Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#61

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #13

geebee wrote: post #10

Several people have already mentioned it here, but I'm also very pleased to read this line: "Hall asked a simple question: Why didn't Chipps, a brilliant engineer, ever apply to work at Fog Creek? Chipps said she didn't think she would make it through their rigorous testing process." I do think that the grueling and intimidating software interview process is a very serious problem in our field. This one sentence hint…

It's tough though, because when you are a small company that expects developers to jump in and be productive, you do need some kind of process. That process can be referral based, in which case testing isn't as necessary because you can rely on past shared experience, but that obviously limits your talent pool. When you are interacting with an unknown (or a less known) person, you have to have some kind of vetting pr…

Don't confuse activity for productivity. Most of the activities people engage in when searching for a new employee are complete wastes of time, at best.

I personally find it is net-better to stop wasting that time, just try people at essentially random, and get back to my own work.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#62

Post by jnbiche » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #47

brudgers wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a provocative thesis that Fog Creek hires mediocre developers. The evidence of their products suggests otherwise. Of course as Atwood's friend Scott says, "We're all amateurs," so perhaps Fog Creek just hires the less mediocre on an absolute rather than relative scale.

From the context of the statement, I think the thesis is that Fog Creek's process increases the probability that mediocre developers will apply.

This is exactly the thesis. And by the same thesis, if Fog Creek's ability to correctly identity high-quality applicants remains at a constant rate, and the share of qualified devs grows smaller, then Fog Creek will hire more and more mediocre devs.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#63

Post by ForHackernews » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #27

There is a war for Women Dev's in silicon valley. Google's HR head mentioned in a podcast that they are simply poaching female devs' from smaller players to get their diversity numbers up. This puts smaller players at a major disadvantage as VC's have started tying their funding with diversity numbers. There is no way a startup can compete directly with Goog for the female dev's who are in major short supply. This di…

> This diversity madness is putting SV at a major disadvantage.

On the contrary, evidence suggest Silicon Valley is putting itself at a disadvantage by failing to attract talented women. Other non-SV technology markets do far better: http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/women-tech-problem-silico...

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#64

Post by brighteyes » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

ashray wrote: post #49

skywhopper wrote: post #6

I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's will…

We (www.gapjumpers.me) are trying to solve the gender diversity issue in tech by using blind auditions as a first filter. Our data shows that blind auditions result in greater diversity numbers. By using a technical challenge as the first step and fast forwarding people to an advanced interview stage, we're eliminating candidate reluctance and increasing transparency (the candidate interacts directly with the hiring…

I wonder if you could also make the matching part of the process blind as well? That is, the article mentions that women might be less likely to apply to places like Fog Creek - but if you matched applicants to employers blindly both ways (blindly to them, of course, you the matcher would not be blind), so the applicants didn't know who they were interviewing for during the interview? Then developers with lower self-esteem but great skills might end up interviewing for high-end places, and not even be stressed during the interview, because they don't know who it's with.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#65

Post by im2w1l » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #27

There is a war for Women Dev's in silicon valley. Google's HR head mentioned in a podcast that they are simply poaching female devs' from smaller players to get their diversity numbers up. This puts smaller players at a major disadvantage as VC's have started tying their funding with diversity numbers. There is no way a startup can compete directly with Goog for the female dev's who are in major short supply. This di…

If it's not too much trouble, could I ask for sources on 1)

>Google's HR head mentioned in a podcast that they are simply poaching female devs' from smaller players to get their diversity numbers up.

and 2)

> VC's have started tying their funding with diversity numbers.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#66

Post by tie_ » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

api wrote: post #38

skywhopper wrote: post #6

I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's will…

"And it may be that it intimidates more women than men." I've been looking around for a developer recently, and in looking at the profiles of women vs. men at places like AngelList I noticed a few key differences in how they described themselves. We're talking about people with very similar academic backgrounds here with similar levels of experience. Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while…

> Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while men -- who obviously did the same kind of work -- would simply say "I did X.

I find this a very interesting fact, but I see a number of other possible explanations for "I do X": - It is simply shorter. Men being used to more compact communication? - It is also more boastful - perhaps men being used to market themselves more aggressively than women? Or, put in another words, having and/or presenting bigger egos in their CVs? - Women being insecure about their personal contribution in X? Maybe the coattail-riding assumption is not always wrong.

In any case, I would withhold judgement before an interview.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#67

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

protonfish wrote: post #23

mooreds wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tough though, because when you are a small company that expects developers to jump in and be productive, you do need some kind of process. That process can be referral based, in which case testing isn't as necessary because you can rely on past shared experience, but that obviously limits your talent pool. When you are interacting with an unknown (or a less known) person, you have to have some kind of vetting pr…

Only if you have a policy of not having positions for Junior programmers. Fog Creek has the same hypocrisy as any other company that demands X years of experience from applicants but consider it somebody else's problem how they get that.

As a business owner who is a developer and hires developers: getting my experience was my responsibility. It's now yours. And you won't do it on my dime.

I'm not in the business of using money to make developers. I'm in the business of using developers to make money. The jobs I offer are not because I want to give someone a job, they're because I want someone to come do a job for me.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#68

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

api wrote: post #51

picks_at_nits wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Women would highlight the cooperative nature of their work, while men would highlight that they did it all themselves. In my experience the latter is typically more honest, especially if you actually were working on a team or on a team-oriented college project. Did you mean to say the former was more honest, i.e. that saying “we did X” is more honest than “I did X?"

Yes. Edited. It depends on the context of course. If it was your project alone, then you did it. If others contributed non-trivial amounts, it was a team effort. I noted that the males tended to bury that, while the females tended to highlight it.

I really want to hear what the individual contributed, though, and actually couldn't care less what their team did as a whole. I've heard way too many "we"s that were actually "they"s, while the subject was present, but not actually contributing that much. It's really easy for a bad developer to hide in a large team.

EDIT: and it's also easy for a good developer to get quagmired in a bad team! Just because the project as a whole didn't do much doesn't mean the individual is bad. So I still really only want to hear about the individual efforts.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#69

Post by jnbiche » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #18

geebee wrote: post #10

Several people have already mentioned it here, but I'm also very pleased to read this line: "Hall asked a simple question: Why didn't Chipps, a brilliant engineer, ever apply to work at Fog Creek? Chipps said she didn't think she would make it through their rigorous testing process." I do think that the grueling and intimidating software interview process is a very serious problem in our field. This one sentence hint…

"I do think that the grueling and intimidating software interview process is a very serious problem in our field." I'd have to agree. The interview process is irreducibly stressful, but that doesn't mean we have to go out of our way to make it worse. It isn't even good for hiring most men either, after all! It's just a bad idea. I've personally had fairly good success hiring people who happen to be women, and I suspe…

> my interview attitude is that I'm there to find out what you can do, not to find out what you can't,

Have you ever considered trying to find out and confirm what the candidate has done in the past, instead of the almost impossible task of finding out what they "can do" in a few short hours? Barring some major new life issue, a developer's past performance is highly predictive of their future performance.

Edit: Removed longish rant.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#70

Post by api » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

tie_ wrote: post #66

api wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And it may be that it intimidates more women than men." I've been looking around for a developer recently, and in looking at the profiles of women vs. men at places like AngelList I noticed a few key differences in how they described themselves. We're talking about people with very similar academic backgrounds here with similar levels of experience. Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while…

> Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while men -- who obviously did the same kind of work -- would simply say "I did X. I find this a very interesting fact, but I see a number of other possible explanations for "I do X": - It is simply shorter. Men being used to more compact communication? - It is also more boastful - perhaps men being used to market themselves more aggressively than women?…

There's lots of possibilities. It's really hard to tell whether any of these things are cultural or come from actual gender dimorphism (to use the technical biological term). Ultimately it doesn't matter if they are irrelevant to ability.

What I'm saying is that when we are evaluating peoples' abilities, we should take care to evaluate actual ability rather than unreliable proxies for ability. The latter are prejudices, basically, and they blind us to a lot of talent that might not fit those lazy filters.

I'm neither a "PC liberal" nor a conservative/reactionary on this issue. Liberals pretend differences in ability don't exist, while conservatives like to defend the accuracy of our "gut" prejudices and argue there's nothing wrong. IMHO equality of opportunity comes when people make an effort to look at actual ability as objectively as possible.

It's in your best interest as an employer to do this. Good people are very hard to find, and if you're running some kind of dumb ape-brain filter that excludes ~50% of the population from consideration you are handicapping your recruitment efforts pretty badly. Think like a human being.