Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dangus 701 days ago
When I say that statistically there should be one or two women on the team, that is already taking account the fact that women are the minority in tech.

Women are about 23% of software engineers. So if you have a team of 10 with zero women, that is somewhat suspicious to me as an applicant.

Is my prospective future team hiring the best talent or are they letting their biases creep in to their hiring process?

Source: https://www.celential.ai/blog/percentage-of-female-software-...

1 comments

You did not address the point about the large, wealthiest software companies hiring up all the best women candidates.

You are probably correct these companies are not hiring the best talent. But the reason is not necessarily bias. It's just as likely that they can't afford the best talent, including women who the top companies are competing for to improve their diversity metrics.

I didn’t address that point because I think it’s pretty weak. The little regional companies who are “behind the times” where I ended up on teams of all men were mostly apathetic to their hiring process and had no formality involved nor any incentive to change what little process they had.

Imagine a regional bank or insurance company that hires you off of a couple of pulse check interviews and your general vibes. Those are the worst for bias hiring. (I’ve worked at two or three of those).

You don’t get your foot in the door to interview at Google or Amazon unless you pass a rigorous technical challenge. Tech companies need people who are as efficient as possible since that’s their core business. Companies that write software but aren’t tech companies just need passable technology, they need a butt in the seat.

So I don’t really agree with the premise that the wealthy tech giants are scooping up all the women. They’re scooping up top talent.