I am feeling little fucked up.
I talked to one of the female employees from my new company, I'll be joining next month.
She asked manager to hire a girl in the team, I know she casually asked but after knowing this, I know my interviews were surprisingly easy, I mean I know already that no one asked me to optimize anything... did the fucking hired me for diversity, pay is good, people are good, work is good but seriously if I'm getting hired for the fucking diversity my manager is going to have a good speech from me and I'll move from his team for sure.

Don't panic. I mean if they hired "the woman" out of a set of equally qualified candidates, so what?

It is not like they picked up some random girl from the street. You are qualified for the job? Do it!

There are so many criteria for taking a candidate apart from qualification (which should be the knock-out criterion anyway)... If some of the decision was made due to diversity: GOOD. That means the company cares about this, which generally makes for a better working climate.

Congrats on your new job!

In one opening in my old company, we had two candidates that were roughly equal in qualifications, but one was an obvious asshole. So technically the other got the job because he was not an obvious asshole... I think he wouldn't lose one night's sleep if he knew.

So reading these. 2 comments and some posts from Blind, does it mean they interviewed more female candidates and doesn't lower the bar right of the interviews right?
I am only concerned about lowering the bar, I don't want to be someone who got easy interview.

Why does it matter?
The only thing coders care about, is the code. Who cares how/why you got the job?
write bad code - you are a bad coder, and should go damage someome elses code.
write good code - everyone benefits.

It will only bother you if you let it bother you.

@magicMirror trust me mental state matters a lot more than anything. I don't want to feel like an imposter. I want to feel as deserving as everyone is.

@magicMirror This does not happen...

Where I got my degree, one girl also passed every test. Yet she couldn't code.

(I mean this... she could copy or write code when someone else told her what to write)

We obviously didn't really know the really what happened, but we think it was just to boost the reputation of 'girls can do software development too'.

Later I know she got hired, was put in a dev team, but quickly moved from that team to do more conventions like showing her face and that is it.

Of course, this was just one case. But it is bad that this happens. If a girl is good at it, why not just say it and accept the fact that this isn't about muscle or gender.

I'm not sure if any amount of external positive reinforcement will give you the confidence you want or prove a point.
If you join and start doing good work, then that should be enough to tell you what you want to know.
I guess this applies to every individual regardless of anything related to diversity.

@true-dev001
Imposter syndrom is a problem. And you have a bias here in your mind: "I am not a good coder!", and you see evidence to support this everywhere, including the "easy interview" you claim.

Solution? Git gud. Do good. Be a good team member. Help others. Listen and learn. Earn coding experience. Avoid idiots, and credit stealers.
Get over the imposter "hill", and try not to look for things that support your bias.

here is an example: Long time ago, I mentored a new Dev in my team when she started working in the company. She had the imposter baaaad. She got paired with an idiot dev to begin with, and he damaged her confidnece. She had a bad first 6 months. But - She got over the imposter, and got good. Really good. And 4 years later, she was managing the entire RnD site - some 35 people under her.

@true-dev001 What is "the bar"?

I mean you didn't feel challenged? Maybe you're just that good :)

You can't know what they did or if they did something at all.

Maybe they were a little more welcoming to the women, maybe they gave them more time to answer... Maybe maybe maybe....

The truth is, you will likely never know. You fear that you may not be fully deserving of the opportunity you got? Most people are not, I'm certainly not. Such is life.

I'd say embrace the opportunity and make the most of it.

Job interview for a dev who fills several "diversity" checkboxes all at one:

- Can you hit 'C' on a keyboard?

- Yes.

- Also a '+'?

- Yes.

- Even two times in a row?

- Uh, not sure, maybe.

- You're hired as C++ dev.

@Fast-Nop When I got hired as an algorithm developer, I got the opportunity to interview even though I didn't really fulfill all the requirements. The (female) recruiter convinced me I should give it a try. But during the interviews I was grilled x10 more than the other team members who joined the team (it was a new team, we all interviewed in the same 2 months).

The group leader pushed my knowledge until I was blue in the face, trying to explain how mutex was implemented on the instruction set level. That was supposed to be a bloody computer vision interview.....

@NickyBones But you did get hired?

@Fast-Nop Yes, but the group manager hated me from the beginning until my last second there...Probably hates me to this day :)

I answered all his questions and he actually seemed upset about it.

When you are angry about being privilegued.

Somehow i never felt that way.

But i am a straight white male born on imperium ground - we don't like to make life harder than neccessary for ourselves...

I hate diversity hires but in your case im glad they took you over some rando. Use this to build Reputation and improve

The hiring was done, accept it.
Don't dwell on it, there is no need for drama.
Just make the most of your present.

@true-dev001 A comment from a "recruiting manager".

I never recruit people ONLY on tech skills. Tech skills are the bare minimum for me. What do you bring to the table? Mindset? Soft-skills? Different upbringing?

People tend to think that only tech skills should matter, but it so totally not true. On teams where most had uncommon training (most of them changed career mid-way), I recruited people coming out of Uni with CS degrees.
Teams are human constructs, if you only have uniform thinking shit will hit the fan.

But I have NEVER taken in a bad Software Engineer because of "quotas" or other stupidity.
But I have taken people sometimes with fewer tech skills because they had a good synergy with the team.

I don't do genius assholes, because I can't make an untrustworthy dick a trustworthy team player.
But I can create the conditions so a Good Trustworthy Software Engineer ramps up to become an excellent one.

If you are good at your job, who cares?

@DirtEffect I actually confirmed with another employee who is also my friend, that interviews are easy, they are just more than the standard numbers. So yeah I think just to hire they didn't lower the bar or anything, interviews are generally easier.

See it in a wider context . Yes it might be a necessary short term lowering of standards..but it’s for the greater long term good…you do your bit by believing in yourself