[kinkrtyavimoodh]

I am an Indian engineer in a tech company in Austin and out of the 8 people in my team 7 are Indians / Asians in their late 20s / early 30s who all followed roughly the same career trajectory (Undergrad in India / China from one of 2-3 universities, followed almost immediately by Masters in the US followed by joining tech jobs in the last 7-8 years).

The eighth guy is a white American guy in his 40s who grew up in Alabama, was in the US Air Force for a bit, then did his undergrad in an unrelated field from a relatively unheard-of university, then self-taught programming and worked a few odd IT jobs before landing here.

If you ask me, he is the true source of diversity in the team, but pretty sure none of the teams tasked with increasing diversity see it that way.

[username90]

Yeah, if your team is made up of people from USA, France, Russia, India, China and Korea then you have plenty of diversity even if none of them are black. I'd argue that they are more diverse than a team comprised of people grown up in USA with latino, black, white and asian exteriors.

[worker767424]

I've been the white guy in that situation, and it can be not great, but it was specifically with a 90% Chinese team. I can tell you who never quite fit in and who got laid off first...

I wouldn't join a team like that again because of how much harder it made things. Maybe this is an argument for why diverse teams are good?

[mysore]

is this your first time experiencing racism first hand? Them chinese immigrants tend to work harder than most locals, must have been hard to keep up.

[eat_veggies]

Diversity doesn't mean "non-white," it means "varied." Yes, your team is diverse because of his inclusion, and it's diverse because of yours too.

Individual people aren't diverse, teams are. To say that one guy is the source of diversity is like saying that he is the source of the eight-ness of the number of people on your team.

[username90]

> Diversity doesn't mean "non-white," it means "varied."

In USA it means "Black and Latino representation according to US demographics". It isn't the words actual meaning, but that it is how its used and if you are trying to argue something different you will almost surely be labelled racist by the person asking this question.

For example, lets say you answer this question:

> That’s a bit about what these values mean to us; what do diversity, equity, and inclusion mean to you?

With: I always worked on very diverse teams comprised of people from many backgrounds including Russians, Indians, Europeans. We worked hard to ensure that language barriers weren't a problem by forcing everyone to talk in English so nobody feels left out etc, it is a challenge but having a diverse team definitely is worth it.

Do you think you'd get hired? Maybe, but it is pretty likely they will see that answer as a dog whistle for being right wing and just end the process right then and there.

[eat_veggies]

That doesn't sound like a right wing dogwhistle, although you could perhaps phrase "by forcing everyone to talk in English" differently to not be so negative.

But overall, it's a great answer. You talked about your specific team, which happened to include Russians, Indians, and Europeans. You pointed out that there were challenges involved, but you made an effort to make sure nobody felt left out, and that overall it was worth it. Nice!

[username90]

Yeah, that was the point. My experience is working with teams with very varied backgrounds in Europe, and you really have to make a point to talk a common language. Instead of speaking my native language with others with my background I speak English. Similarly others have to do the same thing. If a group of Russians speak Russian with each other it hurts the group.

The reason I brought that up is because I've seen some American progressives say that trying to make people speak English is racist or non inclusive. But it is the other way around. in the teams I've worked nobody were native English speakers but everyone spoke English. That is the only sensible way to handle a diverse team and letting people speak their native language just creates silos and removes the point of diversity. And someone on the team being a native English speaker wouldn't change that point.

For example, if I worked in USA and a group of latinos spoke Spanish with each other I'd tell them to speak English. Not because I think they need to speak English in USA but because they are excluding other groups by speaking a language only they understand. Similarly if I were to speak Swedish with my teammates I'd expect others to say the same thing to me, and in diverse environments I even speak English when everyone around me knows Swedish just to make it a habit.

[eat_veggies]

Thanks. The nuance you've added with this comment makes a lot of sense to me, and it wasn't quite apparent in your original comment. But even then, I (or most American progressives) wouldn't consider it a major red flag or blocker for hiring.

[username90]

I know it would be fine with a lot of sensible people, but a lot of people just lock in on what they perceive to be a problematic remark and stop listening. You must have experienced it yourself at many points where someone you talk to just took something you said and refuse to listen to anything else. This is just as prevalent among all political sides, just that you are familiar with the group you grow up with so you don't trigger their irrational reactions as much.

Now I've read a lot about American culture and politics online, but a more ignorant person with my experience would just bluntly say that as if it was common sense and as you saw you homed in on forcing people to speak English yourself. If you were a bit less understanding it would have ended the hiring process right there.

[kortilla]

> But even then, I (or most American progressives) wouldn't consider it a major red flag or blocker for hiring.

The fact that it’s a minor red flag at all is the issue.

Telling a group of Spanish-speaking people to speak English to include everyone is a major no-no right now. Do you realize how colonial that is?

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

> Individual people aren't diverse, teams are.

Yes, which is why I said he was the 'source' of diversity. If 7 data points have value X and one has value Y, then Y is the 'source' of the variance, else the variance would be zero.

> Diversity doesn't mean "non-white," it means "varied."

It's funny that literally the sister comment of my comment links to how someone at Apple was driven out of their job for saying this. For your own sake I'd recommend you don't express these opinions at your workplace.

[userbinator]

It's funny that literally the sister comment of my comment links to how someone at Apple was driven out of their job for saying this. For your own sake I'd recommend you don't express these opinions at your workplace.

Companies are, for lack of better wording... diverse. Not all of them are biased the same way politically, despite the fact that a few big and prominent ones are. I've never worked in FAANG, but there are plenty of others who haven't "drunk the woke-aid".

[Clewza313]

Of course, but the point is that many HR departments use it as code for "female" or "black".

[worker767424]

You're right, but when HR says "diverse candidate," they mean a woman or minority. I have no idea how you can be diverse in n=1.

[Viliam1234]

> I have no idea how you can be diverse in n=1.

Dissociative identity (multiple personality) disorder.

...oh wait, that's a diversity of thought -- the wrong kind of diversity...

Mixed ancestry is the correct answer, I guess. Or intersexuality (hermaphroditism). Not sure if you need to be one, or is enough to identify as one.