[ajepst]

I don't believe the parent is saying to hire on gender rather than meritocracy; I believe they are pointing out that 1) Women ARE a certain portion of good devs, so a true meritocracy would have some women (beyond an org of a certain size, of course) If a company of sufficient size has NO women devs, then something is likely off, whether in discouraging applicants, turning good applicants away, or causing people to leave. 2) Even the concept of meritocracy is complex, and success of the team, not just the individual, is worth something. For instance, at a consultancy(actually this probably holds true to some amount everywhere), there's a lot more to having a successful project than just how fast or accurately you code the algorithm (though of course, you have to be able to do that as a baseline). How well you present, how well you listen, how well you understand the client's needs, how well you can explain things, or mentor your fellow developers, or see around corners... Having a diverse team can contribute least a little value in these sort of non-code things that lead a project to overall success, rather than executing wonderfully right off a cliff. It's a factor to consider, among many, when hiring.

[chmln]

This.

A large company without females at all would be quite suspicious, to say the least.