Silicon Valley has a dress code | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley has a dress code

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64 pointsVarcht77 comments

No, there is still no dress code. Sure, there are trends and there is fashion, but it's all optional! Most programmers dress like other programmers, most designers dress like other designers and so on because most people dress like other people. It's just easier, and that's how fashion works.

But you don't have to!

There is no actual dress code. There are no actual rules¹. And most people in the industry won't look down at you for dressing differently (except maybe subconsciously). And people take advantage of this: I know plenty of engineers who wear button-down shirts, nice sweaters and blazers because the can--not everybody goes for jeans and a t-shirt.

What people actually wear is not important. The dress code--or the lack thereof--is only important because it illustrates a deep principle that I think is very important to the SV culture: departing from petty rules and embracing as much individual freedom as possible.

After all, individual freedom includes the freedom to conform! It's the freedom that's actually important, not what people do with it.

¹ Well, there are some ground rules--you can't just walk around naked all of the time--but they're very limited.

Just for fun, try wearing a suit to a programming job. Nothing ostentatious, just a well fitted medium priced conservative suit. You'll quickly learn there isn't an explicit code, but there is certainly an implicit one. You'll get about the same reaction as if you wore parachute pants with a neon shirt.

There seem to be a lot of people who think that "you must wear a suit" is a dress code, but "you can't wear a suit" is not. I assume it comes down to never considering that someone might ever wear a suit voluntarily, so thinking that forbidding it has no actual effect.

The funny thing is, I'm sort of jealous of the people that are "forced" to wear a suit every day. You mean they get to have an excuse to wear something that the average guy looks way better in every day without having to explain themselves because they have a built in excuse? That's awesome!

The funny thing is, casual clothes often take more thought. With a suit you can blend in, with casual clothes, even if they're not great, they're /yours/; no hiding from your choices. Sure you can screw up a suit too, but it takes a lot more trying. As long as it fits well and it's not weird, it's a suit. There's not a lot to think about. It's basically like the classical Jobs' uniform of jeans+turtle neck, but way better looking. Unfortunately it now has the stigma of being "stuffy".

I would totally agree, I have no real "enforced" dress code but I choose to wear a suit when I go to clients (even though they never do), I am usually with sysadmins, developers or Security teams. I feel like wearing a suit sets me apart and also gives impact when I enter a room, I also (being young) find it gives me a little more automatic respect which always helps too. I think people should have the choice but I really think this whole "suits" are stuffy thing is stupid, suits are comfortable, can be worn multiple days in a row and make you look fly.

If you live somewhere warm, a suit is quite literally 'stuffy'. You'll sweat a lot more in a suit than in a T-shirt.

It really depends where you live.

In Sydney, I find it impossible not to see the suit and tie as an arbitrary cultural hold-over from a different climate.

The suit causes the company to waste thousands of dollars on air-conditioning, and introduces a gendered Cold War, because we simultaneously make the female staff wear clothes that strike a delicate balance between professional and attractive.

The suit is so impractical and stupid in this climate that it's hard not to think negatively about an office culture that demands it, or those who haven't questioned its place as a status symbol.

Yep. As a South African I felt the same way about my high school's overly warm boys' uniform. (And unlike wealthy corps, my school didn't have air conditioning.)

The little moments of "everything's optimised for being on the other side of the planet" are everywhere once you notice them.

All of our suburbs have peaked, ceramic tiled roofs. That design makes perfect sense when you have regular snowfall, which you need to run off the roof.

Here, a slightly sloping concrete roof would be a pleasant roof-top garden, or a more easily accessible place to put a solar-powered hot water tank.

The tiled roofs are expensive, costly when they're damaged by our frequent, heavy hale, and a good place for possums to get trapped and die.

All because our architects regularly pretend we're in England.

Fair point, I'm coming at this from a northern climate where I usually am comfortable wearing a coat indoors anyway.

This, suits look classy. They also can be quite comfortable.

Suits only look classy if you are impressed by the cultural narrative they represent.

Nonsense. Suits look good because they have hundreds of years - literally - of refinement into something that flatters the human shape. You might as well complain about the cultural narrative of subconscious, instinctive body language.

For that idea to have a shred of validity, you'd have to explain why there is no such convergence in women's attire.

Suits are admired because they developed from the dress of the aristocracy and military and represent established wealth and power. They are a clumsy design, full of anachronisms, for example the buttons on the cuffs of a suit coat originate from Napoleon trying to stop soldiers from wiping their noses on their clothes. The second pocket on the right of many jackets is a ticket pocket introduced to hold an English gentleman's railway ticket in the time when rail was an exclusive way to travel.

If they really represented an evolved ideal way to make the human body look 'good' we'd all love to wear them and this debate wouldn't be happening.

I like you, can we be friends?

This is correct IMO, because in my experience when I wear a suit or a tuxedo I feel sort of superior to others around me. This could have something to do with my personality or with the images that I have been fed or both. The idea has been implanted that "suits" == "good jobs" and "good jobs" == "good money" or "suits" == "obedience" and "obendience" == "climbing the success ladder". When I wear my black sweatshirt everyday to my engineering job, I wear it for comfort and it in no way make me look or feel inferior to other people.

Right - I wore a Brooks brothers suit to a courthouse to a speeding ticket hearing. I was treated with the utmost courtesy by the security guards who even held the door open for me, and once into the courtroom I was invited to sit with the other attorneys.

Obviously this wasn't because the suit made my body look great.

There's trying to cross trends for other people (your example) and trying to cross trends in order to find your own niche within expectations. Witness all of the not-quite-fits in the examples the author found.

I think you'd find that an amicable suit-wearing programmer could easily do well at an interview.

I'm a ruby engineer and I was applying for a job at a 30+ employee startup in Brooklyn. I wore a nice grey pinstripe suit for the interview - nothing crazy, just a classic looking suit. When I got declined, I asked for feedback and he said "Well, some people thought you were here todo our taxes" and "You just aren't the right fit". Haha.

and then you sued.

no hiring manager would ever give you this feedback. I call BS.

What would you sue over? I don't believe clothing choice is a protected class for employment discrimination.

A suit suit would be interesting, though.

A suit suit would be a riot! :-)

He was interviewing at a startup dude. They probably didn't have a hiring manager and have no clue about how saying stuff like this can backfire.

I rib people who wear suits to an interview, but I wouldn't exclude anyone because of it. It's impossible to really know what the dress code of a place is going in. "Business casual" or "Casual" or "Use your best judgement" don't mean anything at a software company.

If I wore a suit today, out of the blue, I would get a dozen people ask me if I was going to a job interview...

Same here. That's why I wore a tshirt and jeans to the interview for my current job - also a convenient filter for what kind of company it is - if they don't want me wearing that every day, I didn't want that job.

I would always recommend asking up front - but if in doubt, I find it's better to start off smart and dress down later.

If in doubt, I'd reject the offer rather than end up somewhere with the expectation of a suit.

Maybe not in SV, but a lot of places are still business casual. Which means a sweater and nice pants.

Which is a pretty reasonable thing to ask, given a dramatic shift from your normal wardrobe to something much more formal. I don't see a problem.

I think many people would get less reaction with the latter.

I've seen people do it. You'll get a few "witty" comments, but you're not going to get a talking-to from your manager like when you violate an actual dress code.

If you do it after you've established your competence, you'll get interrupted a lot by "witty" remarks.

If you do it at an interview or something, you'll get a lot of people questioning your competence and fit.

It's still not remotely the same as an actual dress code, which you will get in trouble for violating even after you've established your competence.

A good point.

We have a few people who wear suits, or nice dress shirts and slacks. It's just not a big deal. No one cares.

Where I work, my group has instituted "Fancy Fridays" where people wear bow ties, suits, button down shirts, etc. It's not mandatory (participation is maybe 20%), and no one from other teams really notices or cares. One of our RF engineers and one of our PMs likes designer clothes, but most don't. One software engineer dresses like a pirate (seriously). Tie-dye is somewhat popular. And of course, T-shirts and hoodies are common.

I've also interviewed many people wearing a wide variety of clothing, and no one cares about that either. If we judged interviews based on what people wore, drove, ate, etc. we'd never get any competent engineers. A good culture fit means they interested in technology and our product, not that they fit some (in my experience false) stereotype.

As for your test, if there is a big change in how you dress (in any way) after people know you, it will garner notice.

Most industries that have "dress codes" don't actually formalize it either. There's nothing that forces lawyers to wear suits and ties other than a belief that you would look weird to other lawyers and the public if you didn't have one. That's exactly the same sort of force at play here.

Right, so both industries have dress codes and programmers don't really have much more choice in what to wear than lawyers.

I think many do, or people who deviate are told by managers. Certainly the case in the UK.

> Well, there are some ground rules…

A while back I noticed some people use this phrase "ground rules" to talk about rules without making them seem so rule-like. Another one is "rules of the road". Thank you for demonstrating this phenomenon.

> Well, there are some ground rules--you can't just walk around naked all of the time [...]

That "all of the time" part is interesting. Are there many places where it is OK to walk around naked some of the time?

Not at all surprised.

I work in NYC, and the last time few times I was out in SV to speak at conferences and such, I was attired in my standard suit & tie. (I'm the guy with the dopey photo and name-in-bold on http://nycpython.org/ which I run.)

This ends up working to my advantage. No one expects the guy in the suit to go up on stage and show off a Tweetable FFT in Python or give an in-depth talk on CPython internals.

Tweetable FFT in Python

haha! obviously if all you're doing is calling the np.fft package it would fit in 140 chars, but this is the same false argument that people make all the time, "5 line web server" etc.

Only tangentially relevant, but he may be referencing this tweet:

https://twitter.com/jakevdp/status/399982619242156032

Yep, that's the one! This came up at PyData NYC this past November.

@jakevdp did most of the work; I just shortened it a bit to fit the 140-characters. https://twitter.com/jakevdp/status/399982844803424256

On that site it says you've attended PyCon Finland. What was it like, any good? (Obviously, I'm from Finland and I'm curious about what you think of the Python scene in Finland, I don't hear about Python much generally.)

PyCon Finland was great! http://fi.pycon.org/2013/

I believe it was the first time they held the event; everything was well-organised and went smoothly. I gave my Generators talk, which went over pretty well.

I met a lot of really cool Python programmers, and I'm looking forward to attending and speaking if they hold it again this year!

(By the way, swing by #python.fi on IRCNet!)

2013 was actually the fourth time (I've been one of the orgs before) :)

edit: And glad to hear you liked it!

Checkout:

http://www.meetup.com/HelPy-meetups/

http://python.fi/

https://twitter.com/pythonfinland

https://www.facebook.com/python.fi

And because this is Finland come to #python.fi at IRCNet.

We have had 100-150 PyCon attendees during the last two years. Meetups in Helsinki have 20-30 attendees.

Disclaimer: I am one of the organizers.

More proof that refusing to make a fashion statement is just as much of a statement as wearing something bold.

(I'm not some crazy fashion person, I just think it's funny the way nerd culture shuns those that actually try)

I don't see anybody in that story refusing to make a fashion statement, quite the opposite.

This is especially true for "nerd culture". Very few subcultures are less tolerant of people dressing differently.

> Very few subcultures are less tolerant of people dressing differently.

Are you saying nerds are intolerant, or did you mean few cultures are more tolerant?

That could logically only mean the latter.

It's less of a statement. I put no thought into what I wear. If that's making a statement, I think it's a weak one.

The statement is "my skills are more important than how I look".

No, it's "I am a member of your tribe".

ALL clothes send this message to someone.

As a general rule of thumb: judgmental people exist regardless of hobby, profession, or city of residence. Software people aren't some mystical species immune to bad personality traits, but I'm confident that the majority (if not the vast majority) of them won't particularly care what you're wearing as long as you're not an asshole.

I'm not in Silicon Valley, but in Seattle, and I don't dress the part of an engineer -- lots of Ralph Lauren button downs and 511s -- and yet nobody has revoked my license to write code yet. Wear what you want to wear.

I'd love to hear whether there are equivalent trends among women in the field, or what the challenges of dressing to be taken seriously as a woman in the valley are.

I'd find that interesting too. I was kind of shocked to see the majority of comments on tfa to be attacking the author for not doing that. To me it seems like it would be much more civil and productive to nicely request a follow up on women's fashion or (horrors) write it themselves.

Agreed - the response was rather rabid.

Frankly, men are easy to taxonomise into dressing habits. Female fashion is much more diverse!

Besides the obvious omissions of women, it's always hard for me to take an article seriously when there are obvious spelling errors.

Oh jesus, not this. If you included the subtleties of women's fashion you'd make the article about 4x longer. There's just way more going on there.

I'm not trying to white-knight here. I know plenty of women engineers that fall into those categories as well - engineer/hoodie, sales/suit, etc. Would it be that hard in the Bay Area to find a woman engineer in jeans and a hoodie?

It doesn't require an in-depth analysis of the entire breadth of womens' fashion to imply that yes, there are women engineers, and yes, a lot of them dress exactly like the men.

"You know plenty of women." Great anecdote, bro. I'm sure that represents an accurate percentage representation of the population.

Nowhere did I make any claims as to the representation of women in the engineering / SV population other than that it is a non-zero quantity. Is it really that unreasonable not to ignore their participation?

Agreed. I thought, "Great, more political correctness juking on HN, exactly what it needs." What percentage of VCs, engineers, and coders are men again? To write an article like this isn't sexist. It's describing fashion for 90+% of the field as it exists now.

Also, I'm surprised at the response to my OP since my original complaint was about the misspellings.

Article doesn't support the headline very strongly.

To this day, one of my greatest fish out of water experience is walking through the Mission in a suit and tie on my way to a formal dinner - I think I would have been less conspicuous if naked.

So true. I got so tired of dressing down all the time that I actually dress up instead. No one suspects I'm a programmer when I do.

Good god, the comments on this article. You'd think the author went deliberately out of her way to not photograph women, and that she did so as a personal affront to the commenters.

A convenience sample is going to exclude women when you're targeting entrepreneurs, VCs, and engineers in the wild.

It could also be that the author was just less intimidated by approaching men than women.

I would feel awkward walking up to strange women and asking them if I could photograph them for an article I was writing.

Maybe the article should be titled "Men's fashion in Silicon Valley", which would be more accurate.

The author reads (or maybe doesn't know enough about clothes/fit) too much into the engineers choices: you can normally tell by awful fit of the clothes on people who just aren't that into fashion and don't need to be outwardly presentable. It's not that difficult and hardly a general rule, but anecdotally if the clothes don't fit that well then likely an engineer.

To the author: read a few fashion blogs (hell even complex) and compare to your photos, those who had to be presentable were in clothes that fitted nicely.

It looks like the author has added a short piece explaining why she didn't cover women. I'm not really sure why she wouldn't have just included the one or two relevant sentences here in her original article.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/why-no-women-story-si...

I wear collared pull-over shirts and shorts with sandals practically everyday except when very cold. I don't own a single pair of jeans, when I need pants, I wear business casual.

Among Googlers I don't think the t-shirt + jeans model fits engineers. I think it correlates more with what state your office is in and what your age is.

Silly.

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