It's been a change in the past 10 years but I would say women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc. The perception that women are better at "soft skills" means that we get pushed out of technical tracks into coordinating work, managing people, and sometimes just straight up babysitting male devs. Those career paths lead to lower lifetime comp and less "impressive" titles.
There is a great book (written by a female engineer, Tanya Riley) called "The Staff Engineer's Path". I've learned a lot from the book, but one part of Tanya's experience that I could not relate to was having mentors who would encourage me and provide "you can do this" kind of pep talks. For a male engineer the usual experience is the opposite: we are expected to be competitive, and if we display any doubts then the only advice we'll get is "are you sure you want this promotion enough?" and "are you cut out for this?"
It appears to be much easier to advance in one's career as a self-doubting woman than a self-doubting man. This is probably because women are expected to have a high degree of self doubt and there is no assumption that they are defective if they admit to it.
And management is absolutely more prestigious and better compensated than IC work, despite what some may claim.
> This is probably because women are expected to have a high degree of self doubt and there is no assumption that they are defective if they admit to it.
A simpler explanation is that there is a perceived need to increase the number of women in management positions.
That would imply that women aren't deserving of the promotion, and that aggressive posturing is somehow a requirement for the job (and women get a free pass).
However, if the book is any indication, Tanya is a great staff engineer, probably among the best of any gender.
This of course begs the question: could it be that discriminating against men who don't display the stereotypical behaviors is detrimental to diversity? And increasing the number of women may actually help here: they may be able to empathize with people who don't fit the traditional mold.
It’s not clear that people incapable of being assertive or direct would make naturally more effective managers.
And assuming that women drawn to management positions will be more empathetic to the neuro diverse is a gigantic reach. I have no idea why that would be the case.
Organizing apes to do things is always more prestigious than a single ape doing the work. The organizer ape gets to claim that they did the work of the group.
Think about a plaque on a bridge. Who does it say built the bridge? The guy who never touched a shovel after the ground breaking ceremony.
YMMV, but my experience is very different from what you mention above. Every company I've been at has paid very close attention to ensure that women are treated fairly with the understanding that these biases exist.
But there's some truth to what you're saying. I do think women tend to be the "babysitters" on the team. I've noticed this often on teams I've been on. They're usually the ones that are the "cultural heart" of the team and organize all the events. Sometimes I've been their manager so I've asked and I'd say it's about 66/33 they legitimately enjoy doing it vs they felt pidgeon-holed into it because they volunteered once.
As for the transitions into other roles, I think it's impossible to tell if it's bias and or a natural inclination. There's no way to look at the data empirically and determine this. In my experience though, I think women are often encouraged to take these roles not because there's a bias towards "women are good at soft skills" but that these are generally the roles that provide better career advancement and visibility. It has always seemed to be a somewhat mis-guided outcome of allyship.
> and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc
Women tend to seek out such roles all on their own, there is no encouragement needed. Just adding "design" to a job title massively increases how many women applies, even if the job itself is unchanged.
Just rebrand software engineers to software designers and suddenly you get many women, even though they do the same thing.
I wonder if the perception of engineering as a "men's field" factors into that.
Like "every engineering role I've ever had, I was condescended to by some other engineer who though he knew more than me because he was a man, maybe the culture is different around 'designer'". Likewise for "technologist".
More broadly, it seems to me that a lot of engineers' perception of inequity within their field basically devolves to "well, there's nothing about the material that's sexist, I don't understand why more women don't want to do it". It reveals a staggering lack of imagination and empathy, especially within a group that stereotypically was subject to a lot of bullying as young people.
>I was condescended to by some other engineer who though he knew more than me because he was a man
In my experience this isn't "because he was a man" but because he was an engineer. And from what I've seen it also has nothing to do with you being a woman. Engineers tend to be condensing, and will do so indiscriminately. Or said different being "condescended to by some other engineer" means they are treating you equally, if you're not then you are getting preferential treatment.
Perhaps, but I've seen it directed towards numerous female engineers, from less senior engineers who were noticeably deferential to male engineers, at or below the seniority of the female engineer.
I think there's this perception amongst male would-be engineers that starts in college or earlier that women in that space are not sincere enough in their desire to become engineers, are physiologically incapable of doing the work at the same level as men, or that women have entered the space by means unrelated to the mastery of the materials.
I think your comment is a good demonstration why this is still such an issue, despite the overwhelming evidence of gender based discrimination in tech, people are dismissing the experiences of the majority of women in tech. Can't really improve if people are still in denial about it.
I don't know what to do, you can't teach people empathy or not to be sexist. Given how weirdly conservative young people are nowadays I don't see it getting much better in the future either.
> stereotypically was subject to a lot of bullying as young people
There is actually evidence [1] that suggests that victims of bullying often develop long term psychological issues / depression, and depression leads to a lack of empathy.
The comment I responded to didn't have any data either, not sure why I'd need data for a similar kind of comment while they don't?
The university I went to did that and they said it was to get more women, and easily got over 50% women into engineering fields just by adding design to the name of the degree. It is a well known trick, names matters.
As a student I have personally experienced "sorry, you cannot join the event, you're a boy we're looking for a girl" and instead of me they picked a girl whose only job was to stand, smile, and tick the box "yes I'm a girl, this makes the team diverse". Having such an experience makes my brain heavily biased against all actions supporting gender equality.
Which are many. And they're almost always about improving the position of women. "Gender equality" is rarely ever about improving the position of men. The social consensus is that it's impossible for a situation to exist where a man is discriminated against, and even discussing this idea is a very much taboo topic. Which is not true, because such situations exist, and the number of people who have this opinion but are afraid of voicing it is growing.
I'm deeply convinced that a societal shift is on the horizon, and what we see as "modern feminism" will be, in the future, considered one of those things that aged like milk. The only question is whether this change will result in a society where people feel equal, or the pendulum will simply swing back and it's going to be taboo to discuss the hardships of women.
This change isn't very visible in western societies yet, but we're starting to see it in South Korea. This movement is going to grow and spread.
It's not visible on the outside in western societies because outright saying "you're a boy and we're looking for a girl" is outright illegal (in 99% of roles). They need to be a bit more subtle than that. e.g. make a "women only/highly encouraged" event that happens to have a job fair.
I guess in Asia there is no such barrier. So the results and backlash are equally more explicit.
Product is a lot more prestigious at most companies. Design is too, at quite a few, in that it’s often a better stepping stone to product, though that depends on the org.
In general, programming jobs are low-status. High pay, but low status.
People like to think programming is a purely luxury job, and in some ways it is, but not compared to something where you often have more agency in the direction of a product. Programmers at lower levels probably take more bullshit and have less influence than anything with a title that conveys a higher level of abstract problem solving.
Being a freelance website designer likely pays less but is more rewarding as a practice than being a random cog
Positives are diminished when the paths you wanted to pursue are closed off. Things that look like privilege when you don't have it can be a prison when you're stuck in its boundaries.
> women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles
Do you have actual data to support this claim?
> into coordinating work, managing people
So promoted into management. Are you saying managers are systemically making less than the engineers they manage? Which would be interesting, as management is generally seen as a more prestigious role than individual contributor.
Every time I’ve looked into it, pay gaps for same role and same experience are very small, sometimes favoring women. And if anything, women are promoted faster in an attempt to diversify the management ranks.
1. Group A is literally paid less than Group B, for the same work. This is much less of an issue today than it used to be, but its still an issue.
2. Members of group A are promoted much less often than members of Group B, so while a Group A member in a high-earning position has commensurate pay to a member of Group B in the same position, there are simply fewer Group A members reaching that position. This is the more common, and frankly more pernicious, problem.
The very first link in the recommended google search says that only 25% of C-suite members are women, yet women make up 35% of all tech employees. In other words, a smaller percentage of women are even reaching the highest levels than men. That's pretty clearly the 2nd kind of wage gap. Now, that might because of selective promotion practices (which you discredit), but it might also be that women are laid off 60% more often than men, so they have to restart their seniority journey at a different company.
Engineers viewing design as a 'less prestigious' role is laughable. The compensation for these tracks is pretty much equal. I would love to hear you spell out why exactly you perceive design as less prestigious.
I would agree on the junior side of things. There is a higher threshold for the starting line for engineers, but for higher levels, design is by no means seen as a less prestigious role. Not in any sense of the word.
For salaries – see e.g. levels.fyi for quick comparison. Even Google – a company not really known for valuing design that highly: SWE L6 avg. = 520K USD. Product Designer L6 avg. = 515K USD.
I won't speak on engineering vs design. but compensation doesn't necessarily correlate perfectly with prestige. Teaching is the easiest example in the opposite way.
One of my favorite intern projects was cutting up power traces on USB hubs and connecting them to a giant bus bar so we could put multiple amps through them without tripping fuses on the host machine. Testing some very non-compliant hardware.
Simply envoking the title of the office doesn't mean the act falls within the lawful powers of the office.
Think of it like the police. An off duty cop is not acting under official powers. Even on duty, a cop is limited in what and how they are supposed to do their job and crossing outside those bounds technically makes them personally liable. I wouldn't begin to say we are any good at actually holding police accountable when they act outside their official duties, but that's a whole separate can of worms.
"Change the law" versus "change the constitution" are two very different things.
The US couldn't pass the ERA, which just enshrines women's rights in the Constitution. Anything more controversial like "the President can't do extrajudicial murders" would be an endless partisan battle
I can't tell what your stance is on the al-Awlaki assassination? If the leader of a country orders an extra-judicial killing, especially of one of their own citizens, that seems like it deserves criminal penalties.
People get very judgemental when Putin assassinates defectors, but when Obama does it it's ok?
Kaczynski has a few good points about the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, but man is his extremely long screed about "leftists" tiresome. You could give that chunk to Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson and it wouldn't feel out of character.
Lots of respect to Jacky for writing this. The tech industry truly pays enough money that you can lose sight of solidarity with other workers. Even as shit gets worse and more human rights are privatized you can stay insulated. I once had a coworker brag about how he paid 10k a year for a special medical service to see the doctor faster. Public transit sucks? You just Uber from your condo everywhere. Housing crisis? Idk I got my fully renovated 3-bedroom house downtown.
If you're reading this, just on a tactical level for job hunting one thing I would say is to remove the (+/-) part of the resume. People can do the math on the duration if they care. Maybe even just put the years. I hope you're able to find something that isn't quite as dismal as 99% of tech jobs
Nixed that, thanks! I've been open to anything and the golden handcuffs have been released, so it's been fun. Right now, I'm focusing on helping other tech folks get organized (and folks outside of industry). I've spent not too much time helping folks with tech, but I'm eager to get "closer to the metal" of that process.
I worked with someone who insisted on using fx for DI in go. It's so antithetical to the entire Go philosophy, I don't even think it's an "advanced feature". It's just bringing Java cruft to a language where it isn't necessary and making everything worse.
> However, in better-run and not-so-corrupt societies like Korea, it's not necessary and probably downright harmful.
South Korea was under varying levels of dictatorship from the Korean War until the Sixth Republic in 1987. Roh Tae-woo, the first president after authoritarian rule, was imprisoned for corruption. Roh Moo-hyun, the President from 2003-2008 was investigated for corruption and died by suicide rather than face charges. Lee Myung-bak, his successor, was imprisoned for corruption. Park Geun-hye, his successor, was imprisoned for corruption.
I don't know that South Korea is the poster child for a "better-run and not not-so-corrupt" society.
>I don't know that South Korea is the poster child for a "better-run and not not-so-corrupt" society.
It's not a poster child, but the US sets such a low bar that SK looks great by comparison.
Note also that the US isn't so visibly corrupt at the federal level; it's at the local levels where it's really no better than the typical poster children for corrupt countries. Taxis are a completely local (municipal) issue.
Yeah, I wouldn't go quite that far. Here's Samsung's heir, convicted in court of bribery, getting a special presidential pardon because, and I quote, he's "needed back at the helm to spearhead economic recovery post-pandemic".
