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

#111

Post by army » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:04 PM UTC

jnbiche wrote: post #7

I agree that lack of gender diversity in tech is an obvious problem, and I laud Fog Creek for trying to address this problem. However, I'd like to strongly emphasis the fact that one of the main problems Fog Creek identified as hindering the most talented female developers from applying to Fog Creek, is also a huge problem that prevents many of the most talented male developers from applying to Fog Creek. Ironically,…

You are wrong about the Dunning-Kruger effect - there is not a negative correlation between perceived and actual ability, just a weaker positive correlation than you might expect. There's plenty of debate about the causes of the effect in the original Dunning-Kruger paper. Moreover, if you look at the actual paper (rather than exaggerated retellings of it), you will see that perceived ability is actually positively correlated with actual ability: most people tend to think that they're above-average - the bottom quartile tends to think that they're in to 50th to 60th percentiles, while more able people tend to think they're in the 70th to 80th percentiles.

See Figure 1 at: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/77/6/1121.html

Also, $100,000-200,000 a year is the range you'd make at those companies and have more job security and income consistency, so I'm not sure what your point is.

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

#112

Post by ripb » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:06 PM UTC

There are more women than men in employment in the US, where is the daily articles on that? And the effort to tackle that? And the constant shaming of companies that employ more women than men?

There are 1.4x the amount of women graduating college than men. Where are the daily articles on that massive issue? Where is the effort to do something about that? Where is the constant headlines on how many more women are graduating than men, put in a very negative light as the lack of quote underlined "diversity" in the tech industry is?

This absolute, unrelenting and incredibly transparent (tech = money, status currently) narrative being sharted at everyone in the tech industry on a daily basis is driving me toward getting out of it altogether.

But hey, lets ignore some massive issues on the table in favour of constantly debating why women who never showed an interest in the industry can't pick and choose the finest and most well paid positions in that industry and see where that gets society in 10 years' time.

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

#113

Post by psionn » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

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 why I switched to a PM role. I miss programming every day, but I hate the thought of doing another stupid technical interview.

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

#114

Post by krschultz » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:15 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…

That may be a men/women thing, but I actually screen for that when I'm interviewing and significantly prefer to hire people that say "we did X" rather than "I did X". It's my job as an interviewer to figure out which person on that team you were, but if you describe your work as I I I I I and never We We We We, it is pretty telling.

It also goes for managing. If my team fucked something up, I say "I fucked up Y", even if it was a report of mine. If my team did something great, it's a "We did Z" even if I did it alone.

When you put it out that plainly, it sounds hokey and stupid. But trust me, over the long run those tiny things are the difference between a good company culture and a bad company culture.

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

#115

Post by copsarebastards » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:17 PM UTC

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #73

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…

I worked with a 10x developer once, he was awful and I couldn't stand to work with him. Although he could produce an insane amount of code and functionality his presence was like throwing a grenade into the middle of the dev team everyday. He left to take a job at google and the overall team productivity went up significantly. He basically did 10X individually,but took 11x away from the team. So team work is pretty d…

I think that wasn't a 10x programmer, then.

I've worked with 10x programmers, and while certainly a lot of their value is simply their ability to write code, they also have a lot of value because they help other people excel. The 10x programmers I've worked with are people who push for code reviews, better tools, proper testing, realistic timelines, good communication with clients, etc.

And in the long run, those programmers made the programmers around them better. A 10x programmer creates a lot of 2x-5x programmers. I'm maybe a 3x programmer and it's because a lot of 10x programmers have taken the time to help me get better.

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

#116

Post by ryanSrich » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

onezeno wrote: post #50

protonfish wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you think that. I have found getting feedback from team members before user testing finds a lot of low-hanging issues.

I'd be okay if it just said "usability testing". In my company that's just a part of the testing phase. But no way I'm just going to grab someone walking down the hall. I assume people are busy enough.

Is this meant to be taken literally? Fog Creek companies work remotely. How would you even physically grab someone in the hallway? As for how we do internal testing, we simply ask around on Slack and get a solid group of people to test for us before moving forward. Works out great.

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

#117

Post by sporkenfang » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:24 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…

It's interesting that you say your bias is toward perceiving someone self-reporting as working on a team as "everyone on the team did the work but me".

Does this result from primarily working alone, or have you just been granted license to be more autonomous than most coders I know? A lot of shops both employ pair programming and have a series of pairs working on one project, or have a t the very least a bunch of people working on different aspects of the project.

Of course this could be spun as "I did y for my project, x" but I'm curious as to why "As part of the team working on x project, I did y" sounds less like accomplishing something technical to you.

Say I had a project out of which I'm submitting 3-4 conference papers to various conferences for publication, working with my advisor and another student. Would it be better to say I did it all, or to be honest and say the other student did 1/3, I did 2/3, and my advisor helped shape our vision?

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

#118

Post by vonmoltke » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

ManFromUranus wrote: post #102

terrywilcox wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly didn't impose that criteria. I wanted the job. I certainly had the experience they were looking for. And no, nobody came out and said I was too old. They just reacted like I used to react when old people told me they understood computers. Pleasant, but patronizing. How could an old guy possibly handle any modern technology when he's got COBOL and FORTRAN on his resume? Discrimination is rarely blatant. I'…

Well for starters, COBOL and FORTRAN are effectively ancient technologies are far as much of modern business programming is concerned. I would omit them from your resume. State them for interest sake only. Also they are not a charity organization, the business goal is to get value out of you. Perhaps you did not demonstrate sufficient value, or seemed out of touch with current technology. I have found that programmer…

Fortran, while it might be ancient in computing terms, is still an actively-developed language[1] with multiple open-source and commercial compilers. I started writing Fortran professionally when I was 26, nine years ago. In certain scientific realms it is still used heavily, and it generally still kicks everything else's ass at linear algebra.

Kind of a tangent, but I have a soft spot for that language.

[1] Most recent standards rev was 2008, current draft standard slated for release in 2016.

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

#119

Post by krschultz » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:32 PM UTC

ripb wrote: post #112

There are more women than men in employment in the US, where is the daily articles on that? And the effort to tackle that? And the constant shaming of companies that employ more women than men? There are 1.4x the amount of women graduating college than men. Where are the daily articles on that massive issue? Where is the effort to do something about that? Where is the constant headlines on how many more women are gra…

This absolute, unrelenting and incredibly transparent (tech = money, status currently) narrative being sharted at everyone in the tech industry on a daily basis is driving me toward getting out of it altogether.

It's not being thrown at the tech industry. It's people within the industry calling out the problem that we have. It's very telling that you think of the industry as a community under siege.

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

#120

Post by api » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:33 PM UTC

sporkenfang wrote: post #117

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…

It's interesting that you say your bias is toward perceiving someone self-reporting as working on a team as "everyone on the team did the work but me". Does this result from primarily working alone, or have you just been granted license to be more autonomous than most coders I know? A lot of shops both employ pair programming and have a series of pairs working on one project, or have a t the very least a bunch of peo…

I have often worked alone, but not always. I've never worked in a pair programming shop, and I would probably find it distracting for anything but debugging or syncing up. The trouble is that complex programming tasks usually have the nature where communicating the ideas takes longer than simply coding them. You'd spend all your time syncing state between you and the other person.

But I don't think this explains the bias. I'm not really sure where it comes from but I found it interesting.