
Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments? - z_shell
The JS job market in STL just isn&#x27;t cutting it for me so I&#x27;m thinking of moving to CA and jumping into the tech scene there. Women, non-binary, people of color, how do you vet companies for not having horribly toxic work environments? I feel like I keep getting the same canned PR response of how great the culture is (for assumedly white dudes), but ping pong tables and free beer doesn&#x27;t mean shit to me if I&#x27;m going to be underpaid, harassed, or viewed as not-technical enough on the regular.<p>What kind of interview questions have you found useful in weeding out unsupportive environments? What factors attract you to one company over the other? What other tips can you provide for reassuring me that I&#x27;m not just multiplying my potential abuse factor by jumping into a sea of ego-inflated tech bros?
======
watwut
Disclaimer: I am women, but never stepped the foot in CA. Geography matters.

I see ping pong tables and free beer as a red flag of sorts and seek workplace
that is more formal. The idea is that the less it attempts to be
personal/cool/cultural the less personal things (e.g. gender or peoples
attitudes/biases or who-likes-who) matters and the more actual work matters. I
have no stats to support this, just my guess and some experience.

I also try to find what exactly am I going to do, whether there are clear
responsibilities etc. It is easier to prove what you can do if
responsibilities are clear and if you can work autonomously so your work is
clearly your work. (I don't like true agile partly because then too much
depends on impressions and politics and assumptions.) Moreover, clear
responsibilities mean people have harder time to act on "women are not
technical" assumption. Plus, fluid team structure pretty much guarantees a
random collegue will try to micromanage me (like when they have ambition to be
leader they tend to think I am good place to start) - then I had to fight for
having normal work. Although I am usually able to get rid of that collegue, it
is way more pleasant when I dont have to go through it.

On interviews: if it is technically and business oriented, then it is good
flag. If they are too cool or personal or seem to be reacting to my gender
(includes also being more friendly then I would expect on interview) then it
is bad flag.

~~~
geebee
The part about ping pong and beer vs a more formal workplace is really
interesting.

I've been reading more about this lately. One story that struck me was about a
journalist whose newspaper was purchased by a tech company, and the culture
changed. She went from having a private office to working in a huge, open
office environment. I'm putting this together from memory, but I remember her
talking about how strange it felt to have so many people able to see her
screen, not knowing where to put her bag if she wasn't at her desk watching
it, and having to take it with her to the bathroom (feeling somewhat self
conscious about how her more frequent trips appeared to her younger, generally
male coworkers).

I'm starting to think that there's something more insidious going on with an
almost aggressively enforced "open office" culture in high tech. I also think
tech is starting - but just barely - to wake up to the the value of the
formality that we discarded and disdained.

I'm really mainly interested in hearing more from you on this, if you're
interested in writing more about it.

~~~
tzs
> [...] and having to take it with her to the bathroom (feeling somewhat self
> conscious about how her more frequent trips appeared to her younger,
> generally male coworkers)

Get one of these kitchen timers [1].

Set it to about 25 minutes.

When it goes off get up from your desk and spend a few minutes walking around
the office.

Return to your desk, reset the timer, and go to prior step.

When you wish to visit the bathroom do so on one of your strolls around the
office.

Coworkers will ask what you are doing (this is one of the reasons to use a
physical timer instead of something running on your computer...it will be
noticeable). Here are three reasonable explanations for why you go on a stroll
around the office every 25 minutes or so.

1\. It is unhealthy to sit for extended periods. If you get up and move around
every 25 or 30 minutes or so most of the bad effects of sitting can be
eliminated or greatly reduced [2].

2\. When solving problems it is best to have a mix of "focused mode" and
"diffuse mode" thinking. Get into focused mode and then when the timer goes
off you can take a break and let diffuse mode take over. That walk around the
office is perfect for some diffuse mode thinking. There is much more about
this in the "Learning How To Learn" course available at Coursera.

3\. There is a time management technique called the Pomodoro Technique [3]
built around breaking tasks into 25 minute chunks paced using a timer.

Once people see you doing this I'd not be surprised if several other coworkers
start doing the same. Reason #1 alone will get a lot of people.

Once several people are doing this no one will have any idea how often you
visit the bathroom (well, except for those people whose can see the bathroom
from their desks). And as a side effect you'll have better health and
productivity.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/60-Minute-Kitcher-Timer-
Tomato/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/60-Minute-Kitcher-Timer-
Tomato/dp/B00EEUHJHO/)

[2]
[http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/cuesitstand.html](http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/cuesitstand.html)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique)

~~~
fao_
> When you wish to visit the bathroom do so on one of your strolls around the
> office.

But then they will notice that your break did not coincide with the timer, and
(depending on the floor plan of the open office), that you did not head for a
walk, but straight for the toilets.

~~~
randallsquared
Part of the point is to deliberately coincide with the timer.

------
cbanek
Woman in high pressure tech here.

First, the most important person is your direct manager. Ask recruiters
specifically "did I meet with the person I'd be reporting to? If not I would
like to meet them." This is the most key person, and if they are not your
ally, no matter what the rest of the company thinks, you are sunk.

Ask about other women at the company, or if the team has had women but they've
left. If they think that question is stupid, that is one of the biggest red
flags.

Of course, try to get a good vibe from everyone you talk to, and if they like
you as a candidate, they are likely to be willing to spend extra social time
after extending an offer, such as a lunch with the team or something like
that.

In the end, I'm sad to report that because good people leave faster, that most
likely if you have a great manager that respects you, it's likely if you stay
more than a couple years that they might be replaced. You may or may not have
a say in that, and they may not be supportive. Always be on the watch.

~~~
mariani
+1 direct manager importance

------
seaknoll
Woman at a ~100 person startup here -

Wanted to comment because there are a lot of posts on here that seem to
promote some idea that the company has to really push for women-friendly
policies/activities to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to
completely disagree with (save for policies that could be classified as human-
friendly such as leave and flexible hours).

I work at a mediocre startup (first engineering job, don't judge!) and
therefore we have some trouble hiring people. We've got the ping pong and
kegs, which I couldn't care less about, and plenty of brogrammers and other
bromployees, but day to day those really are irrelevant if you're getting
interesting work and have a good manager.

We absolutely have a diversity issue - I'm the only female engineer on a team
of about 20, the company as a whole has maybe 1/3 women, it took the company
about 6 years before they had their first woman go on maternity leave (many
men are fathers, though their paternity leaves were short), and I don't work
with anyone who would be considered underrepresented in tech.

Because we have trouble hiring, we've tended to get people who are super green
but excellent coworkers, or who are great programmers with mediocre-to-awful
people skills. Of the latter, 2 had very clear misogynist tendencies, and both
were fired after complaints made by men. One of the two made my life really
uncomfortable when I surpassed his skill level, but only for about a week and
then he was fired. I didn't even have to complain - my manager saw it and
acted immediately.

We don't have a very active diversity group, though we tried to at one point
and it fizzled out. But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a
diversity group and they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that
really do not make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts,
etc).

Basically, my company looks like the exact type of place you might want to
avoid if you want a female-friendly workplace, but it's been a wonderful place
for me to grow as an engineer. It has some major problems, but is really
trying to take concrete steps to improve. I'd love to have some female role
models and a more diverse group of coworkers, so please don't discount
companies like mine for looking like the stereotype!

~~~
watwut
> But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a diversity group and
> they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that really do not
> make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts, etc).

That would make me uncomfortable. Not people who like art and thus do
art&craft together, that is cool. But people who tie that to femininity for no
good reason.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Maybe controversially, I'm going to suggest that this kind of diversity
culture and brogrammer culture are both manifestations of the same misguided
mindset - one where people try to engineer a culture from scratch, but end up
creating something that only works for the kinds of people they're personally
comfortable with.

The comments about more formal workspaces are interesting. Adult-oriented
workspaces may be more bland and superficially less creative, but a space
where you can be left alone to get on with your work and where "culture" isn't
being forced on employees seems like it could be more likely to give everyone
freedom to simply be professional.

~~~
asnowman
How would you describe brogammer culture? I haven't really considered this
topic at all so I may be entirely blind to it.

------
thex10
I am a woman of color and to be honest I totally lucked into it.

From the perspective that I work for a large, old company:

* Get a sense of how the company embraces (or doesn't embrace) flexible work arrangements. Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids and make up the hours that night or on a different day without having to jump through hoops and/or get looked at like they have two heads?

My theory is that, in having a mindset that can accommodate different working
arrangements, this can extend to accommodating different kinds of people. I'm
suggesting that an employee might be less likely to be ostracized as 'other'
at a place like that.

* Do they have the resources to encourage your growth by supporting you taking classes, going to conferences, buying you books, etc?

My theory here is that this supports a belief that people are capable of
growing and improving, which is at conflict with the belief of anyone not
being "technical" enough or somesuch.

If you want to be around fewer ego-inflated tech bros I recommend a place
where the leadership is not comprised of ego-inflated tech bros. This combined
with what I mention above probably eliminates most startups right off the
bat... anyway thank you for listening to my theories

~~~
afarrell
Question: are those two policies not bog-standard things that you'd expect
from any tech company, especially a startup?

~~~
thex10
Maybe? Smaller companies might not have all the supporting infrastructure
ready though. And even if a company claims to have those policies, it won't
always be implemented the same way..

~~~
afarrell
Thats very true and very important to be reminded of. You'd want to inquire
about the specific structures to support that.

------
thisone
how do you know the 'great culture' is for assumedly white dudes (what does
that mean even, white dude is not some singular set of human traits)?

I'm female, I've been the first and the only woman on teams. I don't give a
crap about it. I do my job and expect my colleagues to do the same.

Any place with crap culture is crap culture for almost everyone, no matter
gender-identity or race.

I look for places where the employees are passionate and care about what
they're doing. Somewhere where code reviews are neither combative nor do they
roll over and let things through. Basically somewhere I'll be working to be
better for both me and for my colleagues.

Maybe that's something you could ask about. How are code reviews handled, how
are implementation disagreements handled. Ask for stories about the last time
something fell over. How do they handle call outs, all those stressful
situations that people often like to brag about. How someone brags can tell
you if you want to work with them or not.

~~~
JimboOmega
> Any place with crap culture is crap culture for almost everyone, no matter
> gender-identity or race.

I can't agree with you. If you work for a company that makes negative
assumptions about you because of your gender/race, you'll have a worse
experience than when they make positive assumptions.

It's about things like when you bring up an idea in a meeting, and it's
totally ignored, and the guy across the table brings it up and it's suddenly
genius. It's people acting like you always need your hand held even though
you're a senior dev. Stuff like that.

While it's true that "white dude" isn't a singular set of traits... what it
really comes down, most of all, is what your direct manager assumes about you.
They could be biased for/against you for any number of reasons (like what
college you went to, your accent, etc). But being biased based on your
gender/race is probably one of the most common and strongest.

Furthermore, people who see things the way they do - who don't see their
behavior as biased or abnormal - tend to clump together, creating a
discriminatory culture. People discriminated against by it tend to leave, so
it can be self-reinforcing. Those involved in it don't see a problem - someone
they expected to be a bad programmer couldn't handle it and left, from their
point of view.

Of course, you can have a terrible culture that sucks for everyone, too. Been
there, done that. But there absolutely are situations where certain
people/groups are favored and others are not.

~~~
thisone
A place that allows discrimination is not a positive environment for everyone
who is not part of the discriminated group.

People who are not part of the discriminated group do see what's going on.
However they are often powerless themselves to do anything other than leave. A
toxic environment affects almost everyone exposed to it.

~~~
JimboOmega
Oh, I agree. It's not automatically a good place to work for those who aren't
directly discriminated against, and it can be really frustrating to watch.

Still, it's a better experience for the person who is blind to it, than the
person who sees it but can't fix it, than the person more directly
discriminated against.

In today's tech world it is possible for an organization - especially a small
one - to remain discriminatory and not fall apart, while the discriminators
themselves remain relatively blind to it.

It will never be as good an organization as it would be otherwise, though.

------
keyboardhitter
I am a woman working in operations. Here is my opinion. It's just an opinion,
but it's something.

I don't think work environments are singular entities that should be read as a
whole. They consist of stories, experiences, individuals and the like. I
apologize if this comes across as condescending. But I think you are feeding a
personal bias or fear, and that you may limit yourself by thinking too broadly
about the topic.

Think of your goal from the contrary. Even if during an interview, someone you
are getting along with -- or someone you get "good vibes" from -- says exactly
what you want to hear and you leave feeling awesome and respected, that cannot
guarantee an absence of toxicity in the future.

So why even have a formal vetting process, I wonder? What more depth can you
possibly get from a process like this? People come and go. People change.
People make mistakes. People project their own insecurities. People have
differing opinions and cultures. Unfortunately, that includes differing
treatment of minorities in some cases.

I'm not trying to be a sympathizer to anyone who is bigoted, but human nature
is unavoidable. Instead of trying to protect myself indefinitely (impossible,
imo) I empower myself by reminding myself that I have a choice too.

If I'm uncomfortable or if I feel something is toxic to the extent that my
personal life is going into shambles, I don't need to defend myself. I just
make changes that are good for _me_. I'll turn down the job offer where I got
'bad vibes' or, if I'm already employed and going through discrimination that
can't be solved by civil conversation or HR, I'll seek employment elsewhere --
I don't mean to imply jumping from job-to-job is easy, though. But if I'm
really that miserable, it's probably worth it. Then -- I'll try to be wary of
the things that made me miserable, and be mindful of them in future
interviews/jobs, with the full expectation that _things may change for better
or worse_.

It all comes down to compromise; and everyone has their limits.

I could use my own experiences to try and tell you how to read people or vet
them but... it simply wouldn't be relevant to you as an individual.
Ultimately, there are far too many subjective variables at play. If I rattle
on and on about "red flags I learned from being sexually harassed", I'd be
worried I'd give you irrelevant things to be biased about.

It sounds like you know which things you want to avoid. So I'd suggest to be
candid, and initiate conversations such as "How does your team deal with
discrimination? Have you ever had to deal with toxicity against a certain
minority?" You have every right to want to discuss these things, but only YOU
can determine what a 'non BS' answer is.

tl;dr ... YMMV. Be wary of personal biases. Try to be pragmatic, and maybe
determine a list of "deal-breakers" for your workplace's social life /
experience.

> I feel like I keep getting the same canned PR response of how great the
> culture is (for assumedly white dudes)

I am not sure what being white has to do with anything -- I find it a bit
worrying that you're concerned about discrimination but are placing blame on
one race and sex so easily. Don't play the same game you are expressing
distaste for. That is not fair to yourself or anyone else.

Hopefully my perspective helps. Again sorry if this comes off as
condescending, I mean the best, I'm just not super great with compassion in
text. Good luck out there.

------
Jemmeh
Minority woman here.

1.) If it's really a huge concern to you, the best thing to do is probably go
to a women's coding group in your local area (try looking on Meetup.com) and
talking to the women there. You can ask them pretty candidly how it is at
their companies. Only downside is you might miss out on a totally fine company
that doesn't have any females yet.

To those saying check if there's a woman on the team already as a metric---eh,
if there is that's nice but if there isn't that's not necessarily bad. There
are far more men in our field than women. I wouldn't write a company off for
just that provided it's a smallish team. I was the first woman and minority on
our team. It's fine.

2.) Google the company and maybe also your close team mates. Glassdoor is a
good place to check. A bad review or two isn't the end of the world, but if
you see a lot stay away. Again downside, a lot of smaller companies don't have
many reviews.

3.) You're gonna know if they're lowballing your salary right off the bat when
you discuss it during interviews. Make sure you get offers from multiple
companies.

4.) You generally can tell a lot from the interview and sometimes you'll have
lunch with the team too. Seriously if it's that bad they'll probably show
their true colors pretty early on with snide remarks, talking down to you,
flirting, etc. I know on a day-to-day basis we women have to brush this off a
lot because the world has a lot of creeps. This is not the time to brush it
off. Go somewhere else.

5.) No matter how much you try to research ahead of time, sometimes the work
environment is just bad. Just as most jobs will have you under a probationary
period, you need to do the same to them. Be prepared to leave if it just isn't
right. I've seen some people (men and women) just get really wrapped up in the
"ideal" of a certain job. Don't fall into that trap.

------
AnimalMuppet
Disclaimer/warning: Straight white male responding.

But it seems to me that an environment that is toxic for women is also an
environment that I would find at least somewhat toxic - not because the crap
is hitting _me_ , but because there's a bunch of crap. So what I look for
might be useful to you.

I'm older - 55 - and some of what I have is just "hey, this feels like that
place that I worked, and it was pretty crummy". But I think there are some
specific things you can try to look for.

Look for ego in the interviewing process. If the interviewer (even one of
them) is trying to show how smart he/she is, that's a red flag. If one of them
can't handle it if you disagree, that's a red flag.

Look for what they say about their culture. Or maybe, look for how they say
it. It's fine if they have a ping pong table. At least, it's fine if that's an
"oh, by the way". If it's a big part of what they have to say about
themselves, that's more of a red flag.

Beer is a bigger red flag. The more their description of their culture sounds
like a recruiting pitch for a frat house, the more it's probably toxic to
someone who doesn't want to live in a frat house. ("We like to party together
after work" is also a red flag.)

I don't know your age. I don't know how much of this is just "Get off my
lawn!" But you might find some of it useful.

~~~
kazinator
Free beer is an attractor only to completely stupid people. Stupid, on
multiple fronts. Firstly, even if you like beer, it's bad for your health to
have daily, unfettered access to it. Secondly, it's cheap. Anyone with two
brain cells to rub together puts an objective dollar value on these sorts of
free perks. A beer is worth so many dollars; how many a week of them could you
reasonably enjoy? You'd be stupid to be paid $5K per year less to have two or
three free beers a week, and even stupider to quaff 50 free beers a week to
try to make up the difference. Thirdly, don't some people drive to and from
work? Or on errands in the middle of the day? What about the liability, good
grief? What a terrible idea from a legal standpoint.

If people are drinking on the job, that is going to affect social interaction,
in the same way that it affects social interaction at parties and in clubs. It
will make people less socially inhibited, which means that tiny dickheads that
normally have decent self-control will behave like big dickheads.

~~~
munificent
> Firstly, even if you like beer, it's bad for your health to have daily,
> unfettered access to it.

Only if you lack the maturity and self control to handle that.

In my home, I have daily, unfettered access to bourbon, gin, beer, wine,
tequila, and more. And, yet I am as healthy as I have ever been. Because I'm
an adult and don't choose to get wasted every day simply because I can.

~~~
kazinator
If you have the self control not to actually drink, or not much, then there
goes most of the perk, doesn't it. We have a benefit where I work: free beer!
Only, oh, I'm mature, so it translates to three dollars a week for me.

------
sevilo
I am a woman of color. Unfortunately I do think location does matter quite a
bit as I've heard of all these horror stories from tech scene in the U.S. but
so far I have encountered nothing but respectful working environments, and
some really good ones where I feel highly valued and have a lot of room for
growth.

I think some things good to look out for during the interview are: \- when you
ask about their culture, what's their response? Beer and ping pong are not
culture, they're at best fun stuff that young, hip bros like to do. If beer
and ping pong is all they give you as an answer there might be a redflag
there, it's possible that they'd discriminate against people who are not like
them (people who don't drink etc.) Good answers to hear are how they want
their people to succeed, what's their plan on taking their product and company
up a level, what do they value and how do they carry out those values on a day
to day basis? Do they provide any opportunities for employees to learn? \-
look at your to-be direct manager, from talking to him do you feel a sense of
huge ego? do they think they know everything and is better than you at
everything? or do they show a sign of humility and genuinely want to learn
about your background and what you can bring to the table? \- everybody else
that interview you, are they behaving appropriately throughout the interview?
ask them what they like and dislike about their job, that usually tells a lot.
Again, if answer is "I love the free beer and pizza" something's wrong. They
should be telling you what kind of opportunities they're getting at this
company. Ask about work-life balance, during one of my interviews someone
actually told me "the work life balance here is pretty good, some people have
young children, it's not really fair to ask them to stay late everyday", and
that's how I got a feel that the employer does encourage life outside of work.
\- I'd also watch out for companies that hire women for the sake of filling
the quota, they're hiring you based on your gender, not your skills. Can you
really expect that they'd value your skills enough to be supportive in your
career development when you actually work there? Someone that hired you based
on gender, would they really want you to get promotions in the future?

I wish I could explain better, but I think if someone is ego inflated it's
fairly easy to tell just from some simple conversations, and I tend to avoid
those people (I think even if I were not a woman, I'd still avoid those
people).

------
judy_I
I am a woman and work in Boston as an engineer currently programming web apps
for a consulting company. I had plenty of good experiences but also had a
couple of bad ones. I could always catch something during the interview and or
when you walk in. I would first evaluate the employer before I evaluate the
team. You will need to find an employer that think highly of women. The
founder of my company relies heavily on another female leader. _Half of his
staff are women_ Another CTO that I work with only has one full time staff
female support person and he relies heavily on her. On the other hand I went
for an interview where there are no female engineers and the vp of engineer
was suffering from unconscious bias. I later heard that other male employees
actually disagreed with him for not hiring me. There was another guy that
changed his mind half way through during the interview. You will catch it but
if there are no strong female leaders/female staff that are heavily relied on
then you probably shouldn't work there.

~~~
ry_ry
Somebody also has to be the first strong female employee in any given company.
Obviously headcount is a huge factor here, but in isolation I honestly think
that kind of reasoning can be misleading.

If you are interviewing and discount an otherwise promising potential employer
out of hand for not having enough women onboard already, what can they do to
rebalance the situation beyond continuing to bring a diverse range of solid
candidates in for interview?

~~~
lsiebert
Which assumes that there isn't a strong female employee to start with.

Someone has to be the first employee.

------
DanielleMolloy
You need a filter that removes the toxic people, and moves you closer to
potential jobs at the same time. I agree with some commenters here that this
is a problem for all sorts of people, i.e. including white dudes; given that
many are entering the field that are mostly driven by money and coolness.

One suggestion: Search for events and meet-ups where people gather that are
driven by a higher-goal idealism – depending on your interests this could e.g.
be privacy and hacker's events, the sciences, NGOs, environment, political
movements. Talk to the men and women there and find out where they are
working. It is far more likely to meet people there that are intelligent and
work in interesting jobs, and their idealism and progressiveness usually
affects other areas of life, too (i.e. they are less likely to be racist or
misogynist). Of course I am talking about probabilities here, not guarantees.

~~~
gaius
_I agree with some commenters here that this is a problem for all sorts of
people, i.e. including white dudes; given that many are entering the field
that are mostly driven by money and coolness._

Yep that's a subtlety that's often overlooked: brogrammers are an alien
culture that colonized tech. Old skool geeks were next to never misogynists,
they might have lacked social skills but they were never malicious or
aggressive. Geek culture was entirely about accepting people whoever they were
and welcomed anyone who shared common interests, to play AD&D or watch Star
Trek or whatever...

~~~
roguecoder
Geek culture has always been sexist, and much of it included malicious,
objectifying sexism. Ask anyone who's been going to cons for 20+ years and you
will hear stories that curl your hair. Even in the programming sphere, just
look at the Mythical Man Month: it assumes the only woman on the team is the
secretary.

------
seawitch
I really like these questions from Julia Evans
[http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in-
interv...](http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in-interviews/)

And these, from Lara Hogan
[https://twitter.com/lara_hogan/status/852204796941660160](https://twitter.com/lara_hogan/status/852204796941660160)

------
jansho
I've given up finding that great company culture. Bro cultures, and yes even
female jealousy, but the dealbreaker for me is work inflexibility. I get
utterly exhausted working in open office environments, and I swing from
absolutely crap in small talk to excitable gushing about last night's TV (that
nobody watches.) People apparently don't like randomised personalities! I
figured that the life of a salaryperson may just be wrong for me...

Now I split my time 30:30:30 on contracting, developing my edtech baby and
reading/ art/ learning. The 10% is allocated for family and the blue days.

At the risk of misleading others, please remember that every person has a
unique pattern. It seems a lot like retiring but believe me it's not haha. I
have to work extra hard in finding and maintaining my contracts, just so I can
support my edtech project with enough cash and time.

And, although flexibility is what I was looking for, it's very easy to become
idle. In the first few months, I struggled - but this I suppose is a much
needed exercise in taming my short attention span (!) It's still too early to
tell - it's been ten months now - but as an individual, learner and founder, I
think I'm happier and made far more progress than before. And at last my baby
is growing! ;)

Hmm. So I ran away rather than deal with toxic/ mediocre environments ... but
perhaps this is the best!

~~~
GoToRO
It took me two years to really apreciate the flexibility and the new life.
Either that or two years to undo the harm the salarymen life did to me. I'm
not sure but it gets way better.

------
jmcgough
Non-binary queer woman here. I can usually get a vibe at interviews about the
company culture, from the people I talk to (my questions and their general
personalities).

The only team I've ever felt "normal" at was one where one of the interviewers
was gay. My boss there had hired a bunch of really talented queer developers
from his network, so half the team was queer. I guess I really liked the
personalities of the people I interviewed with (it was a full-day pairing
interview, which is a lot better for getting a feel for a company than just
whiteboarding), so I figured it'd be a good group of people to work with.

The challenge is that if you're interviewing for a larger company, you might
not know which team you'll end up in if you accept an offer. Try to avoid this
situation, and get a feel for the people you'd be working closely with.

I think if I were to interview for a new company now, I'd reach through my
network and try to work with a friend (or former co-worker). I still have
never had another woman on my team (after about 5 years in tech), so in the
future I'd probably look for a company that has female engineers and high-
ranking women within the company.

I've also found that companies that use pair programming tend to value empathy
and teamwork, because when you're working that closely with your coworkers
every day, no one wants to work with a jerk.

There are some bad companies here in the sf bay area, but there are also some
really great places to work. Glassdoor has saved me a few times early in the
interview process.

~~~
Baeocystin
Aren't you essentially making the argument that you are most comfortable
working with people similar to yourself?

Which is not a criticism. It's completely understandable. But how, then, do we
get all of us (you, me, etc...) to feel comfortable working together, despite
any particular differences?

(I don't have any easy answers, and I may not even be someone whose opinion
means much on this subject. I honestly got so tired of workplace politics of
any flavor that I left and started working for myself about 10 years ago.)

~~~
scott_karana
You might find this fascinating:

[http://ncase.me/polygons/](http://ncase.me/polygons/)

It's an interactive thought exercise that posits:

Given a mild preference to be near similar people, segregation _will_ occur,
unless there's also an explicit desire to be near _dissimilar_ people too.

~~~
Baeocystin
That is interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

------
unitorn
Hello! I am a woman in the bay area. Here's what I do:

 _There are multiple online resources, like women 's only whispernetworks. I
don't feel safe posting details of these groups on a wesbite like this, but a
google search/asking around will probably do. If I'm interviewing at a new
place, I usually post on said whisper networks to ask if anyone has heard
anything (positive or negative). _InHerSight.com <\--- glass door for women
_[http://goodforpocin.tech/](http://goodforpocin.tech/) <\--- I have heard
mixed reviews, but the fact that something like this exists is great. _The
best way to find out about good companies is of course by word of mouth,
talking to people who have worked there and getting input on pros and cons

Questions I ask: _" What percentage of women, PoC, etc is on the dev team?
<\---I never expect high numbers, I'm more asking this to see how they respond
and if they even know the answer _"Are there women in leadership?" *One of my
mentors refuses to move forward in the interview process if there were no
women on her interviewing panel, which she says is a red flag that they are
pretty clueless of how important inclusivity in tech is to her.

------
GuB-42
I think you are looking at the problem from the wrong angle.

You are a minority and assume your environment will be hostile for that
reason. And due to confirmation bias, it will probably appear to look like it.
The problem is that you might not be able to see the forest for the trees.

Toxic environments are usually toxic for everyone. And the cause is usually
dishonesty, poor management, unrealistic demands, etc... High turnover, poor
treatment of customers, etc... is a big red flag. Forget about your status as
a minority for now and look at the big picture. Poor treatment of minorities
usually go with it.

------
drewrv
I don't have much experience here as I'm a white dude, but my wife asks "What
percentage of your team is female?". I think this is a good question, it's
straightforward and quantitative. If they are above the industry average
that's probably a good sign. If they're below, but they pay lip service to the
fact that they'd like to improve that's ok. And if they're below the industry
standard and don't care that's bad.

Recently on a phone screen she asked the manager this and his response was
"that's something you need to bring up with HR". That's a giant red flag and
she saved everyone's time by not pursing the job further.

------
maerF0x0
If you feel you're underpaid, I encourage you to negotiate aggressively for
what you feel you're worth. Amazon is full of resources to help you with that.

As for culture, I'd say just ask. Ask what the team does for fun. That will
more or less tell you if you will fit in or not.

~~~
roguecoder
I recommend not blaming individual women for the structural inequalities they
face.

The consequences for men and women negotiating (particularly "aggressively")
are different. At the very least, someone perceived as a woman has to be
prepared for backlash in a way that people perceived as men don't experience
if they negotiate.

~~~
maerF0x0
Negotiation is a part of capitalism. I dont think I want to live in another
system. I agree that no one should be denigrated for negotiating, but
irrespective of current denigration women are eventually going to have to
negotiate. Therefore recommending negotiating has nothing to do with the
current structural inequalities, but rather is sound advice regardless.

~~~
wpietri
This is bad, ignorant advice. See, e.g.:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/women-n...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/women-
negotiating/512174/)

[http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-
th...](http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-the-dangers-
for-women-who-negotiate)

------
stevenwoo
If you are open to other locations, I used to work for a NASA contractor near
Houston and at that time (when the shuttle was actively used) some of the best
programming minds/organization (at least measured by quality/process/number of
errors) were the group at Lockheed Martin that made the Shuttle software and I
remember it was roughly 50% female from top to bottom. I wonder what became of
that group, someone here probably knows the story better than I do. I thought
it was SAIC but this article says it was LM.

[https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-
stuff](https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff)

When I was there in the early 90's, all the NASA contractors were pretty
progressive compared to the stories you read about Silicon Valley today (where
I am currently living.)

------
apervez82
Great question. Ask about age diversity. What is the average age of employees.
You can ask for a range to give you a better idea. Also ask about maternity
and paternity leave - this will tell you how much thought has been put into
the care and personal lives of the people that are working for the company.

Ask about their core values, but ask for examples of how employees embody
those values in their daily interactions and their work. How are those values
reflected in a manager's leadership style? Ask if they have a public
harassment policy. Ask if staff has gone through bias and/or harassment
training, or has there been any company-wide discussion around such things.
Also ask if you'd be able to speak to other women at the company (someone who
is not interviewing you) about their experience working at the company.
Equally as important, ask to meet other members of the team you will be
working with and see how they are with you (especially male colleagues) to get
a sense of if they speak to you or treat with you respect. Have a technical
conversation with them (outside interview so the power dynamic is equalized).
Remember, you are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you.
A good recruiter will treat this like a two way sell, because that's what it
is.

~~~
stefmonge
Great suggestions!

------
usmeteora
The biggest issue is when guys use new incoming female employees as dating
prospects because they don't meet females elsewhere. They may be nice and
friendly but I don't want to have to shake off and turn down 6 guys who are
fighting to get at me first everywhere I work, its really not ok. It happens
at every place I've ever worked and watch the same guys do it to new girls.

They are here for a job, not to supply you with intimacy. It's even more sad
to think about how much these women are not viewed as great additions to the
team, but how likely you are to get a date with them. It's very frustrating.

~~~
odonnellryan
Huh! Probably blind to this somewhat because I'm a guy, but I haven't seen
this at the tech jobs I'm at in NJ.

Realistically, you speak to different genders differently without realizing
it, but I have always worked in highly-diverse environments (I wouldn't want
to ever work somewhere where I saw all XYZ gender or race working there) and
it has been fine.

~~~
usmeteora
nah, I've worked with companies who rank incoming female Interns by hotness
and argue over who gets to date her and try to bash other male employees and
fight over them for projects before they ever have the first day at the
office.

This has happened in 3 workplaces I know of.

~~~
odonnellryan
What industry?

------
crucini
I've read many of the proposed questions in this thread - does the CEO have
daughters, does the company send everyone to conferences. I personally would
avoid asking "what's in it for me" questions unless the company has shown
strong interest.

I remember one candidate who received an offer, then insisted on meeting with
the CEO a second time and asking him a few more questions. She never got that
meeting; the offer was rescinded. The CEO saw her demand as a bad sign.

Any weird question you ask during this sensitive phase will get analyzed and
raise concerns. In other words, you have to gather your info via other means.

------
bethly
I look for existing diversity, and of underrepresented minorities not just
gender diversity (IME this is often a better signal.) Especially in upper
levels: the % of Software Engineer 1s matters a lot less than the % of
architects and tech leads.

Second (and I kind of hate to give this one away), I ask "what do you
sacrifice when recruiting to ensure diversity?" The answer should be either
"it takes us longer to recruit, because we ensure a balanced pool" or "we have
changed our process to allow many types of candidates to shine". If the answer
is just "we spend lots of money on sending people to Grace Hopper!" it means
they aren't willing to inconvenience or piss off overrepresented engineers.
You can't fix culture problems by spending money, and when "diversity" is seen
as separate from "recruiting" in general it's a clear sign of a problem.

I also use the Internet: I look on LinkedIn for people who have left the
company, see how long women stayed and reach out to find out why they left if
they did. Backchannel mailing lists are great ways to find a vouch. I check
the social media profiles of their prominent engineers and search with
keywords like "feminism", "women" and "she". See how they talk about women in
the field, whether they follow women on Twitter, whether they posted angry
anti-Hillary memes. I've found that a lot more effective than relying on
direct questioning, because there are companies out there that will say
whatever they think will let them add you as a shield against the accusations
of sexism they are facing. Especially my boss: if my boss is going to be a
white dude, he had better have publicly condemned sexism in a way that feels
constructive and genuine to me.

One other internet trick is to look at where the women you respect are working
and apply there. At the very least, you would get to work with technical
mentors you admire and can learn from.

You can find good spots here. Seriously, though, trust your instincts, don't
be afraid to walk away and don't be afraid to take an "unsexy" job at an old-
school company with an HR department.

~~~
minkzilla
"Second (and I kind of hate to give this one away), I ask 'what do you
sacrifice when recruiting to ensure diversity?'"

I find it disturbing that you think hiring diversity entails a sacrifice.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> I find it disturbing that you think hiring diversity entails a sacrifice.

Of course it's a sacrifice. Under-represented groups are under-represented in
standard recruiting channels. That's tautological. If you want a set of
recruiting channels that represents all available talent, you can't use the
standard set of channels. You need to go catalog all of the available sources
of talent, including obscure sources. That takes effort. That's a sacrifice.

In addition, under-represented strengths don't show up in standard assessment
techniques. Again, that's tautological. Standard assessment only measures
over-repesented strengths. If you want to measure under-represented strengths
then you need to use custom assessment techniques which, again, takes
additional effort, which is a sacrifice.

These conclusions just fall naturally from the word "under-represented" and a
presumption that there is room for improvement in recruiting channels and
assessment. If there is no such room, the additional effort will fail to
change the hiring demographics. Which will be evidence that your recruiting
channels are representative and your assessments accurate, and you can ease up
on recruiting pipeline optimization.

What's disturbing to you about any of this?

------
WalterBright
There was a ping pong table in my college dormitory common room, and I grew to
loath it.

You couldn't do anything within earshot of it. Nobody could just tap the ball
back and forth. Noooo. It's serve, back, SLAM! always followed by groans and
whoops as loud as possible.

I wouldn't join any company with a prominent ping pong table.

~~~
nitwit005
We just sealed it off in a separate room, with the snack room between it and
people.

------
ramy_d
I am on the other side of that table, in a different industry ,and in a
different country with a different cultural context, but my 2¢: Can you
identify any women, non-binary, people of color, etc who are in a position of
power within the company, like a (co-)founder? I find that to be a big factor.
Not that straight white guys are inherently creating toxic work environments
but it's surprising how easy it is to not consider other perspectives on every
day decisions.

~~~
roguecoder
"Who do they hand power to?" says a ton about people.

------
pfarnsworth
I'm an older white male, and it's hard for me to find a non-toxic environment,
as well.

~~~
roguecoder
What has worked for you in the past? Or have you been able to improve things
at places you've worked?

~~~
pfarnsworth
Manager is always the #1 most important, but some things like the company
culture is hard to tell from just a few interviews. Also, people come and go,
which really affect the culture and environment. If it's too toxic, the only
thing you can do is move on, I think.

------
leppr
I would (without asking for it directly) gauge the already present diversity
_in the IT teams_ , by arranging to visit the offices during working hours.

Emphasis on _in the IT teams_ , because from my personal limited experience,
gender diversity in non-technical roles doesn't correlate in any way with
environment toxicity/rigidity, while IMO it totally does correlate in tech
roles.

Ping-pong tables aren't a red flag at all for me, the company I'm in has them,
beer dispensers, nerf guns and all, and the culture is very friendly and
welcoming to any kind of people. Our tech team ticks literally every diversity
checkbox and everybody can integrate well, yet without being forced to, and
despite a few "toxic" elements that don't ruin it for everyone (without being
oppressed themselves). The key was that from the start, the first few
engineers were already "diverse".

Disclaimer: I'm a while male and I'm leaving for an all-white-dudes startup in
one month, so no agenda here.

------
notalaser
Full disclosure: white dude, not a minority of any kind in my country.

Five years ago, I would have said that the percentage of women in an office
isn't necessarily a good indicator of anything. Nowadays, this would be my
first advice: ask how many women work there.

With _maybe_ one exception, all the places I've worked in that had very few
women were terrible places to work in. Most of them were unpleasant to work in
even for men who think "bro" is not a word to be uttered after you turn 19.

Teams that have a strong bias against women act on it almost universally: they
drive candidates away with shitty and/or unenthusiastic interviews and they
make life hard for those candidates who do get through. They don't end up with
all-male teams just because reputation preceeds them and no woman wants to
work there -- they end up with all-male teams because prejudice and insecurity
tend to tip the balance of their hiring decisions, too.

It's not a universal predictor, but I definitely consider it a red flag.
Frankly, it's one that I look at, too. I'm not the SJW type, but when I got
into this whole programming thing, hacker communities used to be inclusive and
diverse, and I kind of like to keep that going.

~~~
nothrabannosir
At what scale does this advice start? I worked for and with a few almost-all-
male startups that just hadn't run into female hires in their first year / ±10
employees. Great work environments, ended up hiring women in the following
years.

~~~
striking
Yeah, if the company is less than ten people, I'd say that's probably fine.
Even though it hasn't been all too difficult for our team (<5 people) to find
women and people of color as interns or employees, I'm certain it can be more
difficult for teams that aren't as lucky as we are.

I think the parent poster meant companies that have had a chance to choose
from a large and diverse group of people; but have ended up hiring people of
only one, less diverse group anyway; whether by making poor choices or by
driving away the other groups of people.

------
cjonas
Just reading through these comments makes me wonder if its really the "Bro
Culture" or just the reality of trying to force 100 people to work in the same
place. It seems inevitable that the majority of "like" people are going to
have the strongest social presence.

If you can't stand the environment this creates then it seems like trying to
find a remote job would be ideal. That way, aside from the occasional off-
topic meeting, work is work.

------
jdavis703
I've had a couple interviews where there was an extended conversation about
diversity in tech (both initiated by the interviewer). One of these was from a
well-known SV tech firm that's had a lot of controversy around inclusion
issues, and I could tell from the conversation that the other person just
didn't get it. At another smaller tech company, the co-founders seemed deeply
committed to creating an inclusive organization. So a lot of it is just having
these conversations with people and making your own personal judgments (a lot
of people say the right things, but the reality might be different).

(for the record I'm coming from the perspective of cisgender black male in
case it matters)

------
romanows
Could you ask this question directly in an interview? If you have to assume
the response is actually talking about "white males" or that the respondent is
confusing bias with ping-pong tables, perhaps you are not being direct enough
or are speaking to HR instead of a manager?

Maybe it'd work best asked in an abstract, impersonal way: "I've had friends
whose contributions have been dismissed because of their gender; what kinds of
strategies can combat bias and create a positive environment for all
employees?" Ideally this would lead into a nice 5 minute discussion where you
could get a feel for their thinking.

------
brink
Straight white software engineering male here - I've never worked in an
environment where I thought it to be sexist. Is the environment out there
worse than what I'm seeing or seem to believe?

~~~
PopsiclePete
Your comment honestly reads a bit like a joke. Maybe it was meant as a joke,
kudos to you. But if not....

"As a member of King Louis XVI's royal court and someone who spends every
minute of their life in the palace of Versailles, I haven't personally seen
any poor people in France. Do they really exist out there?"

------
fyrepuffs
You need to interview the company just as they interview you. Ask some
questions like what kind of development processes they follow, how they
organize themselves and what kind of offsite activities they have. You can
tell a lot from the answers about the culture in general. For example do they
respect employee's time and do they show good team collaboration and cohesion
or are they a 'hero/special snowflake culture'.

If you don't like the answers, then it might not be a good fit for you.

------
hkmurakami
If the C level including the CEO have (young) children, imo the workplace is
saner.

~~~
anarazel
Interestingly I'm not sure I agree with this. At a previous Job my boss (not
CEO, but sub-org head) called from the hospital less than an hour before
giving birth; showed up at work just days after. Without her, I think,
actually intending it, this set up a quite bad precedent, that some people
felt like they needed to follow. I think that got resolved after I left, but
she'd not realized that other people thought she explicitly did this to set up
an example. People feel it's a lot harder to complain about things if
leadership lives through it as well, even if that's not comparable.

I've heard similar stories from others since.

~~~
watwut
I would give her a slack. Having something that is not childbirth to think
about actually helps a lot during period before it - when you basically wait
in pain and boredom for long. I understand the leading by example issue there
and would not promote the story as example to follow, but still.

If the things go well (e.g. no injuries), there is also aspect of feeling able
to do things and feeling strong while being expected to be iddle most of the
time (babies sleep a lot at that stage and you are not used to be iddle at
home). It can be quite frustrating.

~~~
anarazel
I think you're making a very fair point. I really don't think she meant it in
a pressuring way - but then I personally liked her - even if it was understood
as that by some. I think it shows a bit how a) communication is important b)
women can't quite do it right around childbirth.

------
spinlock
Binary dude here. My example of an awesome culture starts with founders who
actually give a shit about people. I was hired and then the company was
preemted on a series B. Rather than letting me start and telling me my options
were going to be priced higher, the founders reached out with a checklist form
the lawyers so they could give me work and get my start date _before_ the deal
closed.

Another anecdote would be bring your kids to work day. Everyone went out of
the way to make sure the few of us with kids brought them in and that we had a
nice event. It's funny, I told the founders my wife was pregnant with twins
while I was interviewing. I had kept this a secret from the job I was leaving
because I didn't want them to have leverage over me.

We also have women on the leadership team, etc... but I don't really think
that's the key (after all, 3 dudes founded the company and they hired women
for key positions). I think it all boils down to not being jerks and really
caring about the people you work with and the people your product helps (yeah,
we've got an actual mission and not the usual silicon valley bs about trying
to change the world).

And, our sales team has already hit their numbers ... for the year so we're
hiring engineers to try to keep up with the growth. PM me if you're interested
in learning more about the team :)

------
hannele
If you have an interview at their office (and you should), keep an eye on the
decor and the body language of the people working there. Ask to see any common
areas, the places where people hang out at lunch time. What kinds of posters
do you see, what kinds of memes? Although to each their own, you can get a
good sense of what's considered appropriate by how people decorate their
space, and how comfortable they appear.

------
VLM
In the military we work with all sorts of people, at least with respect to
gender, race, religion, and to a lesser extent sexuality. At the same time,
admittedly most were Republican and none of us did drugs.

If you're willing work with Republicans and/or non-drug users (most tech
people are super far left and absolutely will not) then working for an ex-mil
manager or with ex-mil coworkers will likely be an extremely pleasant
experience as they're very comfortable around people of color and women. On
the other hand, if weed smoking on duty and membership in Antifa is also
required (why?), the ex-mil department might not be as good of a fit.

On a larger scale piece of advice, even if you don't apply this specific
match, it is useful to consider that its highly unlikely that your definition
of the progressive stack perfectly and precisely matches everyone else on the
planets individual definition of the progressive stack, so hopefully inspired
by this post, you'll pay close attention to variations in progressive stack
composition, assuming you pick your next job solely on political
compatibility.

~~~
viraptor
To be honest, if anything, your preconception of other environments does not
advertise your own environment well. I can't even tell if there's actually a
tech company somewhere stupid enough to say they require someone to agree with
antifa, or it's just made up. But mentioning that as something more than a
crazy outlier is silly.

~~~
astrodev
I don't think the remark about antifa was meant to be taken literally. Of
course, no one will put it in the job description.

Do you think it's easy to be supportive of the current US president,
supportive of Brexit and sceptical of climate alarmism while working in tech
(or in academia, for that matter)? I do not find it easy at all.

~~~
roguecoder
Not if that job relies on being able to evaluate evidence or change your
beliefs on the basis of observed outcomes. But that's not because of value-
less "political beliefs"; it's because people who prioritize partisanship over
evidence, on either side of the political divide, are going to have problems
in environments that reward responding to feedback. Anti-capitalist anarchists
who don't believe in supply-and-demand probably have the same problem.

Though openly supporting racist, anti-immigrant policies in a field with so
many talented immigrants may actually be a unique challenge. Promoting
policies that attack your coworkers seems like it would alienate a lot of
people, at least if you expect to be able to share your beliefs about how
people like them shouldn't exist.

~~~
qb45
Evidence and outcomes?

There is evidence that current eco-policies are pushing industry and hence
economic power into the hands of an insane totalitarian regime and nobody
seems to be discussing possible outcomes of that.

There is evidence that H1B has been abused by body shops for a very long time
now and nobody seemed to care until some Americans really got pissed and
partisan about it.

------
z3t4
Make sure you will be a valuable and highly respected member of the team, and
not "quoted in" (men/women quota).

------
imhoguy
TL;DR build your trusted network, ask friends, consider freelancing

There is no place or social group free of toxicity. There is always a chance
you meet some bad guy or gal in the hierarchy, especially with some
overwhelming majority. Unfortunately mostly you will find one by experiencing
that yourself. What may save you from these issues may be peers selection and
workplace flexibility.

Regarding the employment, the interviews I had most of the time were some kind
of PR farse. No way the interviewer is going share to candidate the team's
dirty secrets and company taboos, especially abuse issues. So far for me the
good source of information with very low B/S levels are my trusted friends and
their friends. Before joining a new place I usually do private research with
them.

Therefore what I would suggest is to build your professional network,
participate in local interest groups, meetups etc with people who share or
accept your POV. Just e.g. in my nearby city (smaller than STL) there are
several dev groups built by women who work for variety of companies. Activity
in such groups may open you to new ideas, friendly opportunities, referrals. I
believe even some successful start-ups were born from such gigs.

Also, have you considered freelancing? Being your own employer may make you
professionally independent and significantly shield you from people who
trespass into your private life. Similarly to the interest groups you can keep
portfolio of clients who accept you as you are.

~~~
karlkatzke
+1 for no place short of toxicity. Gender doesn't matter, workplace doesn't
really matter... At one of my past workplaces, the most toxic person was a
female C-level. Whole departments that were moved under her would quit, but
she and the CEO were buddies and he'd never get rid of her.

~~~
Baeocystin
At one of my previous workplaces, the owner was a particularly opinionated
woman, who had her favorites and her non-favorites.

If you were on the good side, as long as you were even marginally competent,
life was roses. If you were on the other, you could be virtually perfect, and
she would find _something_ to reinforce her negative opinion about you.

Oddly enough, it was mostly other women that were the focus of her ire. Not
100%, but she was blatantly harder on her female subordinates than on most of
us men. It was an... illuminating experience across the board. I left after a
year, and in retrospect I should have left a lot sooner. Toxic work
environments really get to you, no matter what.

------
webwright
I'd go to LinkedIn (or their About page if they are small enough) and just
look at the people. The more diversity you see, the more they are walking the
walk. You can also look thru past employees via LinkedIn (might require
premium account) and reach out to diverse folks who've left the companies
you're considering.

Funny thing about the beer-- we got draft cold brew coffee at work and went
out of our way to design and laser-cut a tap handle that says "Coffee" so
candidates wouldn't think it was a beer keg.

Other ideas: run their job post through Textio
([https://textio.com/](https://textio.com/) ).

Disclaimer: I am a white dude, but my company of 65 (in Seattle) is about half
women on the engineering side of things. It was a lot of work.

~~~
erroneousfunk
Side note: I find it funny that 9/10 of Textio's software engineers are men,
but they do have two "customer success engineers" who are both women. No women
in senior technical roles.

------
nostrademons
Disclaimer: not a woman, but this exact question just recently came up among
several of my female friends in another forum I follow. I'm not sure I like or
agree with their conclusions, but I'll pass them on in the hopes they'll be
useful.

They came up with two big questions that have surprising predictive power:

1.) Do you have daughters?

2.) Does your wife work outside the home? (Probably couched in more neutral
language like "Oh, what does your wife do for a living?")

[The women in question were director/VP level, and so were directing this
toward CEOs and C-level execs. Presumably they'd be asked of your direct boss.
Both questions can be easily worked into basic rapport-building smalltalk,
i.e. you don't directly ask them this in the interview, you just casually
inquire about their family. Also, this assumes a male boss; the conversation
mostly ignored the question of female bosses, other than to note that women
who had to fight hard to get where they are during the 70s and 80s can be
surprisingly tyrannical towards younger women coming up.]

The daughter effect has been pretty well-documented in the media [1][2]; it
appears that even the most sexist men want their daughters to succeed, and
that rubs off in how they treat women in the workplace. (See eg. Ivanna vs.
Ivanka Trump.) The reason for asking about whether the wife works outside the
home is that in two-career couples, the husband necessarily needs to take on a
larger share of the housework & childcare, which makes them more sympathetic
to the constraints & sacrifices that a working mother has to make.

[1]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/fatherhood/1093...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/fatherhood/10938290/Why-
men-with-daughters-make-better-bosses.html)

[2] [https://www.fastcompany.com/3032432/why-men-with-
daughters-m...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3032432/why-men-with-daughters-
may-be-the-key-to-closing-the-gender-wage-gap)

~~~
Jare
Such line of questions would pretty much disqualify you in my eyes, regardless
if I'm the interviewer or the candidate. Not just because of the improperly
personal nature, but also they require a lot of assumptions and random chances
in order to be remotely considered useful. Note that I'm not challenging the
statistical correlation with certain outcomes, but I'm questioning the mindset
of someone who would use them to make a decision.

~~~
reitanqild
Upvoted. I'll tell about my family sometime later.

One possible reason I came up with however in defense of the women who said
this (yeah, old habit) is maybe this is more relevant in VP / CEX level hiring
processes were I guess a certain amount of socializing takes place before
contracts are signed?

~~~
Jare
Socializing may happen at all levels, for example if the candidate is taken
out to lunch. In that context the information may come out.

The big problem is that the margin of error for judging an individual case on
such factors is enormous. If the CEO is a guy and has daughters then there's a
16% chance he will treat his female employees better, or close the wage gap by
3%, than he did before having daughters. If not, then... what? The stat is
only applicable to "CEOs that have daughters"... how do you compare with other
kids of CEOs? If you are not careful, your brain will start filling in the
gaps, creating false correlations, and worse yet, feel encouraged to look for
or come up for more, even less substantiated correlations. It's a very
slippery slope.

Or maybe I'm only saying all this because a long time ago, I thought the fact
that my future CEO liked to play the violin meant he cared about the art we
were going to produce. You won't believe what happened next! ;)

~~~
reitanqild
I think we agree. I just tried to come up with an explanation as to why this
would be suggested.

------
tehlike
Hi,

Google SWE here.

I think part of what you are looking for is unfortunately luck. I have a
female coworker who had changed teams and she mentioned some of the problems
she faced in her previous team, and she then mentioned she was much happier
and valued in the new team.

What you can probably do is to try to find a female engineer within the team
you'd be joining if possible.

As for Google, I am a male, so what i say wouldn't mean much probably, but my
female coworkers and their work is valued - my management chain is pretty
great in ensuring that.

------
BlackjackCF
Asian female SRE here. I've never worked out in the Bay Area so I can't speak
to it there, but I've found many places in LA are wonderful, encouraging, and
not shitty to minorities in the startup scene. Maybe I've just lucked out, but
everywhere I've gone I've been either the only female or one of a few female
engineers, but everywhere I've had coworkers who encouraged and mentored me
and didn't treat me differently because I'm queer or female.

------
motolouda
I don't pretend to know the formula for success here, but as a gay female POC
who has worked in tech since the 90s, I have managed to gain some spidey
sense.

My #1 requirement is working for a people-focused organization versus a
startup. At startups they are hiring to get to IPO or acquisition and often at
people-focused orgs they tend to have maturity and long term plans (and
understand value of diversity). I don't mean for this to be an umbrella
statement, but just an observation.

When you research a company, check out their employee page and linkedin. See
how many women are in leadership positions, what the diversity of the staff
is, et al. Ask questions during your interview about their diversity, or goals
for diversity. Be observant about who interviews with you, what the people in
the office look like, and how they handle your questions. At my company, if a
man interviews you, they always ensure that there is a woman in the room. They
have a code of conduct policy and put in major effort into creating a diverse
workplace.

Another possible avenue for you, would be to connect with the Anita Borg
Institute. They are completely focused on women in tech and I imagine have
great networking events, lists of top companies, etc.

------
mythrwy
"toxicity" is often a matter of perspective.

But it's never alright to inhibit the world flow. If that inhibition is
racism, sexism, alcohol, crude jokes, or (on the other hand) creating drama
and magnifying issues it's all no good.

And the law has to be followed. And if you are decent person at whatever level
you are you don't annoy others around you at work. And if you are a wise
manager you don't allow annoyances, not because you are a good person but
because it inhibits the work flow.

It sounds to me maybe more like you are looking for a workplace that suits
you. And pays well. Which is cool, I hope you find it. It's all what we want
and not many of us get.

But just because it's a lot of white dudes with beer and ping pong table
doesn't intrinsically mean "toxic". Any more than ladies who say "shit" at
work or talk down "bros" is toxic. It's just various levels of annoyance and
what we like to be around and who we can jive with as a team. And it varies.
So I'm not sure there is a right answer but check things out and see how you
feel, because what you find "toxic" others might find delicious.

~~~
roguecoder
lol at "creating drama and magnifying issues" being just as bad as racism and
sexism, and also somehow "on the other hand". Groups I've worked in that are
all dudes are the most f'king dramatic I've been involved in. No meeting I've
been in with multiple women has ever descended into a screaming match.

I fully admit women may be just as capable of being dramatic ego-driven shits
as men, and my sample size is just too small, but your dichotomy is dumb.

Besides, "magnifying issues" is a key component of kanban. If you aren't
welcome to magnify issues, the culture is probably going to deevolve over
time.

~~~
mythrwy
It's not a dichotomy though. People often do multiples of the above at the
same time. And as you mention, drama or being racist isn't a property of sex.

Which is worse? That is a personal value judgement. But from the perspective
of a functional workplace, neither is desirable.

People sometimes forget why we go to work. It isn't for a moral crusade. It's
to do work and hopefully make some money. Anything that screws with that is
bad for the workplace. That's the bottom line right here in the real world.

~~~
roguecoder
My point was that "magnifying issues" is desirable. Fixing issues can't happen
unless they are raised. All the teams I work on have weekly retros
specifically to magnify issues, and especially to identify issues that might
seem too minor to be worth the effort of raising. That is how you can address
problems that affect many people a little bit, or that would grow into major
problems eventually. Additionally the process of being heard and having people
care about your experience builds team camaraderie and cultivates the
atmosphere of respect and collaboration I find most productive.

Improvement of culture and process only comes when we're willing to listen to
people and take their concerns seriously. Being dismissive of things that
bother people is a great way to lose engineers, and also design really shitty
products.

~~~
mythrwy
Magnifying issues beyond the potential cost of the issue isn't a good idea. Do
it too much and you become a disturbance.

Disturbance isn't good. It's a big part of the reason why (aside from legal
issues and employee retention) we don't want racism or sexual harassment in a
workplace. It causes disturbances. Not because Moses came down from the
mountain and said these things are evil.

------
jarmitage
Ideas for questions

\- What % non-white male at junior, senior, management, executive and board
levels?

\- Are all employees bias trained?

\- What is an example of an equality issue the company faced in the last year
and how did they respond?

\- What is the pay gap between genders, and if not equal and when will it be
equal?

\- How is the company contributing to addressing industry wide systematic
bias? (meetups, philanthropy, education, conferences...)

\- Does the office have unisex/non-binary facilities?

\- What is the reporting structure for raising issues about other employees
behaviour? (how are HR and executive team both accountable for addressing
issues?)

\- What are the company's 1-5 year priorities for improving the work
environment for non-white male people?

~~~
mysterydip
While these are all important questions, I wonder if there's a different way
to word them. My first reaction if I was looking to hire would be "this
candidate is looking to make waves, better find someone else that won't be
constantly emailing HR." And I know that's not what you're meaning.

~~~
cyorir
I certainly wouldn't ask for all of this information in an interview (as a
candidate), but it's exactly the sort of thing I try to find out when I'm
looking up companies to apply to. Unfortunately, most companies aren't up
front about this sort of thing - either because they don't know what
candidates want, or because they know they'll look bad.

------
steveb
Before you leave, I'd love to talk to you. I'm in STL and looking for
engineers to work in a professional, supportive, and inclusive environment.
steve@aster.is

------
contingencies
If you're looking for a challenge, capable of independent research and
execution and interested in something different, consider coming to Shenzhen
and helping us out on our foodtech robotics startup. I will personally
guarantee no hassles. Mechanical engineering/operations
research/logistics/food processing backgrounds well regarded. Email in
profile, subject 'Candidate: <desired job title>' with resume.

------
koonsolo
Ask your future employer to let you walk through their office and talk to
future colleagues. Then talk to some women already working there. Trust your
gut feeling.

------
specialist
Dude here. Maybe scan meetup.com for woman only or themed geek events (in your
target area), meet people, network, ask those other women if their gigs are
hiring. That's how my male friends have always done it. I started a study
group 15+ years ago (before meetups) and that social network has connected
most of us with quality gigs.

------
ThrowAway123543
I'm presuming you want a candid, honest response as opposed to a look-how-
inclusive-I-am one, hence the throwaway, so here's what I think you should be
asking:

1\. How frequently and for what reasons do people there work unpaid overtime?
Does management plan it formally (e.g. "crunch time") or is it limited to
emergencies like hacking attempts or vendor outages? Does this company think
that asking people to put in 'extra effort' is a failure of management, or a
regrettable but necessary part of doing business?

2\. What's the policy on conferences? If they say they support them and send
people, ask if at least half the team has been to one (with travel and lodging
paid) in the last year or two.

3\. How do they support professional development? You're not looking for
little stuff like "we pay for Pluralsight!", you're looking for things like
hackathons, paid time for professional development, a formal mentorship
program, a developer book club, or other evidence of a genuine culture of
improvement within the dev teams.

4\. How much freedom do the dev teams have to choose their own stack and
tools? If they currently use React, did a Director choose it or did the devs
who had to build the UI choose it? If a dev team wanted to experiment with
something (e.g. TDD, or pairing/mobbing, or switching from sprints to
scrumban), could they just do it and see how it goes? Or would they need their
boss's boss's signature first?

You may notice there's nothing on that list about gender, race, diversity,
etc. I put it to you that:

a) Diversity is no indicator that you will not be underpaid, mistreated, lied
to, etc

b) Few teams will be able to give satisfactory answers to all of those
questions

c) Of those teams that can give good answers to all four questions, the
proportion that suffer from a miasma of gender/race/etc toxicity will be
approximately zero

That said, "good team culture" is extremely subjective, and people here can't
tell you how to find a company you'll like any more than we can tell you how
to find a bar you'll like. You should figure out what you value (e.g.
interuption-free focus time vs. frequent informal collaboration, remote
distributed team vs. everyone-is-in-the-same-room, "bust ass to get rich"
startup vs "eveyone leaves at 5pm" established company, etc) and treat those
as just as important as the four questions I listed.

Best of luck in your search.

~~~
fao_
> Diversity is no indicator that you will not be underpaid, mistreated, lied
> to, etc

Actually it really is. Minorities tend to have higher bars against that kind
of crap compared to the Tech Brogrammer Majority(tm).

------
CalChris
Table tennis is a legitimate sport. Like at the Olympics. I had a woman who
worked for me (I'm a guy) who was _ranked_ and she would slaughter me. I
didn't find this to be a toxic work environment at all.

But I'd be put off at seeing beer, free or otherwise at work. The brogrammer
culture doesn't work for me.

------
wowwza_wazaa34
I look for women/PoC in senior management and / or technical leadership. I
generally prefer more conservative workplaces where emphasis is on results
rather than socialising. Also if you can ask around about pay and see whether
they are large pay differentials for the same or similar levels of work.

------
b0rsuk
Try to find a workplace where at least 1 other woman works in the same
department. Guys will fell a lot less comfortable harassing you if it's not
just "her" but "them". They can no longer expect that all other coworkers will
have the same male point of view.

------
bsvalley
California is huge, where in CA are you looking to move? If you go to Northern
CA then it's mostly white. If you go to San Francisco Bay Area, it's half
Asian (Chinese or Indian descent) half white. If you go to LA, it's even more
diverse, more ethnicities in tech, a little like NYC.

In terms of women vs "bros" \- I'm a bro by the way, your average Joe - I'd
google about companies that promote internal communities like "women in tech",
"women XYZ", etc. You'd most likely end up in a women friendly environment.

In terms of salaries, same thing. There are a few tech companies that promote
equal pay. Just google it.

Also, using the term "harassment" is pretty strong. You make it sound like
it's part of the everyday life for women in tech. By that you mean being
surrounded by boys who act like boys? There's nothing much you can do here
because there are still more males than females in this field, which is
unfortunate. Time will help! I hope. Good luck in your search.

------
timwaagh
although 'toxic' implies some wrongdoing, which is usually not the case, as a
guy i would recommend to avoid places like the one i work at. by this i mean
businesses where the devs are guys and the only women are found in other (read
higher) positions.

Although this phenomenon is often just a result of statistics (devs being
male, hr managers being female, other managers 50-50), this has a creeping
influence on people. from personal experience it made me more negative in my
attitude towards women. i suspect it can breed hostility in others as well.

A second thing that can breed a hostile attitudes towards you is if you are at
the same place as a higher up who is a male personal (esp. family) connection
of yours.

------
iuguy
I understand where you're coming from entirely, but I think that if you
approach your search with the same approach that came across in your post,
you're never going to find anything that'll make you happy.

Other people might accuse you of having an attitude, but to me it looks like a
combination of frustration and exasperation. If you're looking to not
experience something, you're not focused on the experience you want and you
might find yourself stuck in the same loop wherever you go.

Instead of looking for the culture you don't want, consider the things that
would be indicative of a culture you want to be part of and look for that. It
may not be in CA. In fact, what you're looking for might be somewhere as far
afield as New Zealand or Germany.

If you can identify even a few things that you would definitely want to see
that would indicate a culture you'd like to be a part of (e.g. presence of
other women, people of colour, non-binary etc, relaxed environment, team
rather than individual performance focus etc.) then you may find that will
help you find places that have that culture.

~~~
watwut
The thing is, spending few months in an environment where they underestimate
you every time it matters or pick on you daily is quite a hit and it is good
idea to avoid it. Among other things, the way you need to behave there is
different (don't speak unless 150% sure, don't brainstorm, don't be creative,
don't problem solve) and then it takes effort to unlearn those habits - that
affects you even more then it being unpleasant.

Especially if you are young and should be learning from seniors. While it can
happen to anyone (including proverbial white dudes - really I have seen that)
a women is more at risk.

~~~
iuguy
I've seen it too. A good friend of mine was systematically undermined by his
boss, as his boss was promoted he basically pressured the team into taking
over the undermining, and would reward them for doing so, or punish them for
not doing so. Every time he tried to move department, his boss would step in
and block it.

That sort of thing really knocks it out of you, and while he could've probably
taken the employer to court and won, he'd have a hell of a fight on his hands
and it'd tar the rest of his career (he spent a fair few years before this
boss turned up).

I think there's a world of difference between a culture that ignores the needs
of people that don't fit like a glove, and a culture that actively persecutes.
Either can be a bad experience, but the latter is pretty much guaranteed for
all involved.

------
untilHellbanned
I'm in STL and starting companies. What are you interested in working on?

------
diefunction
come to Curbside [https://curbside.com/jobs/](https://curbside.com/jobs/),
half of the engineers, half of the employees are female. Half of the employees
are non-white. ALL YOU NEED TO BE IS SMART.

------
usmeteora
get a job becoming a remote developer for a good software company.

------
rch
Why not stop off in Boulder on your way to CA?

~~~
cyorir
Maybe it's "grass is always greener syndrome" but as someone who grew up in
the Denver area I'd rather head to Washington or California than stay in CO.
As with any city, Boulder works for some but not all; I'd caution that the
Denver area has its own challenges for minorities and vulnerable populations.
Racism, sexism, any other type of bigotry: I've seen it while growing up here.

------
irundebian
Have you ever thought about you are being toxic? No offense, really, I'm just
arguing by anecdotal evidence: I claim that people who are putting too much
value on their gender - be it their biological or their social - tend to
poison their environment by themselves because they're are interpreting many
things as offense.

I've had one friend who put a lot on gender, and I fully agree with her,
especially if people like her chooses being a woman. But her character was so
negative, so that I have to assume, that she will always be confronted with
"toxic environments".

To sum up: Concentrate on your performance if you think you're confronted with
a sexist or racist environment, try to speak up. If nothing improves, leave
the company.

------
hiddencost
Woman: "Women in tech, I'm looking for help navigating X issues that are
specific to my gender's well publicized challenges in the industry."

Men of HN: "None of this is real, stop making stuff up."

...

I dunno; I've found metafilter has some folks in tech who might be more useful
to you. Maybe this thread will become less of a clusterfuck as time goes on.

My experience has been that asking to talk to a woman on the team has been
helpful. If HR / the manager think that's weird, they'll probably not be
terribly good allies anyway.

~~~
dang
> _Men of HN_

No, that's not fair. The commenters you're referring to exist, and so do many
others.

Edit: There's a pattern on HN, and maybe other internet communities as well,
where the first comments to appear on a topic (especially one on which people
are divided and have strong feelings) tend to be angry, reflexive ones by
people who are quickly triggered and respond from pre-existing judgments. That
doesn't mean they're representative of the community. Just the opposite: the
majority of the community is more thoughtful than that, and thoughtful
responses take longer to come up with. (It took me 30x longer to write this
paragraph than the first one.)

As a thread continues, more thoughtful responses typically emerge. Such
comments take longer to read and consider, too. These eventually get upvoted.
The process takes time, and you can see it clearly in the current thread.

~~~
gizmo
As a HN moderator maybe reconsider making #notallmen type responses. Sexism on
HN is prevalent and it's harmful when moderators minimize this issue by
emphasizing not all comments are awful.

The barrage of sexist comments that show up every time this subject is
discussed is clear evidence this community has a sexism problem.

~~~
problems
> Sexism on HN is prevalent

Sexism on HN is prevalent amongst the most downvoted comments on the page
perhaps...

I wouldn't say this community has a sexism problem any more than "real life
has a sexism problem", the same - or worse, heavily upvoted sexist comments
can be found in just about any other online community, so making it out like
HN in particular has a problem when quite clearly the majority around here do
not exhibit that is quite a stretch.

~~~
gizmo
I'm not suggesting HN is the worst. But it's pretty bad, as are tech
communities generally. Because I care about HN I want it to be better.

HN isn't separate from real life, it's part of it. Many people have built
their careers through HN. Companies get funded through HN and people launch
their startups on HN. This place is real, and if it's not welcoming to women,
people of color, or other marginalized groups then that's a problem.

~~~
problems
> HN isn't separate from real life, it's part of it.

I wasn't suggesting it's separate - I was simply suggesting that I think its
sexism level is comparable to many "real world" average places. I think that's
pretty good, especially for the Internet where the disconnect is often larger.

Unless you're suggesting women and minorities are turned off immediately by
heavily down-voted comments, many of which are hidden unless you check the
"show me the bad stuff" box then I don't think "not welcoming" is an accurate
description. I can't speak to race or sex, but with other things at least, I
know that seeing nasty comments present but heavily downvoted is a sort of
comfort to me.

------
victorhooi
I don't really get the reference to ping pong tables and free beer...?

Is it a metaphor, or is the commenter literally referring to those things?

I've worked in a range of places * Investment bank - German, very formal, very
little perks * Options Trading Company - Dutch, laid-back, casual dress, free
alcohol, free food, lots of games, lots of perks * Database Company - Tech
startup, fairly well funded, casual dress, alcohol and some games (e.g pool).
- medium perks * Search Engine Company (Current) - Tech, well funded, casual
dress, free food, games and consoles everywhere - lots of perks

I don't drink alcohol - and I don't really play ping pong or pool. And I don't
play console games.

But if I interview at a place and saw those things around, I'm not really sure
I'd hold it _against_ the place.

I mean, sure, other people can enjoy them, and I won't. As long as they
provide some things I want, that's cool with me.

It sounds like a lot of what the commenter wants/desires are personal
preferences, as opposed to gender things.

What's to say a girl can't enjoy beer? Or ping pong? (I studied engineering in
uni - and there were girls there who could drink most guys under the table.)

I mean, I don't want/enjoy some of those things - but I'm not a woman. Sure,
you get the occasional stupid comment from some guy when you order a cranberry
juice at a work function instead of drinking beer like the "bros" \- but
that's happened what, once in 7 years? And I suspect (and took it) as more an
off-key joke than anything malicious.

~~~
losteverything
< What's to say a girl can't enjoy beer?

"Girl's" are females under the age of 18.

To my learning, use of girls to not mean girls is incorrect speech and should
be avoided. Use woman or female.

~~~
TACIXAT
It's not incorrect, it's just diminutive and can be insulting in a
professional setting. Going out with the girls and having a drink with my boys
are perfectly fine things to say when referring to your friends. Similar to
how bro is thrown around, you wouldn't describe your colleague that way.

------
jacquesm
This really should have been the #2 spot on HN right now by votes. For an Ask
HN that is this important could the flags please be discounted?

~~~
dang
We turned off flags on this submission hours ago.

~~~
jacquesm
Thank you.

------
alaskamiller
Silicon valley culture used to be that way, and is still that way. The cube
farms was the prevailing best practice.

Then the pendulum swung to the other side with the new kids entering the
workforce and wanted open office, work families, and all that. Which then
created the cargo culting from others entering the process.

Now we're on the bubble of the pendulum swinging back.

So it goes.

~~~
treehau5
Bullshit. _nobody_ wanted open floor plans, or if they did, they had immediate
buyers remorse. Open floor plans became a fad that turned into a way for cheap
ass companies to slash costs and brag about it on linkedin about how trendy
they were being.

~~~
WillPostForFood
I can prove you wrong. I want and like open floor plans, and have never had
buyer's remorse. I'll rule out any cube farm for any future job; I hate the
isolation.

~~~
abawany
I think there is one difference between the person who prefers
cubicles/isolation and one who prefers an open space: when you want to get
away from the isolation, all you have to do is walk over to a willing party
and have a chat. For people (like me and others in this thread) who are unable
to function in open spaces, there is no escape from the torture.

~~~
ezrast
I don't think this is true at all. Human social behavior is incredibly
sensitive to perceived norms and paths of least resistance; this can be
observed all the time in online games where minor changes to UI or reward
structures have drastic ramifications on player social behavior. A lot of
interaction simply will never come about if it isn't fostered organically by
the environment.

This isn't to dispute that the benefits of an open office plan are fairly
minuscule​ compared to the costs for most people, myself included.

~~~
abawany
Yes, but online games are a collective. Consider the case of open spaces where
you have one team per aisle. Team 1 can be as noisy as they wish - there is no
penalty most of the time from the unrelated Team 2. I was in such a
predicament at a large e-commerce company - I was seated the aisle over from a
very noisy team that ran in debug mode. They and their manager thought this
was the way a good team works so my complaints were discarded with extreme
prejudice. Two aisles over was a relatively quiet team with a very loud
chewer/scraper - the person was very careful with his food and spent 5 minutes
every work day scraping his plastic container right there at the desk.

I used to have to listen to white noise just to get away from the drip-drip
torture of the endless prattle - my productivity at home used to be 5x
compared to working in this open Hades.

I guess you are right - a lot of interaction will never come about if it isn't
fostered organically by the environment. I am saying that in my case, what was
fostered organically by the environment was people that first speak what they
are about to type before typing it and utter every exclamation point
associated with a failed `ls` or etc. It was Hades. I have ringing in my ears
from listening to loud music and noise to drown out this aural rubbish and I
can assure you that this ringing is a quintillion orders of magnitude more
pleasant than the cacophony foisted on to me by the fine co-workers at this
establishment, courtesy of the cage free office plan. I left as soon as I
could and while I miss the money/benefits, I don't miss the noise - not one
little bit.

~~~
specialist
I shudder. Your loud chewer story triggered a flash back to a coworker
clipping their nails (talons) next to me.

About the noise pollution...

Like decision fatique, I think we all have a stimulation budget (buffer). Most
of the time, I'm fine. Until I'm not. And my budget (buffer) gets smaller as I
age.

Nowadays, I'm completely content to be facing a wall, with earbuds in, so I
can tune out and get some real work done.

------
alansmitheebk
I'm not a woman but I have a few ideas that might help:

* Check glassdoor.com to see what current and former employees have said about the company and how they rate it. While the feedback may not be specific to gender / diversity concerns, you can probably get a good feel for whether or not it's a happy place or a disgruntled place.

* Ask how many women work there in developer roles.

* Try to find a publicly traded company to work at verses a startup. A publicly traded company has a real HR department and potentially a lot to lose if they get sued. In a startup, there typically is no HR department. There might be one person who is in charge of some HR-related things like benefit administration, but that person is not equipped to deal with things like handling sexual harassment allegations. That person is also likely be friends with the founders.

------
primeblue
It's hard to find an academic-type culture without big egos and ignorance.

Look for teams that have a broad range of ages and experiences. These people
foster learning and accept they individually don't know everything.

Stay away from mono cultures.

Managers that are involved parents having ongoing experience raising children
are great. People without children haven't been forced to learn patience and
compassion...day in day out being a responsible parent is like a good manager.

~~~
greglindahl
Wow. If only I knew how I'd be disadvantaged in business management by
choosing to be child-free. Actually, in practice, it doesn't turn out to be a
handicap.

------
Kaizyn
The Two Travelers and the Farmer

North America

A traveler came upon an old farmer hoeing in his field beside the road. Eager
to rest his feet, the wanderer hailed the countryman, who seemed happy enough
to straighten his back and talk for a moment. "What sort of people live in the
next town?" asked the stranger.

"What were the people like where you've come from?" replied the farmer,
answering the question with another question.

"They were a bad lot. Troublemakers all, and lazy too. The most selfish people
in the world, and not a one of them to be trusted. I'm happy to be leaving the
scoundrels."

"Is that so?" replied the old farmer. "Well, I'm afraid that you'll find the
same sort in the next town.

Disappointed, the traveler trudged on his way, and the farmer returned to his
work.

Some time later another stranger, coming from the same direction, hailed the
farmer, and they stopped to talk. "What sort of people live in the next town?"
he asked.

"What were the people like where you've come from?" replied the farmer once
again.

"They were the best people in the world. Hard working, honest, and friendly.
I'm sorry to be leaving them."

"Fear not," said the farmer. "You'll find the same sort in the next town."

Source:
[http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/traveltales.html#twotravelersandfa...](http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/traveltales.html#twotravelersandfarmer)

~~~
Mz
You aren't outright wrong, the problem is that if you are a woman (or black or
fill in the blank) and you have been consistently shit all over your entire
life because of it, not only do you suffer from burn out on trying to keep
your chin up and hope for the best and all that, but you may have zero skills
for trying to effectively interact with people in a way that doesn't help
recreate the same shitty experiences. And if you actually do have good skills
for handling it effectively, actual sexism (racism, etc) can still rear its
ugly head even if you are doing everything right.

The other problem with your parable is that it doesn't tell people how to make
such outcomes happen, which aren't simply based on some kind of magical
"thinking positive" BS. I actually know how to do stuff like that and it is
damn hard work that has to happen on top of whatever other work you were
actually trying to do or are being paid to do. Even if you do everything right
all the time (which you probably won't because people have off days or
whatever), it can be a long hard slog and some people will still just be
sexist assholes no matter what you do or don't do.

~~~
chillacy
I actually like the parable because it hints at another side to the issue,
which is the perceiver, and though I'm not a woman I do get to sit in one type
of disadvantaged social role in life, so I can relate. And I've given this
some thought.

First off, while it's true that social factors are real, provable with data,
and very annoyingly denied by many out there, the degree to which we tie our
personal identity to a disadvantaged social identity is up to us. Evidence is
pretty easy: talk to people in your disadvantaged social group and ask what
they think. Probably most will acknowledge that it's a problem but that they
can overcome it through working harder. A few number will not even acknowledge
that it's a problem in the first place. And a few number will claim that it's
such a big problem that it's insurmountable. I think the first group is
probably closest to reality.

Second idea: it's easier to change ourselves than it is to change the world.
That is, we can change our outlook on life by changing the narrative we've
woven for ourselves. Whole point of therapy and a big part of psychology.

And thus, in order to avoid getting bogged down into hopelessness, at some
point you have to maintain a delusion that either you aren't heavily
disadvantaged such that working is pointless, or that you are disadvantaged
but you're a crazy hard worker who can get things done anyways.

~~~
Mz
_First off, while it 's true that social factors are real, provable with data,
and very annoyingly denied by many out there, the degree to which we tie our
personal identity to a disadvantaged social identity is up to us. Evidence is
pretty easy: talk to people in your disadvantaged social group and ask what
they think. Probably most will acknowledge that it's a problem but that they
can overcome it through working harder. A few number will not even acknowledge
that it's a problem in the first place. And a few number will claim that it's
such a big problem that it's insurmountable. I think the first group is
probably closest to reality._

If you really dig into the details, the odds are good that the differences in
their perception is rooted in more concrete and complicated problems than
merely perceiving the problem differently. There are quite a lot of seemingly
or even literally invisible issues that have substantial impact on social
outcomes.

My oldest son walks around with a social black cloud over his head. People
read him as defiant of authority and disrespectful merely for opening his
mouth. They read me as ass kissingly deferential. We have done quite a lot of
research and concluded that he lacks prosody -- he has no ability to tone
match, so he gets that reaction of "I don't like your tone." I apparently tone
match by default, which gets me read as very submissive and subservient, but
the reality is that I do it in part because I am routinely perceived to be a
dragon lady, so if I don't go the extra mile to try to be mollifying and build
bridges, it is a shit show every step of the way.

I didn't say I dislike the parable. But as someone who does study the social
stuff a helluva lot, I can tell you that there are going to be massively more
differences between the "positive" traveler and the "negative" one than merely
their attitude. I have substantial social astuteness which makes its vastly
less dangerous for me to try to navigate situations that many women want no
part of. It would be monstrously assholish of me to dismiss their very real
problems in life just because "Well, it works fine for me!"

My son will never be able to glad-hand the way I do. He outright lacks the
ability to tone match. Saying the exact same words as me to the exact same
people in the exact same situation gets very different reactions. I know
because I have seen exactly that happen.

The world if full of fascinating invisible forces, including pheromones,
verbal cues and a million other details. Pretending that this parable is
merely about having a good attitude is a gross oversimplification.

Tell the story again and say that one of the travelers is black and the other
white or one is male and the other female or one is rich and the other poor
and see how you feel then about acting like your attitude alone determines
your social outcomes.

~~~
chillacy
Didn't say the story was meant to be taken at face value, only that the idea
that you have some degree of control over your life is empowering and I think
leads to more happiness.

It's useful to look into research into optimism and pessimism: especially
Learned Helplessness, which is what happens if (as I had in the past) one
slips into thinking that they have zero power over their lives, and that your
social factors determine everything.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness)

I recall that a study found that pessimists were actually more accurate in
that their perception of reality was closer to what actually happens. But
optimists were happier.

I don't know the specifics of your situation, but if prosody can be at all
learned or improved, then that's something that can be changed, which is a lot
more than some of the other stuff out there like skin color or height.

Anyways, I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I don't want to dissuade
anyone from standing up/fighting the good fight for social causes. But as
someone who naturally skews pessimistic and struggled with depression,
maintaining the semblance of control over my life, even if it's not real, has
helped tremendously. And I hope it helps others too.

\----

> Tell the story again and say that one of the travelers is black and the
> other white or one is male and the other female or one is rich and the other
> poor and see how you feel then about acting like your attitude alone
> determines your social outcomes.

I'm not sure that's the way I'd think of it. More like: imagine two travelers,
both are black, or both are gay, and they're exactly the same in all regards
(thought experiment!), and one person believes that them being in group X
means people treat them unfairly, while the other doesn't. They will have
different interpretations of events, leading to different responses, leading
to different lives. As I said above, taking the stance that we can control our
lives leads to improving our lives, taking the stance that social factors are
the biggest leads to us I think improving society in the best case, or learned
helplessness in the worst case. The former is easier to do than the latter.

And that's a practical thought experiment, because you can change your outlook
over time, it's the whole point of therapy. Those two travelers are the same
person at different points in their lives.

~~~
Mz
There is lots of interesting stuff about optimism out there, some of which
shows that optimists handle certain things differently. One experiment did
something like asked how many pictures were in a fake newspaper they had
printed and gave you a time limit. On some page (like page 2 or some other
early page), it announced "This paper has X number of pictures." The optimists
would see that and stop counting. They had their answer. The pessimists were
so focused on counting pictures, they failed to read this big, bold statement.

So, basically, many optimists know how to hack the system instead of literally
doing what they were told. This is part of what I am talking about. I am an
optimist, but it isn't merely "think shiny thoughts." It is "I think I have
the skillz to handle this and get a better outcome than what most people would
expect or are predicting." And it is really problematic when the message is
"you just need a better attitude." In my experience, a better attitude grows
out of having the skills you need to tackle the problem. Many people don't
have that. If you give them that, changes in attitude follow.

I don't really disagree with anything you have said here, except for the
detail that this question was posted by a woman in tech on an overwhelmingly
male forum. So, this parable tends to come across as suggesting that women
merely have an attitude problem. I am the highest ranked woman here. Trying to
establish the ability to open my mouth and get real engagement without it
being a shit show has been a long, hard slog. Having done that, I am noticing
more women able to open their mouths.

So, if the parable is helpful to you, awesome! But I didn't want to just stand
by and say nothing knowing how such subtext can have a chill effect that is
enormously harmful to already silenced minorities.

------
pascalxus
I'm not a minority, but I think you should be asking this question to
everyone, not just minorities. Everyone deserves a non-toxic environment and
it's an issue everyone has to deal with.

Here's my strategy: Read the glassdoor reviews - If it mentions "people crying
at their desks", that's a bad sign - actually any kind of crying in a
professional environment is a bad sign. Also, words like "high energy" and
"passion" often reflect poorly as well.

#2) Ask the company about their employee retention rate or research it online.
If you can get an accurate picture of their retention rate, then you can find
out how toxic it is. The greater the number of people leaving, the worse the
place is.

~~~
jey
> Also, words like "high energy" and "passion" often reflect poorly as well.

Interesting. Can you expand on this? I don't see "passion" as negative; it
seems to just mean that people like their work.

~~~
VLM
On the positive side think of the meme of the passionate "starving artist".
Starving never helped me do anything but lose weight, supposedly it isn't even
very good at that long term. Nope being underpaid for the sake of emotion is a
complete loss.

On the negative side think of the meme of enablers trying to downplay a
screamer's actions as merely being passionate about his work, or even worse,
the department he manages.

~~~
im3w1l
The point of the starving artist isn't that they are starving. They point is
that they didn't compromise their vision for money. They didn't sell out.

That's what I assume it is about anyway.

~~~
eigenstuff
I describe myself as a starving artist pretty frequently. What it means is
that every week I find myself choosing between materials and food. Sometimes
food wins, sometimes materials do (they did this week). Every penny I can
spare goes towards materials and tools but I still can't afford everything I
need to not only make my work but make it good enough to match my vision,
slowing progress significantly which can be pretty disheartening. And so my
struggle will continue until I can start selling my work, make my money back
plus labor+profit, and I finally no longer have to consider replacing a $15
electric pencil sharpener a burden.

Honestly it's no different from living on ramen while pouring all your money
into a business you're trying to start. It's just more romanticized.

------
alansmitheebk
I replied earlier, but here are a few more ideas:

* Ask if the company is involved in mentoring, community outreach, or any other type of philanthropic activity. If they do some things like Script Ed for example, they're probably nice people and not sexist d-bags.(Although I wouldn't assume that the inverse is also true).

* Ask if the company participates in any diversity initiatives or conferences.

HTH

------
bbcbasic
A reasoned response is a red flag?

~~~
danielhooper
If you have a workplace where women and minorities cannot discuss their issues
without a white man butting in to whine "but what about meee?" then yes, that
is a toxic work environment.

~~~
idiotdummy
So "not a minority" means you're a white man?

~~~
bbcbasic
Not necessarily. Deaf, blind, dwarfs, old (e.g. 70), very young (e.g. 16),
single fathers and amputees would all be minorities that could apply to white
males.

------
mrout
I think the key thing for people to realise is that _none of what you just
said has anything to do with women_.

Meet your direct manager. Make sure you get along with them. Make sure people
give off 'good vibes' i.e. you get along with them. Talk to people, get to
know them.

This is just basic people skills. The interview is about you evaluating them
as much as it is about them evaluating you.

~~~
skybrian
It's generic good advice but some people need it more than others.

Large companies may be a problem though. The interview process is generic and
you probably won't meet your direct manager; you're just evaluating a somewhat
random sample of people. But asking to meet them later (before accepting the
offer) might work.

~~~
vonmoltke
Other than Google or for new grads, what companies do not have the team with
the opening do the actual interviewing? In both I have worked for, and every
one I have interviewed with except Google, candidates interview with the
people they will be working with, including their manager.

~~~
skybrian
I meant Google. (I wasn't sure if other large companies do the same thing?)

------
nnfy
Maybe there would be less toxicity in your life if you stopped looking for it.

You sound like you're approaching the problem with the mindset that the entire
industry is built around bro culture and harassment. I think that's a
slanderous media/pop culture stereotype.

~~~
andrewflnr
Even if you're not wrong about OP in particular, there are real places that
inspired that stereotype, and avoiding them is a valid concern.

------
jecjec
You are absolutely starting out with the wrong mindset. Assuming the worst is
absolutely a mindset that self-fulfills.

Based on your use of racist and sexist language, OP, I would probably NEVER
hire you and I actively seek to keep people like you out of my organizations.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for making personal attacks. If you don't want to be
banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to
believe that you'll follow the site rules in the future.

------
metaphorm
what am I trying to do, exactly? Why don't you tell me again what I do think
and believe, since you seem to be an expert on my mind and beliefs.

~~~
dang
This breaks HN's civility rule. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't.

There's a second problem. You've been using HN primarily for political and
ideological arguments. That's an abuse of the site. It's one thing to use HN
as intended—i.e. to gratify intellectual curiosity—and occasionally post
relevant comments on political topics when those come up. That's what most
people do and it's fine. But it's different to treat HN as a platform for
political battle. That's destructive of what this place is for, and we ban
accounts that do it, irrespective of the politics they favor. So please stop
using HN that way.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14491608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14491608)
and marked it off-topic.

------
fwefwwfe
This would help white guys, too. It's not like we're immune to toxicity. IME
it's usually one bad manager and/or one genius on the team that makes things
so bad for everyone else. Maybe it's just been blind luck that I haven't
worked on a whole team of sexist people. Here's what I would ask to mitigate
these problems (keeping in mind I haven't necessarily asked these myself):

    
    
      In what ways does your manager make your life easier?
      How blame oriented is the team?
      How big are the egos on the team?
      What things about the culture or technical processes will surprise me here?
      How would you compare your team, manager, and coworkers to the others?  
        Are they more fun or experienced or do they have team events more?
      How many people have left in the past year and why do you think they really left?
    

> but ping pong tables and free beer doesn't mean shit to me if I'm going to
> be underpaid

It's not like you can't tell if you're going to be underpaid before you agree
to a salary, is it?

~~~
emmab
You don't know if you're going to be passed over for advancement or raises due
to bias.

~~~
fwefwwfe
Yeah, let me know if you have a crystal ball that will detect that.

~~~
dang
Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

~~~
fwefwwfe
Please get off your high horse? I'd honestly like to know if someone has a way
to predict that.

~~~
emmab
That's exactly what the top-level OP is asking, how to predict this kind of
thing.

