You're not alone. I definitely feel like this is / will be a major adaptation required for software engineers going forward. I don't have any solutions to offer you - but I will say that the state that's enabled by fast feedback loops wasn't always the case. For most of my career build times were much, much longer than they are today, as an example. We had to work around that to maintain flow, and we'll have to work around this, now.
(I am not a lawyer)
It’s ok in the US to have a goal to hire more women or URMs, and to do sourcing, etc. to bring in more candidates like this.
I think the potential concerns here are the use of “must” in the spreadsheet, and what activities you’ll be expected to perform, OP.
I’d recommend advocating for changing “must” to some other goal-based language.
If you’re doing the sourcing, I’d also think about setting goals here (x% of candidates moved from stage 1 to stage 2 are women/urms, for example).
What’s not ok:
* not interviewing or hiring someone because they are not a woman
* giving someone a different interview for any reason (barring accommodations for disabilities, etc)
* saying “we are only hiring women for this role” (for example)
* saying “we are not hiring any men for this role” (for example)
* having a quota that must be met. (i.e. a target, not a goal).
There are ways that this can play out that might seem discriminatory but are not. For example, if your goal is to have X% of final stage candidates be women and you haven’t gotten there yet, not hiring a non-woman final stage candidate that is otherwise hirable is not discriminatory. See the “Rooney rule” and other examples.
What I think you should do:
* assume positive intent. No one person is responsible for this systemic shitshow / imbalance, and people are doing the best they can to fix it. Understanding how to do that in the context of the law is sometimes difficult.
* advocate for the use of appropriate goals that support the initiative.
* politely object when someone asks you to do one of the “should not dos” above. Ask them to restate in the context of goals.
* don’t get caught up in culture warrior nonsense that circulates around this issue. You’re an engineer, recruitment is a system. Treat it like a systems problem.
* support your women colleagues and women in tech in general. Systemic bias is real. People who believe women shouldn’t be in tech exist. Do what you can to help overcome these obstacles.