Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by fwefwwfe on Monday June 05, 2017 @03:27PM (#14490614)

This would help white guys, too. It's not like we're immune to toxicity. IME it's usually one bad manager and/or one genius on the team that makes things so bad for everyone else. Maybe it's just been blind luck that I haven't worked on a whole team of sexist people. Here's what I would ask to mitigate these problems (keeping in mind I haven't necessarily asked these myself):

  In what ways does your manager make your life easier?
  How blame oriented is the team?
  How big are the egos on the team?
  What things about the culture or technical processes will surprise me here?
  How would you compare your team, manager, and coworkers to the others?  
    Are they more fun or experienced or do they have team events more?
  How many people have left in the past year and why do you think they really left?

> but ping pong tables and free beer doesn't mean shit to me if I'm going to be underpaid

It's not like you can't tell if you're going to be underpaid before you agree to a salary, is it?

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Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by frandroid on Monday June 05, 2017 @03:39PM (#14490784)

> This would help white guys, too

I thought about answering this too, but then I thought that there are factors that don't affect us, and this is what the OP is specifically asking about.

I think the questions you suggest beg for people to lie, especially hiring managers; I'd ask something more subtle like "how competitive the team is"... "How do you deal with bugs that made it to production" which begs asshole managers to brag about team toxicity...

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Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by emmab on Monday June 05, 2017 @03:35PM (#14490721)

You don't know if you're going to be passed over for advancement or raises due to bias.

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Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by fwefwwfe on Monday June 05, 2017 @03:37PM (#14490758)

Yeah, let me know if you have a crystal ball that will detect that.

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Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by dang on Monday June 05, 2017 @03:52PM (#14491007)

Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

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Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by fwefwwfe on Monday June 05, 2017 @08:01PM (#14493513)

Please get off your high horse? I'd honestly like to know if someone has a way to predict that.

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Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by emmab on Monday June 05, 2017 @09:09PM (#14493917)

That's exactly what the top-level OP is asking, how to predict this kind of thing.

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Re:Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work env... by fuckemem on Tuesday June 06, 2017 @12:17AM (#14494695)

dang is a moderator

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