start reading here) That's not how that works.

That's how it works for me, everything before it was bait. I am not a writer (have dyslexia and digraphia and am a huge benefactor of spell check) and tend to write stream of consciousness (hence all the weird parenthesis that are out of context but relate to what I am thinking, like this one). I will admit it was a slide of hand, but the meat of my post was after the TLDR so not totally a scam.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#83

Post by smt88 »

the_narrator wrote: post #57
ivanhoe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember hearing that IBM suffered a huge losses (or any) as a result of this, so could it then be that it wasn't such a big deal? There's so many variables at play when hiring it's just silly to presume that 100% perfect fairness in tests is of any huge significance to "fairness" of outcome or to maximizing the benefits for a company, especially when compared to the things like racial or other purely persona…

So if IBM didn't suffer or (publicly) disclose huge losses, it doesn't matter that someone scammed them into hiring unqualified engineers?

Why do you assume they were unqualified?

We already know IBM failed to hire qualified black engineers because they were black. This may well have been cases of qualified people working around a corrupt system.

The first black IBM engineer isn't going to want new black hires to be incompetent -- quite the opposite. He likely did his own screening.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#84

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

human20190310 wrote: post #78
goldcd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is written in an ambiguous fashion. If it was "This is the type of interview and type of questions you're likely to come across" - then I've no real issue. As you mention, educational opportunities were not equal, so maybe counteracts the implicit bias of not being provided with general information from tutor/peers/previous-experience - "this being your first IT interview, you should know.." or "how a bun…

Does a person have an obligation to respect the rules of a system that, at best, only pretends to treat them fairly?

There's sometimes room for civil disobedience, where you openly stand up to authority and say you can't follow the rules because they're unconscionable.

Secretly breaking the rules because the system isn't fair is like lying because the truth will get you in trouble. It doesn't right any wrong or effect any change; you're just taking advantage of everyone who assumes you're an honest person.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#86

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

Buge wrote: post #25
cblum wrote: post #22

> Microsoft released a chatbot named Tay, designed to learn from Twitter users. Within 24 hours, Tay claimed the Holocaust never happened, professed hatred for women and suggested that black people should be hanged. > “Garbage in, garbage out,” software engineers say. Likewise, racism in, racism out. Biased developers produce biased code. The author either made zero effort to understand how things work, or willingly…

>> “Garbage in, garbage out,” software engineers say. Likewise, racism in, racism out. Biased developers produce biased code. Every sentence individually is true. And Tay was a case of garbage in garbage out. But the Tay case didn't involve biased developers. The garbage in came from Twitter trolls, not from the code or developers.

Pretty sure the tay bot stuff was 4chan.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#87

Post by goog-anon »

smt88 wrote: post #81
goog-anon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black engineer here at a FANG. I do this all the time with black candidates who interview. In fact I use my round to coach them on the upcoming rounds and give them stellar feedback afterward. I know many would think this is ethically egregious, but it is only balancing the unbelievable prejudice against them by Asian interviewers who would not pass a black candidate under any circumstance.

Please do the world a favor and blow the whistle (or at least speak anonymously to a journalist) instead of trying to subvert a broken system.

This problem gets written about every other month in the media. While revealing the details of my observations and experiences might be interesting, it's definitely not whistleblower material.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#88

Post by azn_coder »

goog-anon wrote: post #79
goldcd wrote: post #8

I was happily nodding along, until I got to: "Somehow, he managed to obtain copies of the IBM entrance examination questions and answers, which he surreptitiously shared with promising young black job applicants. He coached them on passing the exam and succeeding in their interviews. Many were subsequently hired." I'm sure this helped contribute to an increase in black hires, but is a stupidly short-sighted thing to…

Black engineer here at a FANG. I do this all the time with black candidates who interview. In fact I use my round to coach them on the upcoming rounds and give them stellar feedback afterward. I know many would think this is ethically egregious, but it is only balancing the unbelievable prejudice against them by Asian interviewers who would not pass a black candidate under any circumstance.

Pretty common in this industry. I worked at a few major companies( check article below). Not only was racism widespread, you were looked badly at for not helping your race.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2019/01/28/what-mig...

It's actually very complicated, because there were a lot of backroom deals between the two major races to make it not look like racism.

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#89

Post by [deleted] »

goog-anon wrote: post #79
goldcd wrote: post #8

I was happily nodding along, until I got to: "Somehow, he managed to obtain copies of the IBM entrance examination questions and answers, which he surreptitiously shared with promising young black job applicants. He coached them on passing the exam and succeeding in their interviews. Many were subsequently hired." I'm sure this helped contribute to an increase in black hires, but is a stupidly short-sighted thing to…

Black engineer here at a FANG. I do this all the time with black candidates who interview. In fact I use my round to coach them on the upcoming rounds and give them stellar feedback afterward. I know many would think this is ethically egregious, but it is only balancing the unbelievable prejudice against them by Asian interviewers who would not pass a black candidate under any circumstance.

[deleted]

Re: My father was IBM’s first black software engineer

#90

Post by anon9922 »

goog-anon wrote: post #79
goldcd wrote: post #8

I was happily nodding along, until I got to: "Somehow, he managed to obtain copies of the IBM entrance examination questions and answers, which he surreptitiously shared with promising young black job applicants. He coached them on passing the exam and succeeding in their interviews. Many were subsequently hired." I'm sure this helped contribute to an increase in black hires, but is a stupidly short-sighted thing to…

Black engineer here at a FANG. I do this all the time with black candidates who interview. In fact I use my round to coach them on the upcoming rounds and give them stellar feedback afterward. I know many would think this is ethically egregious, but it is only balancing the unbelievable prejudice against them by Asian interviewers who would not pass a black candidate under any circumstance.

Is it fair to assume then that when you interview an Asian candidate, you will hold them to a much higher bar than black candidates? Or perhaps under no circumstances would you pass them for a role that another Black candidate is applying for?

I'm Asian, worked at FANG, have never discriminated against someone based on their ethnicity and frankly find your actions shortsided and regressive. You're fighting perceived racism with actual racism.

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