Women are leaving the tech industry in droves

[KamaAina]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-women-tech-20150222-story.html

That's a huge problem for the tech economy. According to the industry group Code.org, computing jobs will more than double by 2020, to 1.4 million. If women continue to leave the field, an already dire shortage of qualified tech workers will grow worse. Last summer, Google, Facebook, Apple and other big tech companies released figures showing that men outnumbered women 4 to 1 or more in their technical sectors.

It's why the industry is so eager to hire women and minorities. For decades tech companies have relied on a workforce of whites and Asians, most of them men.

Plenty of programs now encourage girls and minorities to embrace technology at a young age. But amid all the publicity for those efforts, one truth is little discussed: Qualified women are leaving the tech industry in droves.

Women in tech say filling the pipeline of talent won't do much good if women keep quitting — it's like trying to fill a leaking bucket....

A Harvard Business Review study from 2008 found that as many as 50% of women working in science, engineering and technology will, over time, leave because of hostile work environments.

[whathehell]

1. "because of a hostile work environmnet".

Freaking A.

[Warpy]

2. Tech, especially, relies on a younger workforce of wunderkind types

and immature males are the absolute worst to try to work with, although sexist pigs of any age can be deadly in the workplace. The young ones are still in that "no gurls alowd" treehouse stage.

Unfortunately, changing this in the tech industry, especially, is something that's going to have to start from the top down since this horseshit affects productivity at all levels.

[jeff47]

3. You forgot to add "stupidly" in front of "relies".

Granted, I'm speaking for one 40-year-old, but doing this for about 20 years means I'm much, much faster overall than when I was young. Plus the code will actually work the first time you run it.

Kids doing 80+ hour weeks is the stereotype....and it's the dumbest way to make software. You get the least done with the most bugs.

[bemildred]

31. +1. But they are cheap, and easy to manipulate, and no threat to the boss. nt

[LiberalEsto]

4. The work hours are insane and not at all conducive to having a family

My husband has worked in IT for many years. When the kids were growing up, I was virtually a single parent because he routinely had to work late and go in on weekends. It never gets better. This past Saturday he went in and worked for 5 hours (plus the one-hour commute each way). On Sunday he put in another couple of hours from home monitoring the installation he did the day before. There is no overtime pay or comp time. He'll be 60 next year and I hope he can make it to retirement without droppig in his tracks.

[stranger81]

17. This is a HUGE part of the problem.

The whole reason why campuses like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. supply their employees with free food for all three meals, workout facilities, barbers, dry cleaning, and the like is SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE. Definitely not a family-friendly environment.

[LiberalEsto]

21. "Free food???"

My husband and his co-workers each had to kick in $20 for their company holiday party a couple of months ago. The company didn't contribute a penny, and the food was lousy, so I heard. As for workout fcilities, barbers, dry cleaning, etc,

[yeoman6987]

30. That is Google. I have a friend that works there

Hours are awful but they completely take care of everything you need done that the rest of us have to fit on our schedules.

[LiberalEsto]

35. Do they raise the employees' kids too?

[Dprang]

23. Tracked and wracked

My job was supposed to be 37.5 hours per week. Once one is issued a cell and computer to log into work from home, it becomes a job without an end.
Unfortunately, IT departments are not protected due to IT being a support department for users (other employees). If the network goes down, no one other than a professional can deal with it. The stress is very high and so is the competition to avoid contract companies from taking the jobs. It becomes a survival environment.

[LiberalEsto]

36. There are two things Congress has to do in order for this to change

but Congress will not do them because they are bought and paid for by the corporations/wealthy.

1. Eliminate H1-B and similar visas, or cut the quotas down drastically.

2. Re-categorize IT and other workers so they must be paid overtime.

[X_Digger]

26. After pouring 15 years into one company (Verizon) only to be laid off.. fuck.that.noise.

I was 'that guy'.. the one who worked 9-10 hours a day, and weekends, and never took vacation because he was scared that his boss would think less of him. Always working to stay off 'the list' of folks who would get the inevitable axe that came every 12-18 months. Here's what I learned.

You will never get back the hours you spend working overtime, and you will never get back the opportunities that you missed. Those vacation days you never took? Gone forever.

Not to mention, soon nobody will thank you for that extra time- on the contrary, it'll soon become assumed and built into the project plans.

Fuck.that.noise.

Now I work to live, not live to work. "Oh look, I've been here 8 hours. I'll pick this up tomorrow. See ya!"

[closeupready]

37. I used to work like that when I was younger, but I have always been paid OT.

Even so, there came a time when I realized that I was working my life away, and kissed that overwork goodbye; honestly, I do sometimes miss the money enough to tell myself, why can't things be like that again, but then I remember all the stuff I miss out on.

The other thing I wanted to point out was that if you are part of a team, and staying late is a team effort, and you like the people on your team and the work you're doing, then OT can be a treat, and the extra pay frosting.

[AgingAmerican]

5. Only 4 to 1?

I would think the disparity would be much higher than that.

When I earned my software engineering degree, we had four women in our group out of about 90 students total for our graduation year. I recall about a quarter of the males were either high functioning autistic, or were social misfit types.

This is quite sad because female programmers are highly valued in the industry, simply because they think differently than men.

[KamaAina]

6. I would be particularly interested in the female approach to interface design

[KamaAina]

7. I just remembered, Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame is very much interested in women in tech

I'm friends with a neighbor of his in Cole Valley with SF, so I managed to hook up with him through FB!

His current project is called Craigconnects.

http://craigconnects.org/women-in-tech

[daredtowork]

8. Fail on reaching out to older women for retraining and the disabled

Last edited Wed Feb 25, 2015, 04:01 AM - Edit history (3)

In particular Google announced an "initiative" to recruit women with code school scholarships last summer. Neither the Bay Area Dept of Rehab or the Center for Independent Living had heard of the vouchers Google had ostensibly "distributed". My own application which covered my outdated credentials and the reasons for my current employment gap that I found difficult to surmount without updating my skills, received only a canned reply.

The "woman" problem might just be an "excuses problem".

For the record, the biggest problem for getting your foot in the door in tech is lack of entry level jobs that provide on the job training. Most advertised online jobs require highly specific mid-to-late career skills, with thinly disguised attempts at companies attempting to poach talent from each other and sift instead of interview and train. If it seems like an Old Boys Network is being rebuilt, that's why - women get sifted out early as men bring in their buddies via poaching.

[KamaAina]

9. Hmmm. Google is in our territory.

Our development person has contacts there. I'll ask her tomorrow. Thanks!

[daredtowork]

29. Please let me know what you find out!

I've asked everyone I know, including some pretty good fringe Silicon Valley connections, and NO ONE knows what happenened to the vouchers Google supposedly distributed to "women".

I confess to nursing a theory here: perhaps Google took the American publicity credit, while taking the actual training to cheap labor in Asia...:/

[KamaAina]

40. Our development person is emailing her contact at Google as we speak.

Who knows? We might be on to something here!

[uponit7771]

19. +1, OTJ is so important

[Daninmo]

10. HB-1 visas aren't helping either

I think this makes it hard for indigenous people in this country doing IT work.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Southern-California-Edison-HB-1-visas-laid-off/2015/02/23/id/626335/

"Southern California Edison has laid off thousands of its IT employees and replaced them with lower-paid workers from India with H-1B visas.

The electric company, which provides services to almost 14 million customers in the Southern California region, was able to do this because of a loophole in the nation's immigration law, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.

The immigration statute Southern California Edison has been able to exploit allows the company to hire employees with H-1B visas. These are temporary work permits, which are given to foreigners who have "specialty occupations" that require "highly specialized knowledge" and a bachelor's degree. "

[pnwmom]

16. Thanks, but for a story like this it's better to link to the original Los Angeles Times report

rather than anything out of newsmax.

You're right, though, that this seems to be a blatant case of abuse of the H1B system.

Here's one of the LA Times reports about this situation:

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150222-column.html#page=1

The purpose is to allow employers to fill slots for which adequately trained Americans aren't available, not to replace existing workers with cheap foreign labor. That's why employers such as Google and Microsoft, which say they're short of highly trained software engineers, have lobbied hard to expand the program beyond the 65,000 visas available annually. These high-tech companies say they can't meet their needs from the pool of U.S. graduates in STEM specialties — science, technology, engineering and math.

But Edison is using the program for a different purpose — to cut its wage costs, possibly by as much as 40%, according to data compiled by Ron Hira, a public policy expert at Howard University.

The pay for Edison's domestic IT specialists is about $80,000 to $160,000 not including benefits, with the average at about $120,000 for experienced personnel, according to records Edison submitted to the state Public Utilities Commission. The two Indian outsourcing firms providing workers to Edison, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, pay their recruits an average of about $65,000 to $71,000, according to their federal filings.

"They told us they could replace one of us with three, four, or five Indian personnel and still save money," one laid-off Edison worker told me, recounting a group meeting with supervisors last year. "They said, 'We can get four Indian guys for cheaper than the price of you.' You could hear a pin drop in the room."

[uponit7771]

20. Displacement is illegal, it should be enforced... just the bar is REALLY high to prove it

[Dprang]

11. Why am I not surprised...

I studied IT as a second career via a 3 year diploma and I am a woman.
The college was great as I worked part time providing tech support to students as a student. I had no problems with instructors or students.
Fast forward to Job #1
3 women to 15 men. Eventually the dept was given to the Phone guru who had no IT training, all to save money by letting the IT manager go.
Due to no real IT training, he allowed a few hacker types to find software and you know how hackers find software. The biggest hacker duplicated the work network at his home and I am sure he read personal HR information as he became the hacker to get people fired for using the internet while waiting for calls from clients.
Fast forward to Job #2
2 women to 2 men. I loved it for a few years until the company hired a man experienced in IT, another hacker type, but more sophisticated. I think he was a psychopath as our dept simply fell apart. The IT manager left as a wedge was created by this new man who managed to appear great to the president.
Then my boss has serious health problems and had to be on leave for months and months. That left 2 vulnerable women who were edged out by the psychopath. When I left, I vowed never again to work full time in an IT department.
Observations: IT men tend to want to look like Gods to workers who have no idea how to fix a technical issue. They also do not share information with others in the IT departments. If they do not know how to fix, they will not really admit to it which can make problems.

This was networking as opposed to programming. I doubt a good female programmer would be in as bad a position as in networking specialist.
I remember once when we were all in a meeting and afterward, I had a cart to push containing new and old computers etc. All the it men just walked past me, and yet a man (not in IT) stopped to ask if I needed help over a rough patch of carpet. t
By all means, IT can be a very hostile environment for women!

[KamaAina]

12. Best sixth post of the day!

Welcome to DU!

[riderinthestorm]

22. Wow!! Great post and welcome to DU! Nt

[L0oniX]

13. By all means don't hire older people ...cause they like show up on time on Monday without a hangover

[ND-Dem]

14. lol. no, they're stupid, don't you know, they're out of date, they're stuck in their ways, they

don't like young people...

[pnwmom]

15. They're "eager" to hire them but not to retain them. They know what they need to do.

Fix the hostile work environment. And if they don't know what that means, ask the women who are there -- or who have left.

[KamaAina]

24. I was actually thinking of a woman-owned-and-operated coworking space

sort of like Curves for techies. Embarrassing that I would even have to think that way, though.

[uponit7771]

18. Jackson said it.. increase diversity among the tech industry

[X_Digger]

25. Yeah, umm.. about that 'shortage' of qualified talent. Hint: there isn't one.

The 'shortage' is of workers who will work for 3/4 to 1/2 of what that same job paid 5 years ago, and with 1.5-2x as much work expected.

Who tends to qualify? Young college-aged men with no social life just looking to pay off their student loans, and h1b visa holders.

[Stargazer09]

27. It's always been a hostile environment

It's just getting worse now because women are starting to speak out about it.

And many of them are being threatened with rape or death, just for sharing their experiences. It's a disgustingly scary world out there.

[KamaAina]

38. I wonder if Gamergate has anything to do with this?

[napi21]

28. AN IT job lie this sounds like a job in a big corporate law firm.

Same kind of unwritten rules like

Nobody pays attention to std. work hours. We all come in early and leave very late.
Employees are all encouraged (must) eat in the company dining area, UNLESS it's out at a nice restaurant and the client is paying!
Some employees bring in sleeping bags in order to make an important tight deadline.


I don't need to go on. You get the idea.

The only advantage at a law firm is that the money is usually really good@! But you have NO SOCIAL LIFE!

[Mopar151]

32. Same all over

It does'nt matter how much you really get done - the "always at work" culture prefers that you have no other life.

[sendero]

33. If you actually read the article..

... it seems that "lack of a career path" was as big a factor as any.

As a software developer, I can assure you this is a problem faced by both genders. Old school thinking of management and workers is that you advance into management. Well, that is stupid. Many programmers who are quite good at building/coding systems suck ass as managers. The two are completely different skill sets. I know many many many talented programmers that advanced into management and sucked at it but not quite as much as they hated it. Many of them found themselves making excuses for why they had to code this or that because they missed exercising their real talent so much. As the expense of their management performance.

I realize every company is different but I can assure you that men will not harass or demean their female counterparts where I work. You will be out of a job in a second and rightly so. I think this issue is a lot more complicated than some here might think.

[davidn3600]

39. I agree. I actually said the same thing in another thread

A lot of these work environments can turn cannibalistic very quickly when projects start to fail because some of these managers have no idea how to lead a team of people.

[Mr Dixon]

34. SMH

Sounds like the work force in China; next they will have nets outside the office to prevent suicides.

[KamaAina]

41. Silicon Valley sexism on trial in Kleiner Perkins case

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Silicon-Valley-sexism-on-trial-in-Kleiner-Perkins-6099406.php

The trial of a sex discrimination lawsuit against a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm opened Tuesday with dramatically contrasting portraits of the firm — as a place where women were unfairly denied promotions and benefits, and as a pioneer for equal rights.

“When it came time to pick who would be the next generation of investing partners, Kleiner Perkins only picked men,” Alan Exelrod, a lawyer for plaintiff Ellen Pao, told the San Francisco Superior Court jury. “When a woman protests sex discrimination ... she gets fired.”...

Her suit alleges that the company promoted men with lesser qualifications, denied her and other women seats on boards of directors at firms in which Kleiner Perkins held investments, and brushed off her complaints about years of harassment by an employee with whom she had a brief sexual relationship....

The suit comes amid a growing number of complaints about a lack of diversity at Silicon Valley tech companies and venture capital firms, which have few women among their leaders. As of the date of Pao’s departure, Exelrod said, Kleiner Perkins had promoted only one woman from junior to senior partner in its 42-year history, had hired one other woman as a senior partner and had never had a female managing partner.