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The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

282 points by sachitgupta 13y ago

fleitz 13y ago
I don't know how people put up with this kinda stuff, I hear a C-suite say something heteronormative and I'm already pretty much on my way out the door.
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distracteddev90 13y ago
I guess I have just been lucky since every startup I've worked for has had exceptional operations staff that are widely respected and included in all company activities.
natrius 13y ago
"Yet the myths we hold so dear — the noble engineer, sleeping under his desk to get the product out on time; the company that cares for its employees’ every need — exclude and marginalize an entire class of people whose contributions to these startups make their success possible." I'm not sure I can empathize with this. People within the company should be grateful for the work being done by office managers, but why would anyone outside the company be particularly concerned about it? Some work is glamorous. Some isn't. That's life.
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theorique 13y ago
From the VBScript and complex spreadsheet wrangling required to perform analysis of key organizational metrics to mastery of numerous different specialized softwares and systems in order to perform basic functions of the job ranging from accounting to people operations, non-technical employees must have a bevy of technical skills at the ready every single day. In fact, I had to code a sample app using the company’s API to get my job as an operations manager — and I committed code to the frontend of the marketing site regularly. I’m not the exception. That doesn't really sound like a non-technical employee to me. Maybe a question of terminology, or the primary focus of the person's role, but a person who is coding sample apps using the company's API sounds pretty damn technical.
- stephenaturner 13y ago
  Maybe her argument is that she's less technical than the engineers (and therefore looked down upon unnecessarily, leading to this article), even if she has to be far more technical than the average person, just to get the job.
  - theorique 13y ago
    I think you're probably right. "Less Technical" or "Not As Technical" is more accurate. Perhaps "non-SE" or "non-Programmer" or "non-Engineer" might be closest to what we're trying to say here. It's unfortunate that some technical people look down on others in these kind of roles.
- hobs 13y ago
  That was my immediate thought, irregardless of the gender argument. I work with plenty of non-technical ops people, ALL of them REGARDLESS of intelligence, can not code out of a wet paper bag. I have at various points shown them all how to use basic excel formulas and they still use calculators that would not look out of place in a grade school. Are they good at what they do? Yes. Does what they do require that type of abstract thinking and computer skills? Not that I have seen, they seem effective at what they do, the lights are on, the place runs smoothly.
  - CGudapati 13y ago
    Not to be that guy but regardless is the correct form. Irregardless is considered as non-standard or incorrect. But if you do know this, please don't mind this nitpick.
    - hobs 13y ago
      I actually didn't know that. I googled and learned that it came into use in the 50s, interesting. Edited and changed. Edit: too old to edit! But still, thanks for the info.
      - 13y ago
rdl 13y ago
I guess I've mainly worked in environments where it's "operations manager" and an entire ops team, and where they handle things related to revenue or technology (logistics, travel, facilities, equipment, security, etc.), but I've never really seen the operations role as female. Probably less female than any other department with the possible exception of some parts of engineering. (In my experience, HR is the vastly-female role, and always-useless to employee; sometimes useful to companies for compliance reasons, but rarely. HR's worthlessness has nothing to do with female employees; in dev and product roles where some companies have 20-30% females, they're generally in the upper half of contributors, and in design, which is often somewhat majority female, they're often the key to a company's success. Actual receptionists are also usually female, but rarely do I see those in <100 person tech companies, unless provided by the building management.) Generally I've just seen founders handle most of these things (taking out trash, ordering lunch, etc.) at the early stage, and then contract it out entirely (use a meal delivery service, office cleaners, etc.) This might be specific to silicon valley tech startups; the other environment I know about, USG/DOD/DOE, has 10x as many people for any role in general, and a clear hierarchy for who does what, but it's based on overt rank or grade, and not gender, age, whatever.
- test1235 13y ago
  QA, design and management is where I've noticed a greater proportion of women outside of HR. What is it about those roles which makes them amenable to women but not tech?
  - rdl 13y ago
    QA seems really split (even in other industries) between non-technical/non-quantitative QA ("we'll react to faults when identified, handle customer communications, etc.) and highly technical, highly quantified QA (the whole TDD crowd, SEI, etc.) Even in stuff like pharma, you have people who want to do manual physical inspection and handling recalls, vs. people who want to build statistical controls. Somewhere in between there are human-executed procedure development. Design seems like a clear case of the "designer pipeline" not having big roadblocks to women anywhere from birth to being a competent designer, unlike (until the past 10 years) some more math-based fields. Pure print design and art are fairly gender balanced, so there was a pool of people there when computer design became a thing; it's probably more likely a great generalist designer early in career would learn about computers and become a computer designer, vs. a math programmer becoming a designer. Manager, no idea.
ameister14 13y ago
Running an office is hard to do and a good office manager or HR manager is incredibly valuable. I think you'd be foolish not to recognize that as a founder. I'm sorry that they haven't captivated people the way a rogue engineer can, but an ops or HR person isn't likely to start a company from a dorm room, garage or basement that makes its way to a multi billion dollar IPO. As to the office mom thing; I haven't encountered that much, maybe it varies from office to office. I don't doubt it exists, I've just never seen it personally. Anyone know if that's a really common thing?
- spinlock 13y ago
  I think that's the author's perspective on it (which I don't think is wrong). The way I see this is that lots of geeks are absolute slobs and they leave dirty dishes, food, etc.. on their desks (and their neighbors desks). I regularly see - female - office managers clean up after the slobs by doing their dishes and throwing out their trash. I've never really considered the "mom" aspect of this before. I just view co-workers like that as disgusting and self centered (the bugs they attract into the office impact everyone not just them).
johnhess 13y ago
This pattern shows up in a great many industries. And not always in favor of engineers. Almost always, the divide is right along the profit center/cost center line. In finance, traders are revered and engineers are their support staff. In the Air Force, pilots run the show all the way up the chain of command and engineers -- as critical to mission success as they may be -- are support. That's okay. Those jobs can be even more rewarding than working in "tech". Remember, the same reason you might choose to work as an engineer in $awesome_field is why your ops/admin/qa team came to your company.
- lxt 13y ago
  I can't upvote this enough! It's why I find jobs where what I do (engineering) is not the core product less rewarding on the whole.
h1karu 13y ago
for those who think these type of office manager roles are essential I'll just leave this here: https://37signals.com/remote/ https://37signals.com/remote/
- lotsofmangos 13y ago
  Premises are useful if your company makes stuff.
- bri3d 13y ago
  The article lists many things that "operations management" people in early-stage startups do that would be applicable to a remote company as much as an in-person one: taxes, accounts payable, hiring management, equipment management / basic IT, various accounting and finances, travel planning, and so on. Having someone manage operations is just as essential in a remote company as it is in an in-person one. I do agree that the crappy snacks management / trash organization facet goes away to a large extent in a remote environment, but I certainly don't think that makes the role described in the article any less essential.
  - h1karu 13y ago
    fair point.. although I personally lump accountants in with lawyers as something you can't live without but hopefully don't need full time. Hiring is much easier when you're remote for the reasons already mentioned in the book and for many organizations it's something a small team of developers can handle themselves.
ericabiz 13y ago
The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate going to tech events with my fiance (or for that matter, any man), because people will come up to us, acknowledge me, and then ask him brightly: "So why are you here?" I once thought it would be funny to time it and see how long another person could go talking to only him and not making eye contact with me, even when he mentioned that he was at the event because of me. Current record? 13 minutes. 13 minutes of not looking at me, saying a word, or acknowledging that I was there. Every male that I've ever told this story to can't believe it until they go to parties and see it in action. It's so consistent, yet it's unbelievable until you see it. This is what it's like to be a woman in tech, even when you're a technical one. It's assumed that you're non-technical. But don't take that into account and lead with your credentials--whoops, no, that's "aggressive" and you shouldn't do that. Don't go to tech parties with a guy because you're assumed to be "the girlfriend." Don't go alone because you'll get hit on. But don't NOT go to tech parties, because that's where you'll meet investors and other potential contacts. Being a woman in tech is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit. I'm here because I love this industry and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions.
- jv22222 13y ago
  My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing. I wonder if that's at play here?
  - booruguru 13y ago
    The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.
spiralpolitik 13y ago
A good office manager or PA is worth their weight in gold. Especially one that goes the distance to make sure that everything keeps running smoothly and the business moving forward despite any strange issues. After all I'm sure finding lost luggage or locating mandolin strings in the middle of Austin is a job you want to be troubling your engineers with. Ask yourself this question. Do you really want to be the one that has to call the building manager every time the toilet gets blocked ?
mw67 13y ago
Unfortunately, when it comes to the tech industry at large, it can also mean a constant battle to justify your intelligence, your value, and your very existence. If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product. We should remember that some great founders like Steve Jobs were also not writing any code and still added lots of value. IMHO understanding the product mostly mean understanding how users interact with it, not understanding how to code it.
jmduke 13y ago
For another -- largely concurring -- perspective on this issue, Alexis Ohanian writes about being a proud nontechnical cofounder: http://alexisohanian.com/on-being-a-proud-non-technical-founder http://alexisohanian.com/on-being-a-proud-non-technical-foun...
gatsby 13y ago
Are these really commonly held beliefs? --You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…) --If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product. I don't think many people actually say or believe this. Maybe these were common thoughts in 1999, but as an SF-based ops guy, I've never heard this. In fact, I would argue that good business operators have it just as good, if not better, than most engineers right now. Startups like Uber, Postmates, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc. are killing it, and they all have really talented (and highly paid) people in sales, ops, marketing, support, etc. I think most of us are aware that it takes more than engineers to build a company: http://blog.42floors.com/year-operations-startups/ http://blog.42floors.com/year-operations-startups/ http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-startups/ http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-startups/ http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem
- wpietri 13y ago
  I don't think they're commonly stated beliefs. I think that people commonly behave as if they believe those things, though. My first technical job was working for my university. I learned early on that the admin people were the backbone of the place. They were smart, competent, and hardworking, and a lot of people treated them like furniture. They were used to it, but I found it rage-inducing. I've definitely seen a lot of stuff like that here. A number of times I've had words with fellow engineers who apparently thought they were too good to get their hands dirty. I've had engineering managers explicitly tell me that engineers were too expensive or important a resource to do anything but code. It doesn't take a lot of that for an implicit caste system to develop.
- Pherdnut 13y ago
  Does it have to be common or just regularly enough encountered for it to become seriously irritating.
- geebee 13y ago
  I've actually found that the "commonly held belief" is often the opposite: - You're only (still) an engineer because you lack the ability to move into a product management role. - If your role is technical, your job is to code up the vision of someone who understands the product. This is changing, rapidly, in some segments of the tech world But keep in mind, the "developer-driven culture" may be far more prevalent among the kind of organizations represented on HN than the business world at large.
xivzgrev 13y ago
People are resistant to change. But change is in the air - self awareness of this issue is growing. The people who are aware, men and women, will rise in rank and create new cultures / new companies with friendlier atmospheres. It's only a matter of time until the tech industry is a much more women-friendly place. And frankly I can't wait - there's a lot of pain in the world, and we need the brightest minds on them.
asharpe 13y ago
Taking aside the blatant sexism (kudos - we need more people raising this issue), there is a significant 'rolism' in the tech community. I have worked on the business/product side of tech for more than 10 years. What you say is inherently true of too many 'developers' and their views. It harks back to a belief of "Build it and they will come" that pervades the industry (and yes, I do know the actual quote is "Build it, and HE will come"). There are many successful products that solve a problem or do something. If no-one ever knows about it or works out how to pay you for it, then the business will never be a success. You need all parts of a business (selling, marketing, ops, banking the cheques, making payroll, taking out the garbage) for it to work ... the naivety of some devs about the processes that go on to make that work and their lack of engagement in the wider business is a wake-up call many need to hear.
- balls187 13y ago
  I agree with you to a point, devs would benefit with understanding "the other side of the house" and that sales, marketing, and administration are all important aspects of building a healthy business. We have different roles to play in the success of an organization; at different times each role has different values, but as people we're all valuable. Of course your side of the house is always out of the office by 5p =)
  - asharpe 13y ago
    The only time I have personally left the office before 5, I was back on my MacBook at 8 until midnight. :-p
  - melindajb 13y ago
    that kind of response is exactly what i'm referring to above. I'm a non technical founder and I work literally side by side the same hours as my technical co founder. Maybe at different times, because he's a night owl and a lot of business and marketing stuff can't be done at 3am hopped up on red bull. But the same time. And there was a line of former coworker engineers for the co founder position, so he's not an outlier.
hibikir 13y ago
The problems described here aren't just limited to startups: Support personnel is often neglected in large companies too. A couple of years ago, I was working at a very large company that was also suffering from high turnover. Calls were made first by business analysts, who really didn't understand what the heck was going on, and implemented in some fashion or another by developers like me, who were far removed from the realities of the software. With all that turnover, nobody that was actually working on the software understood what the real use cases were, so if a decision actually matched what a user wanted, it was probably by accident. Having worked at better shops, I realized this was only going to lead to dismal failure, so I started asking around for real information on what was going on. And guess what: There was a support team, 90% female, who nobody actually consulted for anything, and was paid peanuts. And yet, they actually had more information about the practical uses of the application, and where to take it, than the PhD totting analysts. After a few weeks talking to said support team, and explaining how to actually make sense of what we were doing, I was seen as some kind of Messiah by management, when all I actually did was actually pay attention to the people that had the actual knowledge. As far as sexism, yes, it's very sad that most of us view so few females that are even put in a position to succeed that it's easy to make assumptions about people's knowledge. I've been lucky to have worked with a couple of extremely good female programmers, and about a dozen women doing support work, so that I am at least not astounded when a woman at a user group isn't just a recruiter. But that doesn't mean I won't make wrong assumptions. The best most of us can do is recover quickly, and remember that while there are few women in the industry, their skill and knowledge is no different than the one of men.
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mwetzler 13y ago
This related post "Tech companies, stop hiring women to be the Office Mom" describes "empathy work" and how it has almost always been significantly underpaid. http://qz.com/47154/tech-companies-stop-hiring-women-to-be-the-office-mom/ http://qz.com/47154/tech-companies-stop-hiring-women-to-be-t... I like the reference to the fact that for a large part of history, many women worked completely without pay doing empathy & ops work full time (mothering families and running ops for households and community groups). As a culture maybe we have some residual beliefs about this type of work (and women's time) being basically free/cheap.
cyphunk 13y ago
I appreciated the criticism of the article but it largely depends on the company i guess. I know that as a technical person having worked in large companies and startups the office managers were perceived as magicians. They also seem to hold a privileged status in many cases. For one, execs depend on them heavily so they wield influence. In some cases, with startups, they appear to advise the CEO.
jacquesc 13y ago
Very well written article. Operations people are driving a new wave of real world/tech hybrid companies and I think they need a lot more respect for their contributions. One nit, you admonish (rightly) people for thinking just because you are a nontechy that you don't understand the product. But then you make a similar mistake by accusing the young nerdy male engineer who is devouring the beef jerky of not being street wise enough to be able to order lunch. Simpler explanation: you've set up the expectation that he can eat on the company dime so he's going to take full advantage of that. He can order lunch just fine he just doesn't want to pay for it. Give him the company credit card (or a company seamless account) and 'problem solved'. Except it's not really a problem since it's better for the company if you can have him working around the company catering times.
doktrin 13y ago
> I was repeatedly asked if an engineer was around to explain the product before I had a chance to say more than hello. > let's focus on the other assumption: that because a person has a non-technical role, she is fundamentally incapable of assessing whether she is able to answer your question. > While we’re at it, I’d like to dispel the notion that people in non-technical roles don’t have technical skills. From the VBScript and complex spreadsheet wrangling required to perform analysis of key organizational metrics to mastery of numerous different specialized softwares and systems in order to perform basic functions of the job ranging from accounting to people operations, non-technical employees must have a bevy of technical skills at the ready every single day. It's difficult to recognize what you don't know. As an engineer, I feel like I didn't understand jack a year ago. A year from now, I'll feel the same way about my current level of understanding & skill. Between now and then, I'll speak with confidence about topics I think I understand but probably don't fully grok. Earlier in my career, I was "semi-technical" with more [technical] experience than the OP. Looking back, I really didn't understand the product to the extent I thought I did. A little knowledge can be dangerous. YMMV. edit : if you down voted, care to explain?
mwetzler 13y ago
Understanding your company's product, marketing, financials, hiring, and business strategy makes you an _incredibly_ valuable employee (though perhaps difficult to describe with a job title). An employee like that shouldn't be spending much time ordering food and cleaning. Those things can be outsourced to people who can do them at scale for many companies at once, at a much lower rate. At my startup we've used ZeroCater (Food for events), HomeJoy (Cleaning), TaskRabbit (Odd tasks), Zirtual (Scheduling meetings, booking flights), and Advsor (Accounting & Billing). We also have a full time remote assistant that does things like coordinating team outings, ordering new tshirts, researching stuff, spreadsheet jocky-ing, etc, etc. They would also order food for us if we didn't have it provided at our co-working space. I hope this comment was helpful and not condescending. I do some business ops work myself in addition to writing code and consulting. As the longtime only-female, I too had to deal with the assumptions about my role (outside the company, not inside). All of these tasks are important and need to happen for a company to run successfully, but they don't all need to be done by an "Office Manager" just because that's how it works at some startups.
chris_mahan 13y ago
I'm just going to link to Don't rely on "Magic Happens Here" from the O'Reilly book "97 Things Every Programmer Should Know". http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Don%27t_Rely_on_%22Magic_Happens_Here%22 http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Don%27... Then I'm going to ask the programmer/engineer to flip the model around and ask that they look at Operations in the same way they wish management see them.
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stbarnes 13y ago
> You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…) The article claims that this is false. But in fact, it's pretty obvious that the average non-engineer is less intelligent than the average engineer. See for instance this table of IQ by college major: http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-colle... (And, yes, IQ tests do quite accurately capture what is meant by "intelligence".)
- mjmahone17 13y ago
  1. No, IQ tests capture what a certain type of people mean by intelligence. This is especially true, given that I can consistently perform less well on, for example, the spatial portion of an IQ test than the logical portion. Unless you're willing to say that there is not any other important component (such as say, oratory intelligence) to someone's ability to perform, or be intelligent. My skepticism says it's likely that, in fact, there is a positive correlation between how good you are at manipulating objects and math and your IQ score, whereas there's little to no correlation between emotional acuity and IQ. But if, due to your social skills and emotional abilities, you're not able to cut it in the arts or humanities, you're more likely to become an engineer. Which tells you nothing of what types of majors "roundly" intelligent people (i.e. those with relatively equal IQ and non-IQ intelligence) choose. 2. Your source doesn't even support your assertion, at least if you're claiming non-engineers, in the same companies as engineers, are on average less intelligent. Mathematicians, Philosophers and Economists are overwhelmingly non-engineers. CIS gets the same IQ as "Other Humanities and Art".
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anauleau 13y ago
If you need an engineer to describe your product it is too complicated.
mattlong 13y ago
I was fortunate enough to work with the author at the startup she mentions. And I don't use the word "fortunate" lightly; she was absolutely a key player on the team. I'm happy to see that she had a positive experience with the rest of the (male) team! Maintaining a good company culture™ was very important to me and the other founders and we were very aware of how much our early hires would contribute to it. An important part of that culture was only hiring the best and smartest people (yes, it's cliché, I know). It did not even cross our minds to hire an operations manager (or any other role) who could not understand and comfortably explain our product, for instance. I think that did a lot to set a tone that no one should have lower expectations set for them nor was somehow in a "second-class" role. P.S. In my defense, it was darn good beef jerky. EDIT: English is hard.
mooreds 13y ago
Loved the refreshing different view of the startup world. I'm technical and not in SV, but I've seen this behavior in other scenarios. (Not so blatant, however.) It seems like every company has a class of employees, typically either sales, executives, or technical in my experience, that are valued just a bit more than everyone else. Even though it is everybody putting their shoulder to the grindstone every day that really moves the company forward.
TheMagicHorsey 13y ago
Technical people are hard to find, whereas I can get about 100 non-technical ops resumes in 5 minutes from liberal arts majors at top ten schools, who will kick ass at ops. There are a lot of smart people you can groom into good ops people. There are also a lot of seasoned ops people looking for jobs, if you look outside silicon valley and bring someone here from a business in another city. Whereas, we can't for the fucking life of us get good mobile developers, programmers with machine learning experience, or robotics experience ... unless we pay large sums and offer great perks. That's why nobody talks much about, or pays much attention to Ops. I've been an Ops guy.
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rainmaking 13y ago
If you're not killer at tech, you better be killer at sales and marketing. If you're neither, what exactly are you complaining about?
richliss 13y ago
TL:DR - You pure development guys are more likely to have success if you realise you have a need for people with other complimentary skills, and you need to have respect for them, their intelligence and their role. I've seen this so many times its tragic, and it comes down to largely one thing IMHO... the arrogance of extremely intelligent people with specialties in maths/physics or other numeracy focused backgrounds over other people. How about an office move where developers sat around and bitched because network cables hadn't been moved across yet? Young office admin girl shows initiative and drives to old office and gets all the network cables. They now see her as their runner as they know that she's paid less so therefore its optimal. Its crunch time and a ScrumMaster who goes and gets coffee for the team before a release so they stick to working is then perpetually told "We're busy, coffee needed", and is slowly reduced to Team Mom, or worse Janitor. A startup's CTO and part shareholder overrules the Head of Marketing and lead designers on their design choice because he's read an article saying how Arial is optimal for reading, and then gets involved in every decision. Only once the CTO is moved on does the sales and marketing team really start performing and the company is saved. I've seen numerous friends who are extremely technically capable Java developers create excellent technical solutions in the finance space to problems that people won't pay for, or don't need solving, or that they don't know how to market or keep running 24/7. They see MBA's as a waste despite their MBA friend saying "Look at the market segmentation, and consider your positioning to see if you can compete" - A valid point that could have answered the question before the £80K in lost wages. I've had conversations where I've quoted a previous stand-in lecturer who was worth £110m from 3 different startups who told of the importance of a well rounded team including sales, finance etc. to young developers who think that DHH is basically a prophet, they only need tech guys and if you build it they will come, and their answers to me were words to the effect of "I disagree because HN said so". I'd rather put £1000 of investment money in the hands of a proven sales guy's startup than a proven back-end developer, as I've seen first hand that a great sales guy can sell crap and make money.
hifier 13y ago
This is not unique to operations in tech startups. It also happens with "IT" employees in insurance companies and banks. It is what happens to people whose roles are considered peripheral by the core parts of the business. It is natural and to some extend it is valid, within limits. I'm not saying that overt disrespect and dehumanizing behavior is valid, however let's not be naive. Not all roles are as important to the business as others and if respect for your role is a primary motivator for you, I would suggest finding a business where your role is central to the core product.
jonwachob91 13y ago
I think the author has mistaken what her role in the company is. If you want to answer technical questions than become a tech employee. The same way you don't want a random tech employee trying to handle the complicated operations pieces, you should let the tech employee's answer the tech questions. I co-founded an engineering startup that works on high-heat machinery. I have degrees in mathematics and information analysis, I fully understand the technical aspect as I contributed to a lot of the work, yet I refuse to answer tech questions. I serve in an operations role right now and don't spend my entire day developing the technology; thus I am not the best qualified to answer any tech questions. You are right that tech companies can only afford to hire the smartest, but that doesn't mean you have to be a jack-of-all-trades - that applies to co-founders. Do the job you were hired to do and do it better then any one else can.
antonapa 13y ago
There are a lot of very provoked males in these comments. Could this possibly correlate to the article which is based on experiences from someone not being a male in tech? It seems easier for most to get into lengthy counter arguments about why it isn't like the article states, rather than acknowledge that there might actually be a real problem here. How come so many female tech people seem to share these same experiences if it isn't structural?
- lmm 13y ago
  > How come so many female tech people seem to share these same experiences if it isn't structural? Selection bias. Women who have ordinary experiences don't write angry blog posts about them, or don't get upvotes.
  - antonapa 13y ago
    Or they don't write blog posts because they don't want to have to endure the flame war that follows.
dleskov 13y ago
That's crazy life you live in the Valley. We are nearly as remote from SF Bay Area as a place on Earth can possibly be (18 hour net flight time with two stops) and do not have many perks, but I would be very surprised to hear about a non-technical person being deprived of something because of being non-technical. Has do to something with our not-so-distant Soviet past, perhaps. As far a job titles go, I read an article a day ago where the author suggested that when it comes to salary negotiation and you are not quite happy with the monetary part of the offer, you should at least demand a title that would show progress when put on your resume.

282 points by sachitgupta 13y ago

I don't know how people put up with this kinda stuff, I hear a C-suite say something heteronormative and I'm already pretty much on my way out the door.

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distracteddev90 13y ago

I guess I have just been lucky since every startup I've worked for has had exceptional operations staff that are widely respected and included in all company activities.

natrius 13y ago

"Yet the myths we hold so dear — the noble engineer, sleeping under his desk to get the product out on time; the company that cares for its employees’ every need — exclude and marginalize an entire class of people whose contributions to these startups make their success possible." I'm not sure I can empathize with this. People within the company should be grateful for the work being done by office managers, but why would anyone outside the company be particularly concerned about it? Some work is glamorous. Some isn't. That's life.

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theorique 13y ago

From the VBScript and complex spreadsheet wrangling required to perform analysis of key organizational metrics to mastery of numerous different specialized softwares and systems in order to perform basic functions of the job ranging from accounting to people operations, non-technical employees must have a bevy of technical skills at the ready every single day. In fact, I had to code a sample app using the company’s API to get my job as an operations manager — and I committed code to the frontend of the marketing site regularly. I’m not the exception. That doesn't really sound like a non-technical employee to me. Maybe a question of terminology, or the primary focus of the person's role, but a person who is coding sample apps using the company's API sounds pretty damn technical.

stephenaturner 13y ago
Maybe her argument is that she's less technical than the engineers (and therefore looked down upon unnecessarily, leading to this article), even if she has to be far more technical than the average person, just to get the job.
- theorique 13y ago
  I think you're probably right. "Less Technical" or "Not As Technical" is more accurate. Perhaps "non-SE" or "non-Programmer" or "non-Engineer" might be closest to what we're trying to say here. It's unfortunate that some technical people look down on others in these kind of roles.
hobs 13y ago
That was my immediate thought, irregardless of the gender argument. I work with plenty of non-technical ops people, ALL of them REGARDLESS of intelligence, can not code out of a wet paper bag. I have at various points shown them all how to use basic excel formulas and they still use calculators that would not look out of place in a grade school. Are they good at what they do? Yes. Does what they do require that type of abstract thinking and computer skills? Not that I have seen, they seem effective at what they do, the lights are on, the place runs smoothly.
- CGudapati 13y ago
  Not to be that guy but regardless is the correct form. Irregardless is considered as non-standard or incorrect. But if you do know this, please don't mind this nitpick.
  - hobs 13y ago
    I actually didn't know that. I googled and learned that it came into use in the 50s, interesting. Edited and changed. Edit: too old to edit! But still, thanks for the info.
    - 13y ago

rdl 13y ago

I guess I've mainly worked in environments where it's "operations manager" and an entire ops team, and where they handle things related to revenue or technology (logistics, travel, facilities, equipment, security, etc.), but I've never really seen the operations role as female. Probably less female than any other department with the possible exception of some parts of engineering. (In my experience, HR is the vastly-female role, and always-useless to employee; sometimes useful to companies for compliance reasons, but rarely. HR's worthlessness has nothing to do with female employees; in dev and product roles where some companies have 20-30% females, they're generally in the upper half of contributors, and in design, which is often somewhat majority female, they're often the key to a company's success. Actual receptionists are also usually female, but rarely do I see those in <100 person tech companies, unless provided by the building management.) Generally I've just seen founders handle most of these things (taking out trash, ordering lunch, etc.) at the early stage, and then contract it out entirely (use a meal delivery service, office cleaners, etc.) This might be specific to silicon valley tech startups; the other environment I know about, USG/DOD/DOE, has 10x as many people for any role in general, and a clear hierarchy for who does what, but it's based on overt rank or grade, and not gender, age, whatever.

test1235 13y ago
QA, design and management is where I've noticed a greater proportion of women outside of HR. What is it about those roles which makes them amenable to women but not tech?
- rdl 13y ago
  QA seems really split (even in other industries) between non-technical/non-quantitative QA ("we'll react to faults when identified, handle customer communications, etc.) and highly technical, highly quantified QA (the whole TDD crowd, SEI, etc.) Even in stuff like pharma, you have people who want to do manual physical inspection and handling recalls, vs. people who want to build statistical controls. Somewhere in between there are human-executed procedure development. Design seems like a clear case of the "designer pipeline" not having big roadblocks to women anywhere from birth to being a competent designer, unlike (until the past 10 years) some more math-based fields. Pure print design and art are fairly gender balanced, so there was a pool of people there when computer design became a thing; it's probably more likely a great generalist designer early in career would learn about computers and become a computer designer, vs. a math programmer becoming a designer. Manager, no idea.

ameister14 13y ago

Running an office is hard to do and a good office manager or HR manager is incredibly valuable. I think you'd be foolish not to recognize that as a founder. I'm sorry that they haven't captivated people the way a rogue engineer can, but an ops or HR person isn't likely to start a company from a dorm room, garage or basement that makes its way to a multi billion dollar IPO. As to the office mom thing; I haven't encountered that much, maybe it varies from office to office. I don't doubt it exists, I've just never seen it personally. Anyone know if that's a really common thing?

spinlock 13y ago
I think that's the author's perspective on it (which I don't think is wrong). The way I see this is that lots of geeks are absolute slobs and they leave dirty dishes, food, etc.. on their desks (and their neighbors desks). I regularly see - female - office managers clean up after the slobs by doing their dishes and throwing out their trash. I've never really considered the "mom" aspect of this before. I just view co-workers like that as disgusting and self centered (the bugs they attract into the office impact everyone not just them).

johnhess 13y ago

This pattern shows up in a great many industries. And not always in favor of engineers. Almost always, the divide is right along the profit center/cost center line. In finance, traders are revered and engineers are their support staff. In the Air Force, pilots run the show all the way up the chain of command and engineers -- as critical to mission success as they may be -- are support. That's okay. Those jobs can be even more rewarding than working in "tech". Remember, the same reason you might choose to work as an engineer in $awesome_field is why your ops/admin/qa team came to your company.

lxt 13y ago
I can't upvote this enough! It's why I find jobs where what I do (engineering) is not the core product less rewarding on the whole.

h1karu 13y ago

for those who think these type of office manager roles are essential I'll just leave this here: https://37signals.com/remote/ https://37signals.com/remote/

lotsofmangos 13y ago
Premises are useful if your company makes stuff.
bri3d 13y ago
The article lists many things that "operations management" people in early-stage startups do that would be applicable to a remote company as much as an in-person one: taxes, accounts payable, hiring management, equipment management / basic IT, various accounting and finances, travel planning, and so on. Having someone manage operations is just as essential in a remote company as it is in an in-person one. I do agree that the crappy snacks management / trash organization facet goes away to a large extent in a remote environment, but I certainly don't think that makes the role described in the article any less essential.
- h1karu 13y ago
  fair point.. although I personally lump accountants in with lawyers as something you can't live without but hopefully don't need full time. Hiring is much easier when you're remote for the reasons already mentioned in the book and for many organizations it's something a small team of developers can handle themselves.

ericabiz 13y ago

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate going to tech events with my fiance (or for that matter, any man), because people will come up to us, acknowledge me, and then ask him brightly: "So why are you here?" I once thought it would be funny to time it and see how long another person could go talking to only him and not making eye contact with me, even when he mentioned that he was at the event because of me. Current record? 13 minutes. 13 minutes of not looking at me, saying a word, or acknowledging that I was there. Every male that I've ever told this story to can't believe it until they go to parties and see it in action. It's so consistent, yet it's unbelievable until you see it. This is what it's like to be a woman in tech, even when you're a technical one. It's assumed that you're non-technical. But don't take that into account and lead with your credentials--whoops, no, that's "aggressive" and you shouldn't do that. Don't go to tech parties with a guy because you're assumed to be "the girlfriend." Don't go alone because you'll get hit on. But don't NOT go to tech parties, because that's where you'll meet investors and other potential contacts. Being a woman in tech is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit. I'm here because I love this industry and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions.

jv22222 13y ago
My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing. I wonder if that's at play here?
- booruguru 13y ago
  The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.

spiralpolitik 13y ago

A good office manager or PA is worth their weight in gold. Especially one that goes the distance to make sure that everything keeps running smoothly and the business moving forward despite any strange issues. After all I'm sure finding lost luggage or locating mandolin strings in the middle of Austin is a job you want to be troubling your engineers with. Ask yourself this question. Do you really want to be the one that has to call the building manager every time the toilet gets blocked ?

mw67 13y ago

Unfortunately, when it comes to the tech industry at large, it can also mean a constant battle to justify your intelligence, your value, and your very existence. If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product. We should remember that some great founders like Steve Jobs were also not writing any code and still added lots of value. IMHO understanding the product mostly mean understanding how users interact with it, not understanding how to code it.

jmduke 13y ago

For another -- largely concurring -- perspective on this issue, Alexis Ohanian writes about being a proud nontechnical cofounder: http://alexisohanian.com/on-being-a-proud-non-technical-founder http://alexisohanian.com/on-being-a-proud-non-technical-foun...

gatsby 13y ago

Are these really commonly held beliefs? --You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…) --If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product. I don't think many people actually say or believe this. Maybe these were common thoughts in 1999, but as an SF-based ops guy, I've never heard this. In fact, I would argue that good business operators have it just as good, if not better, than most engineers right now. Startups like Uber, Postmates, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc. are killing it, and they all have really talented (and highly paid) people in sales, ops, marketing, support, etc. I think most of us are aware that it takes more than engineers to build a company: http://blog.42floors.com/year-operations-startups/ http://blog.42floors.com/year-operations-startups/ http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-startups/ http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-startups/ http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem

wpietri 13y ago
I don't think they're commonly stated beliefs. I think that people commonly behave as if they believe those things, though. My first technical job was working for my university. I learned early on that the admin people were the backbone of the place. They were smart, competent, and hardworking, and a lot of people treated them like furniture. They were used to it, but I found it rage-inducing. I've definitely seen a lot of stuff like that here. A number of times I've had words with fellow engineers who apparently thought they were too good to get their hands dirty. I've had engineering managers explicitly tell me that engineers were too expensive or important a resource to do anything but code. It doesn't take a lot of that for an implicit caste system to develop.
Pherdnut 13y ago
Does it have to be common or just regularly enough encountered for it to become seriously irritating.
geebee 13y ago
I've actually found that the "commonly held belief" is often the opposite: - You're only (still) an engineer because you lack the ability to move into a product management role. - If your role is technical, your job is to code up the vision of someone who understands the product. This is changing, rapidly, in some segments of the tech world But keep in mind, the "developer-driven culture" may be far more prevalent among the kind of organizations represented on HN than the business world at large.

xivzgrev 13y ago

People are resistant to change. But change is in the air - self awareness of this issue is growing. The people who are aware, men and women, will rise in rank and create new cultures / new companies with friendlier atmospheres. It's only a matter of time until the tech industry is a much more women-friendly place. And frankly I can't wait - there's a lot of pain in the world, and we need the brightest minds on them.

asharpe 13y ago

Taking aside the blatant sexism (kudos - we need more people raising this issue), there is a significant 'rolism' in the tech community. I have worked on the business/product side of tech for more than 10 years. What you say is inherently true of too many 'developers' and their views. It harks back to a belief of "Build it and they will come" that pervades the industry (and yes, I do know the actual quote is "Build it, and HE will come"). There are many successful products that solve a problem or do something. If no-one ever knows about it or works out how to pay you for it, then the business will never be a success. You need all parts of a business (selling, marketing, ops, banking the cheques, making payroll, taking out the garbage) for it to work ... the naivety of some devs about the processes that go on to make that work and their lack of engagement in the wider business is a wake-up call many need to hear.

balls187 13y ago
I agree with you to a point, devs would benefit with understanding "the other side of the house" and that sales, marketing, and administration are all important aspects of building a healthy business. We have different roles to play in the success of an organization; at different times each role has different values, but as people we're all valuable. Of course your side of the house is always out of the office by 5p =)
- asharpe 13y ago
  The only time I have personally left the office before 5, I was back on my MacBook at 8 until midnight. :-p
- melindajb 13y ago
  that kind of response is exactly what i'm referring to above. I'm a non technical founder and I work literally side by side the same hours as my technical co founder. Maybe at different times, because he's a night owl and a lot of business and marketing stuff can't be done at 3am hopped up on red bull. But the same time. And there was a line of former coworker engineers for the co founder position, so he's not an outlier.

hibikir 13y ago

The problems described here aren't just limited to startups: Support personnel is often neglected in large companies too. A couple of years ago, I was working at a very large company that was also suffering from high turnover. Calls were made first by business analysts, who really didn't understand what the heck was going on, and implemented in some fashion or another by developers like me, who were far removed from the realities of the software. With all that turnover, nobody that was actually working on the software understood what the real use cases were, so if a decision actually matched what a user wanted, it was probably by accident. Having worked at better shops, I realized this was only going to lead to dismal failure, so I started asking around for real information on what was going on. And guess what: There was a support team, 90% female, who nobody actually consulted for anything, and was paid peanuts. And yet, they actually had more information about the practical uses of the application, and where to take it, than the PhD totting analysts. After a few weeks talking to said support team, and explaining how to actually make sense of what we were doing, I was seen as some kind of Messiah by management, when all I actually did was actually pay attention to the people that had the actual knowledge. As far as sexism, yes, it's very sad that most of us view so few females that are even put in a position to succeed that it's easy to make assumptions about people's knowledge. I've been lucky to have worked with a couple of extremely good female programmers, and about a dozen women doing support work, so that I am at least not astounded when a woman at a user group isn't just a recruiter. But that doesn't mean I won't make wrong assumptions. The best most of us can do is recover quickly, and remember that while there are few women in the industry, their skill and knowledge is no different than the one of men.

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mwetzler 13y ago

This related post "Tech companies, stop hiring women to be the Office Mom" describes "empathy work" and how it has almost always been significantly underpaid. http://qz.com/47154/tech-companies-stop-hiring-women-to-be-the-office-mom/ http://qz.com/47154/tech-companies-stop-hiring-women-to-be-t... I like the reference to the fact that for a large part of history, many women worked completely without pay doing empathy & ops work full time (mothering families and running ops for households and community groups). As a culture maybe we have some residual beliefs about this type of work (and women's time) being basically free/cheap.

cyphunk 13y ago

I appreciated the criticism of the article but it largely depends on the company i guess. I know that as a technical person having worked in large companies and startups the office managers were perceived as magicians. They also seem to hold a privileged status in many cases. For one, execs depend on them heavily so they wield influence. In some cases, with startups, they appear to advise the CEO.

jacquesc 13y ago

Very well written article. Operations people are driving a new wave of real world/tech hybrid companies and I think they need a lot more respect for their contributions. One nit, you admonish (rightly) people for thinking just because you are a nontechy that you don't understand the product. But then you make a similar mistake by accusing the young nerdy male engineer who is devouring the beef jerky of not being street wise enough to be able to order lunch. Simpler explanation: you've set up the expectation that he can eat on the company dime so he's going to take full advantage of that. He can order lunch just fine he just doesn't want to pay for it. Give him the company credit card (or a company seamless account) and 'problem solved'. Except it's not really a problem since it's better for the company if you can have him working around the company catering times.

doktrin 13y ago

> I was repeatedly asked if an engineer was around to explain the product before I had a chance to say more than hello. > let's focus on the other assumption: that because a person has a non-technical role, she is fundamentally incapable of assessing whether she is able to answer your question. > While we’re at it, I’d like to dispel the notion that people in non-technical roles don’t have technical skills. From the VBScript and complex spreadsheet wrangling required to perform analysis of key organizational metrics to mastery of numerous different specialized softwares and systems in order to perform basic functions of the job ranging from accounting to people operations, non-technical employees must have a bevy of technical skills at the ready every single day. It's difficult to recognize what you don't know. As an engineer, I feel like I didn't understand jack a year ago. A year from now, I'll feel the same way about my current level of understanding & skill. Between now and then, I'll speak with confidence about topics I think I understand but probably don't fully grok. Earlier in my career, I was "semi-technical" with more [technical] experience than the OP. Looking back, I really didn't understand the product to the extent I thought I did. A little knowledge can be dangerous. YMMV. edit : if you down voted, care to explain?

mwetzler 13y ago

Understanding your company's product, marketing, financials, hiring, and business strategy makes you an _incredibly_ valuable employee (though perhaps difficult to describe with a job title). An employee like that shouldn't be spending much time ordering food and cleaning. Those things can be outsourced to people who can do them at scale for many companies at once, at a much lower rate. At my startup we've used ZeroCater (Food for events), HomeJoy (Cleaning), TaskRabbit (Odd tasks), Zirtual (Scheduling meetings, booking flights), and Advsor (Accounting & Billing). We also have a full time remote assistant that does things like coordinating team outings, ordering new tshirts, researching stuff, spreadsheet jocky-ing, etc, etc. They would also order food for us if we didn't have it provided at our co-working space. I hope this comment was helpful and not condescending. I do some business ops work myself in addition to writing code and consulting. As the longtime only-female, I too had to deal with the assumptions about my role (outside the company, not inside). All of these tasks are important and need to happen for a company to run successfully, but they don't all need to be done by an "Office Manager" just because that's how it works at some startups.

chris_mahan 13y ago

I'm just going to link to Don't rely on "Magic Happens Here" from the O'Reilly book "97 Things Every Programmer Should Know". http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Don%27t_Rely_on_%22Magic_Happens_Here%22 http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Don%27... Then I'm going to ask the programmer/engineer to flip the model around and ask that they look at Operations in the same way they wish management see them.

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stbarnes 13y ago

> You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…) The article claims that this is false. But in fact, it's pretty obvious that the average non-engineer is less intelligent than the average engineer. See for instance this table of IQ by college major: http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-colle... (And, yes, IQ tests do quite accurately capture what is meant by "intelligence".)

mjmahone17 13y ago
1. No, IQ tests capture what a certain type of people mean by intelligence. This is especially true, given that I can consistently perform less well on, for example, the spatial portion of an IQ test than the logical portion. Unless you're willing to say that there is not any other important component (such as say, oratory intelligence) to someone's ability to perform, or be intelligent. My skepticism says it's likely that, in fact, there is a positive correlation between how good you are at manipulating objects and math and your IQ score, whereas there's little to no correlation between emotional acuity and IQ. But if, due to your social skills and emotional abilities, you're not able to cut it in the arts or humanities, you're more likely to become an engineer. Which tells you nothing of what types of majors "roundly" intelligent people (i.e. those with relatively equal IQ and non-IQ intelligence) choose. 2. Your source doesn't even support your assertion, at least if you're claiming non-engineers, in the same companies as engineers, are on average less intelligent. Mathematicians, Philosophers and Economists are overwhelmingly non-engineers. CIS gets the same IQ as "Other Humanities and Art".

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anauleau 13y ago

If you need an engineer to describe your product it is too complicated.

mattlong 13y ago

I was fortunate enough to work with the author at the startup she mentions. And I don't use the word "fortunate" lightly; she was absolutely a key player on the team. I'm happy to see that she had a positive experience with the rest of the (male) team! Maintaining a good company culture™ was very important to me and the other founders and we were very aware of how much our early hires would contribute to it. An important part of that culture was only hiring the best and smartest people (yes, it's cliché, I know). It did not even cross our minds to hire an operations manager (or any other role) who could not understand and comfortably explain our product, for instance. I think that did a lot to set a tone that no one should have lower expectations set for them nor was somehow in a "second-class" role. P.S. In my defense, it was darn good beef jerky. EDIT: English is hard.

mooreds 13y ago

Loved the refreshing different view of the startup world. I'm technical and not in SV, but I've seen this behavior in other scenarios. (Not so blatant, however.) It seems like every company has a class of employees, typically either sales, executives, or technical in my experience, that are valued just a bit more than everyone else. Even though it is everybody putting their shoulder to the grindstone every day that really moves the company forward.

TheMagicHorsey 13y ago

Technical people are hard to find, whereas I can get about 100 non-technical ops resumes in 5 minutes from liberal arts majors at top ten schools, who will kick ass at ops. There are a lot of smart people you can groom into good ops people. There are also a lot of seasoned ops people looking for jobs, if you look outside silicon valley and bring someone here from a business in another city. Whereas, we can't for the fucking life of us get good mobile developers, programmers with machine learning experience, or robotics experience ... unless we pay large sums and offer great perks. That's why nobody talks much about, or pays much attention to Ops. I've been an Ops guy.

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rainmaking 13y ago

If you're not killer at tech, you better be killer at sales and marketing. If you're neither, what exactly are you complaining about?

richliss 13y ago

TL:DR - You pure development guys are more likely to have success if you realise you have a need for people with other complimentary skills, and you need to have respect for them, their intelligence and their role. I've seen this so many times its tragic, and it comes down to largely one thing IMHO... the arrogance of extremely intelligent people with specialties in maths/physics or other numeracy focused backgrounds over other people. How about an office move where developers sat around and bitched because network cables hadn't been moved across yet? Young office admin girl shows initiative and drives to old office and gets all the network cables. They now see her as their runner as they know that she's paid less so therefore its optimal. Its crunch time and a ScrumMaster who goes and gets coffee for the team before a release so they stick to working is then perpetually told "We're busy, coffee needed", and is slowly reduced to Team Mom, or worse Janitor. A startup's CTO and part shareholder overrules the Head of Marketing and lead designers on their design choice because he's read an article saying how Arial is optimal for reading, and then gets involved in every decision. Only once the CTO is moved on does the sales and marketing team really start performing and the company is saved. I've seen numerous friends who are extremely technically capable Java developers create excellent technical solutions in the finance space to problems that people won't pay for, or don't need solving, or that they don't know how to market or keep running 24/7. They see MBA's as a waste despite their MBA friend saying "Look at the market segmentation, and consider your positioning to see if you can compete" - A valid point that could have answered the question before the £80K in lost wages. I've had conversations where I've quoted a previous stand-in lecturer who was worth £110m from 3 different startups who told of the importance of a well rounded team including sales, finance etc. to young developers who think that DHH is basically a prophet, they only need tech guys and if you build it they will come, and their answers to me were words to the effect of "I disagree because HN said so". I'd rather put £1000 of investment money in the hands of a proven sales guy's startup than a proven back-end developer, as I've seen first hand that a great sales guy can sell crap and make money.

hifier 13y ago

This is not unique to operations in tech startups. It also happens with "IT" employees in insurance companies and banks. It is what happens to people whose roles are considered peripheral by the core parts of the business. It is natural and to some extend it is valid, within limits. I'm not saying that overt disrespect and dehumanizing behavior is valid, however let's not be naive. Not all roles are as important to the business as others and if respect for your role is a primary motivator for you, I would suggest finding a business where your role is central to the core product.

jonwachob91 13y ago

I think the author has mistaken what her role in the company is. If you want to answer technical questions than become a tech employee. The same way you don't want a random tech employee trying to handle the complicated operations pieces, you should let the tech employee's answer the tech questions. I co-founded an engineering startup that works on high-heat machinery. I have degrees in mathematics and information analysis, I fully understand the technical aspect as I contributed to a lot of the work, yet I refuse to answer tech questions. I serve in an operations role right now and don't spend my entire day developing the technology; thus I am not the best qualified to answer any tech questions. You are right that tech companies can only afford to hire the smartest, but that doesn't mean you have to be a jack-of-all-trades - that applies to co-founders. Do the job you were hired to do and do it better then any one else can.

antonapa 13y ago

There are a lot of very provoked males in these comments. Could this possibly correlate to the article which is based on experiences from someone not being a male in tech? It seems easier for most to get into lengthy counter arguments about why it isn't like the article states, rather than acknowledge that there might actually be a real problem here. How come so many female tech people seem to share these same experiences if it isn't structural?

lmm 13y ago
> How come so many female tech people seem to share these same experiences if it isn't structural? Selection bias. Women who have ordinary experiences don't write angry blog posts about them, or don't get upvotes.
- antonapa 13y ago
  Or they don't write blog posts because they don't want to have to endure the flame war that follows.

dleskov 13y ago

That's crazy life you live in the Valley. We are nearly as remote from SF Bay Area as a place on Earth can possibly be (18 hour net flight time with two stops) and do not have many perks, but I would be very surprised to hear about a non-technical person being deprived of something because of being non-technical. Has do to something with our not-so-distant Soviet past, perhaps. As far a job titles go, I read an article a day ago where the author suggested that when it comes to salary negotiation and you are not quite happy with the monetary part of the offer, you should at least demand a title that would show progress when put on your resume.