There has been a lot of talk about gender bias and diversity policies that are emerging in tech lately, so I want to tell you a story about how I handled the choice between a male and a female for a web developer position. I work as senior web developer for a US-based company that was recently looking to hire for an entry-level position in web development. As the lead developer on the team, I had been asked to take part in the technical interviews for the candidates that applied for the job and after a couple of rounds with many applicants, I found myself in the position to choose between 2 final candidates. Circumstances would have it that one was male and the other female. For time’s sake, we’ll just call them Mary and Joe.
Now, Mary was the first to interview and the discussion went along great. She had a solid academical background and a good portfolio to start with. As we talked she was able to answer my technical questions well and was able to dig herself out of the tricky questions I posed. During the course of the interview, I felt like she could have done better on some questions and she completely nailed others. As we progressed, I laid off the academical questions and started a general discussion about her preferred programming language, and why she does some things in a specific way. She would always be on point and ask a lot of follow-up questions. I found discussing technical stuff with her quite enjoyable and her gender never struck me as out of the ordinary in the context. The only thing that gave me a hint was when she said she likes to read a lot, and when I asked what specific types she answered books similar to Twilight, which did pass on, in my mind, as “girly books”; and hey, guess what that was also okay, not because she was a woman, but because I read the first book also. So in the end, we had a really nice discussion on that topic too.
Afterward, on the same day, Joe was my next interview and things also went along pretty good. We managed to discuss technologies, his aspirations, and also dug down into the nit and grit of things where he valiantly went through the questions and worked through the technical challenges. He needed some help, here and there, but he managed to come out at the other end without a lot of effort. The one thing I observed was that Joe did not always ask follow-up questions and tried to solve the problems on his own. While he eventually managed to do that, I felt he could have easily asked me to clarify some aspects, instead of me intervening with helper hints when he got stuck. But I do know how stubborn I am, so I totally got the whole “I got this” attitude. After all the tech talk, I found out Joe had a passion for carpentry, which was surprising to me, as I rarely seen similar hobbies in my other colleagues. I learned about the Tiny House movement and actually got some nice tips about what should I do to optimize stuff in my garage.
After the two interviews, I had to make a choice between a man who builds wooden houses in his spare time and a woman who reads girl novels. How about that for stereotypes? This got me thinking a lot. In a world that teaches us what we need to be and how we should act, I think we should welcome diversity policies, not because specific groups are less educated or not efficient, but because it is the only way we can break out of the social norms that seem to define our path through life. Looking at their resumes it was a very hard decision to make. Talking to them didn’t make it easy either. It made me realize that when we stop labeling people by their physical attributes or passions, we can actually have a nice and sane conversation on cheesy topics and even possibly learn something useful. And if we continue to propagate that women do not belong in tech, I am really afraid that mindset will slowly become the truth, and it is one I would avoid.
At the end of the day, I do not want to be biased because I choose Joe or a risk taker if I choose Mary. And so, this brought me to my final dilemma, where I had to submit a recommendation. That moment, thinking about who is a better developer, is where I realized that maybe diversity policies don’t imply a skill gap. Looking around at the majority of my male colleagues I realized there is no pragmatic reason why we are all men. So, if some guidelines are there to make available roles for women in traditionally male-dominated areas, that would actually help to tip the balance.
When the email to HR was sent, I knew I made the right decision, not because a candidate was a specific sex, but because one was a better fit for the team’s work style. We needed a person ready to learn, that has a passion for code and who can work in a team to get things done.
Mary starts next week…