[jtms]

At what point is a workforce sufficiently diverse? Is it just a matter of “too many white males in this room - remove some of them, replace with politically acceptable demographics”? Feels like even in a diverse workplace there are always going to be people not happy about “not enough people like me here”. Do we set quotas and start passing over qualified candidates to hit them? I’m all for fixing real problems, but the target on this one seems exceptional fast moving and mired in destructive unintended consequences.

[perfmode]

You're missing the point.

There are structural problems that inhibit participation from underrepresented groups. The objective is to level the playing field so everyone has a fair chance at success.

disclaimer: i am a black engineer who is tired of wasting time arguing with people who harbor views such as yours.

[bigfartchili]

So you end up with unqualified people in positions just to meet the quota. All of a sudden sterotypes about these people start and anyone from this group starts getting labeled as dumb because they are hiring candidates by appearance rather than qualification. Sounds like a real good idea.

[swampthinker]

There are hundreds, if not thousands of posts and comments on this very website about under qualified individuals working various positions in tech. This community preaches looking past impostor syndrome and recognizing that most people are technically underqualified, and that is the job of the company/superiors to nurture talent.

All of a sudden we don't want to extend this same treatment to people who face structural problems that inhibit participation?

[anon12345690]

there are more posts about mistakes and bad employees

yes there is a difference between skills and talents of people

[slg]

There are probably hundreds of thousands of people who could do most of our jobs adequately. The idea that hiring a diverse staff inherently means hiring an unqualified staff is laughable. It just takes a little more effort because the first qualified candidate to come across your desk is statistically (at least in our profession) more likely to be a straight white male. The qualified minority candidates exist if you put in a little work to find them.

[anon12345690]

diverse on skin color? thats racist

[yongjik]

I'll worry about that if it actually happens. Thanks to hundreds of years of discrimination, America has had tons of incompetent white males in high positions, simply because pretty much anybody in any position of power was white and male, regardless of whether they were competent or not.

For some reason, the racial stereotype of white males being unqualified lazy freeloaders didn't really take root, apart from maybe a small group of vocal idiots.

[whichdan]

Stop assuming that people from underrepresented groups are inherently unqualified.

[asdkhadsj]

> Stop assuming that people from underrepresented groups are inherently unqualified.

They're not. They are commenting how the criteria for hiring changed to include other attributes not related to skill.

If I hire people based on a mix of skill and how much they like baseball, I am inherently hiring on a different measuring stick. I could end up hiring someone with the most skill out of the hiring pool, but that doesn't matter - I'm not hiring based on skill, I'm hiring on some combination of skill and baseball.

It does not mean that the person who gets hired isn't the most skilled. But it also does not mean that the person who gets hired is the most skilled. I stopped caring about hiring the most skilled the moment I added a largely arbitrary hiring attribute into the requirements, how much they like baseball.

Generally I have a problem with this, but I think it's less of a problem than people make it out to be. Yes, we are not hiring based on skill alone.. but, we never were. We were hiring based on skill, attitude, work ethic, how they work with people, etc. A long laundry list of things we want a candidate to be, and difficult to figure out to boot. So yea, if we stop hiring whites because we've got too many, we may miss out on some skill - but when so many of the hiring requirements are vague, difficult to judge and largely a meta-game itself, we stopped caring about hiring skill long ago. Hell, even skill is difficult to judge.

Plus, eventually it'll even out. Suddenly we'll have to stop hiring minorities because there's too many in X company. Which is ironic heh. In the same way that males in some colleges are becoming a minority. Irony.

[gdy]

Imagine you have a pool of 10 candidates from a minority group and 100 white males.

Only 20% from each group are qualified enough.

If you need to hire 5 people and want them to be from the minority group, you end up hiring 2 qualified engineers and 3 - not so much.

Congratulations, you've met your diversity quota.

Also, the condional probability of a minority engineer being underqualified is 3/5 now, but this number is declared racist.

[oh_sigh]

That doesn't seem like the assumption OP was making. OP was making an assumption that people are racist though.

[ng12]

And what does that have to do with Facebook? If there are very few PoC software engineers, how is it your fault for not hiring enough of them? The article mentions the technical staff is 22% female which seems remarkable.

[crowdpleaser]

Alright, but the structural problems are upstream of recruiting and promotions. It's simply bad engineering to try to solve the problem downstream rather than at the root.

[idrios]

In this case, solving the problem downstream does tackle the problem at the root.

A lot of people in engineering went down that path because they were inspired by someone when they were younger. If there were more women and minorities in engineering, then other (young) women and minorities would be able to see them as role models and follow suit.

[crowdpleaser]

>A lot of people in engineering went down that path because they were inspired by someone when they were younger. If there were more women and minorities in engineering, then other (young) women and minorities would be able to see them as role models and follow suit.

This is really interesting claim and perhaps somewhat biased. Some preliminary testing of VR teachers suggests that young women prefer to be taught by women, and boys have a preference for robots/drones.

My own personal experience is that mecha anime got me inspired to work in STEM, I can see why that might not have universal appeal, but the claim that people need role models who look like them isn't universal.

source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190108095108.h...

[ng12]

> A lot of people in engineering went down that path because they were inspired by someone when they were younger.

Who? I started programming because computers are fun. If you really care about getting more women and minorities involved in tech volunteer at a local high school -- there are dozens of programs which seek to get young people exposed to programming. Anything else is just blowing smoke.

[idrios]

Well if we're using personal anecdotes, I had never touched a line of code until college and had just assumed I wasn't smart enough for it. I did study engineering though, which was an easy choice because I had tons of family who were engineers. Freshman year I took Java as a core requirement and discovered I was pretty good at it, so I stuck with it.

It shouldn't be a stretch of the mind that programming would be more accessible to someone who was raised knowing programmers, than to someone who was raised without.

> If you really care about getting more women and minorities involved in tech volunteer at a local high school

This is great advice. That doesn't discredit the impact that having diversity in tech has.

[HillaryBriss]

wait. why is it "bad engineering" to try to solve the problem downstream?

the company itself knows as well as or better than anyone upstream what its own jobs require. the company itself is in a good position to train/educate a person (of any particular group) to do that job.

upstream educational institutions can promote diversity and graduate people all day long -- but you still need a company to actually hire those people.

[minikites]

How do we solve it at the root without having aspirational figures for young people to look up to? Representation is important for creating role models, otherwise young minorities get the message that a particular field isn't accessible to them.

[oh_sigh]

Is there any evidence that kids need aspirational figures that match their specific gender/racial identity? If so, what(if any) other factors are in play? Sexual orientation? Hair/eye color? Height?

[perfmode]

Yes. I didn’t know programming was a career I could pursue. I did know I could become a basketball player, though.

I know that my existence continues to influence my younger siblings, and the children of family-friends. I’m known as “the one who worked at google”. Without me as an example, tech wouldn’t be in the perceptual sphere of attainability within much of my family and community.

[googlryas]

How did you become a programmer, and not a basketball player?

Obviously people in the lives of children impact them. Does seeing, possibly, a black engineer on TV count as being in the life of a child?

[anon12345690]

by looking up to people based on character instead of skin color

that would solve the problem

[Jare]

The objective is also to ensure that the structural problems do not prevent you from finding, attracting and/or promoting great candidates from underrepresented groups. The default process does not let them shine, and does not appreciate the value in the diversity that they bring to a team.

If I'm going to set up a medical team, I don't want the best and most lauded 4 surgeons in the world, I want only 1 of those so I can also have the best anesthesist (sp?), the best physio, the best psychologist... you get the idea. (Edit not you in particular, of course... I mean everyone)

"Culture fit" has become an accepted "soft" value for which a technically superior candidate may be passed over; why this resistance to diversity as a soft value too? New points of view, new mental patterns, new sources of inspiration... that is better than the same pov repeated 4 times. Why does it need to be explained over and over? (we know why, whether we like it or not) It doesn't mean diversity takes precedence over other soft or hard skills and valuable aspects of a candidate, it just means it takes is place among them.

[antisthenes]

The way to fix structural problems is look at the funnels way before these people get to the company.

It's at the preschool, primary school and university level.

Why are we somehow pretending 100% of responsibility rests on the employer?

[oh_sigh]

Should some minority groups be over represented, because they are so minor, that even in a medium sized company with proportional representation, they may be the only member of their minority there?

[anon12345690]

nothing structural stopped you and the evidence is that you got the job you want

why does it matter so much that other people look just like you? why cant you look past other peoples skin color?

[anon12345690]

never because diversity just means skin color which is racist

but nobody will admit it