[dead]
Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#852As a current Meta engineer my perspective is this:
- DEI at meta has been non-existent for the past 6 months or more anyways. They care far less than any FAANG I've seen about DEI beyond the lip service and yearly training. This is just the announcement of something that's already been in place for a while
- Meta has very poor diversity. I go most days without seeing any black engineers. I see occasional latino engineers. Asians and Indians are extremely overrepresented. White people are a minority. Maybe 1/10 engineers are women.
- This comes against the backdrop of Meta failing something like 98% of market tests for H1B immigrants. Word is getting out that Meta is not the place to go if you're trying to immigrate to the US.
- There's the obvious pandering to the incoming administration (this is the third announcement this week, first Dana White on the board, then cancelling fact checking & moving some moderation people to Texas).
Summary: meta has serious diversity problems it needs to address. Existing DEI problem was not helping. Hopefully they do something to hire more women and minorities. They face H1B headwinds that may drive hiring outside the US or (much less likely) increase hiring of americans.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#853Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing. So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has c…
I agree with most of your points. Though with respect lasting change, where is your impression coming from that the gains are in the last 10 to 15 years? Or even that is a widespread belief? According to reporting at the guardian [1], FBs DEI program increased black and brown employees from 8% to 12%. Seems abysmal. My perspective, US society is still fighting for gains that _started_ 160 years ago. Still painstaking…
[dead]
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#854I wrote about my experience working as a software developer and being black in the industry and I was lucky to have it published on BBC [1]. What immediately followed, every large company reached out to have me work as a consultant for their diversity program. I found it fascinating that they had a team of DEI experts in place already. Like what makes one an expert? In addition to my job, I spent nights developing pr…
At the end of the day companies want employees with talent. Yes, they were using DEI as a marketing, and kept hiring using merit, not DEI principles, which I find nice.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#855I wrote about my experience working as a software developer and being black in the industry and I was lucky to have it published on BBC [1]. What immediately followed, every large company reached out to have me work as a consultant for their diversity program. I found it fascinating that they had a team of DEI experts in place already. Like what makes one an expert? In addition to my job, I spent nights developing pr…
I can only speak from personal experience, but since about 4 years ago, every candidate I’ve been asked to interview for a software engineering position has been Black, Hispanic, South Asian or East Asian. Not a single white American. Are there no white people studying CS anymore or looking for jobs? Did they all stop applying? Again, it’s only from personal experience. I never asked any of my coworkers a “hey, do yo…
[deleted]
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#856Earlier quoted context omitted.
It only seems bizarre if you didn't consider DEI programs to be largely symbolic corporate puffery in the first place. For all of the hate they received from some political spheres they were largely just PR initiatives right from the start, especially in larger companies.
DEI has not been only for show, I know for a fact that being "diverse" has been a huge benefit in job search for the past 15 years. If you're a "woman of color" in tech you've been basically guaranteed a job, no matter how good or bad you actually are. I've been on several teams where the higher ups demanded we hire women because we were not diverse enough. Various grants and investments require a certain ratio etc.…
Mentioning that a poc is successful only because of their colour is harsh. Maybe they bring value and have qualities that other candidates did not have. DEI only widens the pipeline, no private company lowers their standards.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#857Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#858Meta being way ahead of the game as usual.
Acknowledging race in job seeking makes for intrinsically tokenized contingents of people. I’m not just a PHP guy… I’m a BLACK PHP guy, etc.
True equality imo is equivalent to a form of neutrality. Pay no mind to race at all and instead focus on hiring the best hackers available and let the educational markets figure out the rest.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#859Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing. So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has c…
[flagged]
H1 Visa has existed since 1952. The 65,000 per year cap (H1B) has existed since 1990. The 20,000 quota for Masters/PhD holders has existed since 2004.
What in the world are you talking about?
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#860Does this mean we can go back to using "master" as our git repo's default branch?
"master" was not a thing even before. While I get the farce of renaming it for "social justice" reasons, it's still a stupid name. It's "trunk", as in "trunk and branches".
Disagree, it has been 'a thing'. Both music and film use the term 'master' for production and release. One would make new releases/mixes from masters. Much like one may branch with a repository.
Now, I'll entertain conspiracy for just a moment. There might be concerning roots here with property or ownership... but if that's the case, the problem isn't with the language being descriptive of the system in which it operates.
We won't 'kill all masters' by getting rid of the word. My real conspiracy theory is this is one of many attempts to sow division. Nation-state nonsense.