In an Effort to Code for Good

By Anonymous / Winter 2020

Before coming to UC San Diego, I changed my major five times. I had a friend that taught me how to program neural nets, the basis of machine learning algorithms, showing me how computer science (CS) can be used for the betterment of society. In particular, the intersection of mental health and computer science was of particular interest to me - and still is! It was then that I fell in love with software, and the seemingly infinite possibilities that came with going into the field. However, after spending some time at UCSD, I realized that people operated in an entirely different world. CS is one of the most popular and competitive majors nowadays - thousands of software engineers hope to one day graduate into the fledgling technology (tech) industry and make it big in Silicon Valley, hoping to join the ranks of hundreds of other young self-made millionaires. In a world where the rulebook is being written as the game is played, and tech spending is at $4 trillion annually, those successful in Silicon Valley have nearly unchecked power. Moving forward, we’ll discuss the current state of the tech industry, dominant ideologies, and how CS majors and engineers define success in today’s society. Then we’ll focus in on the specific experiences of women in the industry, examining some of the different ways women tackle the challenges - is it better to acclimate to the system, or to change things from the outside? However, in recent times, we’ve seen the community band together to support those affected by the pandemic, indicating that perhaps it’s possible to give back to the societies they operate in. k to the communities in a positive manner. Let us first get an idea as to what the current state of the industry looks like.

As of now, one’s worth and success in the CS world is measured in a rather one-dimensional manner. That is, by how many internships one has held in their undergraduate degree, and at which tier company - there exists a distinct hierarchy. The most coveted (and best paid) positions are currently in finance, at quantitative trading firms. Those with strong math and computer science skills intern as quantitative analysts at top hedge funds and trading firms, followed closely those interning there as software engineers. Next in line are those at Facebook, Google, and popular startups such as Uber, Airbnb, and LinkedIn, to name a few. Interns enjoy free meals, housing, free backpacks and jackets, and a generous intern salary. The relative rankings of most companies are well known to most, and sporting the classic Google Timbuk2 backpack or an Uber Patagonia is a sign of success and pride. Telling a classmate or someone in industry that you landed an offer at Two Sigma or Jane Street, both top hedge funds in Manhattan, is sure to earn you a wide-eyed gasp and congratulations. As someone with such an offer, I (or one of my friends) stealthily slip it into conversation, helping to assert dominance in new social settings. Everyone knows more or less what the other person is making - salary information is passed around, each person trying to one-up the other. Websites such as Glassdoor, Leetcode, and Blind make such information readily accessible. However, the availability of such information is not strictly positive.

In a world where rankings are public and information is widely shared, those at the top of the hierarchy reap the benefits of the system. While wonderful to those Google and Facebook interns, silent judgement is passed onto the majority of CS students, most of whom fail to get internships all throughout their undergraduate career. How could one possibly be a real engineer if they can’t even clear the Google hiring bar? The average student develops the often discussed “imposter syndrome”, in which despite doing well in class, does not have the most impressive resume. Those not making six figures after graduation are considered failures, and their technical ability is called into question. As a result, this student places themselves lower on the social hierarchy, whereas those with the impressive resumes are put on a pedestal by other students. This phenomenon is problematic for students regardless of their employment status, and cascades into a much more serious issue once those students go full-time. The students that this system rewards are those that go onto further build on that existing infrastructure - companies have established this pipeline intentionally.

Tech companies are in a unique spot in that they need thousands of engineers to maintain and build their social media empires, while also being able to pay competitive wages. The higher caliber of engineer that ends up at these companies increases the prestige of the company in the eyes of young engineers, drawing them in as well. This positive feedback loop allows these companies to nurture those just beginning their college careers, and they identify high performers very early on. Programs such as Google’s STEP, Facebook University, or Microsoft’s Explorer track help oversee engineer growth and promotion starting as early as freshman year. Successful interns receive return offers each year, rising from the freshman programs into the senior intern, eventually culminating in full-time offer post-graduation. As one can imagine, student talent is being cultivated in a particular direction; the values and culture instilled has the potential to develop into different issues.

The culture these companies cultivate undeniably carries well past graduation; after one acclimates to the high salary and lifestyle that comes with being in tech, a sort of entitlement develops. A workplace pays less than six figures and doesn’t provide free lunch? Why would anyone want to work there? Once you look past the colorful minikitchens and large bonus checks, you’re there to ultimately build and debug products, an often grueling process. That begs the question - why do engineers stay? There certainly exists a nontrivial portion of the workforce that genuinely enjoys programming and the process of software engineering. However, we’re interested in exploring the motivations of those attracted to the money and prestige of the position rather than the work itself. Tech companies are well aware that most of their employees are in it for the paycheck - and unfortunately, that’s what they use as leverage to keep them there. A significant component of an engineer’s paycheck comes in company stock, which becomes available to an employee on a strict vesting schedule; for example, a company may grant some amount of stock that vests over two years - so for the employee to take full advantage of what’s granted to them, they stay at the company those entire two years. This phenomenon is known as the golden handcuffs - engineers’ priority is making money; companies lure talent with large bonuses, a generous salary, and keep them there for years by dangling stock options in front of them. This helps us to examine the different motivations in place here.

We see that as employees are motivated by market forces, companies effectively leverage their resources to retain engineering talent. However, if we take a closer look, we see that these companies in fact created the desires that they in turn fulfill. From freshman year of college, students are taught that majoring in CS entitles them to a high salary, stock in different companies, and catered meals. We’re taught to equate high salaries with success, and we’re convinced that this is the only path worth pursuing. In comparison, pursuing other career paths is incomprehensible. The lower salaries that are associated with jobs in different fields indicate failure, because one of the few metrics we have to judge a job by is total compensation (TC). The mentality becomes as follows: if Facebook employees make more than Amazon engineers, then Facebook is clearly the superior company, and Facebook engineers are smarter, faster, and more competent than their lower-paid counterparts. By extension, if we, as engineers, view salary as the best way to define a person’s worth, then we lose sight of the other facets that shape another person’s personality, background, and values. We, as a society, become “thing-oriented” rather than “person-oriented,” (King). We begin reducing people and ideas into numbers and incomes, and our ability to love and care for each other slowly degrades. We see that this mentality affects a significant portion of the technology workforce - let us examine one particular population in particular .

After exploring the pitfalls of the tech industry, let us zoom in a little further, and explore the effects of these mindsets on women in particular. It is well-known that Silicon Valley is male-dominated; unfortunately, this translates into an unfortunate lack of inclusivity in available products and services. In 2014, for example, Apple released HealthKit, in collaboration with the renowned Mayo Clinic, as a tool to collect important metrics regarding one’s health. Almost immediately, it was obvious that they had neglected to include a menstrual health feature - a tool which almost every single female user would have found a use for, yet Apple opted to prioritize step counters and sleep cycles over reproductive and menstrual health (Period Tracking Apps Compared). That is not to say that the available features were unimportant, but the blatant disregard for women’s health is shockingly clear. It is the lack of representation on engineering teams that explains the lack of such features. In 2018, a mere 26% of professionals in CS were women, and an even more alarming 19% of CS/IT Bachelor’s degree recipients were women. African-American and Hispanic women make up only 3% and 2% of the technical workforce, respectively. Ironically enough, these numbers are lower than where they were several years ago - in 1985, 35% of B.S. recipients in CS were women (By the Numbers 2019). Over the last several years, we have seen a shift away from diversity in computing, which has led to significant workplace issues in the modern day.

This lack of diversity in the workplace can manifest itself in several different ways; one of the more notable cases in the last several years has been at Uber. In a blog posted to her personal website, Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, discusses her experience working at the ride-sharing company. Coming in as an engineer with significant expertise in the project area she was working in, Fowler faced discrimintion as early as her first day on the job, when her manager sent her a string of messages, propositioning her for intimate favors. Despite following protocol and reporting everything to Human Resources (HR), no action was taken. As a “high performer,” Uber time and time again ignored reports about the manager’s misconduct from several different women, on several different occasions. Furthermore, Fowler was told that “it wouldn’t be retaliation if [she] was given a negative [performance] review” by the offending manager. It turns out that everyone up the chain of command, from engineering managers to HR directors, chose to turn a blind eye to these events, even going so far as to boast about them to their peers. After several months, Fowler ultimately left the company, at a point where less than 3% of engineers in her organization were women, an all-time low for the ride-hailing company (Fowler 2017). In 2017, soon after her resignation, Travis Kalanick, the Uber CEO at the time, announced that he would be stepping down as well. This illustrates one possible way of changing the system - that only by shaking things up drastically, one can shed light on, and hope to change flawed systems.

Now that we have considered the magnitude of the problem, we can explore the efforts of women in STEM to push back against the current climate. One significant step to addressing this problem has been the establishment of the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing (GHC) - an annual conference that brings together thousands of women in the industry for a week of talks, panels, and networking - this year, attendance surpassed 25,000. This past year, I was fortunate to attend GHC 2019, but similarly to other students, I was there for one thing: the renowned career fair, and the opportunity to land a job or internship. GHC attracts hundreds of sponsors every year, and is well-known as one of the largest career fairs in the country.

Companies bring dozens of engineers and recruiters to meet students, pore over resumes, and conduct onsite interviews every year. It’s no secret that if you play your cards right, you can walk away with several internship offers for the next summer. I, along with several of my friends, paid hundreds of dollars for a ticket and hotel, flew across the country, with a hundred resumes and with four onsite interviews scheduled ahead of time. We all agreed that we would go to at least one talk a day, network, and explore the city. Over the course of four days, not a single talk or panel was attended. Indeed, we lost ourselves in the behemoth that was the career fair hall. When we weren’t pitching ourselves to recruiters, we were studying for interviews. When the interview ended, we would compare offers and decide whether or not that company was worth our time. In the evenings, we would let different companies wine and dine us, showering us with free food, drinks, and entertainment. As one could imagine, most of us lost sight of why GHC was established in the first place.

We can use my time at GHC as a lens to examine the underlying issues in the tech industry. My conference experience is not unique; Medium articles on how to optimize your conference time for maximal offers are plentiful; those who manage to land a ticket are envied by other students. Let us step back and consider the purpose of GHC: to advance gender equality in the workplace and to empower women in CS. If the focus of attendees is on landing a high-paying job or internship, then are we really working to change the system? Companies handing out six-figure offers, Disneyland trips, and fancy dinners during the week is merely their way of welcoming women into a culture where this sort of treatment is the norm, a culture in which bonuses and free food are the telltale signs of a good employer. However, if the sponsors of such an event include companies with spotty track records, then how are we doing anything to change a workplace environment that allows sexual harassment or produces products that leaves women out of the picture? Fortunately, Uber’s relationship with GHC was terminated years ago amidst the aforementioned incident (AnitaB 2020), but similar toxic cultures remain pervasive within the community as a whole.

Women are in a unique position in that the challenges they have to navigate are manyfold. Not only do they navigate the hypercompetitive and income-focused environment that is Silicon Valley, but also face additional roadblocks as women in industry - in fact, 35% of tech employees report either seeing or experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace - second only to the media industry (Dunlevy 2019). When only 26% of the workforce is female, and over half of startups have no women on their leadership teams, it is easy to see that policies are not being created with women in mind (Women in Technology Leadership 2019). This is how sexist conditions become ingrained in company culture - this is why it wasn’t until Uber’s CEO was removed that things began improving. When a company is founded by a homogenous class, they are free to decide company hierarchy, culture, and norms. The policies are decided by and favor the ruling class (Twohig 2020), rewarding those that comply with promotions and bonuses. Women, in the minority, have two options - to comply and play the game, as my friends and I did at GHC, or to speak out and attract enough attention such that existing leadership and policies are scrutinized and, in some cases, replaced. It is not clear which option, if either, is sustainable or practical. However, recent events have demonstrated that there is hope for the community.

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, we have seen the tech community rally together and work towards protecting the public interest. Two of the hardest hit American areas during this pandemic have been Seattle and the California Bay Area - ironically enough, two of the largest tech hubs in the world. Home to large companies and startups alike, thousands of engineers flock to these cities to fast-track their careers. As the crisis descended on the country, tech companies were some of the first to respond, strongly recommending employees work from home (WFH) weeks before the rest of the nation took notice. In early March, tech giants Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, among others, all stated their commitment to supporting their hourly employees, most of whom were affected due to decreased need during the outbreak (Heater 2020). Those who work as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, or janitors are often hit hardest by layoffs and reduced hours. However, companies have committed to “pay their labor costs to cover standard working hours” (Jbursz 2020) while WFH requirements and travel restrictions are in effect, and small businesses operating in company-owned buildings are eligible for subsidized rent in some cases. Despite the fact that the virus’ effects have yet to reach their peak, hourly workers and freelancers are already being affected in other ways (Regalado 2020). Thousands of people in the country are facing layoffs, cut hours, and are struggling to make ends meet. It is one small saving grace that those hourly workers and small business owners in the tech space are guaranteed some semblance of security.

The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the shortcomings in American society - in particular, the lack of a social safety net, and just how “thing-oriented” we are. However, the steps that we have seen large companies take, such as swift & flexible WFH policies and supporting hourly workers, whom society could not operate without, is evidence that these policies are possible on a larger scale. Large companies have demonstrated that they are willing to put aside growth and revenue in order to protect employee health and productivity; if tech giants can demonstrate that they hold these values, then the next natural step is to support the larger community by paying their fair share of taxes and contributing to a social safety net for all Americans (Twohig 2020). The government should also take notice and support small business owners and hourly workers by providing similar income guarantees and rent support - not only for the sake of the American people, but for the economy as a whole. Companies such as Google and Facebook recognize that they are only as strong as their weakest employee, and have committed to supporting everyone during these troubled times. It’s only natural that the American government should take notice and establish policies that follow accordingly.

We also see software engineers and students giving back to the community in several ways. One initiative in particular is Hack Quarantine, a three week global and virtual hackathon due to begin at the end of March. Essentially, a hackathon is a technology marathon in which teams build projects around a central theme - as one can imagine, Hack Quarantine empowers technologists “to work towards improving health, remote working and helping vulnerable populations” (Hack Quarantine). The event has garnered popularity since it was first announced, growing by over 500 participants from Asia, Europe, and the Americas in only three days, and is projected to grow larger over the next several weeks. All donations and proceeds from the event will be in support of the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency focused on public health. As a community, we have banded together and are focusing our energy on serving the greater good by developing not for profit, but for the benefit of others. We see that it is, in fact, possible for the community to practice agape on both a personal and larger level. The outpouring of support from the community over these last several weeks is a positive indicator for what could be - engineers creating for the common good, and solving problems that plague the modern world.

It should not take a global crisis to realize that software can make the world a better place, and that oftentimes, talent is not allocated where it should be. This is not to say that working at Google or Facebook is inherently unethical and terrible - in fact, Google has committed 1,700 engineers to build a tool to tackle the health crisis (Newton 2020). However, there is truth in that one rarely has the opportunity to choose what they work on, and that the main attracting force for most employees is the generous pay and comfortable lifestyle. Meanwhile, positions at small nonprofits and government organizations are, for the most part, looked down upon. Lower pay, no free lunch, and less perks are typically enough for the average student to turn away from the opportunity to build something for social good. Meanwhile, we see social media use growing exponentially with unclear consequences.

As much as this has been a critique on the industry and those who benefit from it, it is also a critique on myself, as someone who has learned to navigate and succeed within it. The exploration of these ideas have prompted me to ask several questions - whether or not this is a future I want, whether or not it’s possible to make a change in a machine as large and overwhelming as Silicon Valley. I don’t have a clear answer, but one truth that I have converged on is that as long as I am able to hold onto these ideas, there is still hope that change is possible. It’s not obvious what the most effective way forward is, but there will always be people out there that will support efforts to code for good.

Works Cited

“AnitaB.org Ends Partnership with Uber.” AnitaB.org, 10 Mar. 2020.

“By the Numbers.” By the Numbers, NCWIT, 2019.

Dunlevy, Leah. “More Than a Third of Tech Industry Employees Have Experienced or Witnessed Sexism, a New Survey Finds.” Pacific Standard, 25 Apr. 2019.

“Hack Quarantine.” Hack Quarantine.

Heater, Brian. “Google Recommends Washington State Employees Work from Home, Citing Coronavirus Risk.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 5 Mar. 2020.

Jbursz. “Amazon, Google and Facebook to Pay Hourly Workers Regular Wages despite Coronavirus Disruptions.” CNBC, CNBC, 6 Mar. 2020.

King, Martin Luther. “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Beacon, 2010, pp. 177–202.

Newton, Casey. “Tech Giants Are Getting Creative to Manage the COVID-19 Crisis.” The Verge, The Verge, 17 Mar. 2020.

“Period Tracking Apps Compared.” Ruby Cup.

Regalado, Antonio. “How Bad Can Coronavirus Get in the US? We're about to Find out.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 16 Mar. 2020.

Susan Fowler. “Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange Year at Uber.” Susan Fowler, Susan Fowler, 19 Feb. 2017.

Twohig, Niall. “Another World is Possible” WCWP 100 Lecture. 5 Mar. 2020.

Twohig, Niall. “Our Lenses for Looking Deeply at Society” WCWP 100 Lecture. 21 Jan. 2020.

“Women in Technology Leadership.” Silicon Valley Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, 2019.