Probably why he's going to start hiring outside of tech hubs.
If you want Trump supporters to even things out you're probably going to either: A) hire older devs from less traditional software dev backgrounds. B) Still pull from Young+STEM but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish.
Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. And I am saying this as a young, STEM-educated person who skews left.
You don’t think this is happening already? I’m not sure what companies you’ve looked at but most big tech firms have left wing political cultures on an official level, with “culture“ departments and events promoting and sharing various culturally left-wing talking points everyone is supposed to be on board with. Try saying “I actually don’t think america is a deeply racist country in 2020, there’s a huge amount of opportunity here which is evidenced by the number of people (ostensible victims of racism from India, mexico, etc) who line up to come here. Oh and by the way I think natal women are entitled to privacy from men in their bathrooms (like 95% of Americans believe)” during a lunch interview and see how fast you get the “thanks for your time we’ll be in touch.” Or just say “I voted for the current president” if you prefer something shorter.
Alternately, talk about supporting BLM, BDS, and how terrible America is as a country—no one will bat an eye.
For the record I hold views from both of the above “columns” but I know which ones I’m allowed to share at work (the left leaning “progressive” ones) and which ones I need to keep to myself, namely, everything else.
EDIT: downvoters: please set me straight here and let me know what part of my comment is inaccurate or untrue.
I get the frequent recruiting emails from FB and (much less frequently) Google, but am really too afraid to pursue them.
Read between the lines: I'm saying that there are a lot of people selecting themselves out of the candidate pool for the large SV tech companies based on the perception of SV corporate culture being promulgated through the media and forums like this one, further reinforcing the group think in those organizations.
That should make you happy.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staf...
And there are far more stories like that which didn't get into the press.
The right leaning people at tech companies certainly exist. They don't tend to spend all day insisting their coworkers are fired for having left wing views. That's why these firms seem left-leaning - it's those people who kick up all the fuss and make all the demands.
Ok, maybe it's because I'm older (but not a boomer), but I don't think that's an awful work environment.
I use dinner party rules on social media and at the workplace. That means I avoid talking about politics, religion, etc. It's not because I'm afraid of being outed for my views or anything, it's because I look at work as work, and not a place to socialize or broadcast my views.
If so, that seems like the same dynamic, just with a different hegemony. It's a horrible pattern for a workplace regardless of which view is the orthodoxy.
That won't protect you. When your employer is actively signalling and funding support for particular groups or political positions, failure to join in is taken as a political action, and you might get attacked by co-workers for being anti-group or anti-position.
Maybe I'm lucky, in my 25+ years of working, I haven't had to deal with that level of unprofessional behaviour (but I've also generally avoided working with startups and "interactive" agencies for the past 10+ years).
FWIW, I see those chiding posts in my FB feed, and I don't put any stock in them. Most of the people in my feeds post them in lieu of being genuinely active, as though the act of posting is an act in itself. That's their right and choice, and it's my right and choice to ignore them.
The high ratio of downvotes to rebuttals is also telling: people want to anonymously disagree but not to disprove. (I have a comment further down thread to the same effect that got a similar reception.)
That's a surprising conclusion... I always thought they skewed libertarian.
Here's a link: http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/
Software Engineers: 79 Democrats for every 21 Republicans. Similar story for engineering overall (The most "conservative" engineering profession being chemical engineering)
IT: 71 Democrats for every 29 Republicans.
You can blame it on SV but the truth is our industry's age skews young: We are 38 years old on average compared to the workforce average of 43. Source: https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths...
Young voters and college-educated tend to vote more Democratic: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e...
You could argue the fact that the profession is predominantly male might mitigate some of this but the problem there is that the gender gap closes once you look at genders on a college-education basis: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-mi...
What I'm trying to say is that if we assume political affiliation does not correlate with skill (it doesn't AFAIK), and you hire based on merit, and you hire nation-wide, your software development team will skew left. And if your hiring focuses on major urban hubs it will skew even more left.
If you want to introduce artificial "balance" you are going to have to do affirmative action for political beliefs. This is challenging, as it's trivial for any individual to lie / reinvent themselves as a desirable political hire. If I wanted a job bad enough, and I knew they preferred hiring a certain political persuasion, I absolutely would pretend to be whatever they wanted me to be.