Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

I am a Black male and worked as a developer for mostly small unknown companies from 1996-2020.

I then pivoted to cloud+app dev strategic consulting when a job at AWS (Professional Services) fell into my lap. I now work for a third party consulting company as a staff software architect.

For the last 5 years, I have had customer facing jobs where I am either on video calls or flying out to customer sites working with sales.

When I first encountered the DE&I programs at Amazon, I couldn’t help but groan. The entire “allies” thing felt like bullshit.

The only thing that concerns me is that I hope companies still do outreach to colleges outside of the major universities and start partnering with them to widen the funnel and partnering with smaller colleges to help students learn what is necessary to be competitive and to pass interviews

Maybe you didn't feel like those programs existed once you were in, but I guarantee you that they're very active in "positive discrimination" at the hiring and promotion time.

Just last year Amazon in the UK was offering special referral bonuses to employees referring black people specifically for example. I saved the emails for posterity.

For managers of technical roles, they're also a strong push to promote women as fast as possible. My manager has told me about every woman in my team that he wanted to fast track their promotion. I've never heard the same about any of man, regardless of their skill. Of course I recognize that's more anecdotical than the referral thing, but it definitely exists.

That doesn't feel very "positive" if you're not in those groups

of course it’s not. you don’t solve racism with more racism in the opposite direction. alas…DEI.

> The only thing that concerns me is that I hope companies still do outreach to colleges outside of the major universities and start partnering with them to widen the funnel

I can assure you they think that is bullshit as well.

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