omar_a1

Fair. But as long as I keep coming across racially insensitive comments like in the original post, and commenters who strongly believe these kinds of comments are a legitimate perspective, I'm not going to be able to just leave them as is. And I don't see a way to constructively engage with those kinds of comments that doesn't end in this type of exchange.

Consequently, I'm going to request that you delete my account (...If that's a thing that you can do on here. I'm not really sure. Otherwise a ban seems close enough.) I think just lurking on here would be a better option under these circumstances.

Sorry for the trouble.

>Do you really think that a company can achieve 50% women in tech without biasing their interview process in favor of women?

I strongly recommend looking up the word "bias" in the dictionary.

Systemic and institutional bias in tech hiring isn't disproven by of the existence of female-dominated fields. Yes, some fields are female dominated while others are male-dominated. (Such a revelation!)

It sounds like you're angling for the "male nurses are oppressed by the matriarchy!" trope, or some kind of gender essentialist nonsense. I'll be sure to adjust my insults accordingly, now that you've moved on from blatant racism to sexist dogwhistles.

Do go on, I'm curious to see at what point you move on to full-blown misogyny. I'm looking forward to seeing how many words you write insisting that you're not misogynistic either, while making offensive guesses as to the root cause of these biases in hiring.

> Anyway, it is a sad read for people like me who don't get preferential treatment.

Yup, we marginalized groups get all the breaks. /s

> So the answer is yes? Companies should strive to be 50/50 men and women tech roles even though the ratio in the workforce is 80/20?

The answer is: "No, I do not see the obvious circular logic." The tech sector is 80/20 due to hiring bias in the population that defines the workplace demographic. It could be 0% women and your fallacious argument would still conveniently hold.

And you follow that up with quotes of ...yourself. And commentary on your self-quoting. You don't seem to get that it's not that I don't comprehend your premise. It's that your premise, and by extension you, are being reprehensible and racist. You do not seem to understand that saying racist things is racist. And that you are racist. And reprehensible. For being so racist.

> So tech companies should strive to be 50% women even though the tech industry is only 20% female (or slightly less)?

You seem to not understand what the term "representative" means. Or notice the circular logic implicit in your argument.

> Identify where I've said this?

You mean the last several posts of yours, where you've said it repeatedly, that you're now hilariously trying to backpeddle? You're welcome to re-read your posts. And the quotes I have of your posts, claiming racial slurs aren't so bad, and diverse hiring is worse.

> And lastly, trying to equate harboring different opinions on affirmative action in employment to being a leader in the KKK is really not called for.

It's not that the opinions you expressed are different, it's that they're repugnant. There's a difference.

Overrepresentation of the population. Do I really need to explain how 23% compares to 50%?

And I'm offended because it's wildly offensive. You've repeatedly insisted racial slurs aren't so bad, and diverse hiring practices are somehow worse. And seem to think some amount of explanation on your part will make it seem like it's a reasonable stance instead of a deeply and reprehensibly racist one. Instead it just makes you look like a verbose clan leader.

> You correctly highlight that diverse workers are often subject to more bullying and harassment. On the other hand, many tech companies do discriminate in hiring and that results in greater opportunities being extended to diverse candidates as compared to non-diverse candidates. Both of these are "real racism" (and sexism). Which one is more impactful than the other? That's a subjective question, and people with different experience are going to have different responses.

It's actually pretty clear which of these has the greater impact. Hint: if it were the latter, women and minorities would be over-represented rather than underrepresented in tech. Which I've already stated above.

And, no, comparing racial slurs on the job to diverse hiring is not apples-to-apples, it's apples-to-clan-hooded-racist. There is no way you can be making that comparison in good faith. But do continue tell me how racist slurs and diverse hiring committees are basically the same thing...

> This kind of rejection of different worldviews is the antithesis of inclusion.

Ah yes, the old "You're intolerant of our intolerance" chestnut. Every post of yours is just doubling down on insistently denying the realities of racial biases in hiring, and portraying any attempt to hire diverse candidates as the real racism. Oh, and look: more strawmen.

And you do realize that you're equating diverse hiring efforts with getting called racial slurs on the job, yes? Those are two very different definitions of "actual" racism. And rather supports the breathtakingly racist claim above.

> Can you elaborate on why their study should not be accepted?

Forgive me, I didn't realize they were the leading authority on the nuanced sociological facets of unconscious prejudice during hiring. And here I thought a publication by psychology researchers or African American Studies professors would be the subject matter experts to seek out, not a blog post.

And I've heard hiring managers say racist and sexist comments on prospective employees all throughout my career. And neglect to mentor or promote them. And freeze them out of the team. I suppose the strawman you've set up outweighs the actual racist and sexist discrimination in hiring, which only seems to exist to you as some abstraction, rather than real people losing their livelihoods because of sexual harassment and racist bullying.

> Good thing I cited a source studying hiring the private sector as well.

Ah yes, the highly regarded International Journal of blog.interview.io. How did I miss this groundbreaking research?

> Also, the notion that racial slurs are "the price of admission" is something you seem to have brought up - not me

> Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech.

I'm still having trouble believing anyone who isn't a frothing racist can pass off "many" getting called racial slurs on the job as just business as usual. Or, "a small price to pay."

Whereas what I was saying is that the policies which you cited incentivisng more diverse applicants to apply doesn't even begin to counter the ubiquitous prejudice in hiring and on the job. If it did, minorities and women would be over-represented in tech rather than under-represented.

The whole "minority free pass" idea is what grates on me. Plenty of hiring managers have unconscious biases against women, minorities, older candidates, people with disabilities, etc. So, it's throwing more diverse candidates into a situation where diverse candidates are going to be disproportionately rejected.

But the employers who actually incentivize diverse candidates are also frequently over-emphasized despite it being an uncommon practice. The boilerplate EEOC "we encourage diverse candidates to apply" statement is usually just that: an empty boilerplate put there for legal purposes, backed with zero action behind it. More often than not, it's nothing close to what you've described above

Varies by industry and sector, but there's typically no "technical". It goes: 1) Resume + cover letter + cumbersome online job app, 2) phone screen, 3) On-site, and 4) Reference check.

Typically the interviews are more conversational, with an emphasis on behavioral questions, job history, and relevant skills. Academia and government have their own formats.

Jumping ship for a promotion at the original company is a super common strategy in other sectors too.

No, it's not an SF Bay Area thing. I've moved to SF from the Midwest a year ago, and have been called racial slurs more times during my year here than in my entire adult life living in a medium-sized Midwestern town. Shall we assume that because you haven't had a similar experience or personally faced discrimination on the job that no one else has?

Exaggerating the status of "diversity hires" just ignores the harsh reality of rampant discrimination in the tech industry. And not just on the basis of sex and race, but age and disability too. There wouldn't need to be such a hard push for underrepresented candidates if it were a more welcoming, diverse workforce in the first place.

If we could quantify the net effects of sexism and racism in hiring and attrition, we could compare whether the incentives mentioned offset the sexism and racism equivalently. But, since we don't have a means of doing so, it's a futile discussion on this site. Also worth pointing out that just hiring a diverse candidate is pretty meaningless if they get bullied or harassed to the point of being forced out in a short order.

But that's beside the point (or, beside the tangent to the point). The context of "diversity hire" above parallels being diverse and getting hired to an acquihire or getting lucky. That's very different than what you outlined above.

Diversity hire, not diversity.

>So for those FAANG engineers that were able to get in early, whether by acquihire, by diversity hire, by luck, by normal hire

Can we please stop assuming that being a minority or woman is some kind of hiring free pass? It's often quite the opposite.

But more to your point, I've been cynically wondering if the untenably high bar set for technical interviews serves as an industry-wide means of lowering turnover.

Also very confused about what constitutes a pass or failure, with the opaquely-defined expectations. I'd love to be able to prepare for my technicals, but usually end up wildly misleading information from recruiters about what the technical entails. (Why are you testing me on Java!? I never claimed to have any experience with Java. I was told this would be a behavioral interview!)

Asked, and answered. We're done here.

No.

On the bright side, I learned the term "sealioning" today, so thanks for that! :D

I've been making liberal use of the flag button for the trolling comments once I picked up on the pattern.

No.

Because you're making a point of singling out every single reply in this thread that you disagree with, and making your objection about the user posting the comment rather than the comment yourself. Or broadly asserting that the parent comment never claimed points that were plainly written, and insisting on textual support. Your actual contrarianism is rather distracting.

No, and I'm not a brain surgeon either, so I suppose I can't claim you aren't qualified to perform brain surgery, using that logic. Better scrub up!

But if you're going to claim the contrary, I take it that you have a wealth of experience administering ventilation.

For the record, I've worked in fields tangential to medicine, including lab research for FDA trials and health tech. I may not be qualified to operate a ventilator, but I'm experienced enough to understand the technical skill gap between a non-invasive procedure and an invasive one. And ventilation falls into the latter category.

> Let's first all stay the fuck home

This is a good point. Preventative medicine is the best medicine. That's true in general, but is especially true during this type of crisis.

We should also be more strict about isolation measures and lockdown, both individually and as a matter of policy and enforcement. That would keep our hospitals from flooding, to a much greater degree than an army of respiration therapists and ventilators would.

> All this well intentioned backseat driving isn't going to move the needle, not even a little bit.

But how else shall we spend our weekends locked indoors without pointless arguments on the internet? ;)

They asked for evidence. I did as much, explaining a very, very basic concept in medicine, "sterile technique," and how even that can take years to get right. And was told, in response, that I'm just imagining reasons to object. Evidentally, keeping tools sterile in medicine is something I just conjured up!

Perhaps you should take your own advice, rather than responding with personal vitriol directed at the users countering your point.

Claiming that untrained staff could administer a ventilator from a 30 day bootcamp fits under that definition.

Because it's common sense that an invasive medical procedure needs to be administered by someone with some semblance of competence in medicine, if you expect the patient to have a shot at not dying. An emergency doesn't change the hard technical requirement of administering ventilation.

Or rather, this should be common sense, but the over-inflated egos on HN don't understand that it takes more than knowing which button does what to operate a ventilator. Being able to hold a paint brush is a very different skill level than painting a portrait.

For one, if I were hypothetically responsible for addressing this crisis, I would be talking to the nurses and doctors to figure out what level of training is actually necessary to operate these ventilators. I'd also ask what else they actually need: if we get them ventilators but nothing else they're short on, we're still in trouble. In other words, I would recognize that I'm out of my league here and ask the actual professionals on the front lines of this crisis.

As I mentioned above, cross-training medical professionals in adjacent fields sounds more practical. Allowing nurses to do more of what the doctors typically do is another. Even just offloading some of the administrative paperwork for clinicians to admin staff might make a significant dent. Relaxing any bottle-neck non-essential bureaucratic requirements slowing down access to treatment or acquisition of new equipment and supplies.

Having said that, I also recognize that the ideas I just came up with in the last 30 seconds are just that: ideas off the top of my head, coming from someone with no actual experience in healthcare management.

Basically, my first priority would be to make an informed decision, and that starts with figuring out what I don't know, and filling in those gaps. Rather than uncritically insisting, quite emphatically, that medicine can be solved with a 30-day boot camp. Because, hey, if it worked for tech then it must work for medicine!

Childbirth is a bodily function that the species is biologically predispositioned to perform. It will happen whether a doctor is present or not, to say nothing of the numerous possible complications. Ventilation is not a comparable analogy here.