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Comment by ilickpoolalgae | Hacker News Reader

I don't feel the same. The last decade or so has seen an explosion of women show interest in joining the tech community. Ratio's on teams I've been on has greatly increased throughout my career. I've been on several teams now where women have outnumbered men. In my experience, the ratio is now flipped when you look at the team as a whole (XFN, etc). I may be biased though as I've only worked at "premier" large tech companies and they are probably in a better position to do DEI at scale.

That being said, true senior roles in engineering (VP+) is still very male dominated. Part of that is the pipeline catching up and part of is that I see women leave engineering for other roles more often. For example I would say, in my experience, I've seen more women have an interest and engage in transitions to PM, designer, etc.

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> they are probably in a better position to do DEI at scale.

Slight tangent, but most large tech companies DEI programs were never really great at doing DEI at scale. They were mostly funnelling the existing pool of diverse candidates into them. The result is that companies without an active DEI program end up less diverse through no fault of their own.

what is the mechanism for that "funneling" though? intentional programs to make diverse candidates feel more welcome? more money? if big tech is actively working to attract diverse candidates and other companies aren't keeping up, it doesn't sound like it's through no fault of their own that they can't retain those people.

Corporate DEI can be split into 3 broad buckets:

1) Recruitment

2) Retention

3) Sponsorship

Retention improvements are generally a net positive for industry wide diversity. If someone leaves your company for harrasment reasons, they are more likely to leave the industry all together.

Sponsorship is generally net positive as well.

The funnelling I am talking about is entirely in the "recruitment" bucket. If you hire a woman software developer, they were already looking for a job. They already made a significant personal investment in getting the job. The industry is still enough if an employees market that they were probably going to get a job. You did nothing to bring that women into the industry. All you did is increase the chances that they end up working for you in particular. On the margins, this is still probably a net positive for industry wide diversity, but that is a much smaller effect then the chair shuffling effect.

Of these three buckets, the most effective way of increasing your diversity numbers is in recruitment (unless you have horrid retention). In the current environment, there is no way for a large company to get anywhere near 50/50 without a significant investment in the recruitment bucket.

More money.

Smaller companies can't compete with FAANG salaries. So when FAANG prioritizes hiring women, and there are still many fewer women than men in tech overall, smaller and poorer companies can't compete with the offers women are getting from FAANG.

... sure, on the other hand way less competition, and smaller companies can also simply go ahead hire promising juniors and do on the job training.

>hire promising juniors and do on the job training.

I chuckled. I yearn for these days, but this isn't the experience I had (late millenial/early Gen Z). No one trains, you get maybe a week to adjust, expected to go full steam ahead, and leave or are laid off 2-3 years later.

We train juniors for years (we accept interns as young as junior year of high school) and its been pretty great. I really don't understand why more companies don't do it.

> and smaller companies can also simply go ahead hire promising juniors and do on the job training.

Not before FAANG hired the promising juniors first, FAANG are very willing to give on the job training. Or at least were a couple of years ago.

That seems to imply that they singlehandedly (or fivehandedly) exhausted the promising pool and kept it dry since! But that's not the case, right? So whatever they did - while definitely important at the margin does not completely change the bulk of the market.

We can look at their employment numbers, they did not hire millions of people, yet there are millions of capable juniors globally eager to jump head-first into software development.

Bootcamps closed because hiring slowed down. (Because ZIRP ended, everyone doubted that the Fed can do a soft landing, and on top of that the certified bubble of AI-mania meant that companies increased spending on buzzword driven development, and ... on top of all this increasing cloud costs and slowing growth meant that no one felt the need to hire juniors.)

Oh, and of course due to the amazing tech demos where this or that LLM created a site/game in React in a few minutes, or even issued a PR, the meme of end of coding led to a pretty significant belief about the end of juniors.

"way less competition"?

excuse my phrasing, I meant fewer applicants for the position, so less competition for job-seekers

This may be true. As I noted, I've only worked at very "desirable" companies so my views are potentially skewed. That being said, I can't imagine that DEI has gotten significantly worse across the industry while vastly improving at the top end but I have no data to back that up.

Sounds like you went into more and more female spaces, as the field as a whole has barely changed, and if you compare to 20-30 years go it is worse.

https://swe.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Percent_WomenSTEM...

DATA! Thank you!

It's been a change in the past 10 years but I would say women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc. The perception that women are better at "soft skills" means that we get pushed out of technical tracks into coordinating work, managing people, and sometimes just straight up babysitting male devs. Those career paths lead to lower lifetime comp and less "impressive" titles.

There is a great book (written by a female engineer, Tanya Riley) called "The Staff Engineer's Path". I've learned a lot from the book, but one part of Tanya's experience that I could not relate to was having mentors who would encourage me and provide "you can do this" kind of pep talks. For a male engineer the usual experience is the opposite: we are expected to be competitive, and if we display any doubts then the only advice we'll get is "are you sure you want this promotion enough?" and "are you cut out for this?"

It appears to be much easier to advance in one's career as a self-doubting woman than a self-doubting man. This is probably because women are expected to have a high degree of self doubt and there is no assumption that they are defective if they admit to it.

And management is absolutely more prestigious and better compensated than IC work, despite what some may claim.

> This is probably because women are expected to have a high degree of self doubt and there is no assumption that they are defective if they admit to it.

A simpler explanation is that there is a perceived need to increase the number of women in management positions.

That would imply that women aren't deserving of the promotion, and that aggressive posturing is somehow a requirement for the job (and women get a free pass).

However, if the book is any indication, Tanya is a great staff engineer, probably among the best of any gender.

This of course begs the question: could it be that discriminating against men who don't display the stereotypical behaviors is detrimental to diversity? And increasing the number of women may actually help here: they may be able to empathize with people who don't fit the traditional mold.

Maybe this, maybe that, no data.

It’s not clear that people incapable of being assertive or direct would make naturally more effective managers.

And assuming that women drawn to management positions will be more empathetic to the neuro diverse is a gigantic reach. I have no idea why that would be the case.

Maybe better compensated, but not sure about more prestigious.

I have no interest seeing the day to day of that job.

Organizing apes to do things is always more prestigious than a single ape doing the work. The organizer ape gets to claim that they did the work of the group.

Think about a plaque on a bridge. Who does it say built the bridge? The guy who never touched a shovel after the ground breaking ceremony.

You're mistaking the chief engineer/funder (likeliest candidate on that plaque) with the management of the construction company/contractors.

YMMV, but my experience is very different from what you mention above. Every company I've been at has paid very close attention to ensure that women are treated fairly with the understanding that these biases exist.

But there's some truth to what you're saying. I do think women tend to be the "babysitters" on the team. I've noticed this often on teams I've been on. They're usually the ones that are the "cultural heart" of the team and organize all the events. Sometimes I've been their manager so I've asked and I'd say it's about 66/33 they legitimately enjoy doing it vs they felt pidgeon-holed into it because they volunteered once.

As for the transitions into other roles, I think it's impossible to tell if it's bias and or a natural inclination. There's no way to look at the data empirically and determine this. In my experience though, I think women are often encouraged to take these roles not because there's a bias towards "women are good at soft skills" but that these are generally the roles that provide better career advancement and visibility. It has always seemed to be a somewhat mis-guided outcome of allyship.

> and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc

Women tend to seek out such roles all on their own, there is no encouragement needed. Just adding "design" to a job title massively increases how many women applies, even if the job itself is unchanged.

Just rebrand software engineers to software designers and suddenly you get many women, even though they do the same thing.

I wonder if the perception of engineering as a "men's field" factors into that.

Like "every engineering role I've ever had, I was condescended to by some other engineer who though he knew more than me because he was a man, maybe the culture is different around 'designer'". Likewise for "technologist".

More broadly, it seems to me that a lot of engineers' perception of inequity within their field basically devolves to "well, there's nothing about the material that's sexist, I don't understand why more women don't want to do it". It reveals a staggering lack of imagination and empathy, especially within a group that stereotypically was subject to a lot of bullying as young people.

>I was condescended to by some other engineer who though he knew more than me because he was a man In my experience this isn't "because he was a man" but because he was an engineer. And from what I've seen it also has nothing to do with you being a woman. Engineers tend to be condensing, and will do so indiscriminately. Or said different being "condescended to by some other engineer" means they are treating you equally, if you're not then you are getting preferential treatment.

Perhaps, but I've seen it directed towards numerous female engineers, from less senior engineers who were noticeably deferential to male engineers, at or below the seniority of the female engineer.

I think there's this perception amongst male would-be engineers that starts in college or earlier that women in that space are not sincere enough in their desire to become engineers, are physiologically incapable of doing the work at the same level as men, or that women have entered the space by means unrelated to the mastery of the materials.

I think your comment is a good demonstration why this is still such an issue, despite the overwhelming evidence of gender based discrimination in tech, people are dismissing the experiences of the majority of women in tech. Can't really improve if people are still in denial about it.

I don't know what to do, you can't teach people empathy or not to be sexist. Given how weirdly conservative young people are nowadays I don't see it getting much better in the future either.

> stereotypically was subject to a lot of bullying as young people

There is actually evidence [1] that suggests that victims of bullying often develop long term psychological issues / depression, and depression leads to a lack of empathy.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254192616

That's a pretty bold claim to make without data to back it up.

The comment I responded to didn't have any data either, not sure why I'd need data for a similar kind of comment while they don't?

The university I went to did that and they said it was to get more women, and easily got over 50% women into engineering fields just by adding design to the name of the degree. It is a well known trick, names matters.

As a student I have personally experienced "sorry, you cannot join the event, you're a boy we're looking for a girl" and instead of me they picked a girl whose only job was to stand, smile, and tick the box "yes I'm a girl, this makes the team diverse". Having such an experience makes my brain heavily biased against all actions supporting gender equality.

Which are many. And they're almost always about improving the position of women. "Gender equality" is rarely ever about improving the position of men. The social consensus is that it's impossible for a situation to exist where a man is discriminated against, and even discussing this idea is a very much taboo topic. Which is not true, because such situations exist, and the number of people who have this opinion but are afraid of voicing it is growing.

I'm deeply convinced that a societal shift is on the horizon, and what we see as "modern feminism" will be, in the future, considered one of those things that aged like milk. The only question is whether this change will result in a society where people feel equal, or the pendulum will simply swing back and it's going to be taboo to discuss the hardships of women.

This change isn't very visible in western societies yet, but we're starting to see it in South Korea. This movement is going to grow and spread.

It's not visible on the outside in western societies because outright saying "you're a boy and we're looking for a girl" is outright illegal (in 99% of roles). They need to be a bit more subtle than that. e.g. make a "women only/highly encouraged" event that happens to have a job fair.

I guess in Asia there is no such barrier. So the results and backlash are equally more explicit.

The problem is that for you personally it feels shitty.

But you know what? For a lot more woman it feels like this compared to man.

It's your duty if an educated person to see thisaccept it and move on for equality sake. And I do not mean this ironic.

We are not changing our society without some people having less chances for having a highly undermined group of other people.

I would prefer for all of us just sitting down and actually talking how we all want to life but this mental gymnastics is too much for most people

> for you personally it feels shitty. But you know what? Woman.

This pretty much illustrates why more and more men reject feminism as a way of achieving gender equality.

Product is a lot more prestigious at most companies. Design is too, at quite a few, in that it’s often a better stepping stone to product, though that depends on the org.

In general, programming jobs are low-status. High pay, but low status.

People like to think programming is a purely luxury job, and in some ways it is, but not compared to something where you often have more agency in the direction of a product. Programmers at lower levels probably take more bullshit and have less influence than anything with a title that conveys a higher level of abstract problem solving.

Being a freelance website designer likely pays less but is more rewarding as a practice than being a random cog

Positives are diminished when the paths you wanted to pursue are closed off. Things that look like privilege when you don't have it can be a prison when you're stuck in its boundaries.

> women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles

Do you have actual data to support this claim?

> into coordinating work, managing people

So promoted into management. Are you saying managers are systemically making less than the engineers they manage? Which would be interesting, as management is generally seen as a more prestigious role than individual contributor.

> Do you have actual data to support this claim?

You can easily search "women in tech statistics 2024" and make your own conclusions.

My conclusion is that the gender gap in tech is not completely resolved.

Every time I’ve looked into it, pay gaps for same role and same experience are very small, sometimes favoring women. And if anything, women are promoted faster in an attempt to diversify the management ranks.

There's basically two kinds of pay gap:

1. Group A is literally paid less than Group B, for the same work. This is much less of an issue today than it used to be, but its still an issue.

2. Members of group A are promoted much less often than members of Group B, so while a Group A member in a high-earning position has commensurate pay to a member of Group B in the same position, there are simply fewer Group A members reaching that position. This is the more common, and frankly more pernicious, problem.

The very first link in the recommended google search says that only 25% of C-suite members are women, yet women make up 35% of all tech employees. In other words, a smaller percentage of women are even reaching the highest levels than men. That's pretty clearly the 2nd kind of wage gap. Now, that might because of selective promotion practices (which you discredit), but it might also be that women are laid off 60% more often than men, so they have to restart their seniority journey at a different company.

Women under represented at the highest management level is not specific to tech industry. It's seen across all industries.

So your argument has changed from "there is no pay gap" to "the pay gap is not unique to tech"?

Got any feelings about what true Scotsman do?

Management often leads to better compensation.

Engineers viewing design as a 'less prestigious' role is laughable. The compensation for these tracks is pretty much equal. I would love to hear you spell out why exactly you perceive design as less prestigious.

In general, the compensation is much less than engineers at the same level but the potential for career growth beyond senior is much easier.

I would agree on the junior side of things. There is a higher threshold for the starting line for engineers, but for higher levels, design is by no means seen as a less prestigious role. Not in any sense of the word.

For salaries – see e.g. levels.fyi for quick comparison. Even Google – a company not really known for valuing design that highly: SWE L6 avg. = 520K USD. Product Designer L6 avg. = 515K USD.

Yeah no argument on prestigious, just noting the comp differences.

I won't speak on engineering vs design. but compensation doesn't necessarily correlate perfectly with prestige. Teaching is the easiest example in the opposite way.

> Ratio's on teams I've been on has greatly increased throughout my career.

I don't have data on this other than my own anecdata, so big grain of salt, but I think it's varies pretty widely by company and/or industry. In my last few jobs I've had several in which the engineering teams were overwhelmingly male, while in my current role it's more balanced. Further anecdata but in my most recent job search the engineers interviewing me were overwhelmingly male with only a few women.

It's hard to say, to be honest. In that same decade we had some of the most vicious backlash to POC/women yet. Maybe that's always been there and the awareness at least help clear 5% of the swamp. But in many ways the situation feels (in my perception) even worse. If anything, this is the time such orgs are needed the most.

But yes, it's definitely a large company thing. I could count the number of female programmers at my first job (~150 staff, maybe 80 programmers) on one hand. 2nd was a huge conglomerate and a better mix, even if older personell skewed male. 3rd was a ~150 startup (more like 100 programmers) and back to the "on one hand" situation. I completely agree with more of a shift to management and design for women compared to being "in the field" as programmers.

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