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We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#151
post #128

Honestly for young children I wouldn't want any of the girls to become software engineers. Most Software Engineers including myself are friendly but also grumpy, nerdy and annoying, with poor communication skills and an unhealthy lifestyle. For some reason for men its OK because all they do is work, but for women I'd rather my daughters have more human contact and nicer environment - esp one without developers in it.…

Seems like you're projecting or even self-hating.

> For some reason for men its OK because all they do is work, but for women I'd rather my daughters have more human contact and nicer environment

Also what does this even mean?

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this will be of any use to you. If you're pitching to VCs, you're already operating way above my level. I also don't know if it's different over here. I live and work in the UK and I'm white. I genuinely don't think I've worked with anyone in the tech industry who cares what race or background their co-workers have. There's definitely an underrepresentation problem (most grievously with female enginee…

The best athletes in the world still get nervous before games. Same with musicians. I don’t feel meta bad about getting nervous. It just sucks to feel nervous!

As long as the nervousness doesn’t seriously affect the presentation it is ok or even good. I find a bit of adrenaline helps me put my best effort in.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#153

I don't think the point of criticizing "it's a pipeline problem" is that there isn't a pipeline problem, but that it's an easy out to avoid taking action at whatever stage of the 'pipeline' you happen to be working at. If, as an manager at a FAANG, you say "it's a pipeline problem" you're probably saying that there aren't enough candidates because not enough women graduate from ST programs. If you're a program develo…

And the point of criticizing the criticism of "it's a pipeline problem" is that, wherever you try to improve the pipeline, you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment. Working near the end of the pipe, you'll quickly hit diminishing returns. If the input at your segment is biased 4:1, then you can't improve past it. Sure, if your output is 8:1 then it's bad, but you won't g…

> EDIT2:

> "you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment", unless you're willing to start doing corrective discrimination

Hum, no you can't. All you can do is change the local distribution in some place, at the expense of slightly biasing the other way everywhere else.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#154
post #48

I think it's pretty bold to post something like this. As a person of color, I absolutely observe bias in hiring processes and recruiting...however as someone who majored in CS it's undeniable that we have far less women and minorities going through these programs. After I graduated, my university managed to get the number closer to 60/40 of men vs. women but when I graduated there was just one woman in our graduating…

> however as someone who majored in CS it's undeniable that we have far less women and minorities going through these programs. Why should there be predetermined amount of women or "minorities" in these programs? Who says that's how it should be? Is this true for all jobs in the world, or just in "these" programs? If so, who chose these particular programs to be "special"? If not, where is the "fight" for all the oth…

Some of these are lower status, and often lower paying, jobs. Others, such as special forces, DO have people pushing for women to be included.

Those fighting for equality are focused on getting equality in great careers, and that's why they're focused on SWE jobs over oil drilling.

You might disagree with them because you think being a plumber really is a good career. You'd probably be right, but that's not how society sees it. Society sees SWE jobs as being much much better, and so that's what's being fought for first.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#155
So her claim is that going to t top tier university is a complete waste of time and money, because boot camp graduates end up being just as capable?

What are top tier universities doing to keep being competitive with those low cost boot camps? It seems to me for the additional money, they should be able to provide some additional value?

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#156
post #17

My alma mater Harvey Mudd College has had rough gender parity in Computer Science for several years now. It's a small school but other colleges could learn from their practices. https://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/how-harvey-mudd-college-...

Because they make it so in the admissions process. How is that even an achievement? OK they get female applicants, which presumably is not automatic. But then to tune admissions so that you get to 50% is not really something to be proud about imo.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#157
post #60

This stood out to me, and aligns with my observations in the (limited) female representation in the workplace: > In India, for instance, about 35% of developers are women; in the U.S., it’s 16% Does India not have the various gender biases we often attribute a large part of the problem to? What is India doing so well in this space to have over double the percentage of female software developers as the U.S.?

In India, your major is largely determine by your academic results and social pressure when you finish up secondary schools. If you score at the top in your entrance exams, you will applying to medical or engineering schools. The good schools are hyper selective and only take the top scorers (at a rate more selective than our ivy's). Very, very few people consider majors outside of these areas. Secondly, there is a h…

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. On its face that seems plausible.

I wonder if gender bias still kicks in once in career. I seem to see way less than 35% Indian women vs men in very senior or management roles. (Just my anecdotal data point of one, I don't have any numbers to back that up).

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#158

Underneath all this: although companies need talent, interviews are adversarial and not structured to create a supportive environment so candidates are at their best. Quite often the interview setup is to see how the candidate performs at their worst-- stressed, time pressured, on the spot, performing for fragments of time to a number of people while in what (feels|is) an asymmetrical power relationship.

That's independent of gender or race, though.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#159
post #10

I think it's pretty bold to post something like this. As a person of color, I absolutely observe bias in hiring processes and recruiting...however as someone who majored in CS it's undeniable that we have far less women and minorities going through these programs. After I graduated, my university managed to get the number closer to 60/40 of men vs. women but when I graduated there was just one woman in our graduating…

I am Brazillian, mixed race, my dad family is from europe, my dad has green eyes, and I can apply for EU citizenship. My mother family is mixed of black and native american. Almost every single time I faced discrimination, was because I was "white", for example open hostility by 100% black people assuming that I was "white" and evil or something, or when I was informed I should not apply for affirmative action becaus…

I am in a similar situation, where I have a last name that is clearly "not local", mixed origins, but I'm very white by most standards.

Any sort of intervention will have some negative effects. I'm sorry you are being disadvantaged. Seeing how hostile people can be to others, especially in cases where they are wrong (like yours), shows how bad things have become, imho.

That said, we have to do something. If helping get parity in CS means a few guys get disadvantaged, or some people get otherwise mislabelled, it still helps a ton of people, helps break the systemic issues. In many situations, it's dammed if you do, dammed if you don't. You and I are still very privileged in the end (ex: dual citizenship).

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#160
post #27

I know it is not politically correct to say it, but I remain unconvinced that gender parity is a desirable goal. Particularly given the current state of research into differences in gender averages. Here is a real example. Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_visualization_ability#... men have about a one standard deviation advantage in spacial reasoning over women. Assuming that both distributions are normal wi…

> Back in the 1960s there was discrimination and no women were in engineering. This was a terrible waste of talent. But by the late 1980s, women were 20% of engineering students. Decades of hand-wringing later, women are still about 20% of engineering students. Based on spacial reasoning ability, perhaps women SHOULD be about 20% of engineering students.

I just wanted to point out that this is objectively wrong for our profession and misleading at best. Women were a large part of early software development and computer science, composing far more than 20% of majors [1] and that this article is specifically related to computer science and software engineering.

Clearly something happened in the 80s that caused a transformation and I think attempting to explain it with a biological basis is simply factually wrong. It seems like whenever an explanation attempts to use gender differences as some sort of rationale it comes coupled with ignoring the very objective history of computer science.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

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