In her essay "Why I Cannot Be Technical," Cat Hicks, a psychologist specializing in software environments, explores the structural and social dynamics that define the label "Technical" in the tech industry. She argues that despite her expertise in human-centered aspects of software development—such as behavior, culture, and organizational change—she is often excluded from being considered "Technical" because the term is narrowly defined to prioritize engineering and coding skills.
Hicks emphasizes that this exclusion is not due to a lack of capability but stems from systemic biases related to gender, class, race, and professional roles. She notes that the designation of "Technical" often serves as a gatekeeping mechanism, determining who is deemed legitimate within tech spaces. This legitimacy is frequently withheld from those whose work focuses on human factors, regardless of its complexity or impact.
There's a reason there's a saying "brevity is a sister of talent".
Whatever point you are trying to make surely could benefit if it actually reaches more than a few % of people who don't give up reading 10 pages of rambling when it should have been a paragraph in reality.
I rather believe she is not intending to "make a point" but instead express herself. One may prefer brief self-expression but certainly not all do. Put another way: the expression is the point.
It’s mostly a pleasant read, but even as someone who prefers the humanities and studied a lot more of that than most folks in computer jobs, I’ve made it about 40% in and couldn’t tell you what the author means by capital-T “Technical”.
Is this something that would be clear to me if I’d worked in FAANG or similar? Is it a cultural thing there? Something to do with a corner of social media I don’t engage with?
The closest I can come up with connected to my experience is the opposite: “tech” related labels used to exclude people and dismiss their ideas, in decision-making or business-social contexts, and design processes. I’ve not seen it used in this power(? I think? I really can’t figure this out)-conferring way.
[EDIT] The anecdotes are so confusing.
> An example of this is every time evidence of efficacy is not able to exert any power versus the votes of engineering disengagement. You could put your diligent little psychologist heart into it and make a good program or policy change and muster up extremely critical evidence for something no one else bothered to measure but you could not demand that all of the engineering managers do it, for instance. The engineering managers always had the power and always would.
This is a manager thing. Specifically, modern management culture. Management wants to appear "evidence based" and "scientific" but the appearing is the only part they consistently care about. The "technical" run into this same wall, when they mistakenly believe surface claims that management's serious about working with evidence and "metrics" and such, and try to sincerely help as if that's the actual goal—it isn't.
[EDIT 2]
> This is one of the paradoxes of software teams: rich people, rich teams, rich environments, described and experienced as utter wastelands by (statistically speaking) men who have (statistically speaking) socked away more than I’ve ever touched and more than generations of my family ever touched, and their entire ownership of not having enough.
OK, I think this is confirmation that the piece is about a slice of the tech industry I've not really engaged with, which may explain why I am nearly at the end of the piece and am still not sure what it's about.
[EDIT 3]
> Tech is immensely global in its activity and so fanatically geo-located in its employment that even the most senior and most unquestionably Technical people worry about moving away from 2-3 certain US cities.
OK, yes, this is about a tiny percentage of "tech". Under this article's usage, I'm not "Technical", and few or none of the programmers I personally know are. That helps, wish that'd been stated up front.
> Is this something that would be clear to me if I’d worked in FAANG or similar? Is it a cultural thing there? Something to do with a corner of social media I don’t engage with?
> The closest I can come up with connected to my experience is the opposite: “tech” related labels used to exclude people and dismiss their ideas, in decision-making or business-social contexts, and design processes. I’ve not seen it used in this power(? I think? I really can’t figure this out)-conferring way.
There's a recent-ish (5 or so years?) style change people have pushed to capitalize "Black" in news and articles [0], and I think this author is trying to do the same here. Whatever this distinction is, it's entirely possible it's in their own mind and nowhere else.
In her essay "Why I Cannot Be Technical," Cat Hicks, a psychologist specializing in software environments, explores the structural and social dynamics that define the label "Technical" in the tech industry. She argues that despite her expertise in human-centered aspects of software development—such as behavior, culture, and organizational change—she is often excluded from being considered "Technical" because the term is narrowly defined to prioritize engineering and coding skills.
Hicks emphasizes that this exclusion is not due to a lack of capability but stems from systemic biases related to gender, class, race, and professional roles. She notes that the designation of "Technical" often serves as a gatekeeping mechanism, determining who is deemed legitimate within tech spaces. This legitimacy is frequently withheld from those whose work focuses on human factors, regardless of its complexity or impact.