How Duolingo achieved a 50:50 gender ratio for new software engineer hires(making.duolingo.com)
making.duolingo.com
How Duolingo achieved a 50:50 gender ratio for new software engineer hires
http://making.duolingo.com/how-duolingo-achieved-a-5050-gender-ratio-for-new-software-engineer-hires
118 comments
Sidebar: Do any software co’s complaining about a lack of quality female engineering talent have real apprenticeship programs like Parker Hannifin or Chevron?
Fewer women go into STEM because women have more and better options in life.
STEM is hard and it sucks.
Same reason women don’t have to mine coal. They have the luxury of being able to choose not to.
Men don’t have that luxury. We either earn or we live under a bridge eating food out of cans. Society puts an enormous pressure on men with the threat of homelessness and isolation, which doesn’t exist to anywhere near the same degree for women, because women have inherent value.
Men have no inherent value to society, their only value to society is realized through their work.
The result is men work harder and endure harder shittier jobs, including STEM.
If you want more women in STEM, then just eliminate all of their societal privileges, consider them inherently valueless like men, and put them under the same level of threat men are under of being isolated and going homeless.
STEM is hard and it sucks.
Same reason women don’t have to mine coal. They have the luxury of being able to choose not to.
Men don’t have that luxury. We either earn or we live under a bridge eating food out of cans. Society puts an enormous pressure on men with the threat of homelessness and isolation, which doesn’t exist to anywhere near the same degree for women, because women have inherent value.
Men have no inherent value to society, their only value to society is realized through their work.
The result is men work harder and endure harder shittier jobs, including STEM.
If you want more women in STEM, then just eliminate all of their societal privileges, consider them inherently valueless like men, and put them under the same level of threat men are under of being isolated and going homeless.
Women disliking STEM doesn't explain stuff like this:
In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full
In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full
cherry-picking studies is easy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/1...
> And according to their latest study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, women are no longer at a disadvantage when applying for tenure-track positions in university science departments. In fact, the bias has now flipped: Female candidates are now twice as likely to be chosen as equally qualified men.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/1...
> And according to their latest study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, women are no longer at a disadvantage when applying for tenure-track positions in university science departments. In fact, the bias has now flipped: Female candidates are now twice as likely to be chosen as equally qualified men.
Academia not not necessarily represent STEM as a whole.
Brutally worded but I get what you're saying. Our collective ability to not care about mens issues really amazes me.
> We started our hiring reboot by analyzing where we were spending our hiring time and effort. Perhaps not surprisingly, we were spending time at colleges and universities based on past experience, rather than their percentage of female computer science undergraduate majors. The national average of female computer science degree graduates is 18%.2 We made a decision to revisit our typical list of schools and only visit the universities that had more than 18% of female undergraduate computer science majors.
More or less "We realized we were looking solely at candidate performance when we were selecting a candidate pool. That wasn't producing the warm fuzzies, so we ignored our best indications of candidate performance, and instead hired from a pool that made us feel good about our arbitrary political goal while hopefully just stopping short of illegal discrimination.".
More or less "We realized we were looking solely at candidate performance when we were selecting a candidate pool. That wasn't producing the warm fuzzies, so we ignored our best indications of candidate performance, and instead hired from a pool that made us feel good about our arbitrary political goal while hopefully just stopping short of illegal discrimination.".
> so we ignored our best indications of candidate performance
Judging from the number of "tech hiring process is broken" posts I see on HN, it seems pretty dubious to claim that existing indicators of candidate performance are actually measuring what they claim to be. So, if you look at the situation from that point of view, then there's no reason to elevate existing metrics to anything higher than "meh, maybe it's measuring something."
Judging from the number of "tech hiring process is broken" posts I see on HN, it seems pretty dubious to claim that existing indicators of candidate performance are actually measuring what they claim to be. So, if you look at the situation from that point of view, then there's no reason to elevate existing metrics to anything higher than "meh, maybe it's measuring something."
I don't see why you're being downvoted. They literally say
> We secured the best new graduates for software engineering roles, but we noticed something: they were all male.
So they did decide to look pass candidate performance.
The problem is that they are bragging about simply hiring more females, anyone can do that. How the company will perform as result of that is what matters and they didn't address that at all.
> We secured the best new graduates for software engineering roles, but we noticed something: they were all male.
So they did decide to look pass candidate performance.
The problem is that they are bragging about simply hiring more females, anyone can do that. How the company will perform as result of that is what matters and they didn't address that at all.
> So they did decide to look pass candidate performance.
Not quite. Your quote is missing context: they hired the best candidates from the schools they visited. That’s not the set of all schools, though!
They tried to correct this by visiting schools whose CS demographics more closely match the general population.
Not quite. Your quote is missing context: they hired the best candidates from the schools they visited. That’s not the set of all schools, though!
They tried to correct this by visiting schools whose CS demographics more closely match the general population.
They also say
> this meant going to some never-before-visited schools as well as cutting out a few schools that had been on our list before
They wouldn't have eliminated those schools if the new schools produced better candidates.
> this meant going to some never-before-visited schools as well as cutting out a few schools that had been on our list before
They wouldn't have eliminated those schools if the new schools produced better candidates.
Great catch, I missed that.
EDIT: Wait, I rushed and misread your comment. Why wouldn't they eliminate these schools if the new schools produced better candidates? I would imagine it was the opposite: remove schools because the new schools produce better candidates, and time is finite.
EDIT: Wait, I rushed and misread your comment. Why wouldn't they eliminate these schools if the new schools produced better candidates? I would imagine it was the opposite: remove schools because the new schools produce better candidates, and time is finite.
> The problem is that they are bragging about simply hiring more females, anyone can do that. How the company will perform as result of that is what matters and they didn't address that at all.
The other rather interesting thing is that they seem to have introduced all of these measures at the same time; so they won't actually be able to analyze or compare the performance outcomes for a given year. The people who like the policies will say they're working great, but the year just didn't produce as many hires which turned out well (except perhaps through candidates from the schools which they did not remove from the list).
The other rather interesting thing is that they seem to have introduced all of these measures at the same time; so they won't actually be able to analyze or compare the performance outcomes for a given year. The people who like the policies will say they're working great, but the year just didn't produce as many hires which turned out well (except perhaps through candidates from the schools which they did not remove from the list).
Or, the correct perspective: "we realized we were contributing to the problem of inadequately motivating women to re-enter the programming workforce¹ through our selection of candidates from schools which likewise perpetuated the problem, so we switched to hiring from institutions which were also investing towards balancing the talent pool, with the goal of creating a positive feedback loop motivating more corporations to do the same, and therefore motivating more schools to aim to diversify their software engineering recruitment efforts."
¹ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi...
¹ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi...
> likewise perpetuated the problem
I think before you say that the highest performing schools "perpetuated the problem", you're going to need to substantiate that.
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi... .
I haven't thought about this topic for a while, but an analysis I heard goes a bit like this: Typist used to be a "woman's job" as well. My understanding is that the job was split. What you would call programmers today were typically called "architects" or similar. Lumping them all together you obviously get a serious skew toward women because considerably more technicians/programmers (where the ratio favours women, but not exclusively) were required for computers of the time (trailing off through the '80s as stored program computers became the hotness) than architects/designers (where the ratio favours men, but not exclusively).
I think before you say that the highest performing schools "perpetuated the problem", you're going to need to substantiate that.
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi... .
I haven't thought about this topic for a while, but an analysis I heard goes a bit like this: Typist used to be a "woman's job" as well. My understanding is that the job was split. What you would call programmers today were typically called "architects" or similar. Lumping them all together you obviously get a serious skew toward women because considerably more technicians/programmers (where the ratio favours women, but not exclusively) were required for computers of the time (trailing off through the '80s as stored program computers became the hotness) than architects/designers (where the ratio favours men, but not exclusively).
> I think before you say that the highest performing schools "perpetuated the problem", you're going to need to substantiate that.
I don't actually believe so given that the source link did so for me. The problem was substantiated in Duolingo's own metrics and reasoning for switching, the problem in this case being that their traditional college talent pools were overly biased towards men -- well, colleges select their own students. :)
I don't actually believe so given that the source link did so for me. The problem was substantiated in Duolingo's own metrics and reasoning for switching, the problem in this case being that their traditional college talent pools were overly biased towards men -- well, colleges select their own students. :)
That’s not necessarily the case. (1) They can still sort rank by quality of institution within the subgroup. (2) I also suspect that outside of top 10 CS programs, that universities sort ranked by proportion of women tend to have higher quality candidates than average. (3) If you build a repudiation for attracting female talent then you may be more likely to attract some of the top women in a given pool—women who might normally go to FANG.
Personally, I think the last reason provides an arbitrage opportunity that let’s small companies that focus on women compete for talent in a way that FANG can not.
Personally, I think the last reason provides an arbitrage opportunity that let’s small companies that focus on women compete for talent in a way that FANG can not.
Can it be possible that there are more relevant skills to software engineering than pure coding ability? The best people I have worked with in my career were not the few “rockstar” geniuses, but the rank and file developers with good communication skills and work ethic who strive to make everyone else’s lives easier.
> Can it be possible that there are more relevant skills to software engineering than pure coding ability? The best people I have worked with in my career were not the few “rockstar” geniuses, but the rank and file developers with good communication skills and work ethic who strive to make everyone else’s lives easier.
Those personality traits are part of performance as well; a combination of diligence and intelligence tends to predict both job and academic performance. You can be a genius, but you're not in that pool if you aren't willing to do the work.
Those personality traits are part of performance as well; a combination of diligence and intelligence tends to predict both job and academic performance. You can be a genius, but you're not in that pool if you aren't willing to do the work.
I find that suspect; I know there are people with something called "work ethic", but for those of us lacking such characteristic, our willing to do the work depends on the work itself (plus the surrounding environment) - and that can be quite different between college and the workplace. For example, I'd say I'm a better worker than a student.
> They also came up with other great ideas, including adding a tool that automates the first coding task and removes a candidate’s identifying information.
This doesn't really fit that narrative.
This doesn't really fit that narrative.
Hm... I wonder what the influence of that process was. I.e. how does the outgoing percentages (50:50) compare with the incoming percentages? The article doesn't say, but unless it's also 50:50, their process is still biased / sexist, possibly even more than at companies that don't achieve a 50:50 outcome.
That's great and all, but why go to the trouble of finding a politics-oriented candidate pool, instead of a performance-oriented one if removing identifying information and automating the first prescreening task (among other things) are the meat of the operation? It seems like they sorta quickly move past the questionable candidate selection process to talk about the stuff they can be more proud of.
FeistyOtter(1)
Unfortunately, due to the lack of female engineers, this will be impossible to implement everywhere. Also, it's kind of counterintuitive to equality, as you basically just guarantee women get a job in Tech. Regardless of skill set. Which in itself is kind of sexist. In my opinion anyways, based on my anecdotal experience holding the door for feminists.
I don't know why people think turning women into "butts in seats", as opposed to genuine respect and admiration of skills and abilities is going to make this problem better.
I don't know why people think turning women into "butts in seats", as opposed to genuine respect and admiration of skills and abilities is going to make this problem better.
I agree with aspects of what you said; in particular the observation that his would be impossible to implement everywhere due to the numbers imbalance of the talent pool. Although I think in general having more women in tech will encourage more women to enter the field (as I assume occurred in medicine and biology), so in the long run it could well be feasible.
I definitely think you could have left out the “holding the door for feminists” part though.
I definitely think you could have left out the “holding the door for feminists” part though.
The holding the door thing is a marvelous trope. I honestly doubt anyone's ever given him a hard time about it considering it's a perfectly normal thing for people to do for anybody. Maybe somebody didn't do the traditional mumbled "thanks" and he interpreted it as them taking offense?
I'm not from the US, but I've had sarcastic (but not acerbic) comments from people who didn't know I hold it for everyone. Sometimes people will judge prematurely, it's not that surprising.
I hold doors open for both men and women and no one has ever said anything to me about it except for "Thank you".
> you basically just guarantee women get a job in Tech. Regardless of skill set
But how do you know they weren't hired for their skill set? Like, if you have two equally good apples in flavor, but you want to balance the profile of varieties, choose the one you're most lacking?
But how do you know they weren't hired for their skill set? Like, if you have two equally good apples in flavor, but you want to balance the profile of varieties, choose the one you're most lacking?
To me, taking into account gender during the hiring process is the text book definition of sexual discrimination. Whether you mean it in a good way or not.
How will you tell you won't be developing some bias over time just to make the hiring process an easier job for you?
How will you tell you won't be developing some bias over time just to make the hiring process an easier job for you?
It’s literally just has to do with numbers. If men and women are equally good at the job and there are less total women, forcing a 50% split at all jobs means that eventually places need to take on lower skilled workers from the smaller group.
These numbers only makes sense if there are literally zero skilled women. Otherwise, you're not dealing with the whole of the industry, you are dealing only with your own team, the one or two positions you are currently trying to fill. The question isn't therefore, "What systemic biases in the pipeline can we have addressed in the past to ensure that I have a reasonably set from which to draw today?" It's simply, "Today, right now, is there one qualified woman that I'm likely to overlook if I don't make an effort to remind myself that being surrounded by nothing but men isn't ideal?"
There are an exhaustingly large set of companies that hire exclusively from the set of men, leaving competition for the smaller set of women much easier.
There are an exhaustingly large set of companies that hire exclusively from the set of men, leaving competition for the smaller set of women much easier.
I feel like you've missed the point, namely: "if all companies ensured 50/50 hiring, so that exactly half their jobs were taken by female applicants, then simply because of the large number of jobs taken across the whole industry and the relatively small number of female applicants for those places, virtually all the females who apply will be employed, regardless of their actual skill". You're addressing the question of what happens if only one marginal company does that; the parent was addressing the question of what happens if that's a universal policy. (I pass no judgement about the validity of the above argument; the thought experiment elsewhere on this thread about "suppose 5% of working women are great at tech" is at least a counterargument.)
The entire discussion doesn't address the systemic changes which happen if nearly every female applicant is employed, of course; one obvious thing that would probably happen is that more females would consider applying to this sort of job, which most would agree is a good thing.
The entire discussion doesn't address the systemic changes which happen if nearly every female applicant is employed, of course; one obvious thing that would probably happen is that more females would consider applying to this sort of job, which most would agree is a good thing.
RE > There are an exhaustingly large set of companies that hire exclusively from the set of men, leaving competition for the smaller set of women much easier.
I don't know of any large companies that only hire from candidate pools of men. Does anyone know of an example?
I don't know of any large companies that only hire from candidate pools of men. Does anyone know of an example?
You moved the goalposts with your question. I said that the set of companies which hires only men is large. You asked specifically about the hiring practices of large companies, which is a different question.
Recently, 88.6% of developers surveyed identified themselves as men[0]. That ratio alone suggests that the vast majority of teams and companies have zero female developers. In my experience, women developers often cluster at companies (usually large companies) so that they are not isolated, which might make the numbers even more extreme.
[0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#demographics
Recently, 88.6% of developers surveyed identified themselves as men[0]. That ratio alone suggests that the vast majority of teams and companies have zero female developers. In my experience, women developers often cluster at companies (usually large companies) so that they are not isolated, which might make the numbers even more extreme.
[0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#demographics
[deleted]
The supply of apples is limited (and with a distribution of 20:80 in terms of varieties A and B). People can test individual apples for taste before buying and compete with you for the best ones.
It's going to be much harder to get 50:50 excellent apples than 20:80 excellent apples.
It's going to be much harder to get 50:50 excellent apples than 20:80 excellent apples.
> Unfortunately, due to the lack of female engineers, this will be impossible to implement everywhere.
Correct. But the goal here I suspect is to get enough corporations onboard such that schools (k-12 and undergraduate/graduate) are now motivated to select for and encourage balanced talent pool participation for fear of missing out on "hip" companies.
Correct. But the goal here I suspect is to get enough corporations onboard such that schools (k-12 and undergraduate/graduate) are now motivated to select for and encourage balanced talent pool participation for fear of missing out on "hip" companies.
have you ever considered the idea that many women dont want to be engineers?
what about the fact that more men are dropping out of school and less are entering college? shouldnt we be encouraging those men to be engineers as well?
as far as encouraging undergaduate/graduate to have more 'balanced' classes, since there is a limited number of seats I can't see that going any other way than: you have a penis, thats a negative on your application.
what about the fact that more men are dropping out of school and less are entering college? shouldnt we be encouraging those men to be engineers as well?
as far as encouraging undergaduate/graduate to have more 'balanced' classes, since there is a limited number of seats I can't see that going any other way than: you have a penis, thats a negative on your application.
> what about
I'm not here to entertain your Tu Quoque fallacies today. :)
I'm not here to entertain your Tu Quoque fallacies today. :)
Tu quoque "argument" follows the pattern:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
Therefore X is false
I made no claims about your past actions or past claims.
I made no claims about your past actions or past claims.
It'll be interesting to see in five or ten years if all of this effort bears results.
Being willing, and taking satisfaction from beating your head against a computer to get it to do what you want it to do is something I just don't observe as being wide-spread in any population group. But we need as many of those people as we can find, wherever they happen to be and whatever they look like.
Being willing, and taking satisfaction from beating your head against a computer to get it to do what you want it to do is something I just don't observe as being wide-spread in any population group. But we need as many of those people as we can find, wherever they happen to be and whatever they look like.
> such that schools (k-12 and undergraduate/graduate)
I guess some universities care about which companies recruit there (for marketing purposes, being able to say companies A,B,C recruit there), but does this really apply to k-12?
Also, if most "hip" companies chose to only recruit at universities with gender ratios exceeding some threshold (and by causality this happens before universities are "properly motivated" to encourage balanced gender ratios in CS), won't they be hurting themselves by competing for an arbitrarily chosen much smaller pool of talent?
I guess some universities care about which companies recruit there (for marketing purposes, being able to say companies A,B,C recruit there), but does this really apply to k-12?
Also, if most "hip" companies chose to only recruit at universities with gender ratios exceeding some threshold (and by causality this happens before universities are "properly motivated" to encourage balanced gender ratios in CS), won't they be hurting themselves by competing for an arbitrarily chosen much smaller pool of talent?
Yes, girls are currently switching away from math and computer classes in high school, before they even reach college.
I am not disputing the fact that high school matters as far as gender distribution of people applying to software eng. positions.
I was replying to a comment that says:
> the goal here I suspect is to get enough corporations onboard such that schools (k-12 and undergraduate/graduate) are now motivated to select for and encourage balanced talent pool participation for fear of missing out on "hip" companies
And asking how will "fear of missing out" motivate k-12 schools to get more girls into those classes. Companies don't recruit in k-12 schools. How would duolingo and "other hip companies" recruiting exclusively from universities whose CS classes exceed a gender ratio threshold influence k-12 schools?
I was replying to a comment that says:
> the goal here I suspect is to get enough corporations onboard such that schools (k-12 and undergraduate/graduate) are now motivated to select for and encourage balanced talent pool participation for fear of missing out on "hip" companies
And asking how will "fear of missing out" motivate k-12 schools to get more girls into those classes. Companies don't recruit in k-12 schools. How would duolingo and "other hip companies" recruiting exclusively from universities whose CS classes exceed a gender ratio threshold influence k-12 schools?
Gender is a choice, there is elasticity in supply of female engineers.
Someone mentioned something like this yesterday (on /., IIRC, but I'm not sure). You could have 100% female engineers by simply having all your male engineers declare themselves as such, since "gender is independent of the underlying biology". There, problem solved! :D
camus2(1)
[deleted]
How is this not illegal?
Probably because they aren't actually preventing men from applying or disadvantaging them if they do apply. See https://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html
It actually makes sense. Assume men and women are equally competent on average (probably true or at least close). If your applicants are 18% women and the applicants are randomly sampled from the talent pool and your interview is totally unbiased you should get 18% women hires.
If you convince a lot of (randomly sampled) women to apply so you have 50% female applications, you should still get 50% female hires. I don't think this is unfair on men as long as your outreach activities don't at all affect interview chances. In particular they shouldn't give an "inside track" to bypass HR.
Sounds like they've at least thought about that and made the first stage blind.
It actually makes sense. Assume men and women are equally competent on average (probably true or at least close). If your applicants are 18% women and the applicants are randomly sampled from the talent pool and your interview is totally unbiased you should get 18% women hires.
If you convince a lot of (randomly sampled) women to apply so you have 50% female applications, you should still get 50% female hires. I don't think this is unfair on men as long as your outreach activities don't at all affect interview chances. In particular they shouldn't give an "inside track" to bypass HR.
Sounds like they've at least thought about that and made the first stage blind.
[deleted]
Because they're not declining candidates because of their gender. They're hiring from talent pools where both genders are more properly represented.
None of this stops a candidate from applying to duolingo directly. There's no discrimination going on against humans, and discriminating against a school is totally fine so long as there's no suspect reason to do so (e.g. discriminating against Howard because they've got primarily African-descended students).
Not a lawyer. Would welcome a legal opinion.
None of this stops a candidate from applying to duolingo directly. There's no discrimination going on against humans, and discriminating against a school is totally fine so long as there's no suspect reason to do so (e.g. discriminating against Howard because they've got primarily African-descended students).
Not a lawyer. Would welcome a legal opinion.
>> Because they're not declining candidates because of their gender.
They very clearly make the case that they are biased in favor of women -> over men. You might think that 50/50 means equality, but up front they state that there are only 18 percent women in the field. In order to achieve 50% women in their workforce they have to be biasing the hiring process. It seems strange to go out and write publicly about doing so.
They very clearly make the case that they are biased in favor of women -> over men. You might think that 50/50 means equality, but up front they state that there are only 18 percent women in the field. In order to achieve 50% women in their workforce they have to be biasing the hiring process. It seems strange to go out and write publicly about doing so.
> Not a lawyer. Would welcome a legal opinion.
I would highly recommend reading at least the Wikipedia article on "Disparate Impact."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
I would highly recommend reading at least the Wikipedia article on "Disparate Impact."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
This seems to be some double speak.
Interesting. What didn't you understand?
You misunderstand. I'm saying you just restated something illegal in a way that might make it seem less illegal when it fact it's not.
Does title IX dictate where a company is required to focus its talent recruiting process?
[deleted]
I suspect there are a lot of current hiring practices in tech that are going to be ruled illegal over time. I know first hand the university recruiting policy of at least one major tech company is specifically not to recruit anyone who is male or white, as they want to use recruiting to change the companies racial and gender make up.
This is very similar to redlining and other implicitly discriminatory practices in the past, and the longer it goes on the more likely I suspect it will end up in court.
This is very similar to redlining and other implicitly discriminatory practices in the past, and the longer it goes on the more likely I suspect it will end up in court.
The duolingo CEO must be so bad in statisics..
I've downvoted your comment because it's only an insult (to a person who doesn't even seem to have been directly involved in this work), rather than an argument that you put forth and which others can attempt to either support or refute.
Given that he's the same individual that built reCAPTCHA, probably not.
That's nice. Now that we have successfully defeated gender discrimination in tech, can we proceed to defeat age discrimination?
Why not hire remotely, if you care about diversity soo much?
This strategy implicitly assumes that reverse discrimination is an effective policy, i.e. that achieving 50:50 in your own organisation will somehow push the population-wide 18:82 ratio in a different direction.
This isn't justified anywhere, it's just taken as an assumption. It would be good if these implicit positions were justified rather than imposed. The Ys getting discriminated against, will understandly be angry about it, especially since only a small percentage of the Ys actually benefitted from historical discrimination against Xs, yet all of them are now eligible to be reverse-discriminated against.
This isn't justified anywhere, it's just taken as an assumption. It would be good if these implicit positions were justified rather than imposed. The Ys getting discriminated against, will understandly be angry about it, especially since only a small percentage of the Ys actually benefitted from historical discrimination against Xs, yet all of them are now eligible to be reverse-discriminated against.
It doesn't assume that at all. Any company can choose to implement a hiring goal for (almost) any reason they choose. Maybe they wanted a broader set of perspectives on their team? The idea that Duolingo would have to justify their hiring decisions in terms of changing the demographics of the whole industry is absurd.
Also Duolingo has ~100 employees total. There's no way that the industry's demographics are somehow limiting their available talent pool. Having a policy like this sounds like a great way for a small company to attract highly talented women.
Also Duolingo has ~100 employees total. There's no way that the industry's demographics are somehow limiting their available talent pool. Having a policy like this sounds like a great way for a small company to attract highly talented women.
You are right, it doesn't assume that.
However if they don't assume that, then they are effectively worsening the 18:82 ratio for other organisations who will be logically and mathematically unable to reach a 50:50 ratio without leaving (82-18)/82 of Y unemployed, so they would be virtue signalling.
So either they assume that, or they are virtue signalling, or they are trying to make (82-18)/82 of Y unemployed. Q.E.D.
I was trying to Assume Good Faith in my first comment but sure, call me out for not including the "asshole options".
edit: yeah sure, downvote me for pointing out that badly-thought out ideological policies don't work mathematically
However if they don't assume that, then they are effectively worsening the 18:82 ratio for other organisations who will be logically and mathematically unable to reach a 50:50 ratio without leaving (82-18)/82 of Y unemployed, so they would be virtue signalling.
So either they assume that, or they are virtue signalling, or they are trying to make (82-18)/82 of Y unemployed. Q.E.D.
I was trying to Assume Good Faith in my first comment but sure, call me out for not including the "asshole options".
edit: yeah sure, downvote me for pointing out that badly-thought out ideological policies don't work mathematically
Even your moved goal posts still try to connect one small company's policies to the industry as a whole. Maybe it's worth emphasizing _your_ unstated assumption that the only reason a company would want 50:50 is to satisfy some external ideological motive rather than careful analysis of what makes for a good team.
I don't give a shit about what the "motivations" of the company are. I said:
> This strategy implicitly assumes
That is the real objective assumption that any implementation of this strategy makes (or the other "asshole" choices).
Good intentions are worthless if they can't work mathematically.
> This strategy implicitly assumes
That is the real objective assumption that any implementation of this strategy makes (or the other "asshole" choices).
Good intentions are worthless if they can't work mathematically.
Why did you feel the need to even comment if you don't care about Duolingo's motivations for hiring people? Of course not every company could have 50:50 with the current pool of software engineers but that's a trivial point. It's true by definition.
EDIT: it's clear that you believe ideology is what's motivating this, despite your claim that you don't care about motivation.
EDIT: it's clear that you believe ideology is what's motivating this, despite your claim that you don't care about motivation.
If it's a "trivial point" why is this article hitting the front page? Why do you feel the need to turn a "trivial point" into a discussion about motivations and my supposed mis-assumptions of those motivations?
This article is hitting the front page because some people think it's impressive. I don't think it's impressive nor do I think it's solving any real issues. I pointed out in very neutral terms why it's not solving any real issues, but some people some to feel offended by my pointing out a "trivial point".
This article is hitting the front page because some people think it's impressive. I don't think it's impressive nor do I think it's solving any real issues. I pointed out in very neutral terms why it's not solving any real issues, but some people some to feel offended by my pointing out a "trivial point".
The comments here are viscerally disturbing, and not for reasons that might jump to mind, meaning I don't really mind the merit-driven mindset when it's aptly applied. It's not in this case.
It's one thing to value merit over politics -- I'd expect nothing less from my peers in the bay. However, it's an entirely different matter to value merit over long term strategic objectives, and from what I can tell, an alarming number of commenters here are bereft of any understanding of the long term implications of not striving to increase the potential engineering talent pool.
We in the US are in a situation where:
1) talent is scarce
2) companies, startups more specifically, are now less willing to hire international talent for fear of visa/etc. risks in the current age,
3) politics are disincentivizing efforts to broaden the talent pool via obvious means -- such as by reintroducing and motivating women to participate.
The end result of this isn't going to be job security for existing participants in the tech industry here in the US. It's going to be the flight of entrepreneurs to talent centers where talent can be acquired more reasonably, and right now, that's starting to look less and less like the United States given the above.
Shoot, even YC is broadening beyond these geographical and political boundaries through tools like Startup School.
If your goal's to keep our tech industry in the US from becoming a laggard, it's in your interest to encourage the system to strategically start motivating and representing the population space more accurately. Otherwise, the talent drought will just drive ideas overseas.
(I apologize to any overseas readers reading my comment. I hope you understand.)
TL;DR: very few people here are thinking about this from a long term strategic angle; it seems like everyone's just concerned about their own jobs.
It's one thing to value merit over politics -- I'd expect nothing less from my peers in the bay. However, it's an entirely different matter to value merit over long term strategic objectives, and from what I can tell, an alarming number of commenters here are bereft of any understanding of the long term implications of not striving to increase the potential engineering talent pool.
We in the US are in a situation where:
1) talent is scarce
2) companies, startups more specifically, are now less willing to hire international talent for fear of visa/etc. risks in the current age,
3) politics are disincentivizing efforts to broaden the talent pool via obvious means -- such as by reintroducing and motivating women to participate.
The end result of this isn't going to be job security for existing participants in the tech industry here in the US. It's going to be the flight of entrepreneurs to talent centers where talent can be acquired more reasonably, and right now, that's starting to look less and less like the United States given the above.
Shoot, even YC is broadening beyond these geographical and political boundaries through tools like Startup School.
If your goal's to keep our tech industry in the US from becoming a laggard, it's in your interest to encourage the system to strategically start motivating and representing the population space more accurately. Otherwise, the talent drought will just drive ideas overseas.
(I apologize to any overseas readers reading my comment. I hope you understand.)
TL;DR: very few people here are thinking about this from a long term strategic angle; it seems like everyone's just concerned about their own jobs.
The comments here are pointing the obvious data behind hiring in tech, if you have <10% women working in Software engineering, you can't have 50% women working in every tech company. The issue cannot be fixed in any way by changing hiring policies.
> The issue cannot be fixed in any way by changing hiring policies.
...it's a strategic play. Changing hiring needs influences post-secondary institutions which influences secondary and primary schooling decisions at the policy level, or such is what's envisioned.
Same as I've said above. I also made a point about people not understanding the strategic play, which you've evidently validated.
...it's a strategic play. Changing hiring needs influences post-secondary institutions which influences secondary and primary schooling decisions at the policy level, or such is what's envisioned.
Same as I've said above. I also made a point about people not understanding the strategic play, which you've evidently validated.
> 1) talent is scarce
Can I get a source for this?
Can I get a source for this?
https://hackernoon.com/2018s-software-engineering-talent-sho...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/02/19/the-war-for-...
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3900575
And a seemingly contrarian source which actually supports the argument I made:
https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/12/the-tech-talent-shortage-i...
> Racial And Gender Inequality
> Opportunity inequality has become so pervasive that minority tech employees are banding together with the explicit purpose of increasing their numbers in the space. If you’re a tech leader, you must fight against this inequality to benefit from talented people of all stripes.
> Racial minorities are woefully underrepresented in the tech industry. And it’s not just a matter of race, either. Many don’t remember it, but women were once much more prevalent in tech. However, the proportion of female computer science students has halved since its heyday in the mid-1980s. And the women who do enter engineering are leaving at an astonishing rate.
> These problems aren’t self-correcting; their resolution requires dedication from leadership. We’re all obligated to take the first step to reverse this worrisome, decades-long minority flight by acknowledging the issue and magnifying diverse voices.
> If our industry has any hope of becoming more inclusive — which is a key step to solving our so-called “talent shortage” — we must be understanding, empathetic and open to others’ viewpoints.
Would you like me to go on? I thought the talent scarcity problem was obvious, but I've got no qualms with more sourcing.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/02/19/the-war-for-...
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3900575
And a seemingly contrarian source which actually supports the argument I made:
https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/12/the-tech-talent-shortage-i...
> Racial And Gender Inequality
> Opportunity inequality has become so pervasive that minority tech employees are banding together with the explicit purpose of increasing their numbers in the space. If you’re a tech leader, you must fight against this inequality to benefit from talented people of all stripes.
> Racial minorities are woefully underrepresented in the tech industry. And it’s not just a matter of race, either. Many don’t remember it, but women were once much more prevalent in tech. However, the proportion of female computer science students has halved since its heyday in the mid-1980s. And the women who do enter engineering are leaving at an astonishing rate.
> These problems aren’t self-correcting; their resolution requires dedication from leadership. We’re all obligated to take the first step to reverse this worrisome, decades-long minority flight by acknowledging the issue and magnifying diverse voices.
> If our industry has any hope of becoming more inclusive — which is a key step to solving our so-called “talent shortage” — we must be understanding, empathetic and open to others’ viewpoints.
Would you like me to go on? I thought the talent scarcity problem was obvious, but I've got no qualms with more sourcing.
> Why, in spite of high wages and cultural/economic importance of tech, has the number of CS majors has been basically flat for 15 years?
https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/why-is-computer-science-enr...
https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/why-is-computer-science-enr...
This approach is not a solution to anything. The 18:82 ratio needs to be addressed, which basically means starting to build interest in high school. Duolingo (etc.) would be better served by sponsoring interest groups and clubs in high schools, offering scholarships to graduating high school seniors, offering internships to high school students, etc. They need to market high tech careers to those high school girls who have the interest and proclivity for tech, but not the exposure that helps them realize it.
What better way to market to high school girls than to send a team of women engineers to show them there is a spot for them in the workplace ?
You can do all the clubs and scholarships you want, but the proof is in the hiring
You can do all the clubs and scholarships you want, but the proof is in the hiring
I wonder how it feels like to be a female engineer, trying to figure out whether your skills were indeed above the bar, or you got hired only to fill the gaps in some diversity officer’s spreadsheets. Sounds like a recipe for impostor syndrome to me.
One of the very best programmers I've ever worked with is female. She said almost this exact thing to me, basically: "On the one hand it's awesome that I can have my pick of any job in the business, on the other hand it sucks that I don't know if I'm just a statistic for them."
Honestly what does it matter.
When I was hired out of college I didn’t know if it was due to my abilities, potential or because I was a cheaper hire than others.
I still showed up to work and got paid.
When I was hired out of college I didn’t know if it was due to my abilities, potential or because I was a cheaper hire than others.
I still showed up to work and got paid.
A thought experiment I'll quote:
"Suppose there was overwhelming evidence that 95% of women were terrible at technology and 5% of women were awesome at technology. There are roughly 7 billion people on the planet, roughly 3.5 billion women, roughly 1.5 billion women who work outside the house for a wage. In this scenario, where only 5% of women love technology, there are 75 million working women who are awesome at technology. According to the Bureau Of Labor Statics, the USA had 1,256,200 software developers in 2016. The BLS also tracks some other minor categories, such as Web Developer, which have about 150,000 jobs. Lump all the sub-categories together, and let’s say there are 2 million such jobs in the USA. Let’s be wildly generous and double the number for the EU, and triple it for Asia. That gives 12 million software developer jobs in all of the advanced and developing economies. So even with exaggerated assumptions about women’s inherent weakness in technology, we still end up with a scenario where every single programming job in the world can be filled by a woman who will be awesome at the job. There is no need for men, at all, in the tech industry."
http://www.smashcompany.com/business/why-are-women-being-pus...
More to point, women are being pushed out of tech. Women constituted 35% of all software engineers in 1990, but only 26% in 2015 (see above url). Given the rough figure of about 2 million jobs, that 9% difference suggests there are 180,000 missing women from engineering jobs right now. Initiatives like Duolingo help reverse the trend, and therefore should be praised.
"Suppose there was overwhelming evidence that 95% of women were terrible at technology and 5% of women were awesome at technology. There are roughly 7 billion people on the planet, roughly 3.5 billion women, roughly 1.5 billion women who work outside the house for a wage. In this scenario, where only 5% of women love technology, there are 75 million working women who are awesome at technology. According to the Bureau Of Labor Statics, the USA had 1,256,200 software developers in 2016. The BLS also tracks some other minor categories, such as Web Developer, which have about 150,000 jobs. Lump all the sub-categories together, and let’s say there are 2 million such jobs in the USA. Let’s be wildly generous and double the number for the EU, and triple it for Asia. That gives 12 million software developer jobs in all of the advanced and developing economies. So even with exaggerated assumptions about women’s inherent weakness in technology, we still end up with a scenario where every single programming job in the world can be filled by a woman who will be awesome at the job. There is no need for men, at all, in the tech industry."
http://www.smashcompany.com/business/why-are-women-being-pus...
More to point, women are being pushed out of tech. Women constituted 35% of all software engineers in 1990, but only 26% in 2015 (see above url). Given the rough figure of about 2 million jobs, that 9% difference suggests there are 180,000 missing women from engineering jobs right now. Initiatives like Duolingo help reverse the trend, and therefore should be praised.
"Pushed out" is an odd narrative for an industry that is bending over backwards to try and draw more women in. Is it even possible that women (on average) are less interested in tech work and thus have chosen (on aggregate) to pursue other careers instead? It seems like even asking that question is forbidden.
Why is the same level of angst not applied to education, where <20% of primary school teachers are male? Have the public schools been pushing men out, or are men just not interested? Or maybe it's some of both? Do we even know?
Why is the same level of angst not applied to education, where <20% of primary school teachers are male? Have the public schools been pushing men out, or are men just not interested? Or maybe it's some of both? Do we even know?
If primary school teacher was a valued (well-paid) position, I think we'd be having that very discussion. Historically in the US, teachers were men, and computer programmers were women. As teachers shifted more toward women, and as computer programmers shifted more toward men, the compensation for teachers dropped, while the compensation for computer programmers skyrocketed. The correlation is strong, although causation is debatable.
It's no surprise that the efforts to achieve gender balance in a highly-paid industry gets a lot more attention than any gender-imbalance in a lowly-paid industry.
Put another way: men weren't too upset about being pushed out of teaching positions because they were able to make better money elsewhere.
It's no surprise that the efforts to achieve gender balance in a highly-paid industry gets a lot more attention than any gender-imbalance in a lowly-paid industry.
Put another way: men weren't too upset about being pushed out of teaching positions because they were able to make better money elsewhere.
jon_e_pizza(1)
That's now how that works. That's not how any of this works.
Why are software engineering jobs being looked at in a vacuum? And why is capability to do the job the only metric being looked at here?
We could do the same thing with men and teaching children (the distribution there is even more skewed than software engineering, only the opposite direction) and say that there's no need for female teachers. We won't because that also simplifies a very complex equation to a handful of variables. It appears that most men don't want to be teachers because the incentives don't align with what most men want. Teaching is a field that doesn't pay very well, but requires a lot of social interaction, compassion, empathy, and generally is suited to more maternal people (this may be considered controversial, but on average women are stronger in these traits, according to psychological studies). Software engineering is the opposite.
Full disclosure: I'm a male software engineer that lives with a female preschool teacher. She was on the path for medical school (a field also somewhat dominated by women currently but pays much better than teaching) but decided that becoming a teacher would be more rewarding for her.
We've discussed our career choices and I realized I could never do what she does because it requires more patience and compassion than I want to exert on a daily basis, I wouldn't feel as much gratification from it as she does, and it pays a fraction of what I currently make. I realize this is an anecdote, but it does represent the average distributions of male and female careers and the incentives for each gender.
Could it possibly be that in general men and women want different things out of a career? And maybe software engineering offers more of benefits that are valuable to men, in which case it would be fine that there are more male engineers, just like it's also fine that there are more female teachers.
I'm using in general and on average a lot here because I don't want to imply that there aren't compassionate men or women who want high paying jobs - they're just less common than their opposites, on average.
And note that I'm not saying that these preferences are due to biology - whether it's that or sociological factors doesn't really matter here. Trying to artificially equalize the distribution between males and females in a given industry doesn't make sense either way.
Why are software engineering jobs being looked at in a vacuum? And why is capability to do the job the only metric being looked at here?
We could do the same thing with men and teaching children (the distribution there is even more skewed than software engineering, only the opposite direction) and say that there's no need for female teachers. We won't because that also simplifies a very complex equation to a handful of variables. It appears that most men don't want to be teachers because the incentives don't align with what most men want. Teaching is a field that doesn't pay very well, but requires a lot of social interaction, compassion, empathy, and generally is suited to more maternal people (this may be considered controversial, but on average women are stronger in these traits, according to psychological studies). Software engineering is the opposite.
Full disclosure: I'm a male software engineer that lives with a female preschool teacher. She was on the path for medical school (a field also somewhat dominated by women currently but pays much better than teaching) but decided that becoming a teacher would be more rewarding for her.
We've discussed our career choices and I realized I could never do what she does because it requires more patience and compassion than I want to exert on a daily basis, I wouldn't feel as much gratification from it as she does, and it pays a fraction of what I currently make. I realize this is an anecdote, but it does represent the average distributions of male and female careers and the incentives for each gender.
Could it possibly be that in general men and women want different things out of a career? And maybe software engineering offers more of benefits that are valuable to men, in which case it would be fine that there are more male engineers, just like it's also fine that there are more female teachers.
I'm using in general and on average a lot here because I don't want to imply that there aren't compassionate men or women who want high paying jobs - they're just less common than their opposites, on average.
And note that I'm not saying that these preferences are due to biology - whether it's that or sociological factors doesn't really matter here. Trying to artificially equalize the distribution between males and females in a given industry doesn't make sense either way.
> Could it possibly be that in general men and women want different things out of a career?
A few years ago I watched a documentary, «The gender equality paradox» [1]. It discussed the strange fact that it is far more likely to find make masons and female nurses in Norway, despite the fact that everything in that society pushes towards gender equality.
In that documentary, I heard an interesting fact: the proportions between make and female engineers are much farther from 50:50 in Norway (where men are more common) than in India and other less-developed countries, where the two sets are more evenly balanced.
The documentary provided this possible explanation: let's suppose there is a biological reason why it is less likely for women to be interested in engineering topics, and men in works requiring social skills. One could imagine that in those countries where there are plenty of jobs and possibilities, everybody is free to pick the job they like most. On the other side, in less developed countries there isn't as much choice, so people are more willing to accept things different from what they would have chosen otherwise.
It is clear this is just a theory, but I find the basic fact of the existence of this Norway/India difference intriguing.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70
A few years ago I watched a documentary, «The gender equality paradox» [1]. It discussed the strange fact that it is far more likely to find make masons and female nurses in Norway, despite the fact that everything in that society pushes towards gender equality.
In that documentary, I heard an interesting fact: the proportions between make and female engineers are much farther from 50:50 in Norway (where men are more common) than in India and other less-developed countries, where the two sets are more evenly balanced.
The documentary provided this possible explanation: let's suppose there is a biological reason why it is less likely for women to be interested in engineering topics, and men in works requiring social skills. One could imagine that in those countries where there are plenty of jobs and possibilities, everybody is free to pick the job they like most. On the other side, in less developed countries there isn't as much choice, so people are more willing to accept things different from what they would have chosen otherwise.
It is clear this is just a theory, but I find the basic fact of the existence of this Norway/India difference intriguing.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70
Women constituted 35% of all software engineers in 1990, but only 26% in 2015
This is an incorrect way to look at this question. There is no where near 5% of the global population (men and women) who are interested in technology. To get at a more accurate number of what the real percent (absolutely not 5%) you'd need to talk about you would first need to look at the entire population's trends before looking at a subset stratified by gender. To further focus this onto a topic I will only be looking at data related to programmers. Looking at some statistics gathered by Wikipedia it looks like there were closer to 1,069,220 actual software development (611,900 + 457,320). During 2016 there were a minimum (to give your 5% figure the best chance) of 150,576,000 employed people [1]. This means that in actuality you're talking about 0.7100086% of employees in "tech" (which I'm taking to mean software development).
If you wanted to talk about gender parity in software development then you would need to use 0.7100086% of women (who are employed) are (expected to be) good at tech, 99.2899914% of women (who are employed) are bad at tech.
There about 387,508 female programmers (.212 mul 473000) + (1536000 mul .187) and about 1,621,492 males ((1536000+473000) - 387508) [2] according to more recent statistics. From the same report it looks like 46.9% of the workforce is female with a total number of 153,337,000 workers for 2017. If we apply the 46.9% number we get 71915053 females. If we further apply our 0.7100086% multiplier we get 510,603 females who we'd predict to be software developers. This number is higher than but close to our 387,508 figure from earlier. This was off by 0.76x
If we apply the same logic to males we will find that of the 81,421,947 (153,337,000 mul .531) working males after we apply our 0.7100086% from earlier we will find that the number we get extremely under-predicts the number of software developers at a predicted 578,102 males. This is off by a 2.8x
I have a few questions that I have not been able to answer. They are as follows:
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demograph... [1] - http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/pdf/usadj.pdf [2] - https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm
If you wanted to talk about gender parity in software development then you would need to use 0.7100086% of women (who are employed) are (expected to be) good at tech, 99.2899914% of women (who are employed) are bad at tech.
There about 387,508 female programmers (.212 mul 473000) + (1536000 mul .187) and about 1,621,492 males ((1536000+473000) - 387508) [2] according to more recent statistics. From the same report it looks like 46.9% of the workforce is female with a total number of 153,337,000 workers for 2017. If we apply the 46.9% number we get 71915053 females. If we further apply our 0.7100086% multiplier we get 510,603 females who we'd predict to be software developers. This number is higher than but close to our 387,508 figure from earlier. This was off by 0.76x
If we apply the same logic to males we will find that of the 81,421,947 (153,337,000 mul .531) working males after we apply our 0.7100086% from earlier we will find that the number we get extremely under-predicts the number of software developers at a predicted 578,102 males. This is off by a 2.8x
I have a few questions that I have not been able to answer. They are as follows:
- Why is my percentage of humans who go into software more accurate for women?
- Why is my percentage of humans who go into software off by 3x for men?
- There are many higher paying and lower effort jobs that are male dominated that men could choose to go into? Why would this skew be so great for software engineering?
- Are there other careers who have a similar factor of inaccuracy except flipped (3x more women then predicted, .7x the predicted number of men?)
- Does this error factor show dependence on salary? Hours worked? Location of jobs?
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demograph... [1] - http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/pdf/usadj.pdf [2] - https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm
I like the approach here. Follow the data. It keeps everyone honest.
All companies cherry pick from the best Universities. The fact they've had to look elsewhere means they're not getting the best from the best Universities (based on rankings). They're getting the best female graduates possible. I assume these are good enough but not the best.
Male hires are probably still from the best universities. This creates an imbalance in competence. The female hires are good enough, the male hires are exceptional. Male hires move up the ranks on virtue of their competence. Other male hires leave after a couple promotion cycles expire.
Now we have situation where male hires are predominantly in coveted positions in the company and female hires are mostly junior mid hires.
The equality problem has now shifted up. What do you do then? How far is a company willing to go with an equality experiment before shareholders start noticing the erosion of the companies competitive advantage and start protesting.
I appluad Duolingo for it's boldness. Am doubtful on its sustainability without either the rest of the industries following suit while pre university educational centres attempt to rebalance.
All companies cherry pick from the best Universities. The fact they've had to look elsewhere means they're not getting the best from the best Universities (based on rankings). They're getting the best female graduates possible. I assume these are good enough but not the best.
Male hires are probably still from the best universities. This creates an imbalance in competence. The female hires are good enough, the male hires are exceptional. Male hires move up the ranks on virtue of their competence. Other male hires leave after a couple promotion cycles expire.
Now we have situation where male hires are predominantly in coveted positions in the company and female hires are mostly junior mid hires.
The equality problem has now shifted up. What do you do then? How far is a company willing to go with an equality experiment before shareholders start noticing the erosion of the companies competitive advantage and start protesting.
I appluad Duolingo for it's boldness. Am doubtful on its sustainability without either the rest of the industries following suit while pre university educational centres attempt to rebalance.
> Male hires are probably still from the best universities. This creates an imbalance in competence.
Is there any objective evidence that people who graduate from the "best universities" become the most competent engineers?
Is there any objective evidence that people who graduate from the "best universities" become the most competent engineers?
Depends by which metric you use to evaluate the hires. The University where the candidate graduated is certainly used as a metric for predicting competency.
Regardless whether this is the right thing to do companies fall back to this approach time and time again.
Regardless whether this is the right thing to do companies fall back to this approach time and time again.
I can understand why women wouldn’t want to be engineers because I can understand why most men also don’t want to be engineers. Engineers are a small subset of the total population and it’s difficulty to say whether we have optimized for either sex but trying to make a one-size-fits all environment seems sub optimal if the goal is to increase total numbers of CS professionals. CS programs should be as popular as ever for males, but it does seem like they could be more popular for females if there were environmental adjustments. Rather than trying to adjust the entire environment (which may discourage men from entering) to one-size-fits-all, I think it makes more sense for some schools to specialize in attracting and training women and in turn those companies that provide meaningful opportunities and environment that are important to women can also more easily find a larger pool of talent.
Unless their applicant pool is exactly 50/50 with no influence, this is even worse because they are actively and purposely discriminating against people. This is not a company that puts it's employees and customers at the top of it's priority list.
Or will you hire a female even if she sucks at the job because your team is only made of males? Are you filling a sticker collection or building a team?