[bracebreak22]

I just recently left a tech start-up where the "look at how awesome and diverse we are" rhetoric was so bad that I couldn't take it anymore. When I first joined the company, I didn't even bat an eye that every single employee was a white guy (Hispanic male here). It was only later after their recruiter who, I befriended, told me I was their first "diversity hire". I laughed and took it tongue in cheek.

However, over time, they formed a "diversity team" to emphasize in making the company more diverse. Later on, I came to find out that this company did not care about the individuals joining the company, but rather the "diversity quota" they set to meet. Instead of hearing "we hired a great engineer who is great in xyz", we would instead hear the likes of "Susan accepted our offer letter, we finally have a female engineer on our team"; "Tim will be joining our Product team. Hooray for gay!" (Yes, this was actually posted on a slack channel one of the founders).

It became clear that this company was more worried about having mascots rather than seeking talented diverse individuals. I pissed me off so much at how condescending the founders would be when communicating with "non-traditional" employees and how they thought they were such great, progressive leaders.

[cocktailpeanuts]

This is disgusting, I am sure you are no different from your peers in skills (and probably even better than the average developers around you) and it's just not fair that you have to go through this.

People should be totally confident that they got the job because they did a good job and the employer liked them for who they are but this whole diversity system makes people doubt themselves, consciously or subconsciously.

I hope you're now working at a place where there's no such bullshit, and wish you all the best.