Strengthening our workplace with neurodiverse talent
cloud.google.com
cloud.google.com
My university or department has had absolutely no contact with me or any member of my group to guide us on how to work with a neurodivergent classmate, on how to make the group and project work. It has been a very tiring experience. Can anybody give me any advice on how to try to better the situation? How to make the environment better for him and my group?
With guidance and learning we can cooperate and work well with people.
Fortunately it's easy to deal with cowards. You just have to make them as afraid of you as they are of him. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know the laws for a classroom situation, but in a workplace I think you'd have grounds to sue. This other student is creating a hostile environment, and they are perpetuating that by forcing you to work with him without taking corrective action. If I'm remembering my workplace harassment training correctly, not only can the company be liable but also the manager in question individually. They can't afford to ignore such complaints.
I think as a first step, I would take the grandparent's suggestions for dealing directly with the other student. If that doesn't work—promptly—get your complaints to the school in writing with the complete history. If they don't address the problem promptly, threaten to sue. They'll back down. It probably doesn't even matter what the law actually says. Just a remotely plausible, explicit threat of a lawsuit will win over the implicit threat they feel when dealing with someone in a protected class and motivate them to find a solution that avoids anyone suing them.
It doesn't matter what the law says.
"Autism-spectrum student sues [college] for discrimination" is a bad headline, even if the school was 100% justified.
It's also expensive to fight in court.
> School administrators being afraid to do anything involving someone like this is cowardice that we shouldn't excuse.
It's more an issue with the massive and insane costs of litigation.
> I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know the laws for a classroom situation, but in a workplace I think you'd have grounds to sue.
Workplaces have different protections than classrooms do.
Also, no one is saying the other students can't sue the student who's on the spectrum. But it's not something the university is likely to push themselves.
Again, I'd first try explaining the rules to the other student as another commenter suggested. But the University has a responsibility to step in if that doesn't work. I would remind them they have more to fear from failing to act than from acting properly. I likely wouldn't actually sue—as another commenter said, students don't want to deal with that. A private threat is likely enough, and certainly a story in the press would do it.
No, I'm not. You're treating your own ethics as being universal and absolute. I don't agree with all of your implied premises.
In a vacuum, defending the harassed students would be ethical. But it isn't a vacuum, and the university has a responsibility not to burn cash (or brand value) on lengthy legal battles that only affect a small minority of students. A large public school in the US could harm literally 100,000+ people (with degrees completed or in progress) just to spare a few students from an unpleasant project.
> But the University has a responsibility to step in if that doesn't work.
Yes, they do. That's a much milder assertion than your original one. "Stepping in" does not immediately mean a lawsuit, disciplinary action, or expulsion. It probably means the professor would just ask the student to complete the project alone.
I would send an email to the disability service at your university highlighting his likely need for support. He isn't going to be able to complete university without it.
But in this case I have absolutely zero knowledge or experience dealing with a similar situation but with a neurodivergent person. It's a completely new thing that I've never had to deal with. That's why I'm asking for advice.
This is more eloquently expressed here:
https://48laws-of-power.blogspot.com/2011/05/law-38-think-as...
I am neurodivergent and I have been on both sides of this. It’s hard for everyone involved.
From the start it seems that they felt unheard and unwanted so they are frustrated and feel stuck. Doing what I mentioned above can help repair this relationship.
If he’s unwilling to stop that behaviour or unwilling to try cooperate, make sure higher ups know. There’s not much you can do if he just refuses to cooperate (just like anyone else).
If he IS willing to try cooperate, asking him directly (or asking HR/advisors/etc to mediate a discussion) about what he needs to effectively cooperate/what isn’t working could help you find ways of working together. For example, if he’s feeling that his ideas aren’t being heard/discussed because he doesn’t quite know how to interject/take part in a group discussion could be alleviated by making sure to ask him for input explicitly during group discussions. Not saying that’s the case or a perfect solution, and that frustration certainly doesn’t justify unacceptable behaviour, but yeah that kind of thing might help?
Hope that gives you some ideas. Shitty group members of all stripes are a frustrating experience. Good luck!
Whatever you are describing does not fill any of those fields. At that point I'd be complete burden and I wouldn't want that on anyone.
Your comment is very nearsighted and for some reason compares inability to "function" in a social setting with being "some vegetable" who is in a coma? What are you even talking about?
The attitude of wanting to be charge of your life and not a burden to others around you? Or did I just completely misunderstand what you tried to say? Because that doesn't make any sense at all.
The way relationships especially with family works is that they'd usually rather have you be "a burden" than dead.
Also it is very hard not to project that attitude on other people who would be "a burden to others". It is hard for them not to think you want them dead or at least find them extremely worthless.
But that just isn't the same. Wishing somebody to die - because of intense and hopeless suffering - is in my opinion neither something to be judged nor to be enthusiastically welcomed. I think we should ideally neither wish suffering nor death to anyone. These can become conflicting goals, when death seems to be the only relief from the suffering. As a veterinary student I have killed animals to relieve them from suffering. Veterinary professionals have some of the highest suicide rates in many countries, one suspected reason being compassion fatigue. The only way I see to avoid the emotional consequences is to try and not "wish" either death nor prolonged suffering.
There are a lot of reasons for "being a burden" that don't involve nearly as much suffering and don't instill a will to die in people. Accepting that you sometimes (and almost inevitably, with age) you become a burden to society is hard. But the perception of "burden" often ignores intangible aspects. Not everyone who "is a burden" feels depressed about it, and I don't believe all of them to be selfish.
That is why I believe "I'd rather die than be a burden" is a burden to oneself and others.
Also, I'd be careful to assume to know what I'd be feeling when I would be in such a situation. I'd be hesitant of my ability to judge for others if they'd rather have me dead, and I'd hope I would have serious misgivings in asking or wishing them to take steps in that direction.
In these things I like to apply concepts from Buddhist philosophy. Desire leads to suffering, where "desire" is more precisely defined as "wishing something that is wouldn't". Also, causing suffering or death does damage to the Karma, in Buddhist teachings. For me, this is reflected in personal experience and even some scientific findings that hurting people or even animals, does some damage to the psyche, if only in the process of getting numb to such feelings.
But you probably want to plan this out with the other people in the group.
Don't snatch people's stuff, even temporarily, you will catch a fist, and as far as I'm concerned, justifiably so.
It’s supremacism but for neurodiversity.
As someone on the spectrum myself, I always dreaded job interviews. I would try to get as much information on what the interview would entail as well as the atmosphere and other specifics so I could mentally prepare myself beforehand and give myself a better chance to show my best side. The example they provided of performing an interview in text through a google doc rather than over the phone really hits home for me, I feel like I am much better able to communicate my ideas through written mediums than verbally.
I feel overall there is a lot of untapped talent in the neurodiverse community that is passed over due to some of these barriers in effective communication, so I'm always glad to see companies take initiatives like this.
I’m on the spectrum as well and interviews are a bit of a mixed bag for me. I hate everything around it, going to a new, unknown location, not knowing exactly where you end up, meeting new people, etc.
The interviews themselves, however, are fine. I basically get to talk about my special interest with people who are presumably equally knowledgable about the subject as I am. I usually enjoy them.
As small companies tend to grow, the trick is to get out in time. At a previous job the company grew to over 150 and that wasn’t healthy for me. I should have bailed at around 75.
(no offence intended!)
The bummer is, I think, most companies just do not give a shit about accommodating anyone. If you cannot fit their mold, they'll just find someone who can. I'm hopeful that more companies will deploy interview processes to bring out the best in their candidates, rather than processes that will specifically weed out everyone but the specific archetype of person a given interview accommodates.
I would say, if a person is able to write clearly and thoughtfully, and is competent at their role, they're very well suited for lots of jobs that aren't sales related. The meritocracy that gets touted so frequently (but is actually never upheld) should reward those that are competent at their advertised skills, right? If you're a really good programmer you should be able to find employment as a programmer, right?
Thanks for clarifying!
I can see how it'd be a major challenge to be deaf or bad at speaking at an in-person job where everyone else is speaking, though.
I'm much better at writing than speaking, myself, and find it much easier to convey complex ideas in writing (real-time or asynchronously). Especially writing vs. speaking through a conference app like Teams, where the latency can sometimes make things awkward.
There is going to be a huge advantage for companies that realize this. Massive untapped demand for jobs that recognize different ways of getting work done.
I wrote a blog post (https://beta.wildcardpeople.com/what-is-a-wildcard-person) about how people with ADHD tend to do work, and I'm finding random people on LinkedIn putting it right in their bio.
The distinction comes when you experience those symptoms constantly and to such an extreme that it becomes debilitating - to such an extreme that in order to cope, you have to structure your whole life around it.
In the context of that blog post, it goes from "yes this sounds like me" to "I need almost everything on this list or I will burnout and quit within 6 months".
- Unlikely to finish things, especially to a high standard
- Unpredictable, jumping between being a 10x developer and a detriment to the team for unknown reasons
- Forgetful, won't follow through on things and won't even remember it was a thing they were meant to be doing
- Generally quite susceptible to mood swings
However, I will say that many of the things that those downsides will be far more prevalent in a traditional workplace than in one that read this post and took it on board. If you're providing varied work, consistent feedback, and low expectations (in terms of quality, not volume), then you won't really see those issues arise much.
Calling it "Wildcard People" removed the gatekeeping/"medical" aspect while maintaining expectations of how these candidates end up doing their work.
> Manage products from concept to design, requirements, testing, pricing, promotion, and support.
> Prioritize thousands of bugs and feature requests using a ruthless focus on both quantitative and qualitative criteria towards defined goals
> 5+ years of SaaS product management experience working within the financial sector
I get that's for a Senior position, but let's be real, they're looking for someone with specific skills in a specific domain that have been applied in a somewhat linear fashion for years. Is my impression off?
Your FAQ describes someone who might be doing a tradeshow one week, while probably not also being responsible for programming some feature, nor do they have unlimited time and energy. But those job postings read like they just want someone to be responsible for everything all the time, because everything is arbitrarily urgent, and manage it well.
I don't know quite what I'd expect to see, maybe I'm just too far gone from being in a job, but I feel like just short term contracting might be the thing to do.
ADHD people, from what I've read, are some of the most chronically underemployed, including myself. I think it's been a massive uphill battle for me as someone in programming, but who burns out easily, shows up late, and has crazy gaps on their resume. I hope you find success with this and will keep an eye on it.
In fact I just interviewed with a company today where I expressed my resistance being pigeonholed in my own words.
Speaking of being a generalist, the book "Range" by David Epstein gave me some hope.
I have seen a lot of job boards catering to various niches popping up in recently years, and they all eventually become just a regular job board that generates passive income for the creator without much curation.
Right now I've been able to speak directly with hiring managers/CEOs who are instantly on-board and "get it" after reading the blog post. My hope is that the clear messaging is actively driving away people who want to hire non-Wildcards. I make it clear on the Job Creation page that you will only receive applicants of a certain type. But that's just what I'm hoping happens. If it starts to drift away from that, I'll have to figure out how to vet employers better. I don't want people like me getting jobs that cause suffering.
I'd rather make 10x less money than compromise on the mission.
If nothing else:
> I don't want people like me getting jobs that cause suffering.
> I'd rather make 10x less money than compromise on the mission.
I feel that by saying those you have answered my questions already! :) It's quite possible that your answer is somewhere in there, too! All the best with it!
P.S. The "Why you shouldn't" section for the Pallet role is great. At least it makes me feel like it's a frank conversation about what both sides want.
Can I ask you what an Adhd-friendly job entails?
ADHD is different for everyone, but basically an ADHD-friendly job is one where "maintenance" or "routine" tasks are not an expectation. I.e. keeping API documentation up-to-date every week is not a good Wildcard task. If you need someone to do that work, don't hire a Wildcard. If you need someone to do a little bit of everything (i.e. Chief of Staff type role) then it's a better fit.
> First, neurotypical people (those without ADHD) make decisions based on three factors: Importance, Rewards, and Consequences. (e.g. I think it's important. Someone I [love, like, fear or respect] thinks it's important. Or, there are consequences and rewards
> People with ADHD, rarely, if ever, make decisions based on these things. Dodson says (and I agree wholeheartedly), that people with ADHD make decisions based on different criteria: Interest, Challenge, Novelty, Urgency (ICNU).
(https://www.oaktreecounselor.com/blog/adult-adhd-lazy)
That difference in motivators makes it likely that people with ADHD will constantly jump between different tasks, which over time builds up into becoming an expert at learning new things, and a broad knowledge about many things within their domain.
Automattic had (and still has) an interview process that was fully text-based via a combination of Slack, p2, and GitHub, and it really worked well for me. I didn't even speak to a person (on video) until a couple weeks into starting the job!
A completely text-based interview process works great for a variety of people: neurodiverse, people with accents/ESL, fidgety people, etc. Especially for remote companies where everyone communicates using text 90%+ of the time! I'm glad it's catching on, and I hope to see it expanded to more companies.
Have awkward social skills and prefer working away from other people? If you're a good programmer Google won't care. Have trouble following any instructions whatsoever? You're probably out of luck.
Honestly I think it would be nice for people with schizophrenia and more serious conditions to get employment. Even if it's hard to get them to actually contribute something, for their own self-worth. But I doubt companies like Google will do much for those people without an external incentive.
My impression is that despite the perception of Google as having a very progressive and liberal culture, they are actually pretty ruthlessly capitalist and won't go out of their way to accommodate people who are ultimately detrimental. They are just being open-minded about what kinds of people they can put to use.
Can I ask you if non-neurotyptical people would fit in this picture? Aside from being capable employees, are there perhaps moments when a non-neurotyptical person could chip in with design changes?
We’re not superheroes or mutants, and everyone is different, but Autistic people can help to balance out designs in subtle ways because we are atypically balanced ourselves.
Someone slightly on the spectrum who's somewhat awkward in conversation but an otherwise great developer? Probably a pass, unless their conversational awkwardness makes communication difficult.
Someone further on the spectrum who has a meltdown if their daily routine is even slightly disrupted? Probably not a pass, unless that routine never crosses the path of a coworker.
Someone with untreated bipolar disorder who lashes out with little provocation at their coworkers? Fail.
Someone with an IQ of 80 who's literally incapable of coding, and would thus be total dead weight on the team? Fail.
I actually worked with a developer who said their tested IQ was in the 80s.
A person with an IQ of 80 usually has trouble functioning in society. It can be difficult to teach them concepts like alphabetization or hypotheticals. For someone with such cognitive impairments to become a software developer beggars belief.
With gap results it’s not uncommon to see 2 low areas scoring 80s and 2 high areas 120 or even 130+.
“A developer declaring a tested IQ of 80” could be a gap case and somewhere along the way the nuance got lost in translation.
Beyond that, IQ is not even predictive enough of job performance for a standard deviation to be a death sentence.
It's definitely possible for someone with IQ85 or IQ80 to be better at programming than the average IQ100 programmer, and it's not even that unlikely. Let's not overstate this.
Our occupations and interests cause us to self-segregate into cognitive strata. For the same reason you don't know many Trump voters or young earth creationists (despite the fact that they're 1/3rd of the US population), you probably don't know many dumb people (or many super-geniuses). Individual differences in cognitive ability are far greater than our personal experience indicates.
Wouldn't you believe that, that's only slightly less than the general population which is at 25%, or right around what I predicted above :)
The median IQ difference between college professors and service workers is not even a full standard deviation.
Beyond that, I said average IQ100 programmer, of which there are many that can do a perfectly serviceable job in many sectors.
Individual differences in cognitive ability are great, yes, but they are not even close to being perfectly represented in IQ.
I don't know many Trump voters or young earth creationists because of where I live, but I know quite a bit of their relative equivalent where I am right now. Yes, there are a lot of differences, but I know enough young-earth-creationist and far-right engineers/stem people to know that it's not that simple.
Anyways, I think I made my point clear, IQ is not a very good predictor of job performance, you can definitely be a programmer with IQ85, and a great many are.
IQ is not the metric that people think it is. You could be above average at doing mental math and finding ways to push data, yet be under average and spatial problems, language problems, etc..., and get an IQ of 75.
It's also not that good of a test and not that predictive of actual programming ability, even if you're not being dragged down by other tests.
I'd guess the reason for targeting autism is there would be a disproportionate number of highly capable workers hidden in that group which would be missed by normal hiring practices. You wouldn't expect that from, say, schizophrenia or most other neurodiversities.
The solution? He was a master communicator. He would tell me when he was having a manic streak and took on more work. When he was going back down, he communicated that and I took on more. If he started going unresponsive, I reached out and asked, and he told me where he was and what support he needed.
Now he's doing better and found the right medication, but crivens, I've been in a lot of other group projects, and I really miss him.
Different workplaces have different tolerances for people who seem unstable; for instance, if someone bursts into tears, are they pressured out? It varies.
Schizophrenia has nothing to do with psychopathy, sociopathy, multiple personalities, or anything you've seen in the movies, by the way.
No idea what you're talking about because obviously you can.
I think it's useful to define mental illness as those conditions where you can't take advantage of your rights on paper; where the proof that you are coping adequately is always and forever that you are not sharing much if anything - mostly coping with symptoms while at work is not enough.
Schizophrenia, bipolar, etc.
It's very clearly shown in this thread why these are different from conditions people are free to talk about. Most people can't imagine that someone with the above conditions can be employable, especially as a knowledge worker, whereas Aspergers/autism has become a cliche used to stereotype programmers in general.
There is no way to enforce a law that says people shall trust others regardless of their personal judgement. So there is no equalizing the privileges that some "neurodiverse" people have and others do not.
Asking for an employee's medical records is forbidden. Asking an employee to undergo a medical exam is forbidden. Asking questions about the employee's health or disabilities during the interview process is forbidden. See https://www.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-medical-qu....
With all that said, what prevents anybody from saying "I don't feel comfortable taking a phone call" or "I need extra time for this" without actually being autistic? Then the disadvantage they claim to be removing hasn't actually gone anywhere.
Ramps instead of stairs? Necessary for wheelchairs, but good for elderly knees and people temporarily on crutches or roller scooters.
Keyboard of your choice? Necessary if you have low motor control, still good for preventing people from getting RSIs.
Interview in writing instead of via voice? Guess what: benefits Deaf people, those who are hard of hearing, and people who have difficulty speaking.
It’s stupid to rule out accommodations because people might cheat. You shouldn’t punish the innocent majority for the transgressions of the guilty minority.
Have you stopped to think about just how much stuff we have to do and put up with as a society because a small number of people are dishonest?
We have to have IDs, because people might lie about who they are.
We have to have an entire (very expensive) criminal justice system because people might commit crimes.
We have to have locks on the doors to our homes and vehicles, because people might trespass.
We have to have cashiers and overly-complicated automated registers (with someone watching) because people might not want to pay for everything that they are taking out of a store.
You show up at a closing for a new home, they want a cashier's check, not your personal one. Why? You might not actually be good for the money. Plus they do all the title work.
Every bank has a giant safe. Every country has some weapons of war.
It's very idealistic to say "well only a few people will cheat so it's fine." It isn't, and it never has been.
But most of us don't have metal bars over our homes' windows. There's a middle ground of making bad behavior mildly inconvenient.
Also, all of your examples are precautions born from experience. There have been burglars and shoplifters for centuries, so it makes sense to have some preventions. When deciding whether to try something new, it can be counterproductive to focus a lot on preventing cheating. I'd suggest seeing if it ever becomes a problem worth addressing.
You haven't made any compelling argument to support why a job interview would be different in that regard.
With some imagination you can build systems that handle it without punishing minorities. To do otherwise just shows a lack of imagination and compassion.
Personally I think we can do better, and that is enough of a reason.
> We have to have IDs, because people might lie about who they are.
Not every country makes these mandatory. Additionally there usage is usually directly tied to risk associated with someone lying. I don’t need to prove who I am every time I sign up to a new service.
I would argue the risk of large numbers of people cheating this specific interview step is quite low.
> We have to have an entire (very expensive) criminal justice system because people might commit crimes.
Yes, a system designed to deliver justice, not punishment. In most countries that means a systems that takes extreme measures to avoid punishing the innocent, even if it means allowing some guilty to go free. A perfect example of what I mean about not punishing the innocent minority.
> We have to have locks on the doors to our homes and vehicles, because people might trespass.
People can choose not to use these. No one compels me to lock my front door, it might be unwise, but I’m not going to be denied employment because of it.
> We have to have cashiers and overly-complicated automated registers (with someone watching) because people might not want to pay for everything that they are taking out of a store.
How do these systems punish the innocent? Apart from the occasional complaint about the wrong item in the bagging area? They’ve certainly never prevented me from buying groceries.
> You show up at a closing for a new home, they want a cashier's check, not your personal one. Why? You might not actually be good for the money. Plus they do all the title work.
Again risk weighted. Also in my country we just do instant bank transfers. None of this old fashioned paper gubbins.
> Every bank has a giant safe. Every country has some weapons of war.
Again all of these things are heavily risk weighted, and cause little to no impediment to innocent parties. I’ve certainly never needed to manually open the vault at my local bank. As for war, the US is the king of defence spending.
> It's very idealistic to say "well only a few people will cheat so it's fine." It isn't, and it never has been.
It’s perfectly fine to say this. The entire world is built in the premises that a small amount of crime will always happen, and systems should be robust to it. There’s no point spending ludicrous resources trying to prevent a minuscule amount of crime. Everything is, and should be, risk weighted.
Just like when you build a distributed system you expect parts to misbehave or fail. Why would you expect any human based system to be any different?
If we have an interview system that works for the vast majority of people, why do we need to introduce risk by substantially changing it to help very few people?
If cheating becomes possible to do easily, your system has disadvantaged people who are honest and refuse to cheat. What are you going to do to ensure that people who are honest are not discriminated against for their honesty?
Information technology is already home to a bunch of neurodivergent people. You run into them _way_ more often in IT than you do in just about any other line of work. Do they really need more help getting tech jobs?
I suppose at some point, cheaters will find a way to cheat, and if they pass the interview but suck you just have to fire them.
Your comparison also comes off a bit disingenuous. They're talking about interview accommodations like "providing questions in advance" and "extended interview time".
Accommodations just provide optionality, and let’s people choose the approach that suites them best. Rather than assuming that you can fairly apply some rigid standardised test on people, and expect it to accurately measure individuals. There’s plenty of data, and some pretty basic stats, which show this doesn’t work.
Proving extra time provides almost no advantage to anyone. Either you can answer the questions well, or you can’t. The amount of time it takes to do isn’t very relevant, so taking more time isn’t an advantage.
Providing questions in advance also isn’t an advantage. Again you can either answer them well or not. If you’re worried about people cheating by passing the questions around, then only provide them an hour or two in advanced, or only once they’re onsite.
If you’re interview process can be fooled by giving people more time, or advanced notice, then quite frankly it’s not a very good interview process.
I fail to see how creating artificial time pressure makes your interview process better at finding good candidates. It results in an environment that isn't even vaguely like actual work conditions.
Whether the time pressure is explicitly mentioned, it is clear (to me) that there is an implicit expectation that the faster you answer the question, the better, all other things being equal.
I don't want to give the impression that I think the current standard of software engineering interviews are perfect, so if you think it can be improved, please tell me how.
How about you judge them on the quality of their answers? Is giving a long more detailed and nuanced answer a bad thing?
... and? A office that's accessable only by ladder has a lot of leg pressure, and providing wheelchair ramps would help many employees considerably too, regardless of whether they're wheelchair-bound.
Time pressure is directly tied to performance.
Sometimes, stuff breaks and wouldn't it be great if it got fixed in half an hour instead of four hours?
Projects sometimes have deadlines.
You are not talking about an accommodation made for something unrelated to the job, here. This is some gold-level mental gymnastics.
If that's happening constantly, you should find a new job. That's a major red flag. Incidents should be rare at any well run org.
Sure sometimes incidents happen and someone has to deal with them. At most companies that is a pretty rare occurance (unless you're on some incident team). When it does happen, different team members have different skills dealing with them - and that's ok for a rare part of the job. Additionally, for longer incidents, often the person with a slow ramp up but better understanding is more useful than the person who jumps right in without understanding. A sure way to make things worse is to panic and try to fix things without understanding what happened well enough.
(Speaking as someone who has been involved in incident response in various jobs)
Which means tight interview deadlines artificially constrain your applicant pool, forcing you to pay higher wages. Beyond legal requirements, that’s why it’s a good idea to only care about what matters for the actual job.
Why do you assume that all interviews are structured that way? They aren't. I have interviewed with Google and that was not how most of my interview process was conducted.
The core argument is really simple. Ideal teams don’t consist of 10 identical clones of the ideal worker allowing the team to work 10x as fast. They consist of multiple different skills that allow teams to finish complex tasks more than 10x as efficiently as any one person on the team could. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
Giving more time doesn't give you an advantage, because the correct answer isn't what gets you points.
Maybe in a widget factory. Programmers have various skill levels. I'd prefer to hire somebody who takes twice as long to complete a task, if they're taking that time to ensure that it won't cause problems downstream or in edge cases. Fast & sloppy programmers who maximize a commits per hour metric are the worst.
That's a strawman. You metric of "job done" is "ensuring that it won't cause problems downstream or in edge case". Fast & sloppy programmers are not fast, as they didn't achieve your metric of job done. Thus you actually prefer fast programmers to slower ones.
Just because someone can have high productivity for a short burst doesn't mean they can sustain it, or that they can even sustain moderate productivity over a long period of time.
It's a bit like concluding that a drag car is clearly the best car because it can cover 1km the quickest, and ignoring the fact that it would take hours for it cover 3km because its engine needs to be rebuilt every 1km.
Nobody is asking an interviewee to have a full product prototype ready for demo inside an hour. What they do is present some problem to you and ask you to reason through it.
Being able to work out pitfalls in a design early, rather than several weeks in, saves a lot of time and money.
So in short, yes. It is that simple.
And a sandpile is made up of a bunch of grains of sand. [0] It's identically disingenuous to suggest that such a difference in quantity does not manifest a difference in quality.
I don't think your point is necessarily a bad one, but you're leaving a lot of opportunity for people to dismis it.
> It's identically disingenuous to suggest that such a difference in quantity does not manifest a difference in quality.
Huh? I specifically addressed that when I stated that "Nobody is asking an interviewee to have a full product prototype ready for demo inside an hour."
Are we assuming that the interviewer is an idiot who has no concept of time? That the interviewee only has some small amount of time to work through the problem they have posed, or answer questions?
If your interview process is an hour, then you're comparing a bunch of candidates who all had an hour. It's demonstrative of what knowledge you are bringing to the table and how you can work through problems. It's all extrapolation.
No, it isn't perfect. But if you find me a system that is, I've got a billion dollars for you in my pocket.
> you're leaving a lot of opportunity for people to dismis it.
Frankly, I don't care if people dismiss it. The people who dismiss are not here to engage in thoughtful conversation and aren't my target audience, anyway.
I think the worry is candidates can quickly look up answers and build up a conversation around it right before the interview. Even if they couldn't get to the complete answer ahead of time, enough grok'ing on the specific problem statement and possible solutioning could show an interview enough signal to give them a pass.
Yes, this will largely be abused by people who don't need it. Just look at how many students malinger for Adderall scripts or extra time on exams -- it's practically endemic at ivy leagues now.
Disability parking permits are another one that have shocked me at how common abuse of them is in large cities like Toronto. Essentially anytime resources are constrained and an environment is high pressure, these services inevitably see widespread misuse.
High priority low income housing is another area that genuinely shocked me. I had so many clients desperate for housing that they would falsely claim to be high-priority (victims of abuse or terminally ill) it was terrible to see.
The unpopular truth is that these systems are vulnerable to fraud and it absolutely harms people who need them most. HOWEVER, what is the alternative?
Would you suggest we medically validate and police applications?
I've seen that approach taken and it's also a hot mess. It presents barriers not just for people defrauding the system, but the disabled that struggle to navigate the system as well.
I don't know the solution to these issues and it's one of the reasons I got the fuck out of social work as soon as I could.
One example could be that an interviewee inappropriately stares at a woman or makes an inappropriate remark while on-campus. You wouldn't see that if the entire interview were conducted only via Google Docs.
How many interviews pass or fail because of that situation vs failing because of running out of time? 0
Males and females will apply. Holding back women because you fear men will look the wrong way seems unfair and needless.
I assume most of those types of people are probably able to be on best behaviour for a day. I imagine most of them can pass an interview and then be creepy later.
Hiring people who are good at their jobs, but may be different in a social setting can be a way of indirectly hiring people on the spectrum. If you have many extroverted employees, hiring more introverted people will inevitably lead to hiring people on the spectrum.
How do you judge this? Well, personality tests are pretty common already, they can absolutely show traits that are more common in people with autism. Also, an interview can tell you a lot about a person.
One lesson that stuck with me was the Houston Rockets GM putting some barriers around how emotional judgments were allowed to influence decisions. Small rules like “don’t give players nicknames” or just giving less weight to personal interviews were good experiments in how to keep screenings more objective. We don’t have the granularity or measurability of new hire data as NBA offices do, but I think these concepts are still useful.
Were these studies ever replicated? I think diversity is useful if you have diverse clients, but if clients have a monoculture, then trying to mirror that with your team makes sense.
Astronaut 1: You mean... our work culture is conducive to groupthink?
Astronaut 2: * points gun * Always has been...
My own engineering team still uses the term "culture fit," but I recently helped refine our interviewing guidelines to make it more clear what we mean:
"We are assessing the candidate's comfort level with our processes, priorities, frequency of change, etc. Assessments should never reflect an interviewer's comfort level with any candidate's culture, personal attributes, etc."
Fortunately, the law already bans discrimination on the basis of religion, ethnicity, and national origin, so that covers a lot of the legitimate cases where an attribute that has no bearing on a person's ability to perform the job cannot be factored into hiring decisions.
But there is certainly a sense in which culture absolutely can have bearing on job performance. A company might have a culture of "move fast and break things," and if a candidate is not comfortable with that culture, then it would be to their (and the employer's) benefit to know ahead of time whether the job would be a good fit for them.
Whether it could impact performance is an interesting thing I hadn't considered, though. I suppose if a thing is out of one's control (i.e., the luck of what you're born into), we make it off-limits unless it affects job performance?
I'm thinking in terms of how the law ought to be, not interpreting how it currently is. It's tough to reason about. "You theoretically could have gotten yourself qualified for this job, but you chose not to" is how I view the ideal rationale for not giving someone a chance, but even that is very problematic to deduce.
I really like Randall Koutnik's list[0] of questions to ask your interviewer, as a good way for a candidate to assess the engineering culture of a company.
[0]https://rkoutnik.com/articles/Questions-to-ask-your-intervie...
I don't believe there is any way to create and vet a "100% bias-free guaranteed" interview process.
That said, our industry does have a reputation for being especially unwelcoming to women. It would be a shame if a candidate raised red flags and those flags went undetected or ignored in an attempt to be "inclusive".
Options provided for equality and equity are not supposed to ease requirements for a subset of people, but ensure that their evaluation doesn’t punish or discount them.
"I need extra time for my interview" and "I'm uncomfortable with a phone call" sounds like a very easy way to get third party help without anybody being the wiser.
And again, that flies in the face of their attempt to actually level the playing field.
> extended interview time, providing questions in advance, or conducting the interview in writing in a Google Doc rather than verbally on a call
Like, i dont think having these things would give an advantage to most people, so why not let them have it?
Ext time - if you're doing a test in an interview that heavily depends on time you are doing it wrong imo. Lots of people get nervous and flustered during timed tests, and its totally contrived. Yes there are deadlines at work, but they're of the form you have to get this done by next week, not you have to read this document really fast and type this thing up really fast because you only have 20 min.
Doing over google doc - i think there are a lot of people who are good at social cues who would be significantly disadvantaged by this. You just cut off a major source of info on what the interviewer is looking for, as well as preventing you from making a good impression via social means (being well spoken and funny is a major advantage in most interviews).
Knowing the questions ahead of time - yeah, that might give an advantage. Sure interviewers should never ask questions that are googleable, but having time to think about it prior to the high stakes interview would probably help a lot of people. That said,why not just do this for everyone? It probably would make the interview less contrived and more like the real job.
That also means that depending on how this is implemented, people who aren't aware of it, too shy, undiagnosed, or don't want their diagnosis on the record everywhere may not benefit from this at all. OTOH, some of the training may improve the situation in general, even when no accommodation has been requested.
[1] https://askjan.org/articles/Job-Application-Interview-Stage-...
Some people might exhibit behaviors that are problematic in a professional environment. To go into a hiring decision without that information would be a mistake, in my opinion.
I'm not so sure it applies in the context of a remote SWE.
It absolutely applies and is important.
I'm very skeptical that someone who's likely to sexually harass people will be any more likely to exhibit those signs in a voice or in-person conversation than in a written conversation. Someone trying to hide it will probably successfully hide it across all three forms of communication.
If a candidate says something during a phone call that makes the interviewer uncomfortable or have reservations, that's absolutely a legitimate reason not to hire someone.
Certainly, if someone were to say something sexist or racist in an interview, that would be a red flag. But I doubt most people would do that. So maybe you are able to weed some people out, but probably not very effectively, and you will likely still have to have other mitigations in place. In additions, you will have "false positives" in the form of people being misread. For example, they could be saying something genuinely and the interviewer thinks they are lying or being sarcastic. Are the false positives worth the true positives? I don't know. That's why I would want to see actual evidence.
> In additions, you will have "false positives" in the form of people being misread. For example, they could be saying something genuinely and the interviewer thinks they are lying or being sarcastic.
Text alone makes this far more ambiguous. You're going to have _way_ more trouble gauging someone's actual intent via words alone than vs words + tone of voice.
That's the point I was making. Tone of voice is a ton of information. Don't take my word for it, feel free to Google it and you will find pages and pages outlining just how important it is.
I don't think it'd make sense to ask a question like "how do you feel about sexual harassment in the workplace?", but if hypothetically such a question were asked, I also doubt even in that case that tone of voice would uncover a sexual harasser in a way that writing wouldn't.
Voice tone does provide a lot of information, but I don't see how it's related to these points.
I don't see how supporting the individual needs of others is a problem in any context. At the end of the day a candidate still needs to pass the interview.
The point is to focus on their ability to do the actual work.
Nothing. A small minority of people gaming the system shouldn't necessarily mean you get rid of accommodations.
These would great practices for any job interview, whether the interviewee is on the spectrum or not.
Providing questions in advance (behavioral at least) would make the interview process a lot better for everybody.
The possibility to answer the more involved questions in writing would also be a great plus overall.
Personally, I am terrible at studying and getting assignments done, so I like that interviews are usually self-contained and relatively short. I also really appreciate the encouragement and sense of cooperation I get from doing an interview in person rather than in text, I think it makes me perform better. Obviously not as much with zoom interviews.
But I recognize my privilege here, that my brain happens to fit the current shape of interviews! It would be great if there were other types of interviews available that fit other people as well.
If we're talking about the general workforce, instead of specifically tech fields, that would make sense.
However, even more important would be to try to give everyone a fair chance, as opposed to trying to meet some metrics which can often lead to discrimination (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/02/590346891...).
Since neurodiversity isn't one of the "popular" diversity/social justice topics, I suspect the main motivation here is to avoid missing applicants that are technically skilled and suitable, but may not do well in the interview process due to their neurodiversity.
Note can, not always does, which seems to be how it's treated.
In regards to avoiding discrimination, and giving everybody a fair chance, I don't see a system that accomplishes this besides a lottery. The job interview is fundamentally a ritual of discrimination. The entire fixation on increasing employment for a small number of "diverse" groups is mostly driven by the political strength of said groups rather than any sort of consistent moral principles.
If there is something actively preventing you from being in or sticking around in a profession you want to be a part of, I'm all for breaking down those barriers, but the idea of "over-representation" seems to go in the opposite direction. It seems aimed at keeping or kicking people out.
From the population that gets a CS degree? I may be biased but think neurodiverse people prefer staying at academia if they can and would like that balance to tip off a little.
Lots of discrimination in the past was justified with the argument that a minority group was over-represented in some field. E.g. some north american universities restricting jewish applicants all the way up until the 60s.
[1] https://dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-w...
[1] - coaching, ongoing support for them and teammates once joining, offer extended time, provide questions in advance, conduct interview in writing
One thing people always forget is that these sort of accommodations exist in the beginning for one group, but everyone benefits and that's how we move forward. Perfect example of this are ramps, which originally existed for those who were physically handicapped.
I currently have one neurodiverse (more than one condition) employee who has remained at the same career level for nearly a decade because they don't meet the criteria for the next level. They have expressed interest in advancing though. I don't know how to handle it. I can't promote them, as the next level role has much more responsibility and accountability, and they just aren't there yet. I just give them nice bonuses and salary bumps, but eventually it'll hit a limit for their job level and a higher-up will need to be involved.
I've reached out to internal resources I was pointed to, but it's all very informal and difficult to find someone qualified to answer fairly specific questions. I've pointed the employee to resources as well, but one of their conditions kind of hampers their ability following through on vague directions.
I feel frustrated because they're a good employee, but I've yet to find useful guidance on helping them get to where they want to be.
Demotion is always an option if things don't work out.
However, I wish google would partner with Autistic self-advocacy orgs or orgs that don’t support harming us, like ASAN (Autistic Self Advocacy Network) or any of the bigger orgs ASAN recommend. No, the Autistic community doesn’t always agree on things, but I think we can agree that as the saying goes, nothing about us without us.
The Els org mentioned has a couple of Autistic advisory board members, which is just slightly better than none, so I’ll give them that. However, they base their schools on the inherently harmful ABA, they use the puzzle piece and “person first” language to remind each other Autistic people are in fact people, and some of their staff work with eugenics org Autism Speaks. All of those things are the antithesis of understanding and advocating for Autistic people imo. (NB: some Autistics like the puzzle piece or pf language, as is their right)
I can’t find any useful information on the Stanford program. I want to know if there are any Autistic or otherwise neurodiverse people involved and what the org supports.
I find it interesting that google partnered with this Els org. It’s like they did enough research to know that Autism Speaks is unequivocally evil (and are of the belief that Autistic folks should either be warehoused, or should be ‘fixed’ by ABA abuse thus require no supports/accommodations at all as adults, so they wouldn’t want to be part of this program anyway, but I digress) so google found an org just inoffensive enough at first glance to use instead. I might be reading too much into it, but I’m really curious why they chose that org.
I know google and other companies with similar programs aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. I just hope that the Autistic people involved really benefit and don’t end up more exploited than their allistic (not Autistic) colleagues. Starting to address some of the complex issues why most of us don’t/can’t work is a great start and could really improve some people’s lives.
I prefer "Autistic person" because I'm into the whole brevity thing.
Open plan office - great for sales, HR, marketing and reassuring insecure managers/leaders/CEOs they have worth - not so great for people who need to concentrate hard to solve hard problems and write good code.
Maybe the workforce needs to be more inclusive of normies…
Frankly I think it's fine. It weeds out the sociopaths just in it to advance their careers seeing as they need to put in the effort. I've had a few jocks even try to mooch off me to basically give them answers.
That was where things stood as of the DSM IV. Then the DSM V came along and lumped all of the above into a single classification of "autism spectrum disorder".
If they open up this stuff, it’ll be a win-win for Google and sufficiently neurodivergent people.
Reminds me of that old joke about Bill Gates deciding that the best way to help humanity was to impose a corporate tax via MS Office and then use that to build toilets in Africa.