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

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

#171

Post by spamizbad »

HeroOfAges wrote: post #122
majos wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone who didn't read the linked article (it's short), it suggests that a key element is careful design of intro courses. Students with computer science experience get a more advanced course that is explicitly designed not to make them more competitive in second-year courses (instead, it starts on material that will re-appear in third-year courses). Students with no computer science experience get their own intr…

How does this level the playing field? Why would this not reduce the overall rate of learning for everyone to suit the needs of the slowest students?

It's a matter of perspective taking.

If a "Never saw a line of code until I took this class" sits between two "Coding since 11" students, they're going to watch their neighbors effortlessly breeze through the curriculum. If they don't know those student's background, it's not unreasonable if they come to the (false) conclusion that they're not cut out to be a developer because it's just so much easier for "everyone else" (N=2).

If you "track" your intro classes, you can put the first-timers together and likewise keep the experienced students from falling asleep in class by tracking them into something more challenging

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

#172

Post by mrkstu »

commandlinefan wrote: post #99
brightball wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It was as if they brought him in to fill an interview requirement and didn't actually think he would qualify.

Well, that’s inexcusable behavior BUT - we can safely assume they ended up hiring somebody else, who had a degree. In other words, somebody who was as qualified as he was, but who also had a degree. In other other words, somebody more (maybe only slightly more, but still more) qualified. Requiring some sort of a degree is still reasonable, up until the point where a position actually goes unfilled due to it.

Why is that a safe assumption?

You're assuming that he wasn't, in fact, the best candidate that interviewed based on what?

Since they didn't seriously consider him they may have left behind the best candidate available to them. The original poster said "he's one of the most knowledgeable people I've been around."

Assuming that poster has a wide exposure to developers, its highly possible that the position didn't get a better applicant.

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

#173

Post by btilly »

asdff wrote: post #164
btilly wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did read the Gender Differences section of that article. You will note that I stated what research shows about population differences and did not wade into the more controversial question about why those differences exist. That said, I have found that on controversial subjects, people grab every sliver of support for their own ideas, and ignore data that might contradict it. The more heated the debate, the har…

You are a HS senior with good grades, test scores, and a decent essay. That's all the engineering school expects for admission. There is no explicit test for spacial reasoning ability, other than your ability to compete at your specific high school, your ability to take the SAT, and your ability to write a boilerplate 5 paragraph essay (probably strongly dependent on whether you use a writing coach or test prep servi…

First, the rat experiment that you want has actually been done. In rats, testosterone improves spatial reasoning. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081396/ for verification.

Secondly an inability at spatial reasoning definitely is going to make engineering courses much, much harder. So your claim that there is no effect on getting to entry level engineer is overstating your case by a lot.

That said, there is a documented difference between men and women that affects a first hire. And that difference is that the whole "fake it until you make it" attitude is more commonly found among men than women. So there is actually a significant difference between nervous women and nervous men talking to recruiters about their first job. Not sure how important it is, but it should not be discounted.

Do you have followup questions?

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

#174

Post by naasking »

ajross wrote: post #110
gotoeleven wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should look at the memo with all its links to papers to decide if these claims are "largely unsourced." https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I... There was a version initially floating around that had all the links removed.

There is absolutely no sourcing for research showing women being inherently or unfixably uninterested in computer science. None. He had a bunch of links to studies about bland stuff like personality differences, using them to make arguments the study authors never indended and (where asked) refused to support. Calling that "sourcing" is essentially trying to treat Damore's fundamentally political document as an origi…

> There is absolutely no sourcing for research showing women being inherently or unfixably uninterested in computer science.

Damore never made such claims. At the population level, it does indeed seem like women tend to be more interested in people-oriented subjects (nursing, pediatrics, law) and men tend to be more interested in thing-oriented subjects (engineering, compsci, surgery).

So even a discipline like medicine which has roughly gender parity, you still see segregation along gender lines, where women are overrepresented in subfields which deal directly with people (pediatrics, obgyn), and men are overrepresented in subfields which treat people as things (surgery). So a theory that delineates things vs. people has good explanatory power for explaining gender disparities [1].

Furthermore, Damore never claimed that such tendencies aren't "fixable". He claimed that the discriminatory policies currently in place are not only completely ineffective at influencing the gender numbers (and so should be ended), but that policies that take this research into account would be more effective.

> Calling that "sourcing" is essentially trying to treat Damore's fundamentally political document as an original piece of social science research.

If you're actually interested in a proper analysis Damore's claims by actual researchers in this field, I suggest reading [2].

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018...

[2] https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-google-memo-what-does-the-r...

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

#175

Post by [deleted] »

leeny wrote: post #96
stormbrew wrote: post #16

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…

Author here. Yeah, I went back and forth on the intro a bunch and couldn't find a clearer way to not dismiss systemic issues while calling out the fact that we're not being fair to the people on the ground by bundling everything up as bias.

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by ambernightcrush »

pksdjfikkkkdsff wrote: post #158
meristem wrote: post #30

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.

What is labor discrimination?

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

#177

Post by ryandrake »

sokoloff wrote: post #62

Is the right thing to assume we should target 50-50 gender representation as a first-principle outcome target in all fields? If so, it’s a negative sign that the marquee companies analyzed hired at about the gender split of universities they targeted. Is it equally plausible that we should be looking bottoms-up from the perspective of a fresh college graduate entering the field and asking the question, “am I likely t…

I’ve got a bunch of hobbies and none of them are even close to gender parity. Go check out poker rooms in Vegas and find me a single table where the players are 50-50 men-women. Visit flying clubs, carpentry groups, engine mechanics shops, you won’t find gender parity in any of these. And nobody is really tackling any of these as some urgent problem to solve. Why do professions need to aim for 50-50 but not non-professional hobbies?

EDIT: Also, why do we think it can be fixed? Can the gender balances in hobbies be fixed? Is the lack of female metalworker hobbyists or male quilters attributable to a “pipeline problem”?

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

#178

Post by markn951 »

pksdjfikkkkdsff wrote: post #166
rb808 wrote: 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.…

I've always said women are too smart to become programmers. I'm pretty sure it is better for the soul to have a job with more people interactions. (Yeah I know there are meetings and you have to communicate with clients - still, you end up staring into a glowing screen most of the time. The general work environment often isn't great either. Why would Software Engineers need a nice environment, they only stare at thei…

I get the sentiment, but reread your first sentence. "Women are too ___ to become ___." Doesn't that read as super condescending and prescriptive? I understand it's coming from ostensibly a good place, but it's the same thing as saying "all Asians are smart and good at math." It doesn't matter if the stereotype/prejudice/whatever you call it is "positive", it's still generalization, speaking for a group instead of letting them speak for themselves, and it's the wrong way to approach these things.

You're making assumptions about what "women" are good at or what "women" want or what "they" should do, when the fact is there is no such homogeneous category for you to speak about. Sure, some women are better at/enjoy more face-to-face type work. Some women are better at/enjoy programming/heads-down type work. A comic book artist probably spends as much time doing heads-down work as a programmer, but would you say female comic book artists should try doing some other career instead?

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

#179

Post by pksdjfikkkkdsff »

HN is not the right place to ask beginner coding questions. There are other forums for that (reddit, stackoverflow...). Here they want stuff that sparks "intellectual curiosity", which usually doesn't apply to beginner coding questions.

Also calling men assholes, that is, being sexist, is unlikely to lead to favorable responses.

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

#180

Post by pksdjfikkkkdsff »

VRay wrote: post #119
rofo1 wrote: post #33

I don't understand why people deliberately hire people of certain group. Be it women, or black, or whatever. Why? Why can't you just hire the right person for the job? To me, this is just as bad as actively discriminating against certain groups of people. Why must everyone be absolutely and uniformly represented? It just doesn't make sense, that's not how reality works. It will never be so, and all you end up doing i…

Look into "unconscious biases" Basically, someone similar to you will naturally seem like a better and more skilled person

Unconscious bias has been debunked.
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