moment of dread

Q: How do I know when there's a good chance that I'm going to feel stupid soon?
A: When my friend asks me, "How good are you at combinatorics?"

I guess it could have been worse, she could have asked me how good I was at statistics. (I suck at math. Yes, I really do program for a living.)

hackers with guns

Today I had lunch with several engineers visiting from the Taipei office.

In Taiwan, every male citizen is required to complete mandatory military service. One of the engineers had just finished his stint in the army. So, halfway through the meal, I found myself listening to a glib discussion about the merits of the various types of guns used by the Taiwanese military. Apparently there are several important things to consider, such as the length of the barrel (shorter is less accurate but easier to carry for short Asian soldiers), the age of the model (some guns from the late 1970's were still being used as recently as a few years ago), and various gun performance benchmarks.

I'm not sure exactly why I was amused, but I was. I guess I'm not used to computer science geeks who know their guns.

sexism in the workplace

As a software engineer, one might expect that I'd have to deal with sexism in the workplace. I've read stories where women say they aren't heard in meetings, and I know the statistics (usually 10-15%) for women in computer science.

The thing is, I feel like I don't experience any of it. Maybe my coworkers are really cool, or maybe I'm just loud, so they can't ignore me. Maybe I'm just really used to working with guys, after five years of college and five years of working in technology. I know one thing for sure; these days, it almost feels a little freaky to be in a room full of women. It's like something unnatural has happened, to take all the guys away.

So, I was quite surprised the other day, by a sudden flare-up of apparent sexism at work. Our cubicles are fairly open, so I can see at least two cubes in either direction. I noticed a woman holding a sheaf of paper, walking slowly down the hall, and peering into the rows of cubes. I figured she was one of the people from HR who pass out interview packets, who come by a couple of times a week. Anyway, she stopped at my cube, and asked me if I was an engineer. I replied yes, and she said, "Darn, I was looking for a non-engineer, for a usability study." I told her the product manager cube was in the corner, but it looked like they weren't in at the moment. Anyway, she left in search of a non-engineer.

I'm usually hesistant to declare someone sexist. I looked at my clothes; I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I looked at my cube; as far as I could tell it looked like everyone else's cube. One of my cubemate had his headphones in, so it made sense that he was passed over, but there was one other engineer in our cube with no headphones in, and at least ten other engineers in the surrounding area, again sans headphones. I poked my cubemate (the one with the headphones) and explained what happened. His response? "Yeah, she probably went for the girl. Too bad our two GUY product managers aren't around." Grr...

gadgets for clothes

This came up last week in a lunchtime conversation, and was revisited when I was chatting with a friend yesterday: Why aren't there any cool gadgets designed to deal with clothes (and shoes)? My answer: not enough women engineers.

Let me start by saying that I don't think women are intrinsically more interested in clothes. Unfortunately, it seems that in our culture, it is much more acceptable for men to wear the same types of clothes every day, or even the same outfits, than it is for women. I'm reminded of this every time I get invited to yet another wedding, and I have to figure out what to wear, while I watch the guys drag out the same old suits.

But, back to my point. If there were more women engineers, I bet we would have cool closets that would optimize space but easily switch between winter and summer wardrobes. There would be an attached computer which would have a catalogue of all the clothes in the closet; once an article of clothing was selected, it would take only the push of a button to retrieve it. Shoes would be automatically machine-sorted into bins based on color and style, and be kept out of the way.

In fact, the ultimate clothes gadget would be a laundry machine, which would automatically take dirty clothes and determine whether to dry clean, "hand" wash, or machine wash, perform the appropriate action, and then fold or hang the result. Have I mentioned how much I hate laundry? I would pay a fortune for a machine like that.

women in computing

I recently went to a talk by the authors of Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing.

Some of the data presented was interesting. For example, they showed that women and men tend to enter college with different levels of computer experience, which negatively affects women who are considering the computer science field. They also found that women were more affected than men by bad teaching, poorly formulated curricula, and non-constructive criticism.

I definitely agree with the first point, and my suggestion is that all high schools have a mandatory computer class requirement, where real computer science is taught, instead of the usual touch typing, word processing, and spreadsheet skills. I am curious as to the reason behind the second observation; I'm not satisfied with the hypothesis that women are intrinsically less confident, whether for natural or environmental reasons.

On the other hand, there was quite a bit of material presented (mostly by Jane Margolis and not Allan Fisher) that I found irritating. I think it just pisses me off when people think and act like they have me all figured out, and try to tell me things about myself that aren't even true. Immature, huh?

I was trying to pinpoint the source of my irritation, and I think it boils down to this: Those of us who are women and have been successful in pursuing a career in computer science aren't really the women that these studies are about. We are "double outsiders" (a term I heard during the subsequent Q&A session) since we are neither men, nor do we conform to the "normal" woman stereotype.

We are told that as women, we needed extra help in order to succeed in computer science classes. Except we didn't. We are told that we didn't grow up with PCs and video games in our bedrooms, and that we didn't seek out computer experience in junior high and high school. Except we did. And, we are told that we don't code in our spare time, and that we don't enjoy talking about computers with our friends outside of work. Except we do.

This is the reason, I think, that I find most analyses of women in computing irritating, and sometimes insulting.

cooking for engineers

I ran across this blog the other day, thanks to the new blogger nav bar. I really like the way the recipes are written; compared to standard step-by-step recipes, it's much easier to see which actions apply to which ingredients.

do I look like an HR person?

When engineering candidates come onsite, we usually schedule them so that they jump right into technical interviews, rather than having a meeting with a recruiter first. It's expected that they will have talked to the recruiter over the phone already, and given limited HR resources, it makes more sense for the candidate to get a wrap-up meeting than an intro meeting.

Today, I was the first person on an interview schedule, and apparently the candidate thought I was an HR person, until I started asking him technical questions. Envision this:

me:	How was your flight? Did you come in yesterday?
him:	Good, yeah I got in yesterday evening.
me:	So, do you want anything to eat or drink?
him:	Sure, I'll have a coffee, thanks.
me:	Here you go. Okay, so how would you reverse a linked list?
him:	Eh??

I'm not sure what to take away from that experience. Maybe I should stop making small talk with candidates. Maybe I should make sure to wear clothes with big MIT logos. Or maybe I should just be amused.

hiring engineers

I find our hiring process for software engineers pretty novel. It's based entirely on hiring committees; interviews are done by engineers, who write up feedback reports, and a committee meets to discuss the reports and make a decision on whether to proceed. Also, engineers aren't hired for a specific position or by a specific manager; they are hired first, and then allocated to projects by the engineering directors and VPs. Theoretically, this results in all engineers throughout the company being uniformly brilliant, with the added bonus that they have enough general knowledge to rapidly change projects and/or teams.

I've noticed a couple of possible drawbacks, though. Because all interview candidates get asked the same kinds of interview questions, we tend to hire applicants with breadth rather than depth of knowledge...maybe not always a good thing. I came in listing no C experience on my resume (yes I know, pathetic) but I got asked questions about memory allocation and differentiating between big-endian and little-endian machines. If I had known nothing, I probably wouldn't have been hired; luckily I managed to dredge up some vague knowledge that I had picked up years ago in college.

Also, because the hiring committee needs lots of feedback to work with, since they don't meet the candidates themselves, each candidate goes through a pretty grueling interview schedule. If I remember correctly, I myself went through one phone screen and three onsite days, for a total of 10 technical interviews. In addition, the hiring committees only meet once a week, since they are comprised primarily of engineering management; busy people with lots of non-recruiting responsibilities. The end result is that the overall process can take months, and some applicants just don't want to wait that long.

On a related subject, I seem to be doing interviews all the time. I've been at this job for almost six months now, and I've done 7 training interviews (paired up with a senior engineer) and 11 solo interviews, over the course of the last three months. I've heard from various sources that we have an unofficial policy that every engineering candidate must be interviewed by at least one female engineer. I've also heard that recruiters also make a special effort to have more female engineers on the interview schedule when the candidate is female. I've never confirmed it with HR, but I'm inclined to believe it, since no male engineer that I know has done 18 interviews in 3 months.

I'm also beginning to think that we must be trying very very hard to hire women engineers; 9 out of my 18 interviews have been for women, which is extraordinarily high, considering the normal ratio of male to female engineers. I guess this is a Good Thing, but I sometimes think that we're trying too hard, especially when I phone screen a woman who can't figure out the running time of a simple algorithm, or do an onsite interview with a woman who can't write a method signature in her preferred programming language. I wonder if the hiring committees base their decisions exclusively on feedback ratings and reports, or if they consider the gender of the candidate. I don't like thinking that I might have benefited from some bias; that I'm not as least as good as all the guys. Maybe I'll find out on Friday, when I sit in on my first hiring meeting.

encouraging women scientists (and engineers)

okay this is one of the (many) rants that i store in my brain and spew at unsuspecting victims.

i don't understand the concept of having conferences, or seminars, or lectures, to tell women why they don't like math, science, or computers. in fact, a lot of times these presentations are made to an audience that is full of technical women, or girls who are already interested in math and science, and the presenter ends up "preaching to the choir".

if i were a 15-year old girl, and i was fairly good at math and science but not sure what i wanted to do yet (which i was, once) and then i was bombarded by the message that women aren't generally good at the sciences, and they have a lot of obstacles, and the world is unfair in such a way that diverts women from technical fields, how would i react? i can think of two types of reactions:

- i could think, gee why are all these people trying to keep me from math and science, want to be a "rebel" and "defeat the system" and so forth, and plunge myself into the technical world

- i could think, wow i never thought about all these problems, i just thought i liked physics (or chemistry, or whatever). now that i know there are so many awful obstacles in my way, do i really want to go into this field? or do i want to just choose another, perhaps slightly less interesting field with less resistance?

i'm not sure the first reaction can be sustained over a the course of a career, and of course the second one is completely counter to the intent (i think) of these presentations.

i'm an engineer, i've always enjoyed science, and i never went to these kinds of events. yes, in college, my classes were filled with guys. this wasn't really an issue for me. if someone had pointed it out to me when i was there (wow, look! you're one of seven girls in a 75 person class!) i don't know what i would have done. maybe get uncomfortable with it. maybe decide to switch to a field where i don't have to be singled out as a token female or considered as a role model for young girls, and i don't have to consider the possibility i got hired (or accepted, or chosen) to fulfill some kind of unofficial quota.

i know the intent behind these conferences is to encourage women, and yes, it is a problem that many women don't consider going into engineering or science. i'm not sure what the solution is, maybe do something to raise awareness among all the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who give 5-year old girls Barbie dolls instead of radios, or maybe do something about the teachers who unconsciously call on guys more than girls in math class. but i really don't think the solution is to group together a bunch of women who already have a predisposition towards the technical world, and analyze in detail all the ways that they're different from the men. maybe they'll just resent it, because they don't think they are all that different. i know i don't.