Facebook's female engineers claim gender bias(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Facebook's female engineers claim gender bias
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-female-engineers-claim-gender-bias-1493737116
97 comments
As an engineer working in silicon valley, I have definitely seen a lower bar for female engineers interviews because companies are trying to catch up on the gender divide in their company.
You can land a job almost everywhere with almost no knowledge if you are a jr female developer, which is not true for men.
It is also true that there is a bias in the industry, but I don't think this approach is helping at all, if nothing people think women deserve it even less...
I believe men and women are equal in terms of capabilities and skills, but giving away jobs to a minority (women in this case) isn't the right way to make them gain the respect they deserve or block/control the bias against them.
As someone who has hired both males and females for junior and senior engineering positions at several companies, what you are saying is not the case.
The coding challenges and interviews are the same. The decisions of hiring committees I have been on have been actually in general weighted toward white men with experience more often than not, because many of the women I'm seeing are just out of school or with a little experience (which says good things about the future assuming they stick around).
However, I have seen race/gender used as the deciding factor between two candidates who are in all other ways equally excellent and suited for the role (that is, pick the candidate who is not a white male out of two whose skills and resumes and interview performance are equal).
The coding challenges and interviews are the same. The decisions of hiring committees I have been on have been actually in general weighted toward white men with experience more often than not, because many of the women I'm seeing are just out of school or with a little experience (which says good things about the future assuming they stick around).
However, I have seen race/gender used as the deciding factor between two candidates who are in all other ways equally excellent and suited for the role (that is, pick the candidate who is not a white male out of two whose skills and resumes and interview performance are equal).
Yes, the coding challenges and interviews are the same. But they are graded differently even before the packet is seen by the hiring committee.
I've talked to many interviewers at my company, and many people talk about how they bump up the score of "diversity candidates" even though management says that we don't lower the bar. This is talked about openly.
I've only seen this at a Bay Area company. Other companies I have worked at have had a very strong stance against using race or gender as a basis of making hiring decisions.
I've talked to many interviewers at my company, and many people talk about how they bump up the score of "diversity candidates" even though management says that we don't lower the bar. This is talked about openly.
I've only seen this at a Bay Area company. Other companies I have worked at have had a very strong stance against using race or gender as a basis of making hiring decisions.
It's also the case that the hiring pipelines can be biased in other ways. For instance if a woman fails a phone screen she may be given a second phone screen anyway, or even on-sites anyway, "just in case", whereas the man would have been canned at the first stage. Was definitely told this was happening by recruiters in the past.
Interesting. We have done that for people of any gender in grad programs before when hiring for targeted roles suited for their specialty, but not to my knowledge for candidates by gender.
This is consistent with what I've experienced hiring newer / junior devs. However, because we didn't have any female developers, we were more likely to offer interviews to females who sent in resumes, but they were asked the same questions we asked everyone else.
And did you judge them with the same standards?
Give them the same tasks and same support as their male counterparts?
Who's "them" in this case?
I think it's important to respect everyone. Part of respect is fair treatment.
I think it's important to respect everyone. Part of respect is fair treatment.
I've seen this first hand. When people where interviewing for work experience during college, a very lucrative top tech company hired two girls who had bad grades, no side projects and wore very VERY casual attire to their interviews. One was even late. Two other male students also had been interviewed. Both had very high grades, worked on side projects etc. and weren't socially inept.
Will the industry just accept that the majority of women are just not interested? Companies are running special events for women compsci students only.
Sick of this notion that we can achieve equality by excluding men.
Will the industry just accept that the majority of women are just not interested? Companies are running special events for women compsci students only.
Sick of this notion that we can achieve equality by excluding men.
Maybe top tech companies don't actually care what you wear to your interview? Maybe the "girls" were better whiteboard coders than the "male students"?
I know it doesn't fit your world view. I'm sorry. They aren't. I've been on teams with both parties. Companies had mentioned dress code for the interviews. You would think punctuality would be important, especially for an interview?
They were filling quotas. Unlucky.
They were filling quotas. Unlucky.
You sure this is a top tech company? What top tech company mentions dress code (beyond something like "don't worry about it")?
I've never seen suggestions that Facebook has a lower hiring bar for females, and i'd be really surprised if this was the case.
The playbook is to aggressively attract female (and other diversity) candidates into the top of the hiring funnel, but keep the hiring bar equal.
Source - I used to be a hiring manager at a similar large-cap tech company.
The playbook is to aggressively attract female (and other diversity) candidates into the top of the hiring funnel, but keep the hiring bar equal.
Source - I used to be a hiring manager at a similar large-cap tech company.
Wasn't specifically talking about facebook, more of a generic situation here.
You can't attract good female talents, if you don't have female devs in your company.
Also in the market there are a lot of junior candidates (and a lot of them coming from a different background and just trying to land a job that will allow them to live in san francisco).
It is easy to blame sexism (riding the wave now) when it may just be that some code isn't good...
At least according to this article the bias has more to do with the experience of some coder.
https://news.fastcompany.com/at-facebook-women-coders-are-ju...
https://news.fastcompany.com/at-facebook-women-coders-are-ju...
This kinds really messes with candidates brains in a way. A descent coder I know gets a billion interview requests in linkedin but after completing a number of loops she got all rejects. She now firmly believes she doesn't get accepted coz she's not a male.
There's only so many rejects you can get before you say "fuck it! I'm gonna choose another career path, this was a waste of time, money and energy"
There's only so many rejects you can get before you say "fuck it! I'm gonna choose another career path, this was a waste of time, money and energy"
It's hard to keep the bar equal when some candidates are treated as higher value, especially considering if you're putting women at the top of your funnel you can be sure Google is too.
It's not that hard.
Hiring managers / hiring committees for technical positions at the big-5 are made up of peer engineers and managers (not recruiters or executives). So they hire the best person for the job because they're likely to be working alongside.
I haven't come across situations where there are direct diversity incentives at the point where the hiring decision is made. Sure, there's probably indirect incentives, but I don't think they're as strong as your suggesting.
Hiring managers / hiring committees for technical positions at the big-5 are made up of peer engineers and managers (not recruiters or executives). So they hire the best person for the job because they're likely to be working alongside.
I haven't come across situations where there are direct diversity incentives at the point where the hiring decision is made. Sure, there's probably indirect incentives, but I don't think they're as strong as your suggesting.
And engineers are free of bias? You know the candidate is a desirable hire and will receive competing offers because of their gender (rightly or wrongly).
> You can land a job almost everywhere with almost no knowledge if you are a jr female developer, which is not true for men.
Not only do I find that unlikely, I would say that it's blatantly false since you most certainly (AFAIK) couldn't land a job as an engineer in one of the large tech companies without a degree or significant experience.
Far more likely is that women who become developers, because of the state of the industry, on average are more employable since they are likely to have more formal education and skills that the industry lacks. But wouldn't necessarily recognized as such by other developers because they aren't seen as "cool hackers".
Not only do I find that unlikely, I would say that it's blatantly false since you most certainly (AFAIK) couldn't land a job as an engineer in one of the large tech companies without a degree or significant experience.
Far more likely is that women who become developers, because of the state of the industry, on average are more employable since they are likely to have more formal education and skills that the industry lacks. But wouldn't necessarily recognized as such by other developers because they aren't seen as "cool hackers".
There definitely is a bias in the industry that we should work to remove.
> couldn't land a job as an engineer in one of the large tech companies without a degree or significant experience.
I have seen and met people that prove the opposite. But yeah every generalization has intrinsic errors.
The number of people trying to change career through bootcamp is insanely huge, I think they aren't good enough to qualify people (compared to university or relevant experience) and I think it shows. If you see the stats, around 40% of people that do bootcamps are female (despite the much lower number in the industry), and I am sure part of them lands jobs (I have interviewed a lot, and have seen some of them land job in the big companies) and have a hard time getting at the same level of degree/experienced people.
I think for a big company (with the huge amount of female they need to fill the gap) it's safer to hire, and invest in formation than find a good experienced female engineer (which honestly are a bit rare...since the industry forgot about them for about 20 years).
> couldn't land a job as an engineer in one of the large tech companies without a degree or significant experience.
I have seen and met people that prove the opposite. But yeah every generalization has intrinsic errors.
The number of people trying to change career through bootcamp is insanely huge, I think they aren't good enough to qualify people (compared to university or relevant experience) and I think it shows. If you see the stats, around 40% of people that do bootcamps are female (despite the much lower number in the industry), and I am sure part of them lands jobs (I have interviewed a lot, and have seen some of them land job in the big companies) and have a hard time getting at the same level of degree/experienced people.
I think for a big company (with the huge amount of female they need to fill the gap) it's safer to hire, and invest in formation than find a good experienced female engineer (which honestly are a bit rare...since the industry forgot about them for about 20 years).
From one perspective, the bar should be lowered. Lowering the bar is acknowledgement of discriminatory practices towards opportunity. How can a black person study if he is banned from a library? Similary, a hostile and overly macho tech culture can diasadvantage women from learning. Especially if the learning is not from books but from other people/men. (Which is the majority of info needed to succeed in a workplace. The majority of needed info is NOT book smarts but relationship gated info and privileges)
So the existence of an entry bar exists only because of a lack of mentorship culture out of gated access to information. In school, something i've seen is terrible TAs explaining things purposefully convolutedly to "haze" newcomers.
The give and take aspect with all information, including programming knowledge is fundamental. For men, it revolves around mutual respect, but men almost seem to want something from women before dolling out any infor whatsoever. The most minimum of which is being friendly and nice in a "I heard you're the awesome expert to ask about this, ur so great! I hope you can teach me! :)". While the requirement for men is to not be an asshole. "Hey, can you explain this?"
So the existence of an entry bar exists only because of a lack of mentorship culture out of gated access to information. In school, something i've seen is terrible TAs explaining things purposefully convolutedly to "haze" newcomers.
The give and take aspect with all information, including programming knowledge is fundamental. For men, it revolves around mutual respect, but men almost seem to want something from women before dolling out any infor whatsoever. The most minimum of which is being friendly and nice in a "I heard you're the awesome expert to ask about this, ur so great! I hope you can teach me! :)". While the requirement for men is to not be an asshole. "Hey, can you explain this?"
I'm not sure why we should assume that lowering the bar is even in the best interest of the women/minorities.
If I was hired for a position I that I wasn't qualified enough to get myself, I would likely not perform as well, and I'd become disheartened, and would be more likely to quit.
For example, race-based affirmative action for law school admits students to schools they otherwise wouldn't get admitted to. Although it is a good gesture, the students end up much worse off because they pass the bar at a much lower rate and end up with student loans they can't afford.
If I was hired for a position I that I wasn't qualified enough to get myself, I would likely not perform as well, and I'd become disheartened, and would be more likely to quit.
For example, race-based affirmative action for law school admits students to schools they otherwise wouldn't get admitted to. Although it is a good gesture, the students end up much worse off because they pass the bar at a much lower rate and end up with student loans they can't afford.
I'm pretty sure everything you could ever want to learn to be a good engineer is out there on the internet for you to be read for free. Ranging from entire degree courses, to giant open source projects and even blog posts on how to get hired.
Engadget summary: https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/02/facebook-coding-sexism-a...
I don't work for Facebook so I can't speak to their particular culture problems, but I am a female SDE working at one of the "big-5" and I deal with this on a near-daily basis.
Examples include: - having to chase down specific individuals and sit down with them to walk them through my code review - waiting for approvals on code reviews while other engineers, not wanting to be blocked on my work, copy and paste my code directly into their branches and open new code reviews which have no problem getting approvals. - getting approvals quickly only on work that can't possibly break anything important (CSS! /s).
If anyone has any suggestions for how to get assigned more interesting tasks that don't take weeks to get through code review, I'm all ears. Forgive me for sounding ignorant, but rather than getting bogged down in statistics and senior engineer distribution (because let's be serious - if women can't get code reviews on important feature work, they weren't getting to senior engineer anyway) let's take the raw data at face value and start with the hypothesis that this is a real problem related to how men and women interact when placed in a high-pressure team situation and focus on addressing that problem first please.
I don't work for Facebook so I can't speak to their particular culture problems, but I am a female SDE working at one of the "big-5" and I deal with this on a near-daily basis.
Examples include: - having to chase down specific individuals and sit down with them to walk them through my code review - waiting for approvals on code reviews while other engineers, not wanting to be blocked on my work, copy and paste my code directly into their branches and open new code reviews which have no problem getting approvals. - getting approvals quickly only on work that can't possibly break anything important (CSS! /s).
If anyone has any suggestions for how to get assigned more interesting tasks that don't take weeks to get through code review, I'm all ears. Forgive me for sounding ignorant, but rather than getting bogged down in statistics and senior engineer distribution (because let's be serious - if women can't get code reviews on important feature work, they weren't getting to senior engineer anyway) let's take the raw data at face value and start with the hypothesis that this is a real problem related to how men and women interact when placed in a high-pressure team situation and focus on addressing that problem first please.
> Examples include: - having to chase down specific individuals and sit down with them to walk them through my code review - waiting for approvals on code reviews while other engineers, not wanting to be blocked on my work, copy and paste my code directly into their branches and open new code reviews which have no problem getting approvals
That's crazy! I'd be escalating that shit to my manager in the first day it happened. Management should sort out any individuals that have a problem. I can't understand why a company would hire an engineer _not_ to do work.
That's crazy! I'd be escalating that shit to my manager in the first day it happened. Management should sort out any individuals that have a problem. I can't understand why a company would hire an engineer _not_ to do work.
I'm glad you raised this. You should definitely be vocal regarding this to your manager and if he/she doesn't listen then raise to manager's manager.
This is unacceptable and definitely shouldn't be the norm.
This is unacceptable and definitely shouldn't be the norm.
When I was doing a lot of code reviews all I wanted was team members I could trust -- somebody who could sit down, hack out a feature, and I just had to hit the merge button. Every single comment I made was more time out of my day. It sounds like a massive cultural problem if it's that hard to get code merged.
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Is it possible that the hiring standards for women at FB is lower than that of their male counterparts, resulting in a larger number of issues with their code? Maybe it's not bias in the code reviews that are leading to this gap but rather bias in the hiring policy.
I don't work at FB, but it's possibility. I'd like to hear from those that do.
I don't work at FB, but it's possibility. I'd like to hear from those that do.
I once worked at a "hot" tech company that had a formal policy where HR had to get involved before rejecting a borderline candidate if they were female. It was a shame -- up until that point there were few female engineers but they were all brilliant. After that policy was implemented you had to wonder which were the token hires.
The issue is not necessarily hiring. There was a story on HN a while back saying how Facebook recruiters had stopped bothering to target women specifically because even though they were heavily incentivised to do so, the FB hiring committees weren't on board with the whole positive discrimination thing so it wasn't working.
However, the big tech firms do seem to have a problem with firing. I've heard this several times now from other people and saw it myself when I worked at Google. Hiring is never 100% accurate and so even if hiring itself is unbiased (questionable at best), without unbiased firing the quality of that segment of the worker pool goes downwards over time. Even though the engineers often truly believe in a meritocracy, HR in particular is a strongly female dominated profession and unfortunately I do suspect a "sisters gotta stick together" mentality because I saw within the span of a single year at Google a man get canned for merely not being particularly productive, whilst a woman who openly and repeatedly lied in meetings (and lied very badly at that), and who caused her team huge heartache due to her terrible quality work, was not only not fired but in the end promoted into management. It was widely known that women who weren't very good or caused trouble were almost impossible to get rid of and were typically transferred around between teams rather than shown the door.
However, the big tech firms do seem to have a problem with firing. I've heard this several times now from other people and saw it myself when I worked at Google. Hiring is never 100% accurate and so even if hiring itself is unbiased (questionable at best), without unbiased firing the quality of that segment of the worker pool goes downwards over time. Even though the engineers often truly believe in a meritocracy, HR in particular is a strongly female dominated profession and unfortunately I do suspect a "sisters gotta stick together" mentality because I saw within the span of a single year at Google a man get canned for merely not being particularly productive, whilst a woman who openly and repeatedly lied in meetings (and lied very badly at that), and who caused her team huge heartache due to her terrible quality work, was not only not fired but in the end promoted into management. It was widely known that women who weren't very good or caused trouble were almost impossible to get rid of and were typically transferred around between teams rather than shown the door.
There has been a research on unconscious bias towards minorities. Basically given the same papers, the number of corrections and comments was significantly higher when the papers had names of minorities or something. That kind of ironically proves that it's beneficial to hire more women given the same qualifications, doesn't it? haha. People would look at women's code much more carefully and there will be fewer bugs in the end. I personally had a few cases where I just copied an approach of some guy (e.g. using a certain library that a similar application was using) but I had to change that during the code review. I mentioned this and had to change his code as well. How did he get through this rigorous code review in the first place? I don't know. Maybe people found him more trust-worthy and assumed his work was perfect. :/
HOW DARE YOU IMPLY THAT WOMEN KNOW LESS THAN MEN!
/s
This is bound to happen when you focus more on core business goals and spend too much time talking about diversity.
I initially read this headline as "Facebook's female engineer claims gender bias", which would make a funny Onion headline.
Smells like bad stats to me. Do women use the same technologies or work on the same projects as the average male engineers? Do the CR stats reflect their level/experience, and if so are they different from male engineers at the same level? Does Facebook hire female engineers with the same background as males? Seems like this is just narrative building.
What about this smells like bad stats to you? Given that the answer to at least one of your questions is in the article (or easily searchable online if you don't have wsj access), it seems like maybe you are assuming it is bad stats because you don't like the conclusion?
To me the engineer's study uses data that should be free from obvious bias (duration at facebook) while the company study uses data that one might expect to exhibit the same bias as that they are intending to study (promotion decisions and code review decisions). While there are undoubtedly improvements that could be done with more data or more time, I would be inclined to take the results at face value rather than assuming something must be wrong.
To me the engineer's study uses data that should be free from obvious bias (duration at facebook) while the company study uses data that one might expect to exhibit the same bias as that they are intending to study (promotion decisions and code review decisions). While there are undoubtedly improvements that could be done with more data or more time, I would be inclined to take the results at face value rather than assuming something must be wrong.
No, I'm saying it's bad stats because it seems like bad stats -- and without the dataset we can't verify. There's a lot going on here and even jumping to a conclusion of sexism is kind of silly. Maybe women are more likely to prefer a collaborative approach to problem solving and therefore are more likely to put up a CR earlier in the process?
Why I wouldn't take it at face value: rejecting CRs sucks. Every round of review takes time away from the reviewer as well as the reviewee. Unconscious biases exist, sure, but it's hard to argue that people are actively making their life more difficult because of them.
Why I wouldn't take it at face value: rejecting CRs sucks. Every round of review takes time away from the reviewer as well as the reviewee. Unconscious biases exist, sure, but it's hard to argue that people are actively making their life more difficult because of them.
Tautologies are neither arguments nor explanations - what about it seems like bad stats to you?
I agree that there are many plausible explanations for why code from women would be rejected at a higher rate at Facebook. I don't think that demonstrates bad stats though. I don't think your collaboration suggestion is very likely (given other public large scale analysis of male/female PR acceptance rates that showed them to be roughly equal) but I don't think that undermines your overall point.
I don't think it's material whether it is overt or subconscious bias leading to these results - either one would be a big problem that Facebook should recognize and work on.
I agree that there are many plausible explanations for why code from women would be rejected at a higher rate at Facebook. I don't think that demonstrates bad stats though. I don't think your collaboration suggestion is very likely (given other public large scale analysis of male/female PR acceptance rates that showed them to be roughly equal) but I don't think that undermines your overall point.
I don't think it's material whether it is overt or subconscious bias leading to these results - either one would be a big problem that Facebook should recognize and work on.
What I mean when I say "bad stats" is that the article is drawing conclusions based on a particular view of a data set which probably does not accurately reflect reality for a laundry list of reasons.
As an example, I'm sure of you're heard of the 77-79 cent wage gap. I'd call that bad stats -- what the study was actually comparing was the average income of the entire male US population and the entire female population. When you correct for job title the gap is actually closer to 95 cents on the dollar -- and you're still not correcting for other factors, such as the fact that men work more hours than women and tend to be more aggressive negotiators. But people read the study, took the data on face value, and now the wage gap is a cultural meme we can't get rid of.
I think the same thing applies here -- a slice of the data looks funny so people cry sexism. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the difference goes away if you adjust for level, experience, technology used, product, background, etc, etc, etc. Publishing stats like that is dangerous unless you also release the data set and the method you used to derive your stats.
As an example, I'm sure of you're heard of the 77-79 cent wage gap. I'd call that bad stats -- what the study was actually comparing was the average income of the entire male US population and the entire female population. When you correct for job title the gap is actually closer to 95 cents on the dollar -- and you're still not correcting for other factors, such as the fact that men work more hours than women and tend to be more aggressive negotiators. But people read the study, took the data on face value, and now the wage gap is a cultural meme we can't get rid of.
I think the same thing applies here -- a slice of the data looks funny so people cry sexism. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the difference goes away if you adjust for level, experience, technology used, product, background, etc, etc, etc. Publishing stats like that is dangerous unless you also release the data set and the method you used to derive your stats.
Right, it would be great if we could see the ("anonymized") dataset.
What's got me confused is the % of men who seem to be surprised by this. It's business as usual for women.
If you see a woman with a 5-10 year long engineerin career, please recognize the determination it takes to make it that far.
If you see a woman with a 5-10 year long engineerin career, please recognize the determination it takes to make it that far.
>please recognize the determination it takes to make it that far.
Why do you say this? Isn't it more likely that many women prefer to take on the role of a mother, and if they've been in a high paid engineering position they likely have a partner who can provide for both of them while they raise children.
Slaving away at an engineering career doesn't seem all that appealing after you've had the rewarding experience of raising your children.
Why do you say this? Isn't it more likely that many women prefer to take on the role of a mother, and if they've been in a high paid engineering position they likely have a partner who can provide for both of them while they raise children.
Slaving away at an engineering career doesn't seem all that appealing after you've had the rewarding experience of raising your children.
Raising kids is rewarding at a high level, but involves a lot of drudgery. I don't want to knock those who enjoy that stuff, but at the same time I feel like it's important for parents to know that you can love your kids while acknowledging that the day-to-day of parenting is often a mind-numbing low-level chore. The idea that it's intrinsically fulfilling for everyone or even most people is one invented by society to placate women who were historically excluded from the work force. E.g. My mom and my wife's mom both left professional careers to raise kids, and both are quite bitter about it.
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Ready for there to be a whole bunch of comments about how it's easier to get hired as female engineer because of diversity quotas...
> please recognize the determination it takes to make it that far
> ...it's easier to get hired as female engineer because of diversity quotas...
I had seen both of these play out through my partner. She was consistently invited to interview for positions significantly ahead of her experience at the time. She declined these offers on ethical grounds, but it did seem that the surface area of opportunities was expanded because to her gender and age.
Conversely, when she did choose a new role well within her bulletproof expertise, she would be systematically harassed and undermine by otherwise well-meaning people. For example, she's had a dotted-line manager suggest a threesome (in writing, over WhatsApp), offers to work from the client's office because "we need a girl there" (this would make the company look better), and changes to her briefings to sound "...maybe less you" (she had spent years doing conflict resolutions and suicide hotline counseling).
Both points can be true at the same time: women in tech (or finance, or law, or consulting) may have more options presented, but almost none of them are healthy. Working as a female seems to provide the same advantages as going out as a disabled - yes, you have special parking offers and can get to the front door quicker, but no-one will swap places with you.
> ...it's easier to get hired as female engineer because of diversity quotas...
I had seen both of these play out through my partner. She was consistently invited to interview for positions significantly ahead of her experience at the time. She declined these offers on ethical grounds, but it did seem that the surface area of opportunities was expanded because to her gender and age.
Conversely, when she did choose a new role well within her bulletproof expertise, she would be systematically harassed and undermine by otherwise well-meaning people. For example, she's had a dotted-line manager suggest a threesome (in writing, over WhatsApp), offers to work from the client's office because "we need a girl there" (this would make the company look better), and changes to her briefings to sound "...maybe less you" (she had spent years doing conflict resolutions and suicide hotline counseling).
Both points can be true at the same time: women in tech (or finance, or law, or consulting) may have more options presented, but almost none of them are healthy. Working as a female seems to provide the same advantages as going out as a disabled - yes, you have special parking offers and can get to the front door quicker, but no-one will swap places with you.
Can I get this recognition if I get into nursing?
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is a valid question.
If Facebook is attempting to meet diversity quotas, which certainly exist, by pulling from a limited pool of qualifying candidates, in some scenarios, they will necessarily need to employ lower qualified candidates.
I'm NOT NOT NOT saying that women in general cannot code, or produce lower quality code, or anything of the like.
I AM saying that there are fewer female developers than male developers and, assuming an equal distribution of skill level between the two groups, there will necessarily be fewer highly qualified female coders than highly qualified male coders.
Thus, if Facebook wants a 50:50 male-to-female ratio, they will necessarily have fewer highly qualified female developers IF the number of positions to be filled by females exceeds the number of highly qualified female applicants, but the number of positions to be filled by males does not exceed the number of highly qualified male candidates.
If Facebook is attempting to meet diversity quotas, which certainly exist, by pulling from a limited pool of qualifying candidates, in some scenarios, they will necessarily need to employ lower qualified candidates.
I'm NOT NOT NOT saying that women in general cannot code, or produce lower quality code, or anything of the like.
I AM saying that there are fewer female developers than male developers and, assuming an equal distribution of skill level between the two groups, there will necessarily be fewer highly qualified female coders than highly qualified male coders.
Thus, if Facebook wants a 50:50 male-to-female ratio, they will necessarily have fewer highly qualified female developers IF the number of positions to be filled by females exceeds the number of highly qualified female applicants, but the number of positions to be filled by males does not exceed the number of highly qualified male candidates.
I've found the female/nb developers that I've encountered tend to be extremely talented/above average developers, so I don't think this is as much of an issue as you think.
I suspect it has something to do with the people willing to navigate what is generally a field somewhat hostile to women and gender non-conforming people being particularly interested in the field and dedicated to working hard in it.
I suspect it has something to do with the people willing to navigate what is generally a field somewhat hostile to women and gender non-conforming people being particularly interested in the field and dedicated to working hard in it.
This only matters if the different skill distributions would make it likely that a lesser-skilled candidate does not meet the standards needed to produce good code at that level. In my experience this is not the case. When you are hiring for one of the big-5, the candidates that make it through the first-pass screening by the recruiters are usually people who any other company would hire on the spot. When you get down to making a decision among the top few from any crop of candidates it really is a coin flip.
Every engineer at Facebook likes to think that they are there because they are 'the best of the best', but having sat through far more hiring reviews at Facebook than I ever thought I would have to put up, with the simple fact is that for every person you see walking around the campus there were two or three other people who the job offer could have just as easily gone to were it not for a whole host of non-code/non-dev reasons; these reasons can range from gender to the sloppy handwriting on the whiteboard to the fact that when I came in to do your manager interview I happened to be a little annoyed that the cafe had run out of lox for my morning bagel.
In my experience, the least qualified female engineers I encountered were more qualified than the lower quartile of male engineers and they worked a hell of a lot harder to boot.
Every engineer at Facebook likes to think that they are there because they are 'the best of the best', but having sat through far more hiring reviews at Facebook than I ever thought I would have to put up, with the simple fact is that for every person you see walking around the campus there were two or three other people who the job offer could have just as easily gone to were it not for a whole host of non-code/non-dev reasons; these reasons can range from gender to the sloppy handwriting on the whiteboard to the fact that when I came in to do your manager interview I happened to be a little annoyed that the cafe had run out of lox for my morning bagel.
In my experience, the least qualified female engineers I encountered were more qualified than the lower quartile of male engineers and they worked a hell of a lot harder to boot.
> In my experience, the least qualified female engineers I encountered were more qualified than the lower quartile of male engineers and they worked a hell of a lot harder to boot.
lol, that's so ridiculously sexist, can you imagine making the opposite statement in today's climate. To top it off it's based off your one anecdote, I don't even know how to respond to this.
lol, that's so ridiculously sexist, can you imagine making the opposite statement in today's climate. To top it off it's based off your one anecdote, I don't even know how to respond to this.
It is quite obviously an anecdote and not hard data (which the claim referenced in the original article provided), but it is an anecdote based upon direct observation rather than a whining response from someone with neither observational data or empirical data.
> If Facebook is attempting to meet diversity quotas, which certainly exist, by pulling from a limited pool of qualifying candidates, in some scenarios, they will necessarily need to employ lower qualified candidates.
You make it sound like existing hiring practices find the best candidates, but we know that they don't. We know traditional hiring practices are bullshit.
You make it sound like existing hiring practices find the best candidates, but we know that they don't. We know traditional hiring practices are bullshit.
No, that's wrong. Traditional hiring practices are good at separating the wheat from the chaff. Only the incompetents who are rejected bitch about it.
> Traditional hiring practices are good at separating the wheat from the chaff.
But that's not the point parent is making. They're saying that traditional practices find the very best, not that they avoid the worst.
But that's not the point parent is making. They're saying that traditional practices find the very best, not that they avoid the worst.
> This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is a valid question.
You didn't actually ask a question in that comment.
You didn't actually ask a question in that comment.
Imagine if the fix for this is to remove the account identity from commits, so you don't know if it's a man or a woman writing the code. Wouldn't that be ironic for Facebook...
Most code review is not that anonymous. You often talk in person or similar about code and your identity is going to come out. These engineering organizations are the size of villages at most, it's hard to avoid.
Given the presence of studies noting similar issues e.g. STEM faculty rating male applicants as more competent and employable than identical female ones[1], women’s performance reviews found more likely to include critical feedback than those of their male peers[2], it is a plausible scenario that female FB engineers receive 35% more rejections of their code than male ones.
[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/43/13201
[2] http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias...
[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/43/13201
[2] http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias...
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I too, am a female engineer at one of the well known companies in the Bay Area.
As a background, I have a masters degree in CS and am in my 5th year of working as an engineer.
Here's the problems that I faced:
1. Not taking my opinions seriously - I experimented with this one! My manager would endlessly argue over every small opinion I had but the same opinion that my colleague would have, would get noticed and sometimes even praised. Even on silly things. I can't get into project details but for a new project, I suggested that we try out the desktop version of Git to make transition from p4 easier. My manager was absolutely against it and asked me to setup a p4 project for the same and make it work with p4. A coworker(10 years my senior) suggested we use the same desktop version of git and we switched, no questions asked. I figured he changed his mind since both of us said it. This happened 4 times before I once, actually told my opinion to my colleague to convey to my manager and my manager complied with no questions asked. This is how I get my opinions across now. I do understand that I don't have 10 years of experience but I can be right sometimes. And no, the same did not happen to the new guy on the team. I noticed it only when my male colleague pointed it out to me and sympathized with me on being micromanaged. 2. Growth - I cared less about growth as far as I had a decent salary to live with. I am someone who likes to work for the challenges I can solve and not for the minor salary increases or bonuses. May sound stupid but each person is different. This was fine until I realized that I wasn't given more responsibilities because they were given only to senior engineers. Being promoted to different levels means a salary increase is a must(company rules). I definitely wanted more responsibilities. Each year it was a different story as to why I wasn't promoted and the hardest part? Being told that I work like a senior engineer and if I do more work, I'll get the promotion next year. 3. Being classified as the 'diversity quota' - I have as much qualifications as much as the next guy, if not more. I work on side projects during the weekends and am picking up machine learning out of interest on how to incorporate it in my daily work. Being the only girl on the team, people wanting to hire me to increase their diversity numbers but not plan on assigning me good work, being treated as the female-employee-at-work to boost the company's image alone, sucks. Imposter syndrome is real and these opinions contribute to it more.
I took up engineering to solve hard problems. It is sad that the culture of a company/valley contributed to me contemplating want to quit engineering to do something where I'll be treated right.
Not all problems women face have to be sexual harassment to get noticed, these workplace biases are hard to navigate. This is especially to people who diss diversity programs, there is the reason it's in place. I've received so much help from women-focused diversity programs and have even helped fix a problem or two along the way.
Finally, on a funny end note, I'm a big hacker news fan and have noticed how passing constructive feedback that can sometimes come across as negative but useful on a system/product/post is fairly common here. This post is hopefully taken in the same manner and not a female-ranting-about-things comment.
I too, am a female engineer at one of the well known companies in the Bay Area.
As a background, I have a masters degree in CS and am in my 5th year of working as an engineer.
Here's the problems that I faced:
1. Not taking my opinions seriously - I experimented with this one! My manager would endlessly argue over every small opinion I had but the same opinion that my colleague would have, would get noticed and sometimes even praised. Even on silly things. I can't get into project details but for a new project, I suggested that we try out the desktop version of Git to make transition from p4 easier. My manager was absolutely against it and asked me to setup a p4 project for the same and make it work with p4. A coworker(10 years my senior) suggested we use the same desktop version of git and we switched, no questions asked. I figured he changed his mind since both of us said it. This happened 4 times before I once, actually told my opinion to my colleague to convey to my manager and my manager complied with no questions asked. This is how I get my opinions across now. I do understand that I don't have 10 years of experience but I can be right sometimes. And no, the same did not happen to the new guy on the team. I noticed it only when my male colleague pointed it out to me and sympathized with me on being micromanaged. 2. Growth - I cared less about growth as far as I had a decent salary to live with. I am someone who likes to work for the challenges I can solve and not for the minor salary increases or bonuses. May sound stupid but each person is different. This was fine until I realized that I wasn't given more responsibilities because they were given only to senior engineers. Being promoted to different levels means a salary increase is a must(company rules). I definitely wanted more responsibilities. Each year it was a different story as to why I wasn't promoted and the hardest part? Being told that I work like a senior engineer and if I do more work, I'll get the promotion next year. 3. Being classified as the 'diversity quota' - I have as much qualifications as much as the next guy, if not more. I work on side projects during the weekends and am picking up machine learning out of interest on how to incorporate it in my daily work. Being the only girl on the team, people wanting to hire me to increase their diversity numbers but not plan on assigning me good work, being treated as the female-employee-at-work to boost the company's image alone, sucks. Imposter syndrome is real and these opinions contribute to it more.
I took up engineering to solve hard problems. It is sad that the culture of a company/valley contributed to me contemplating want to quit engineering to do something where I'll be treated right.
Not all problems women face have to be sexual harassment to get noticed, these workplace biases are hard to navigate. This is especially to people who diss diversity programs, there is the reason it's in place. I've received so much help from women-focused diversity programs and have even helped fix a problem or two along the way.
Finally, on a funny end note, I'm a big hacker news fan and have noticed how passing constructive feedback that can sometimes come across as negative but useful on a system/product/post is fairly common here. This post is hopefully taken in the same manner and not a female-ranting-about-things comment.
"Being told that I work like a senior engineer and if I do more work, I'll get the promotion next year."
My f'ing God, This. A thousand times this.
10 years I've been working as a junior f'ing programmer doing senior (and above) level work and roles. Every review is glowing. Every manager fights to have me on their team. I jave engineers under me. I mentor all the new hires. I am go to for all questions.
When it comes time for a promotion.. Suddenly I need to do more of something. They can never define what that something is, but i can forget ever being promoted.
I'm so close to saying screw it and quitting. Being talked over, interrupted, not having my ideas taken seriously until a male parrots them, being micromanaged, having my accompliahments dismissed while lesser accomplishments by males are lauded.
If i didnt love this work so much, I wouldve quit 5 years ago. Being a woman in tech sucks balls. I was a LCpl in the Marines and faced less sexism and animosity than i have in the tech field.
I completely belive the findings by these women are real and accurate. Too many other fields have proven the same scenarios exist.
My f'ing God, This. A thousand times this.
10 years I've been working as a junior f'ing programmer doing senior (and above) level work and roles. Every review is glowing. Every manager fights to have me on their team. I jave engineers under me. I mentor all the new hires. I am go to for all questions.
When it comes time for a promotion.. Suddenly I need to do more of something. They can never define what that something is, but i can forget ever being promoted.
I'm so close to saying screw it and quitting. Being talked over, interrupted, not having my ideas taken seriously until a male parrots them, being micromanaged, having my accompliahments dismissed while lesser accomplishments by males are lauded.
If i didnt love this work so much, I wouldve quit 5 years ago. Being a woman in tech sucks balls. I was a LCpl in the Marines and faced less sexism and animosity than i have in the tech field.
I completely belive the findings by these women are real and accurate. Too many other fields have proven the same scenarios exist.
I think it's less of a gender issue than it is an exploitative management issue.
Hire diverse people, get good PR. Then milk juniors for more than they are worth, and they think the "diverse" will accept it because they are grateful for the job.
Hire diverse people, get good PR. Then milk juniors for more than they are worth, and they think the "diverse" will accept it because they are grateful for the job.
Im a male junior dev.I go through that too.
Its not a gender thing,but a toxic personality thing.
The military teaches teamwork but tech is the opposite. Just look at the hype about 10x and ageism.
The focus on superstars and the fear of being outshined.
The focus on superstars and the fear of being outshined.
Not a female but I've experienced similar bias. I was in a big 5 Co and a project had a number of Indian outsourced testers. Even though I was a dev who contributed equal to others I was seen as a second class citizen doing mostly simple html/css work.
I just got frustrated one day and switched teams. New team was much better at treating me like a peer. It was a smaller team so there were a ton of opportunities to grab more responsibilities.
May be you should look into a smaller team where you can have more ownership and larger impact.
Now I'm at a startup and I absolutely love it.
I just got frustrated one day and switched teams. New team was much better at treating me like a peer. It was a smaller team so there were a ton of opportunities to grab more responsibilities.
May be you should look into a smaller team where you can have more ownership and larger impact.
Now I'm at a startup and I absolutely love it.
Thanks for the input! I've thought about it previously but the work I do is cutting edge and have room to learn a lot from colleagues, if I ignore the bias.
But you're right, in the long run I do plan to switch. I'll have to start passively looking out for new opportunities. I do dread having to spend time to prepare for the all day generic white-board interviews while I could be better off spending it on learning new tools or hacking on a side project.
But you're right, in the long run I do plan to switch. I'll have to start passively looking out for new opportunities. I do dread having to spend time to prepare for the all day generic white-board interviews while I could be better off spending it on learning new tools or hacking on a side project.
> Growth - I cared less about growth as far as I had a decent salary to live with. I am someone who likes to work for the challenges I can solve and not for the minor salary increases or bonuses. May sound stupid
Is that a gender bias? I had this issue myself, being an introvert and generally hating any conflict. I had to train myself to play the game.
I'm not saying that's a good thing, but not sure It's the company putting down one gender. Louder people tend to move up.
Is that a gender bias? I had this issue myself, being an introvert and generally hating any conflict. I had to train myself to play the game.
I'm not saying that's a good thing, but not sure It's the company putting down one gender. Louder people tend to move up.
FWIW I did ask multiple times. Each time there was a 'next-time' excuse. I saw my shy fellow coworkers moving up but maybe they were better negotiators behind the door.
On my part, I did some research. Except the senior management whose salaries are publicly available, the women in the company that I'm close with either receive little to measly bonuses and have had a hard time moving up. Maybe it's because it's a large company or because I'm not someone to forcefully ask a raise just-cause. Either way it's nerve-wrecking to make up excuses for no obvious mistake of mine.
On my part, I did some research. Except the senior management whose salaries are publicly available, the women in the company that I'm close with either receive little to measly bonuses and have had a hard time moving up. Maybe it's because it's a large company or because I'm not someone to forcefully ask a raise just-cause. Either way it's nerve-wrecking to make up excuses for no obvious mistake of mine.
Hi,
I'm also a big HN fan and I've been lurking around here for the last 10 years. Start your own firm, go get VC, someone will fund you. If you are at a well known company now someone will fund you.
Otherwise, expect more of the same for the next 20 years. I doubt anything will change. At least if you run your own firm you can work very cleverly, and over time build up $$ from equity in your own projects. Trust me, you will learn much more and faster at your own startup.
I'm also a big HN fan and I've been lurking around here for the last 10 years. Start your own firm, go get VC, someone will fund you. If you are at a well known company now someone will fund you.
Otherwise, expect more of the same for the next 20 years. I doubt anything will change. At least if you run your own firm you can work very cleverly, and over time build up $$ from equity in your own projects. Trust me, you will learn much more and faster at your own startup.
I think there is something to this. This is an interesting article showing that on GitHub, female coders have their code approved at a higher rate than men - but only if their gender is not disclosed.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technolog...
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technolog...
That article has been thoroughly disproven on multiple sites, multiple times.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/12/before-you-get-too-exci...
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/12/before-you-get-too-exci...
Seems like this does still suggest at least that in the aggregate females should have their code approved at roughly the same rate as males, which is far from what FB showed.
Facebook hasn't released any of their data.
They have said normalized for experience, the gender bias goes away.
So I can't agree with you based on the WSJ article.
Also I personally have a hard time believing a company with Sheryl Sandberg as it's COO would lie about their conclusions. She is a strong positive force for increasing women in tech.
Also I personally have a hard time believing a company with Sheryl Sandberg as it's COO would lie about their conclusions. She is a strong positive force for increasing women in tech.
They said normalized for rank (aka promotion level), not experience, which one might reasonably expect to also be influenced by bias. The study that showed a bias normalized for FB experience.
If Sheryl Sandberg personally says she looked into this and agrees that the study is mistaken and there is no statistically significant bias, that would definitely impact by assessment. I agree that she is great.
If Sheryl Sandberg personally says she looked into this and agrees that the study is mistaken and there is no statistically significant bias, that would definitely impact by assessment. I agree that she is great.
I don't seem to understand why you refuse to take Jay Parikh at his word.
He is a indian minority who stands for diversity, and yes he often works very closely with Sheryl for many years.
Jay Parikh is not a suit or corporate hr person at all.
http://www.today.com/popculture/sheryl-sandberg-speaks-new-g...
Has he made a public comment on this? The only reporting I have seen has been third hand. I am taking the reporting at its word, which is that he did an analysis using alternative dependent variables that showed no significant difference. I'm also asserting that his analysis is more likely to be flawed than the original study, since promotion level is not clearly an independent variable whereas Facebook tenure is.
If the facebook engineering department is biased against women, they are likely to both promote deserving women less and reject their code more. If you do an analysis using promotion level to predict code rejection, you may not see any evidence of bias in this scenario, no matter how severe it actually is. Do you disagree with this possibility? Can you point me to anything that Facebook has said or done that explains why they are not concerned about it?
If the facebook engineering department is biased against women, they are likely to both promote deserving women less and reject their code more. If you do an analysis using promotion level to predict code rejection, you may not see any evidence of bias in this scenario, no matter how severe it actually is. Do you disagree with this possibility? Can you point me to anything that Facebook has said or done that explains why they are not concerned about it?
The research you are trying to dismiss several times in this thread as "suits" was done by Parikh.
After reading your replies to myself and other users in this thread,You clearly have an issue with him, by the rather extreme lengths you've gone to discredit him in this thread.
I don't want to be part of your crusade against an ally of diversity.
After reading your replies to myself and other users in this thread,You clearly have an issue with him, by the rather extreme lengths you've gone to discredit him in this thread.
I don't want to be part of your crusade against an ally of diversity.
I had never heard of him before this story. I think it is unfair of you to accuse me of some vendetta merely because I don't take the convenient, proprietary, flawed company study results over the better designed and more open engineering results.
Here's a link to the full research paper: https://peerj.com/preprints/1733/
Interesting article title, sad I can't read it. It requires a log in.
Paywall removed: http://outline.com/CF3DMU
Anyone got a non-paywall link?
You can skip the paywall through facebook. Append the article url to the end of this:
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=
Thanks, much appreciated. Especially since I don't have to log into facebook to make it work.
I certainly don't want to discount the presence of sexism (by the way you can just call it that, "gender bias" feels a bit euphemistic IMO). But I've had some interesting conversations with female colleagues wherein they are surprised that I share many of the same frustrating experiences they do. (I'm white and male.)
I think this stuff happens if you don't fit someone's idea of what a developer "should be", and that occurs not only in sexist ways but other ways as well. Of course it's rare for a person to just come out and admit they don't respect you, let alone why. But I suspect things like my appearance and my manner of speaking represent me as insufficiently nerdy to people who care about such things, which results in the type of shit they describe.
Again, I don't want to diminish the problem of sexism or other forms of discrimination in our industry. I just suspect that for those who are affected by it, all would not be well even if the discrimination were to evaporate overnight. Sadly.
I think this stuff happens if you don't fit someone's idea of what a developer "should be", and that occurs not only in sexist ways but other ways as well. Of course it's rare for a person to just come out and admit they don't respect you, let alone why. But I suspect things like my appearance and my manner of speaking represent me as insufficiently nerdy to people who care about such things, which results in the type of shit they describe.
Again, I don't want to diminish the problem of sexism or other forms of discrimination in our industry. I just suspect that for those who are affected by it, all would not be well even if the discrimination were to evaporate overnight. Sadly.
That feeling of being "insufficiently nerdy" and the mild paranoia that arises from being subconsciously labelled as such by your peers is one of many things I've learned to deal with on a daily basis. I'm certain there are many others that can relate. I think part of the problem is that we don't have these empathy-building conversations at work, which is a shame because there is evidence that empathy towards teammates is part of building successful teams[1].
In general, I wish we would stop framing discussions of improving diversity in tech as a zero-sum game in which the collective experience of one group is by default more valid than the collective experience of another group. Bad hiring heuristics and mental shortcuts for what makes a person a good engineer hurt everyone who gets eliminated from contention before being given a chance to do the job, not just the person who checks off the most boxes on the EEOC reporting section of the job application.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-lear...
In general, I wish we would stop framing discussions of improving diversity in tech as a zero-sum game in which the collective experience of one group is by default more valid than the collective experience of another group. Bad hiring heuristics and mental shortcuts for what makes a person a good engineer hurt everyone who gets eliminated from contention before being given a chance to do the job, not just the person who checks off the most boxes on the EEOC reporting section of the job application.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-lear...
Here's a copy without the paywall: http://www.4-traders.com/FACEBOOK-INC-10547141/news/Facebook...
tl;dr: diversity hires noticed that they have 35% more code review rejections than the awful meritocracy crowd, blamed it on the oppressive patriarchy
Excellent opportunity to remember the story of Saron Yitbarek - a fresh developer out of a 4 month Ruby on Rails course who was hired by Microsoft for more than a year, but not as a developer, because technical interviews are sexist. The software giant hired her as a project manager for a newly created program to... teach students how to write CVs. The outcome? https://medium.com/startup-grind/i-dont-belong-in-tech-3d73d...
tl;dr: diversity hires noticed that they have 35% more code review rejections than the awful meritocracy crowd, blamed it on the oppressive patriarchy
Excellent opportunity to remember the story of Saron Yitbarek - a fresh developer out of a 4 month Ruby on Rails course who was hired by Microsoft for more than a year, but not as a developer, because technical interviews are sexist. The software giant hired her as a project manager for a newly created program to... teach students how to write CVs. The outcome? https://medium.com/startup-grind/i-dont-belong-in-tech-3d73d...
> So, Facebook’s argument is essentially that because there are not as many women in higher-ranked engineering roles, their code is subject to more scrutiny. But it’s problematic that women, which only make up 17 percent of Facebook’s technical department, are not in higher-ranking roles
Think it's time SV faced up to the fact it needs affirmative action for engineers who identify as women. This problem isn't going away, anonymised code reviews would be beneficial too to fight male managers in-built prejudices.
Think it's time SV faced up to the fact it needs affirmative action for engineers who identify as women. This problem isn't going away, anonymised code reviews would be beneficial too to fight male managers in-built prejudices.
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