

Thorkil Sonne: Recruit Autistics - edw519
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartlist_sonne

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jeff18
One of my pet peeves is articles that idolize autism like this. Most people
with autism are severely developmentally delayed. Autistic savants that you
often hear about in the media are extremely rare.

"As a general view, they have excellent memory and strong attention to detail.
They are persistent and good at following structures and routines."

Bullshit. Anyone who actually works with autistic people would cringe at that
line.

It's like making an unqualified statement "amputees are the best runners"
because a small handful use those awesome prosthetics to run super fast.

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Devilboy
Well obviously he's not hiring people at the extreme end of the autism
spectrum - and he has actual data to back up his statements so I don't see why
you should criticize him by taking one or two statements out of context like
that.

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jeff18
I didn't take it out of context. The entire article puts autism on a pedestal.

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KevinMS
"As a general view, they have excellent memory and strong attention to detail.
They are persistent and good at following structures and routines," he says.
In other words, they're born software engineers."

Wrong, completely totally backwards!

Good software engineers need to be good at communicating. They need to be good
writers. It also helps if they have terrible memories, because if they forget
easily then they are forced to write code thats easy for them to follow and
understand days or years later, and consequently the same for the rest of us
working with them.

~~~
dasil003
This also made me cringe. The thing that drove me to programming is how much I
_hate_ routine. All these traits are strengths of computers which we then
program so we don't have to do those repetitive things ourselves. I suppose to
the laymen writers at Wired us software engineers are just extensions of the
computers we are seated at.

~~~
iens
They don't write software, they test it.

They type in endless amounts of test data, and manually test all sorts of
applications.

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GiraffeNecktie
There are some people who would send your typical HR bunny screaming from the
interview in panic, yet would perform very well if you could just lock them in
a room and push food and energy drinks under the door. Take my father-in-law
(please!!), the Asperger's poster child. Here's a guy who can fix any kind of
mechanical or electrical device (making his own parts and tools if necessary)
and can explain in horrifically painful detail how just about everything in
the universe works, but talks and talks and talks (mostly about himself) from
the moment he wakes up till the moment he falls asleep. A great guy in many
ways. A genius even. But a complete failure (and a real nuisance) in social
interactions. In the right setting he'd be a high value employee, in the wrong
setting he could destroy an organization.

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Devilboy
I'd love to work in an environment where my personality (or lack thereof :p )
is not seen as problem that needs fixing. Currently I'm forced to work in an
open-plan environment with no privacy, no noise barriers, nothing stopping
random people from interrupting me. It's a disaster for me. I need a quiet
space free from people looking over my shoulder and I can do amazing things.
Instead I get lectured on punctuality and 'teamwork' by our MD. Rage.

