On Stanier (2020), 16th chapter:
Diversity and inclusion at tech companies
It's not an overstatement to say that diversity in tech is a big problem. The environment is usually unfavorable and the attrition along the career causes minorities to drop out of the profession.
The problem can be separated into two aspects:
- Pipeline - as in available talent
- Culture - as in how things are within the company
What one can do to improve these:
- Be aware of your biases, both at daily work and at interviews. Always question why you think about a certain person in a certain way and if you'd have a different impression were they from another group
- Call out incorrect behavior
- Champion inclusiveness: listen to everyone, arrange things in a way that suits all your team members, considering their individual struggles
This is a deep, important topic, so, obviously, the book is not able to cover it fully, it provides good pointers, though, check the book for them.
Some works and books that are good starting points to broaden your world view and think about these systemic issues:
- Discriminating Systems: Gender, Race and Power in AI (West et al., 2019) - Suggested in Stanier (2020)
On remote work
Remote working is an unavoidable tendency (especially after the global pandemic during 2020/2021). The book offers some advice on how to make it optimal:
- In a hybrid setup, make sure that the meeting has a proper setup for the remote workers. Ideally, each participant will have their own camera.
- In a hybrid setup, make sure that you allow space for remote participants to talk. Also avoid talking over the other people, that's hard for remote participants to hear
- Communicate in writing as much as possible
- Assume async coordination at all times. Schedule something when sync mode is needed
- Trust that your coworkers will do their job :)