Does Diversity Add Value in Engineering or Just Complexity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

Do you lack logical reasoning? Of course they are not mutually exclusive. But if you are suggesting there is complete overlap between the two, then there is no need to hire on the basis of BOTH merit AND diversity. Hiring on the basis of merit should be enough. If there is not perfect overlap between the two (ie the real world), and you recruit under both banners, then by definition you will hire some people without merit. If you disagree with that premise (ie you think there is no world where recruiting for diversity results in non-merit hires), then you should logically be fine with hiring solely on merit.

As if it’s binary.

I’m not the PP but I think you are engaging in a conversation where you don’t want to consider what the other person is actually saying.

There is no way that I would want to be hired on an engineering team for any reason other than 100% merit. As a woman who is also Latina, I don’t want that to even be a question. I work with other engineers who are also female/latina/black/insert anything here. They are great. The driving force must be merit. I don’t think the existence of their birth counts as merit.

This is just me and my own preferences for my own hiring. Others can want something different for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Honest question. In your career have white men ever been hired for factors other than merit ? Like they were related to the CEO or one of their close friends. Or they were a cool fun dude at college even though they had mediocre grades? I don’t known you but I can say with 100% certainty that the answer is yes and you are holding women and minorities to an impossible standard if you don’t allow the same level of clemency that mediocre white men have had for centuries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard this issue raised from university professors. In canada, alot of universities require professor candidates to explain in their applications how their work furthers DEI goals. And professors are required to make ongoing commitments and statements to these goals. And the question arises about how a pure math researcher's work is supposed to advance DEI goals. And even if you can think of some theoretical ways to answer that question, should those really be driving forces for hiring in a math department?

Uh, yeah…because all of the isms that OP is infected by exist in academia whether you choose to believe that or not. If a student is being “blocked” by the majority of their professors than that has an effect on their job prospects or maybe even their ambition to pursue a profession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honest question. In your career have white men ever been hired for factors other than merit ? Like they were related to the CEO or one of their close friends. Or they were a cool fun dude at college even though they had mediocre grades? I don’t known you but I can say with 100% certainty that the answer is yes and you are holding women and minorities to an impossible standard if you don’t allow the same level of clemency that mediocre white men have had for centuries.

Hallelujah! Did the heavens just open up and rain truth down? OMG, I mean wow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honest question. In your career have white men ever been hired for factors other than merit ? Like they were related to the CEO or one of their close friends. Or they were a cool fun dude at college even though they had mediocre grades? I don’t known you but I can say with 100% certainty that the answer is yes and you are holding women and minorities to an impossible standard if you don’t allow the same level of clemency that mediocre white men have had for centuries.

Absolutely. Just as women are also hired for knowing the CEO or for being hot. There are many factors that add to your perceived culture fit into a role. For me, I want merit to be first, other factors second. If you wish to be a diversity first hire, merit second, that’s your preference. I’m merely stating mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard this issue raised from university professors. In canada, alot of universities require professor candidates to explain in their applications how their work furthers DEI goals. And professors are required to make ongoing commitments and statements to these goals. And the question arises about how a pure math researcher's work is supposed to advance DEI goals. And even if you can think of some theoretical ways to answer that question, should those really be driving forces for hiring in a math department?

Is it really a “driving force” or just one of many considerations?

If you do not have a good answer to that question, you generally won't get hired these days. Most candidates fudge something. But it's a mandatory commitment before getting hired.

But that’s still different than “driving force”.

How hard is it to be inclusive?

[Anonymous]

Women have smaller hands and smaller pockets than mine. I am convinced that if more women worked in design at Apple, the iPhone mini would still exist. Instead it's just enormous phones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

Do you lack logical reasoning? Of course they are not mutually exclusive. But if you are suggesting there is complete overlap between the two, then there is no need to hire on the basis of BOTH merit AND diversity. Hiring on the basis of merit should be enough. If there is not perfect overlap between the two (ie the real world), and you recruit under both banners, then by definition you will hire some people without merit. If you disagree with that premise (ie you think there is no world where recruiting for diversity results in non-merit hires), then you should logically be fine with hiring solely on merit.

As if it’s binary.

I’m not the PP but I think you are engaging in a conversation where you don’t want to consider what the other person is actually saying.

There is no way that I would want to be hired on an engineering team for any reason other than 100% merit. As a woman who is also Latina, I don’t want that to even be a question. I work with other engineers who are also female/latina/black/insert anything here. They are great. The driving force must be merit. I don’t think the existence of their birth counts as merit.

This is just me and my own preferences for my own hiring. Others can want something different for themselves.

The PP was positing it as a binary choice, whereas in reality it’s much more complex.

“Merit” isn’t rated as all or nothing. And there are many different aspects of “merit”. Some candidates fit certain aspects of a position better than others.

Plus, there are many other considerations outside of DEI and “merit” that go into a hiring decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

Do you lack logical reasoning? Of course they are not mutually exclusive. But if you are suggesting there is complete overlap between the two, then there is no need to hire on the basis of BOTH merit AND diversity. Hiring on the basis of merit should be enough. If there is not perfect overlap between the two (ie the real world), and you recruit under both banners, then by definition you will hire some people without merit. If you disagree with that premise (ie you think there is no world where recruiting for diversity results in non-merit hires), then you should logically be fine with hiring solely on merit.

As if it’s binary.

I’m not the PP but I think you are engaging in a conversation where you don’t want to consider what the other person is actually saying.

There is no way that I would want to be hired on an engineering team for any reason other than 100% merit. As a woman who is also Latina, I don’t want that to even be a question. I work with other engineers who are also female/latina/black/insert anything here. They are great. The driving force must be merit. I don’t think the existence of their birth counts as merit.

This is just me and my own preferences for my own hiring. Others can want something different for themselves.

I’m not PP, but I think part of their observation is that merit can be subjective. Most people want to be hired based on merit, not their gender or cultural identity. At the same time, because of the society we live in, the people deciding whether or not you have merit, fit, potential - all those subjective hiring traits - may be biased. Intentional or not, they may give higher marks for merit, fit, potential, to someone more like them. In engineering, that’s often been a white male.

[Anonymous]

Another thing to be mindful of is that so many companies are owned by private equity and venture capital. If DEI is the thing of the day like it was in 2020, then DEI will be the order of business. If that's a no-no politically like in 2026, then no more women and POC. They don't care. They are selling your company next year regardless.

[Anonymous]

If you are hiring fairly, there is some objective formula that you are measuring each candidate with, correct? That formula aligns pretty closely with the job posting. Not sure how subjective merit is…I suppose it can be when you want to veil your biased hiring decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are hiring fairly, there is some objective formula that you are measuring each candidate with, correct? That formula aligns pretty closely with the job posting. Not sure how subjective merit is…I suppose it can be when you want to veil your biased hiring decision.

Of course it is subjective, how can you objectively determine if someone can do the job, or, more relevant to your question, how can you objectively assess from the interviews/resume that one person can do the job incrementally better than another person? That's what you are saying when you say that it should just be based on merit.

Often there are a couple of people who mostly/completely meet the requirements and mostly/completely meet on fit and you have to pick one. The extent to which they are outside of the typical hire you make (add diversity) can be a factor that tips in favor of one of those people.

[Anonymous]

Well it depends - engineers are problem solvers.

Do you want to solve a problem in a way that best works for the most number of people or in the most diverse situations, or do you want to solve a problem that will work most easily for a middle aged white guy?

Do you want to sell the product you design to a wide spectrum of the population or just to middle aged white guys?

Do you want to come up with the best solution to a problem from a variety of view points or just from the ideas of a middle aged white guy?

Do you want to attract the best and brightest new graduates from across all segments of society, or just hire more young white guys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are hiring fairly, there is some objective formula that you are measuring each candidate with, correct? That formula aligns pretty closely with the job posting. Not sure how subjective merit is…I suppose it can be when you want to veil your biased hiring decision.

Of course it is subjective, how can you objectively determine if someone can do the job, or, more relevant to your question, how can you objectively assess from the interviews/resume that one person can do the job incrementally better than another person? That's what you are saying when you say that it should just be based on merit.

Often there are a couple of people who mostly/completely meet the requirements and mostly/completely meet on fit and you have to pick one. The extent to which they are outside of the typical hire you make (add diversity) can be a factor that tips in favor of one of those people.

I am not saying the hiring decision should be solely based on merit, I am saying if a company doesn’t have a defined set of criteria that they measure each candidate against, equitably, they are opening themselves up to all kinds of discrimination lawsuits. It is in the best interest of a company to show some objective, repeatable process is being used to hire. Those could be assessing knowledge via transcripts/degrees/certifications, asking quantitative, close-ended interview questions , project examples that they can share (GitHub repo, project websites, research papers, etc), verifying years of experience and quality of that experience via references/and speaking to previous managers.

There are tangible metrics to objectively evaluate and compare merit indicators. You have to do this anyway to properly vet resume rockstars. Even soft skills, like communication, problem solving, teamwork, these can be quantified when they answer qualitative questions about their professional and/or academic experience. You are opening up a can of worms to hire based on wisdom and intuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are hiring fairly, there is some objective formula that you are measuring each candidate with, correct? That formula aligns pretty closely with the job posting. Not sure how subjective merit is…I suppose it can be when you want to veil your biased hiring decision.

Of course it is subjective, how can you objectively determine if someone can do the job, or, more relevant to your question, how can you objectively assess from the interviews/resume that one person can do the job incrementally better than another person? That's what you are saying when you say that it should just be based on merit.

Often there are a couple of people who mostly/completely meet the requirements and mostly/completely meet on fit and you have to pick one. The extent to which they are outside of the typical hire you make (add diversity) can be a factor that tips in favor of one of those people.

Without specifics this is meaningless. A car doesn't care what age or race its driver is. A bridge is also indifferent to the people who may use it.