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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

#311

Post by jimbokun »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #279
sbilstein wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be reading into what I wrote a bit. This is just how I feel...not how I WANT to feel. Obviously, these are biases and anxieties that exist in my own mixed-race low-income immigrant brain that i wish weren't there. As another latino founder told me..."walk into a VC pitch meeting with the confidence of a tall white man." Like I don't hate caucasians but sometimes can't help but notice these differenc…

As a tall while Caucasian I think you need you have a problem with the environment, not a racial one. I live in Eastern Europe and we don't really know what racism is because we have no history of problems in the past; I had direct reports that were Latino and Latina, Europeans (Caucasians), black (African): they were friends more than subordinates. In Bucharest my South African colleague, the Brazilian one and the C…

> I live in Eastern Europe and we don't really know what racism is because we have no history of problems in the past;

Then why do I read stories like this about black soccer players being racially abused?

https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/01/racism-at-the-heart-of-b...

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

#312

Post by pcarolan »

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…

This is a good point. EDS during the 80s and 90s used to hire smart people with no college degree and send them to Texas to learn how to code for several months. They built their workforce this way because the demand was higher than the global supply. It would cost a blip on the balance sheet of FAANG co.’s to do the same. Interestingly there was a high number of married people that coupled up during that time. Sounded like a pretty intense but fun experience. Source: I interned there in the late 90s and heard a lot of stories from the then middle aged cohorts that went through it.

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

#313

Post by celticmusic »

billti wrote: 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.?

Studies show that the more egalitarian the society, the larger the differences in choices men and women make.

It's only when there's a lot of economic pressure that women that they start going into fields they don't tend to go into. India, specifically, has a lot of pressure for people to go into software dev.

Here's the LA Times talking about it:

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-women-e...

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

#314

Post by AgentOrange1234 »

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…

So much this. I work at a FAANG company which has terrible diversity numbers in hardware development. Upper management is frequently asked about this by employees at big q&a sessions. The answer is always to blame the pipeline, as if we do not have billions of dollars that we could direct at solving it ourselves...

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

#315

Post by 8note »

pksdjfikkkkdsff wrote: post #259
hnick wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The more likely case is that they have a degree that isn't in CSC.

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

#316

Post by throwaway8692 »

sakoht wrote: post #182

The exciting thing if you are a hiring manager is that, as long as there is talent that is being passed-over for the wrong reasons, you can beat your competitors in one of the most challenging ares of building a compay by being good at avoiding this error. A friend noted recently that a compounding benefit of hiring a gender-balanced team early is you won't lose female talent you find later when they refuse to join a…

Given the complexity of the feelings a lot of people have and are developing over time, I think it's worth emphasizing how the push for gender balance can backfire. The linked writeup mentions "diversity fatigue", and it can turn people who would otherwise support fixing the pipeline into cynics.

We have a woman who was hired on my team at work. As soon as management saw an actual woman had applied, the interview process was just a formality. She has been with us for several months now and has performed abysmally. If she were a white guy she would not have made it in the front door. Working with her is a constant frustration - explaining basic programming concepts and constantly reminding her what the current task is when she gets distracted looking at cat pictures.

The issue is that the male members of the team resent her and our bosses because she's unfireable as a woman. We want in good faith to support women and other demographics that might be interested in our field! We'd love to do whatever we can to foster interest among any human beings at any stage of the pipeline! But what we're coming to realize is that because management needs to meet some "quota", we'll be providing a subsistence for a net-negative-productivity member of the team for the foreseeable future. Nobody can say a word about it to our manager or director for fear of being labeled a sexist. It's making us resent the whole push for diversity as a whole.

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

#317

Post by petsormeat »

jdmoreira wrote: post #15

at my workplace we try very hard to hire women programmers and we are at about 10% - 15% which is still quite low but better than other companies around us. At the same time I noticed that the majority of engineering managers, product owners and agile coaches in our company are women. Some of these women were programmers at some point in their career. I'm not deducing anything from this (especially since it’s a singl…

>At the same time I noticed that the majority of engineering managers, product owners and agile coaches in our company are women. Some of these women were programmers at some point in their career.

Many women get nudged/pushed into middle management instead of promoted to technical leads or directorships. It's often a way for companies to claim they "promote" women, while forcing them into roles that are vulnerable to layoffs.

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

#318

Post by vkou »

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…

Every company can't hit 50/50, but it is obviously possible for any one company to hit 50/50, without compromising on their hiring bar. (Until everyone adopts that same mentality, at which point it, of course, becomes impossible.)

Also, just because you have a goal to aspire to doesn't mean you can realistically meet it. Suppose if every high achiever in a school wants to be valedictorian, but only one of them will make it. That in itself doesn't mean it's a pointless goal.

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

#319

Post by stale2002 »

pksdjfikkkkdsff wrote: post #259
hnick wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But why would you expect women to be more like to choose the approach of not graduating than men, though?

Well, probably because the environment in all parts of the tech pipeline, is often times toxic the entire way through, and women don't want to deal with that.

So part of solving the pipeline problem means trying to solve it in many different parts of the pipeline, and recognizing that even if a previous part failed, you can still do stuff to fix it, later on.

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

#320

Post by mixmastamyk »

supernova87a wrote: post #252
hnick wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 say…

I believe hnick is not talking about twenty years, but taking a good employee, enrolling them in bootcamp, then training them for a number of months.
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