Fair Coding

This purpose of this website is to share ideas and methods on making software engineering jobs fair. What I mean by fair is the following:

• Hiring practices should be fair to all. They should not discriminate in any way except for skill or potential to do the job needed. Some example discriminatory practices:
  • Judging based on college education. Many companies select based on the prestige of the college and the associated degree. This ultimately selects those who are wealthy enough to afford such education and is discriminatory.
  • Judging based on age. Many companies will reject older candidates with such absurd reasons as "overqualified".
  • Judging via coding interviews. This discriminates based on ability to do well at "coding interviews", not on ability to do the job. This is particularly harmful to those who do not do well when being actively watched by another person. Many high quality engineers perform poorly when watched, and this is ultimately discriminatory against introverted engineers. Coding interviews are so bad, and so unfair, that I have written detailed information for coding interviews.
  • Judging based on Google results. You should not Google a candidate, look at their Facebook, etc. Personal information is not an acceptable way to determine candidate skill. It judges something else entirely and is wrong to do.
  • Judging based on news generally about a person / their public past, regardless of how the information was acquired. A person should be judged by who they are at present.
  • Hiring your buddies. If someone knows someone they'd like to hire, they should not be able to get them any different treatment than any other candidate for the position.
• Employment practices and treatment of engineers should also be fair in every way. Unfair examples:
  • Requiring engineers to work in an office plan office. This is highly destructive to introverted engineers. It has been studied extensively and shown to be very distracting to everyone as well, not just introverts.
  • Termination of engineers for having a work related discussion that is agressively toned. There is a big difference between debating a technical topic and verbally abusing others. Calling an idea or method stupid is not equal to calling a person stupid. Being passionate as an engineer is not something that is worthy of termination. This is intensely unfair for those who are on the autistic spectrum. Many engineers are.

    It is perfectly reasonable to ask engineers to treat each other with respect, and attempt to conduct debates in a cool and calm fashion. It is also acceptable to have a discussion with an engineer to determine why they are upset if there is some underlying cause for the agression. It is acceptable to say "this person was offended by how you spoke to them, please talk with this person and work it out". It is acceptable to have an intermediary present to see how that discussion goes. Etc.

    We should strive for a workplace where we care about each other and pay attention when anyone is upset, to reduce tension and solve problems as they arise.

  • Requiring engineers to dress in any specific way. It is absolutely ridiculous to insist that an engineer wear some specific type of clothing to do their job. It has zero effect on their ability to write software. So long as the atire is legal and not offensive, it should be allowed.
  • Prohibiting some sort of style decoration, such as prohibiting men to wear earrings, or women to wear a brightly colored bow. Accessories are irrelevant to job performance. Let your engineers have their own style.
• Technological decisions should also be fair:
  • Engineers should be allowed freedom of choice with their development environment. If an engineer wants to use VSCode, or IntelliJ, or Vim, or Jedit, or WHATEVER, let them do it. If their choice is poor and leads to poor performance and inability to do their job in a reasonable amount of time, then that is a problem. Thinking that it will be a problem does not mean it will be. Judge based on results not on speculation.
  • Engineers should be allowed to use whatever computer hardware they choose if they are willing to pay for it. It is entirely absurd to prohibit use of personal equipment. I've heard the arguments "but we can't install the corporate spyware on the users custom machine". Yes, actually, you can. It's just an excuse.
• General unfair practices:
  • Spying on your employees, through screen viewing software, browser history tracking, or reading their emails. This is hugely inappropriate. A users personal activity is irrelevant to their ability to do their job and your measurement of it. Nobody does work activity 100% of the time they are "working", and it shouldn't be expected. What should be expected is to deliver results on a consistent and timely fashion.