Anybody who thinks the hackers from Duke/UNC consistently outshine the hackers from NC A&T is a damn fool.
I was regularly FLOORED by the skills and raw programming chops from peers at NC A&T. Some of the smartest young men and women in the CS field.
I worked in a small research group at NC A&T. Maybe 10 undergrads. Last time I checked, there were something like 6 MS in CS folks from that group and a couple of PhDs.
When I was an undergrad at NC A&T, we had a weekly colloquium for all CS students. We regularly had alumni from NC A&T and other HBCUs on stage who talked openly about navigating the hiring world, which companies you could expect racism in, and what the working world of programming was like for "people who look like us."
If some shitty recruiter event occurred, we all knew about it.
Want to score some of the best engineers from HBCUs? It's easy. Hire the best ones you can convince to take your mega-FAANG package from. Then send them back every freaking year with a corporate card and tell them to impress people.
I hate these "stupid recruiter" stories. Somebody should get their ass fired.
I think that's pretty awesome. I went to Elon, and the only time that we heard about the A&T CS program is the time that I participated in an ACM programming competition. We heard more about the Duke program than anything else. (Research related). I knew a little about the UNC Chapel Hill program because I had a connection with Fred Brooks.
In case people didn't read this story carefully before commenting (we all do that sometimes), it's worth calling the nut graf of this story out:
The firm this engineer is talking about did a recruiting trip to Duke (and UNC), like every big tech firm does. An hour away from Duke is the country's largest HBCU, NC A&T, which is included on the trip, ostensibly for inclusivity's sake.
The firm serves a catered dinner at the Duke/UNC session, which is held after class hours to ensure attendance. The next day, highly-ranked prospects from Duke/UNC are invited to a private dinner at a fine dining restaurant.
That same day, the firm holds an abbreviated meeting during class hours at A&T, where they serve (wait for it) the leftovers from the catered dinner at the Duke/UNC session.
I have done University recruiting and been at recruiting events, I have never seen leftovers ever re-used, by any company, ever. I'm not even sure of the legality of that or the logistics of it. How were leftovers transported safely from one campus to another? 99% of the time, it's pizza (it's always pizza), and it's given away or thrown out at end of the event.
It’s unfortunate the author didn’t call out the company by name but I guess I get it. If they did it may elicit some stronger push for change.
Unfortunately, anonymity can breed some distrust in the content. By calling out the company by name, it may cause others who experienced the same to speak out too.
One of the more disappointing aspects of this-- it's not even a good service to these businesses to operate this way. Some of the least effective colleagues I've had the pleasure of working with attended these brand name schools. Now, I certainly wouldn't say that represents all graduates, but some of them are absolutely being carried because they look good on paper. That's no way to build out your workforce.
There is both a pipeline problem and a bias problem and they are intertwined.
Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be. Poverty discriminates in myriad ways: lack of good role models and mentors, poor educational environments, lack of nutrition, lack of opportunities for enrichment, etc...
Discrimination is also still present and different ethnic groups are affected differently.
The negative effects of poverty and discrimination compound over time such that when you get to a tech company's hiring process, the pipeline would have shrunk massively. The students in this pipeline are competing against upper middle class kids who have been groomed their entire lives to compete in the system designed by people like them.
As to the recruiting pipeline, there is class elitism/narrow mindedness in tech companies that does narrow recruiting. Some interviewers don't countenance views or attitudes other than their own just as some recruiters favor certain universities far more than others. This seems to be changing at least at the recruiting level.
As to why some ethnicities still succeed or fail despite discrimination, that is at least partly cultural and partly selection bias and these in turn have also been affected by discrimination past and present.
Lastly, I suspect the beef some poorer whites have is that they too have been discriminated against due to poverty and they feel that another group now has a leg up on them and that discrimination against them isn't acknowledged.
I hope that we come up with a just system for everyone.
> Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be. Poverty discriminates in myriad ways: lack of good role models and mentors, poor educational environments, lack of nutrition, lack of opportunities for enrichment, etc...
While this is true in some cases, and you do point out that "discriminiation is also still present", I can strongly recommend "Reflecting on the Color of My Skin" by Marques Brownlee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-_WXXVye3Y
Regardless of the material differences between black and white people, I think white people (including myself) tend to underestimate the effect of constantly being treated as "the first black guy who..." -- that's racism too, and while not always toxic, it holds up a lot of other discriminatory practices by being the foundation of differentiation.
I've checked wikipedia and it seems that affirmative action that was designed to remove all those inequalities was introduced something like 30 years ago, so one generation lives in the environment without discrimination. Has this affirmative action failed?
For at least 10 years all big companies have "equality & inclusivity" departments that are taking care of giving equal opportunities to "oppressed minorities" members. Is that just PR or something substantial?
>Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be. Poverty discriminates in myriad ways:
>Lastly, I suspect the beef some poorer whites have is that they too have been discriminated against due to poverty and they feel that another group now has a leg up on them and that discrimination against them isn't acknowledged.
What is needed is to break down issues caused by racism from issues caused by poverty and fix each on their own. Fixing an issue caused by poverty (which itself may be a result of racism) as instead having been caused by racism means the solution is not correctly targeted.
If we target the problems caused by poverty based on poverty instead, you would have a solution that will help minorities more as they need more help, but at the same time help non-minorities who are in poverty and prevent resentment from building that ends up harming the attempts to fix those inequalities.
For issues directly caused by racism, solutions would be based on race (but race should likely be replaced by race and ethnicity, as I've personally seen racial equality initiatives forget that Hispanic whites face injustice very similar to racial minorities, despite the technicality of being racially white.
Last, fixing issues of race, class, and gender (which I haven't mentioned but which should work the same) discrimination should be seen as the starting point, not the goal. These are the big three that cause people the most discrimination, but are not the only three. As they are big three, they should have priority, but others shouldn't be forgotten. For example, discrimination based on LGBT+, on disability, on looks, on height, on neurotypicalness, and other factors still exist in our society: in private life, school life, and professional life. The goal should be that once the inequality from discrimination on the big three are reduced to the size of the level of discrimination these other factors cause, they too become a focus (and to be more pedantic, it wouldn't occur all at once as these other issues are by no means equal, such as LGBT+ discrimination being one of the largest forms of discrimination once you take race/gender/class out of the comparison).
If like the army, companies were forced by need to develop pipelines, things would improve. But, if you can hire from abroad and short circuit the hard work necessary, what choice do you think companies are going to make?
This is not particular to companies either. People most affected by offshoring will support offshoring by buying cheap goods produced by offshored work ensuring a positive feedback loop that will come and get them.
If companies were forced to develop local talent because they cannot short circuit the labor market, they would.
As a male Asian American I have been attacked by the system from both a discrimination standpoint, a biased standpoint and a class elitism standpoint.
Where I stand right now even my own race, asian females prefer to date white males over their own race. If you don't believe me watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ8LzkIfmxw. That's just one aspect of the extent of racism we suffer from. It's so bad that females of our own race are disgusted with males of the same race.
I've seen a lot of racism, I've had to battle a lot of the challenges of simply being an asian in a white dominated country, my parents had an even harder time with the language barrier when they first jumped off the boat with literally a dollar in their pocket.
Despite all of this, from my own personal experience I will say this:
The lack of diversity in tech is mostly a pipeline problem. Certain races or cultures or sexes simply don't want to go into tech or aren't willing to put in the effort. You don't even need to go to college anymore to get in, the financial barriers of entry for tech are extremely low.
That is not to say racism is not a problem in tech, but it is by far a pipeline problem by a huge margin. As a member of a minority who has experienced a lot of racism, I will say that for tech specifically, the racism/sexism problem is overblown. If you don't trust my anecdotal experience then google which race has the highest average income in the United States: Asians.
There was an article I came across where a black startup founder was frequently mistaken as a regular employee while his white co-worker was mistaken as the CEO. On multiple occasions the unaware person shook the hand of the white co-worker, ignored the true startup founder, and so on.
"Adding to the insult, [Will] Hayes finds himself at a distinct disadvantage in meetings that open with a case of mistaken identity. Venture capital is based on relationships, and investors aren’t typically primed to write a check when they feel unsettled. “You see it in the body language, you see it in the lack of questions and engagement,” says Hayes, 39. “They can’t wait for this meeting to get over.”
For nearly four years, Hayes would attend investor meetings alongside [longtime colleague] Messick, the former chief marketing officer at Lucidworks. VCs are trained to look for patterns in startup founders, Messick says, and there aren’t many Black Mark Zuckerbergs. 'Years and years of a Black guy and a White guy walking in the room, and the White guy is the CEO,' Messick says. 'Whether malicious, whether negligent, it was always awful.'"
Wow. This confirms something I saw SO often as an undergrad.
I went to a predominantly black city college right next door to Georgia Tech, so we got plenty of big companies knocking on our door.
Only they never took us seriously, gave rushed presentations, and never collected resumes. Tech? They got parties, dinners, entire clubs rented out. It was posh, and if you were like me - you figured out ways to get into these exclusive events, evade bouncers and find an engineer just to talk to them.
There are a few people in this comment section talking about how 'minorities and women simply skew differently'. Maybe try walking a mile in our shoes
I grew up in Greensboro where A&T is located. Many of my high school classmates went to college there. One friend even led the top CS student org on campus.
I pushed so hard for my employer, Sexy Unicorn Startup which said all the important things you expect a woke company to say, to recruit there. I told them I would set everything up and that all I needed was a budget. I got nothing but lip service.
So, HN, you want to do it the right way? I can be on A&T's campus in 15 minutes. I will connect you with the student orgs and help you do it the right way. You won't regret it. Email is in profile.
I've gone on numerous recruiting trips and this story paints a very one sided narrative and it doesn't quite line with my own experiences.
First off, big feeder schools, the Dukes and UNCs of the world, they have extremely sophisticated internal career programs that throw out the red carpet for us when we arrive. Yes we order the food (and its usually pizza), but they literally do all the pre-work and advertise for us, give us the floor and make sure we have the best chances to meet their students. They schedule the program and the times for us, so we just roll in, present, and then have lots of meet and greet with the students.
Second, recruiters only have so much time and energy to meet with students, so they have to go to places with the least friction. The recruiters live by the rule, meet that quota or you're out! So that translates to, schools better have students who can pass the interview process, or they are out.
My company has a huge list of diversity schools that we actively recruit from. This goes against the rules above and requires special recruiters who aren't being tracked against the same quota system. Why? Although these diversity schools produce highly qualified candidates, their career programs aren't sophisticated enough, nor is the coursework aligned with the goal of getting these students into silicon valley tech jobs.
Remember, at a very real level, you're competing for the same jobs at the same level as someone graduating from CMU or MIT. If your CS department isn't preparing you for what's ahead, you have to make that knowledge-gap up on your own.
And just how do you think the school ratings are calculated? Graduation rates. Job acceptance rate into industry. Oh, wait, that sounds like a self-reinforcing cycle.
Structural racism runs deep.
University rankings are next to useless for determining whether a student would be a good developer. Look at the metrics US News uses to rank universities:
* Research reputation
* # of publications, conferences, books
* # of citations
* # of highly cited papers
Where's quality of teaching? Where's student employability after graduation? Where's numbers of student internships? Where's teacher to student ratio? None of these matter to most university ranking lists.
But, you know, they could have treated NC A&T students with respect, just in case, especially given the general problems with the U.S. news rankings as a heuristic for hirability.
What you are saying is consistent with the author's message: If they did not think they would pass the hiring bar, then they likely went there to check a box.
I'm not sure that's a useful measure in the direction you think it is.
I have a few friends in academia here in .au - where the higher education system has been systematically defunded by a series of governments on both sides to the extent they're pretty much totally reliant of foreign students paying "full fees". I've heard stories of teachers being told they will be fired if they do not pass foreign student - even if their course attendance makes it blatantly obvious they can barely speak/write english and their handed in course work is blatantly plagiarised and/or ghostwritten. "Not failing" enough students looks a lot like poor academic standards and/or practice from where I sit.
(And it's quite likely a signal of endemic institutional racism as well. Duke don't enroll "the sort of student" who doesn't get private tutoring or who needs to, for example, work a part time job to support themselves through college. Which is why they're not a "HBCU"...)
I have no problem believing that there is bias and systemic issues in tech hiring. But you're right, looking at the school rankings shows some problems in the logic.
"Hooli didn't treat a low ranked school as well as they did an extremely high ranked school, must be racism."
> I’m sure that the NC A&T event was just so Hooli could check some “diversity recruitment” box.
Amusingly, that's exactly what the "interactive" ADA process is at my workplace - just a check box. I submitted a request with medical diagnosis and links to several third party expert recommended accommodations for it, an HR rep booked a meeting with me, told me in the first sentence that I'm requesting an accommodation I didn't request, and that she's denying it, then the meeting ends, and she writes up an email lying saying I requested something I did't and that they rejected it. All appeals are just met with the claim that I didn't state what accommodation I want clearly, even though I sent links ahead of time to reputable sites listing them.
Never realized that's what it must feel like as a minority to get brushed off and ignored due to who you are.
- leftover food. Really? This is really shitty behaviour; I am all for reuse, recycle; but this is neither the time nor the moment
Independent of that:
- I do not know much about US-Universities, so I checked. Duke is US Top 10, and A&T is not in the Times ranking since it is >600. So to me calling A&T "and a damn good one." is just delusional. Maybe it is a 'not so bad one', but I think things (quality of the University) can only improve if one is willing to see the truth.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
I'm surprised nobody's commented with the first thing that occurred to me: UNC, Duke, and NC A&T. One of these is not like the others. It's NC A&T. Why? It's not race. It's the fact that UNC and Duke are much, much better schools. The top North Carolina Black developer talent is...already at Duke, of course.
Cisco or whoever may have been stopping by NC A&T to tick a box and therefore treated it perfunctorily. The author might also be exaggerating, it's certainly in his/her best interests. We all might do well to avoid drawing any conclusions from anecdote.
While school specific recruiting trips maybe drive results for recruiting teams, there is no way to get away from inherit bias. By only recruiting at "top schools" you skip talent that couldn't afford tuition at an elite school and chose scholarships over paying 60k a year. You optimize for who could do well on the SAT in high school, which is inherently a product of privilege and who could pay to study for the test and even knew it was a road block (I didn't realize the SAT was important until friends that went to "good schools told me to study for it. In school I was always told you couldn't study for it). Systemic doesn't necessarily mean any particular individual is biased. The entire way we conduct business is.
I was 100% on board with the "it's just a pipeline problem" idea until I started interviewing. The more I interviewed, the more I saw how sourcing/recruiting works, the more hiring decisions I witnessed being made, the clearer it became that tech hiring is incredibly subjective. That subjectivity gives room for all kinds of bias to creep in at all the different points of the process.
People get upset about the idea of unconscious bias (I suspect they resent the implication that they're secretely racist or sexist) but it's very real. It doesn't have to involve the person's identity. Bias creeps into your decision-making when you're having a bad day, or when the candidate reminds you of a person you don't get along with, or when they just rub you the wrong way for some reason. It's very easy to dress it up as objectivity. You're just grilling them on the technical details, holding them to the company's high standards, being a bar-raiser, something like that. The reverse is also true - you cut people slack because you like them without even realizing what you're doing.
Recruiters devote the most time to candidates they think have the best chance of getting through the interview process. The interview process tends to be bullshit and easily gamed. Industry candidates who have proven an ability to make it through a similar hiring process will be given preference over those who haven't. Student candidates at schools who know the score will be given preference over those at schools that don't play ball.
Referalls cause a slew of problems. The way hiring decisions are made cause a slew of problems.
This may come off as bitter. I am bitter - not about being rejected, but rather about the people I've had a role in rejecting over the years. Industry candidates who were obviously good at their jobs but terrible at the interview dance. Student candidates who were obviously smart and ambitious but only became aware of the types of questions they would be asked a week or two before the interview. Working with and reporting to cruel and selfish people who excelled at an interview process that's so convinced it's objective and meritocratic that evaluating soft skills isn't even considered.
It's so widely understood and accepted that software hiring processes are bullshit, but for some reason the minute people start talking about the impact of that bullshit on diversity... "it's a pipeline problem."
It is appalling how poorly NC A&T was treated here and I think we all need to be having this conversation, but at the same time you can't just ignore the fact that Duke and UNC are just in a totally different league in terms of university rankings, so it's not surprising that they're getting the red carpet treatment.
For the record I think university rankings are stupid, and the college application process is certainly no meritocracy (an unremarkable high school classmate of mine got into Duke with a 3.4 GPA despite being rejected at our state's lower ranked state schools - she came from a family of Duke alumni). But it doesn't surprise me that companies engage in this university elitism, as sad as it might be.
It is entirely possible for there to be a pipeline problem, and also for behavior like the one described in the post to bias recruiting. Two things can be true.
People are too comfortable. Your life exists in a tech bubble where your biggest annoyances are the most trivial things (my Tesla panels don't line up, ios does this annoying thing, someone said something rude on twitter)
Techies are so coddled that the very idea of interacting with a person with a wildly different background and communication styles is anxiety inducing, so they find a way around it.
The slights won't stop until you leave the comfort bubble, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Go browse Blind for a few hours and you'll see how people really feel about these issues. I know some of the comments are in the minority, but even then, some of the comments are straight up vile.
When I was coming out of school, non-prestige schools (and locales) were simply left out of recruiting altogether. I graduated literally first in my class year, with a BS in CS and Business Administration minor... and wasn't pursued at all. Meanwhile, I already had a software engineering career going, enjoying the setting and challenge as well, and I wasn't particularly concerned at the time. I had developed a skill set spanning both programming and computing center operations (having started there), and I was pretty invaluable in my group from the outset, and the recognition was really valuable to me.
So, you'd think that management in my group (at least) might consider panning for additional nuggets in the same stream (top performers at lower-prestige schools), right?
No.
The hiring manager did recruiting trips where he wanted to travel. New York. Hawai'i. Etc.
He'd hire one candidate from each locale, apparently to justify the trip. Attractive female candidates didn't even have to meet the official policy constraints (a Sociology degree is not CS, engineering, or even BA, sir).
Eventually, I got recruited elsewhere not by any standard channel but by a personal friend.
Not everyone is born into resources. I had to both support myself and put myself through school. That constrained my choices and forced me to be resilient in ways peers my age didn't need to be. Employers who hire by formula completely omit my kind.
[+] [-] tom_b|5 years ago|reply
My MS in CS in from UNC-CH.
Anybody who thinks the hackers from Duke/UNC consistently outshine the hackers from NC A&T is a damn fool.
I was regularly FLOORED by the skills and raw programming chops from peers at NC A&T. Some of the smartest young men and women in the CS field.
I worked in a small research group at NC A&T. Maybe 10 undergrads. Last time I checked, there were something like 6 MS in CS folks from that group and a couple of PhDs.
When I was an undergrad at NC A&T, we had a weekly colloquium for all CS students. We regularly had alumni from NC A&T and other HBCUs on stage who talked openly about navigating the hiring world, which companies you could expect racism in, and what the working world of programming was like for "people who look like us."
If some shitty recruiter event occurred, we all knew about it.
Want to score some of the best engineers from HBCUs? It's easy. Hire the best ones you can convince to take your mega-FAANG package from. Then send them back every freaking year with a corporate card and tell them to impress people.
I hate these "stupid recruiter" stories. Somebody should get their ass fired.
[+] [-] monksy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoofusOfDeath|5 years ago|reply
Can you give any names and/or accomplishments to support that claim?
Personally, I haven't bumped into enough NC A&T grads to form my own opinions.
[+] [-] andi999|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zumu|5 years ago|reply
I would think with big tech companies would be rolling out the red carpet to CS students at HBCUs at this point.
[+] [-] tptacek|5 years ago|reply
The firm this engineer is talking about did a recruiting trip to Duke (and UNC), like every big tech firm does. An hour away from Duke is the country's largest HBCU, NC A&T, which is included on the trip, ostensibly for inclusivity's sake.
The firm serves a catered dinner at the Duke/UNC session, which is held after class hours to ensure attendance. The next day, highly-ranked prospects from Duke/UNC are invited to a private dinner at a fine dining restaurant.
That same day, the firm holds an abbreviated meeting during class hours at A&T, where they serve (wait for it) the leftovers from the catered dinner at the Duke/UNC session.
[+] [-] chrisco255|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eanzenberg|5 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, anonymity can breed some distrust in the content. By calling out the company by name, it may cause others who experienced the same to speak out too.
[+] [-] JMTQp8lwXL|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jay_kyburz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] C1sc0cat|5 years ago|reply
And I suspect its the pipeline of people who end up in HR positions that is a problem as well.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] babesh|5 years ago|reply
Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be. Poverty discriminates in myriad ways: lack of good role models and mentors, poor educational environments, lack of nutrition, lack of opportunities for enrichment, etc...
Discrimination is also still present and different ethnic groups are affected differently.
The negative effects of poverty and discrimination compound over time such that when you get to a tech company's hiring process, the pipeline would have shrunk massively. The students in this pipeline are competing against upper middle class kids who have been groomed their entire lives to compete in the system designed by people like them.
As to the recruiting pipeline, there is class elitism/narrow mindedness in tech companies that does narrow recruiting. Some interviewers don't countenance views or attitudes other than their own just as some recruiters favor certain universities far more than others. This seems to be changing at least at the recruiting level.
As to why some ethnicities still succeed or fail despite discrimination, that is at least partly cultural and partly selection bias and these in turn have also been affected by discrimination past and present.
Lastly, I suspect the beef some poorer whites have is that they too have been discriminated against due to poverty and they feel that another group now has a leg up on them and that discrimination against them isn't acknowledged.
I hope that we come up with a just system for everyone.
[+] [-] hnarn|5 years ago|reply
While this is true in some cases, and you do point out that "discriminiation is also still present", I can strongly recommend "Reflecting on the Color of My Skin" by Marques Brownlee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-_WXXVye3Y
Regardless of the material differences between black and white people, I think white people (including myself) tend to underestimate the effect of constantly being treated as "the first black guy who..." -- that's racism too, and while not always toxic, it holds up a lot of other discriminatory practices by being the foundation of differentiation.
[+] [-] piokoch|5 years ago|reply
For at least 10 years all big companies have "equality & inclusivity" departments that are taking care of giving equal opportunities to "oppressed minorities" members. Is that just PR or something substantial?
[+] [-] dgudkov|5 years ago|reply
What about immigrants that arrived to the US with a suitcase and $100 in pocket?
[+] [-] SkyBelow|5 years ago|reply
>Lastly, I suspect the beef some poorer whites have is that they too have been discriminated against due to poverty and they feel that another group now has a leg up on them and that discrimination against them isn't acknowledged.
What is needed is to break down issues caused by racism from issues caused by poverty and fix each on their own. Fixing an issue caused by poverty (which itself may be a result of racism) as instead having been caused by racism means the solution is not correctly targeted.
If we target the problems caused by poverty based on poverty instead, you would have a solution that will help minorities more as they need more help, but at the same time help non-minorities who are in poverty and prevent resentment from building that ends up harming the attempts to fix those inequalities.
For issues directly caused by racism, solutions would be based on race (but race should likely be replaced by race and ethnicity, as I've personally seen racial equality initiatives forget that Hispanic whites face injustice very similar to racial minorities, despite the technicality of being racially white.
Last, fixing issues of race, class, and gender (which I haven't mentioned but which should work the same) discrimination should be seen as the starting point, not the goal. These are the big three that cause people the most discrimination, but are not the only three. As they are big three, they should have priority, but others shouldn't be forgotten. For example, discrimination based on LGBT+, on disability, on looks, on height, on neurotypicalness, and other factors still exist in our society: in private life, school life, and professional life. The goal should be that once the inequality from discrimination on the big three are reduced to the size of the level of discrimination these other factors cause, they too become a focus (and to be more pedantic, it wouldn't occur all at once as these other issues are by no means equal, such as LGBT+ discrimination being one of the largest forms of discrimination once you take race/gender/class out of the comparison).
[+] [-] mc32|5 years ago|reply
This is not particular to companies either. People most affected by offshoring will support offshoring by buying cheap goods produced by offshored work ensuring a positive feedback loop that will come and get them.
If companies were forced to develop local talent because they cannot short circuit the labor market, they would.
[+] [-] leafboi|5 years ago|reply
Where I stand right now even my own race, asian females prefer to date white males over their own race. If you don't believe me watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ8LzkIfmxw. That's just one aspect of the extent of racism we suffer from. It's so bad that females of our own race are disgusted with males of the same race.
I've seen a lot of racism, I've had to battle a lot of the challenges of simply being an asian in a white dominated country, my parents had an even harder time with the language barrier when they first jumped off the boat with literally a dollar in their pocket.
Despite all of this, from my own personal experience I will say this:
The lack of diversity in tech is mostly a pipeline problem. Certain races or cultures or sexes simply don't want to go into tech or aren't willing to put in the effort. You don't even need to go to college anymore to get in, the financial barriers of entry for tech are extremely low.
That is not to say racism is not a problem in tech, but it is by far a pipeline problem by a huge margin. As a member of a minority who has experienced a lot of racism, I will say that for tech specifically, the racism/sexism problem is overblown. If you don't trust my anecdotal experience then google which race has the highest average income in the United States: Asians.
[+] [-] BlameKaneda|5 years ago|reply
"Adding to the insult, [Will] Hayes finds himself at a distinct disadvantage in meetings that open with a case of mistaken identity. Venture capital is based on relationships, and investors aren’t typically primed to write a check when they feel unsettled. “You see it in the body language, you see it in the lack of questions and engagement,” says Hayes, 39. “They can’t wait for this meeting to get over.”
For nearly four years, Hayes would attend investor meetings alongside [longtime colleague] Messick, the former chief marketing officer at Lucidworks. VCs are trained to look for patterns in startup founders, Messick says, and there aren’t many Black Mark Zuckerbergs. 'Years and years of a Black guy and a White guy walking in the room, and the White guy is the CEO,' Messick says. 'Whether malicious, whether negligent, it was always awful.'"
Here's the post: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/16/for-black-ceos-in-sil...
[+] [-] dang|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trhrowrandom|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dexterdog|5 years ago|reply
How many non-black Zuckerbergs are there?
[+] [-] arshbot|5 years ago|reply
I went to a predominantly black city college right next door to Georgia Tech, so we got plenty of big companies knocking on our door.
Only they never took us seriously, gave rushed presentations, and never collected resumes. Tech? They got parties, dinners, entire clubs rented out. It was posh, and if you were like me - you figured out ways to get into these exclusive events, evade bouncers and find an engineer just to talk to them.
There are a few people in this comment section talking about how 'minorities and women simply skew differently'. Maybe try walking a mile in our shoes
[+] [-] sbuccini|5 years ago|reply
I pushed so hard for my employer, Sexy Unicorn Startup which said all the important things you expect a woke company to say, to recruit there. I told them I would set everything up and that all I needed was a budget. I got nothing but lip service.
So, HN, you want to do it the right way? I can be on A&T's campus in 15 minutes. I will connect you with the student orgs and help you do it the right way. You won't regret it. Email is in profile.
[+] [-] flumpcakes|5 years ago|reply
However, I really like the positive action of this comment.
[+] [-] FeepingCreature|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] throwawayrec|5 years ago|reply
First off, big feeder schools, the Dukes and UNCs of the world, they have extremely sophisticated internal career programs that throw out the red carpet for us when we arrive. Yes we order the food (and its usually pizza), but they literally do all the pre-work and advertise for us, give us the floor and make sure we have the best chances to meet their students. They schedule the program and the times for us, so we just roll in, present, and then have lots of meet and greet with the students.
Second, recruiters only have so much time and energy to meet with students, so they have to go to places with the least friction. The recruiters live by the rule, meet that quota or you're out! So that translates to, schools better have students who can pass the interview process, or they are out.
My company has a huge list of diversity schools that we actively recruit from. This goes against the rules above and requires special recruiters who aren't being tracked against the same quota system. Why? Although these diversity schools produce highly qualified candidates, their career programs aren't sophisticated enough, nor is the coursework aligned with the goal of getting these students into silicon valley tech jobs.
Remember, at a very real level, you're competing for the same jobs at the same level as someone graduating from CMU or MIT. If your CS department isn't preparing you for what's ahead, you have to make that knowledge-gap up on your own.
[+] [-] tayistay|5 years ago|reply
Most likely, yes. In the US news rankings, Duke is #10 and UNC is #20. NC A&T is #281.
NC A&T has a 46% graduation rate vs Duke's 95%.
Duke engineering is ranked #20, NC A&T is #134.
These schools just aren't in the same league.
[+] [-] sshumaker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swilliamsio|5 years ago|reply
* Research reputation
* # of publications, conferences, books
* # of citations
* # of highly cited papers
Where's quality of teaching? Where's student employability after graduation? Where's numbers of student internships? Where's teacher to student ratio? None of these matter to most university ranking lists.
[+] [-] zucker42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BeetleB|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigiain|5 years ago|reply
I'm not sure that's a useful measure in the direction you think it is.
I have a few friends in academia here in .au - where the higher education system has been systematically defunded by a series of governments on both sides to the extent they're pretty much totally reliant of foreign students paying "full fees". I've heard stories of teachers being told they will be fired if they do not pass foreign student - even if their course attendance makes it blatantly obvious they can barely speak/write english and their handed in course work is blatantly plagiarised and/or ghostwritten. "Not failing" enough students looks a lot like poor academic standards and/or practice from where I sit.
(And it's quite likely a signal of endemic institutional racism as well. Duke don't enroll "the sort of student" who doesn't get private tutoring or who needs to, for example, work a part time job to support themselves through college. Which is why they're not a "HBCU"...)
[+] [-] ngngngng|5 years ago|reply
"Hooli didn't treat a low ranked school as well as they did an extremely high ranked school, must be racism."
[+] [-] GlennS|5 years ago|reply
They seem clearly bogus in that they're by English-speaking press and happen to rate all the English-speaking universities top.
And if they're dumb in that way, probably they're dumb in other ways I haven't thought of too, right?
Is there some real signal in there?
[+] [-] Lammy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lnanek2|5 years ago|reply
Amusingly, that's exactly what the "interactive" ADA process is at my workplace - just a check box. I submitted a request with medical diagnosis and links to several third party expert recommended accommodations for it, an HR rep booked a meeting with me, told me in the first sentence that I'm requesting an accommodation I didn't request, and that she's denying it, then the meeting ends, and she writes up an email lying saying I requested something I did't and that they rejected it. All appeals are just met with the claim that I didn't state what accommodation I want clearly, even though I sent links ahead of time to reputable sites listing them.
Never realized that's what it must feel like as a minority to get brushed off and ignored due to who you are.
[+] [-] andi999|5 years ago|reply
- leftover food. Really? This is really shitty behaviour; I am all for reuse, recycle; but this is neither the time nor the moment
Independent of that: - I do not know much about US-Universities, so I checked. Duke is US Top 10, and A&T is not in the Times ranking since it is >600. So to me calling A&T "and a damn good one." is just delusional. Maybe it is a 'not so bad one', but I think things (quality of the University) can only improve if one is willing to see the truth. Please correct me if I am wrong.
[+] [-] NoImmatureAdHom|5 years ago|reply
Cisco or whoever may have been stopping by NC A&T to tick a box and therefore treated it perfunctorily. The author might also be exaggerating, it's certainly in his/her best interests. We all might do well to avoid drawing any conclusions from anecdote.
[+] [-] northerdome|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aahortwwy|5 years ago|reply
People get upset about the idea of unconscious bias (I suspect they resent the implication that they're secretely racist or sexist) but it's very real. It doesn't have to involve the person's identity. Bias creeps into your decision-making when you're having a bad day, or when the candidate reminds you of a person you don't get along with, or when they just rub you the wrong way for some reason. It's very easy to dress it up as objectivity. You're just grilling them on the technical details, holding them to the company's high standards, being a bar-raiser, something like that. The reverse is also true - you cut people slack because you like them without even realizing what you're doing.
Recruiters devote the most time to candidates they think have the best chance of getting through the interview process. The interview process tends to be bullshit and easily gamed. Industry candidates who have proven an ability to make it through a similar hiring process will be given preference over those who haven't. Student candidates at schools who know the score will be given preference over those at schools that don't play ball.
Referalls cause a slew of problems. The way hiring decisions are made cause a slew of problems.
This may come off as bitter. I am bitter - not about being rejected, but rather about the people I've had a role in rejecting over the years. Industry candidates who were obviously good at their jobs but terrible at the interview dance. Student candidates who were obviously smart and ambitious but only became aware of the types of questions they would be asked a week or two before the interview. Working with and reporting to cruel and selfish people who excelled at an interview process that's so convinced it's objective and meritocratic that evaluating soft skills isn't even considered.
It's so widely understood and accepted that software hiring processes are bullshit, but for some reason the minute people start talking about the impact of that bullshit on diversity... "it's a pipeline problem."
[+] [-] JSavageOne|5 years ago|reply
For the record I think university rankings are stupid, and the college application process is certainly no meritocracy (an unremarkable high school classmate of mine got into Duke with a 3.4 GPA despite being rejected at our state's lower ranked state schools - she came from a family of Duke alumni). But it doesn't surprise me that companies engage in this university elitism, as sad as it might be.
[+] [-] habitue|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scott31|5 years ago|reply
Duke University: 10th
North Carolina A&T: >600th
While the author tries to frame the university as "a damn good one", in reality it probably isn't.
[+] [-] kneel|5 years ago|reply
Techies are so coddled that the very idea of interacting with a person with a wildly different background and communication styles is anxiety inducing, so they find a way around it.
The slights won't stop until you leave the comfort bubble, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
[+] [-] data4lyfe|5 years ago|reply
Turns out they were there to recruit drivers to drive for Uber.
[+] [-] laluser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrScump|5 years ago|reply
So, you'd think that management in my group (at least) might consider panning for additional nuggets in the same stream (top performers at lower-prestige schools), right?
No.
The hiring manager did recruiting trips where he wanted to travel. New York. Hawai'i. Etc.
He'd hire one candidate from each locale, apparently to justify the trip. Attractive female candidates didn't even have to meet the official policy constraints (a Sociology degree is not CS, engineering, or even BA, sir).
Eventually, I got recruited elsewhere not by any standard channel but by a personal friend.
Not everyone is born into resources. I had to both support myself and put myself through school. That constrained my choices and forced me to be resilient in ways peers my age didn't need to be. Employers who hire by formula completely omit my kind.