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Comment by sumthinprofound | Hacker News Reader

As a white male team leader with hiring authority I select the best person for the job who will enhance the team and bring with them the talent to accomplish our goals. Having said that, I believe diversity is a strength and that women and people of color are underrepresented in tech, and use my influence to help correct that as much as possible without sacrificing operational readiness. It has not been a problem. I can't speak for others experiences or biases but I simply do not see the problem that OP is detailing.

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> and [I] use my influence to help correct that as much as possible without sacrificing operational readiness.

So racism/sexism is okay as long as it doesn't hurt operational readiness? Or do you not consider this racism/sexism, if so how are hiring decisions based on race/sex not racist/sexist?

how are you equating hiring a diverse team (all skills being roughly equal) with racism/sexism? I think we might be working under different assumptions on the definition of those terms.

To correct for under-/overrepresented groups you need to change your hiring decision based on the groups of the applicants. And preferring hiring based on these groups (sex, race, etc) is sexism and racism in my books.

I would counter that by pointing out that the actual racist/sexist hiring practices are what led to the imbalance in diversity in the tech field, and I'm not excluding anyone due to their race/sex (no quotas, no "I won't hire white guys" etc) but for every job post if there are 200 applicants, 10 worth interviewing and 3 that I am seriously considering, it becomes a judgement call who I want on my team but I I do not use race or sex as the deciding factor

> actual racist/sexist hiring practices are what led to the imbalance in diversity in the tech field

Can you name "actual racist/sexist hiring practices"? I'm not american, but my understanding is that lack of women in tech comes from that fact that more women are interested in people that things. 80%+ women go to nursing schools, 80%+ men go into engineering. If you make society more egalitarian you maximise those differences between sexes, hence 10-15% of women engineers in Norway and 30% in Bangladesh.

no idea if that is caused by biology or social framework (the way you were raised, a lot of software jobs are in contracting, so no maternity leave etc.)

You are treating people differently by their extrinsic characteristics. You also fail to see the dynamic that unfolds if people are unjustly penalized. This is a management error on your part.

Furthermore your behavior is indicative that you would sacrifice your own team to look progressive. Sometimes the rules of PR are harsh, but it is your job to shield employees from that and treat them fairly.

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