Ask HN: Tech opportunities for neurodivergent people with learning difficulties | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Tech opportunities for neurodivergent people with learning difficulties

18 pointsCuriousRose11 comments

Hi HN,

I’m seeking advice on entry-level tech roles that are particularly well-suited for individuals with minor learning difficulties and/or autism. What roles or areas in tech have you found to be accommodating and supportive? Additionally, are there specific resources, tools, or communities that can help individuals with these challenges succeed in the tech industry? I'm asking on behalf of a family member that has just finished high school (18), with interest in tech.

They are currently working through CompTIA A+ certification, with intention to get into a tech support role but we have concerns as they struggle with communication and that they take time to process complex requests or communicate clearly. As a result we are looking for some backup alternatives that play to their strengths like focus, structure, attention to detail and creativity.

Thanks!

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I would look for a company doing "scrumafall" or waterfall-esque development. This is increasingly rare though. Under that style, they tend to have better planning and more structure. You have planned releases and more detailed/thoughtout stories.

Unfortunately for people like me, everything is moving in the opposite direction. Now we do releases as soon as a story is done. We have tons of devs working in multiple branches resulting in more merge issues, more testing issues, and other complexities. In general there's less structure, less documentation, and the stories have worse details.

I went from being a high performer filling roles above my official level to being a chronic low performer bouncing from team to team. I believe this was mostly due to the change in working environment. The employer won't do anything about the working environment.

One thing that might be worth looking into is Auticon. They are a contracting company specializing in placement of individuals with ASD. My company contracts with them and it seems they get more support or accommodations than the actual employees.

CompTIA is good, but you're right, they'll probably struggle with the human side of things for a bit. If they can stick out help desk work they may be able to transition into system administrator work, which is less customer facing.

From there, DevOps engineering is, I've found, a good place to aim long term for those with communication difficulties. You're usually pretty insulated from clients, at the expense of not being able to work on the "flashy" stuff that directly generates profit for the company.

It's definitely work that emphasizes a steady, methodical approach to things, and really knowing your tools well. Have them take a look at https://roadmap.sh/devops and see if they like what it looks like.

Thanks, the clear roadmaps on this page are great to explore their interests. DevOps might be just out of scope of their current understanding, but I think there is value in the roadmap approach for them and understanding what skills facilitate what paths. I agree with your take on internal vs. external facing roles. I think internal government roles might be their best option at this stage.

DevOps is _all about communication_ (simply cannot emphasise this enough!) and is not a great fit for those who might struggle in this area. "Clients" can be outside the company or simply internal customers (your colleagues).

Interesting, that definitely wasn't my experience. Like, yes, there's a non-avoidable amount of professional communication in any position, but my goal when I worked in DevOps was always to just make things run as smoothly as possible, so people could do their jobs without having to rope me in. And that mindset turned out to work really well.

Microsoft has a Neurodiversity Hiring Program [1] and Goldman talk about QA [2]

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside-microsoft/c...

[2] https://www.goldmansachs.com/what-we-do/transaction-banking/...

I can recommend Ultranauts. They have a fully neuro-divergent culture. Personally have a connection with the founder and happy to be the bridge.

Each neurodivergent case or autism spectrum has different deficiencies, and it is hard to have a single job that would work for them.

Maybe creating a map/matrix of possible jobs would be a useful outcome? Also with their respective strengths.

I'm sure that there are communities on LinkedIn about it, but I'm not sure if you could get really meaningful contribution.

Upvoted for visibility. I'd like to know as well.

I’m also looking for similar answers, so I’ll be reading replies here too.

The best opportunities come from people in a person’s social network.

For a person with disabilities social service agencies are also a resource. Particularly when accommodations are significant.

Finally, a high function disabled person might also make their own opportunity. Good luck.

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