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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

#251

Post by TimTheTinker »

In software development in particular, the "pipeline problem" has only existed since the 1980s in Western nations. Prior to that, I've heard it said that women were over-represented in software development compared to men (which wouldn't have been a bad thing), or at least that there was much less of a gender gap.

I have a theory about why this changed in the 1980's in particular.

- The 1980's saw the dawn of personal computers, and many people either bought them or brought them home from work.

- Personal computers, especially the inner workings and programmability appeal very much to people with Asperger's and high-functioning autism, as they present a highly complex but perfectly logical and predictable user interface. Because of this appeal, a much higher proportion of young people on the Autism spectrum learned to program computers (that their parents had at home) long before they went to college.

- Autism and Asperger's occur more frequently among boys than girls.

- Because so many "geeky" (i.e. autism spectrum) kids, mostly boys, got into computers during their high school years. This in turn likely caused neurotypical people (of whom more are girls than boys - remember autism occurs more frequently in boys) to associate computers with "geekiness" and caused them to gravitate towards less "geeky" hobbies and interests.

The key, I think, to making computers more appealing to girls is to dis-associate computers with social "uncoolness", and a lot has been done towards this end in the last 10 years.

EDIT: I'm getting some downvotes and I'm curious - do people disagree with or not like my theory about the connection between male representation in software and autism? I really don't think it's sexist to observe that autism occurs more frequently in men...

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

#252

Post by supernova87a »

hnick wrote: post #248
supernova87a wrote: post #187

With such politically charged issues, it's always a problem of people wanting to believe something is possible (and mandatory to pursue) banging their heads against what is true and actually possible. If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population) is 18% (Google for the facts and stats), how is every company to hit an idealistic goal of 50% representa…

I generally agree with you, but such smart and resourceful companies could do something about it. They are not powerless. Companies used to train internally - watch an older TV show (or even something like Better Call Saul) and see how many characters "worked their way up from the mail room". The death of company loyalty goes both ways but I'm sure it can be mended with some effort. Where I work one of the better pro…

Sure, but the scope of what most companies are concerned with is their hiring goals for the next 1-2 years (let's be generous and say 5 years). What you're talking about clearly falls into the pipeline problem and just further supports the premise -- something like a 20 year timescale issue. Which goes to the truth of this article -- this problem is far beyond the power (or responsibility) of any company.

I'm not saying a company should throw up its hands and do nothing. But why are we looking to assign to companies the solving of a 50% problem (if that's the goal), when they can only ever achieve 15% within their reasonable powers?

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

#253

Post by oh_sigh »

age_bronze wrote: post #219

I find it extremely ironic that those opposing discrimination and racism are now the ones to view people as just statistics. The whole reason why racism and sexism is bad is because it doesn't look at people as individuals. Behind every person who goes to an interview there's whole life, and every interviewer has so much more information about that person than just her being a female or black. Pretending that by know…

There's also the weirdness of these equality crusaders defining what white males are doing as the norm, and as the world should be, and trying to make other groups more like white males in certain respects.

What if the rate at which women enter, say, CS, relative to other fields is actaully the "correct" rate, and the male population's numbers are inflated for some bad reason?

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

#254

Post by wayoutthere »

hinkley wrote: post #85
wayoutthere wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is leaving unstated what we all know to be true: most of these jobs aren't really that hard. You don't really need the people with pedigreed CS backgrounds, but it's easier than actually figuring out how to screen candidates. The "pipeline problem" is the pipeline itself. So you have to go around the pipeline by avoiding the formal education system, which is where the bias is observed.

The problem is that if you give a rocket engineer the job of opening a pickle jar, you are forever in danger of them doing something titanically ornate, instead of just opening the goddamn jar or installing one of those toothy wedges under a cabinet near the fridge, where people can still function normally if they forget it's even there. The one time I worked on a team of all highly senior people you couldn't get any…

Exactly!

Most of tech is what I would consider "trade school" level work. That is, it's not really any harder than if you went to trade school for HVAC. Sure there's lots of thermodynamics and air flow stuff involved, but you don't need a physics degree. You just need training, and experience is 90% of the job qualifications. People routinely overestimate the importance of their "skill" at most jobs.

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

#255

Post by pksdjfikkkkdsff »

inerte wrote: post #224
ForHackernews wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have a goal of 50% female developers? Can we see some citations for that? Most companies I've worked at claimed to be trying for 20%, and they were failing abysmally at it.

I've heard from a Googler that yes, they want the workforce to match the outside world. With that in mind read https://diversity.google/annual-report/#!#_what-would-it-tak... and "That’s why in 2019 we challenge ourselves and others to think differently so that we widen pathways to tech. Only then will we reflect our consumer base, and truly elevate our ability to build products for everyone." So Google wants to refl…

When I hear statements like that, I always wonder if they try to hire 2% pedophiles, too. About 2% of people in the real world are supposed to be pedophiles, so if they want to reflect the real world, they should aim to hire them.

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

#256

Post by AdrianB1 »

ryandrake wrote: post #177
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-profe…

Real life does not work with targets, but with whatever gets. Creating artificial targets just because some people think they are right does not make it right.

Diversity is good. Diversity targets are evil. This is how you can become evil trying to do something good.

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

#257

Post by uwuhn »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #246
uwuhn wrote: post #222

I'm going to preface this post by saying that I don't have a problem with most of my coworkers (male and female) being Asian. In fact, I prefer it. I'm not Asian, but the majority of my friends, classmates, and coworkers throughout my life have been, and that continues even now during my career in tech. Whenever I see anything related to affirmative action being discussed nowadays, I think that it's only a matter of…

> I think that it's only a matter of time until Asian women are treated the same way as Asian men. Once you've managed to close the gender gap in engineering, you have a new problem to deal with -- a lack of diversity among women engineers in regards to race and socio-economic class. The blanket catch-all term "Asian" is not doing this conversation any favors. You assert a monoculture, but Asia is a huge region with…

The terminology used by modern institutions is vague for a reason. Being too specific is excessively and indefensibly discriminatory.

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

#258

Post by wnoise »

sbilstein wrote: post #53
TurkishPoptart wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As for bias in interviewing, I think it's really hard for non-POC to understand the more subtle parts of what sucks about interviewing. Even tho I grew up in the states and have been around white people my entire life...there is something about the way most caucasian Americans telegraph (or don't) feelings and communicate during a technical interview that put me totally on edge. I get anxious with the 'Zuck' white g…

In my experience, making an interview less biased is not about color of skin. It's about comfort and acknowledging how these anxieties creep up. At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk and resume review, to smile, to always leave time for questions at the end, to show some amount of enthusiasm for the work the interviewee is doing. It's not about an interview fo…

> At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk

For some people that causes anxiety, the exact opposite of comfort.

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

#259

Post by pksdjfikkkkdsff »

hnick wrote: post #248
supernova87a wrote: post #187

With such politically charged issues, it's always a problem of people wanting to believe something is possible (and mandatory to pursue) banging their heads against what is true and actually possible. If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population) is 18% (Google for the facts and stats), how is every company to hit an idealistic goal of 50% representa…

I generally agree with you, but such smart and resourceful companies could do something about it. They are not powerless. Companies used to train internally - watch an older TV show (or even something like Better Call Saul) and see how many characters "worked their way up from the mail room". The death of company loyalty goes both ways but I'm sure it can be mended with some effort. Where I work one of the better pro…

But why would you expect women to be more like to choose the approach of not graduating than men, though? Women have the same options to attend university as men. It seems more likely to me that the proportions of applicants without a degree are similar to the ones with degrees.

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

#260

Post by baked_ziti »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #251

In software development in particular, the "pipeline problem" has only existed since the 1980s in Western nations. Prior to that, I've heard it said that women were over -represented in software development compared to men (which wouldn't have been a bad thing), or at least that there was much less of a gender gap. I have a theory about why this changed in the 1980's in particular. - The 1980's saw the dawn of person…

> women were over-represented in software development compared to men

This is a narrative I see taking hold in the past few years but I'm not convinced that prior to the 1980s women were the majority of software developers. My impression was that this has to do with how a job was defined, and that many data entry type positions were considered to fall beneath the rubric of computer science.

Having no evidence to offer of my own for or against, I wonder if anyone else can link anything germane to the discussion.

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