Can I pick your brain about D&I?
Perhaps the most-asked question I get from people at other tech companies. Truth be told, this is a painfully non-specific question, and the sheer volume of requests I get on a weekly and monthly basis has rendered saying “Yes!” completely impossible without being a terrible partner, friend, employee, cofounder, and advisor.
…but I care more than anything about solving the diversity problem in tech, so here is my first attempt at helping, even if I’m slammed.
Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that many of my colleagues in diversity & inclusion (D&I) experience the same. As you might imagine, many of the questions are duplicated across most interactions, and tend to start with the basics. This is my attempt to increase the scale of helpfulness and knowledge sharing, while being mindful of the finite number of hours D&I experts have during the day.
At the bottom of this post, I have compiled a list of my suggested resources, grouped as best I can by topic area, and attributed to authors. I ask that folks read the below resources before following up with me (or others!), as I’ve found that I am most useful for specific questions, rather than general advice (as diversity & inclusion is a very broad subject area that can hardly be summarized in a short conversation).
Please enjoy, and thank you so much for thinking of me as a resource. It’s an honor and a privilege to help guide your learning.
Most common questions and concerns
Isn’t this just a pipeline problem?
I care about diversity, but don’t want to lower the bar.
Isn’t this a recruiting problem?
- Kieran Snyder: Why women leave tech: It’s the culture, not because ‘math is hard’
- Erica Baker: The Other Side of Diversity
- Susan Fowler: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber
Do you have more questions? Check out the very long section at the bottom for my full recommendations!
Once you’re done reading
Now that you have done a ton of reading about effective D&I in the tech industry, you might still have some burning and specific questions that I can help with. And I would absolutely love to.
My requests for questions about D&I, please and thank you:
- Email me.
- Ask a specific question(s) about programs, approaches, implementations, etc.
- Let me know your deadline for getting an answer, so I can prioritize accordingly.
I am more than happy to answer one or two emails totally gratis. If you would like to talk more at length, I am very happy to send you my consulting rates! While I absolutely love sharing my knowledge, I also want to emphasize that expertise in diversity & inclusion should be valued at the same level as other highly technical and emotionally laborious work.
Suggested Brains to Pick
Note: This section will be continuously updated as I find great reference material and thought leadership for you!
The “Pipeline Problem”
- Rachel Thomas: If you think diversity in tech is just a pipeline problem, you haven’t been paying attention
- Aubrey Blanche: The Barriers to Diversity Across the Pipeline
Intersectionality
- Erica Baker: #FFFFFF Diversity
- Aubrey Blanche: How White women in tech can use their privilege to help create diversity
- Aubrey Blanche: Diversity in tech too often means ‘hiring white women.’ We need to move beyond that.
Culture
- Project Include: Defining Culture
- Project Include: Implementing Culture
- Rachel Thomas: The Real Reason Women Quit Tech (https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/the-real-reason-women-quit-tech-and-how-to-address-it-6dfb606929fd)
HR Processes
Technical Interviewing
- Rachel Thomas: How to make tech interviews a little less awful
- Zach Holman: Startup interviewing is fucked
- Cate: We Hire the Best
- Steve Shogren: Interview Humiliation
- Sahat Yalkabov: F*** You, I Quit — Hiring is Broken (https://medium.com/@evnowandforever/f-you-i-quit-hiring-is-broken-bb8f3a48d324)
- Dare Obesanjo: The Big Lie: Tech Companies and Diversity Hiring
