I looked again in their initial email. I was expecting more a presentation about their view on that, but reading again, it's written something like: "in that part, there is no right answer, we are going to talk about what diversity, inclusion, and belonging mean to you.".. so sounds like people are evaluated on that. Probably there is no right answer, but there are definitely wrong answer. Now I'm curious myself.

> we are going to talk about what diversity, inclusion, and belonging mean to you.

Genuinely curious. Do others see this as a red flag? That would be an immediate deal breaker to me, as it suggests the company is dominated by political obsessions. I know this sort of this has become more common, but having it in the hiring pipeline seems quite extreme.

Maybe they just don't want to hire overtly racist or sexist people who might threaten their diversity? It doesn't have to be political obsessions. How many stories have we had here about companies that had a toxic culture with overt sexism? If you want to prevent that sort of thing, having someone who's job it is to prevent that sort of thing might help.

I honestly don't know what the reason for it is, but I do tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I suppose it could also just be meaningless theatre. If people have real-life experience with diversity managers, I'd love to hear them.

> Maybe they just don't want to hire overtly racist or sexist people who might threaten their diversity?

No. And even if this were true, having some kind of diversity specialist quiz people to see if they are racist (for what definition?) would still be ridiculous.

Companies have policies for employees about workplace behavior like racism, harassment, safety, whatever. If they are concerned about workplace discrimination, there are normal corporate ways of dealing with this. Having a diversity interview is something entirely different, and seems much closer to being asked if you're a communist or a christian. It's patently absurd, and a sign of a company that has lost all focus on actually building something.

Yes, I would never consider a place that had this. Assessing the overall level of politics vs work in a company is important to me (am I going to have to introduce my "pronouns", nod and agree to all the right kind of slacktivist stuff the company posts on social media, participate in ongoing political activities as part of work, while being unable to have any unorthodox opinions of my own). There are a lot more subtle signs to look out for, but the presence of an actual diversity officer that tests your orthodoxy is about the same in my mind as the USSR having political officers present in the workplace to make sure people were good Soviets.

Ya this is a huge red flag. And concerning if this becomes a norm. Interviewees and employees need to push back on this nonsense

but I imagine that it is standard in any FAANG? The company that I work now, got the IPO and a diversity department, with mandatory course with test, at the same time.

Dang, this has some "Political Officer" vibes from Soviet times. So they are gonna do thought filtering too now

Haha, yes I commented exactly the same thing above before reading your comment. This is screwed up, and I hope it's an isolated thing that causes them to lose good people.

Our company just got one and I am honestly unsure what is its purpose beyond being able to say 'see, we are doing stuff'. I am not sure I am even being cynical here. I am relatively certain it is basically a business need now to appear like you are doing something.

That said, I have zero idea why diversity manager would interview anyone.. it is not like I am going to change my demographic based on it..

I went through a process in my actual job and it was similar. 30 minutes video, some questions and you get a certificate to hang on your wall, if you do well. If you are emphatic and know what is wrong and right, you will pass. The certificate ironically didn't handle UTF-8 well and names other than Bob, James, Suzy were displayed wrongly , which isn't that great for belonging, diversity and etc.. I think we are all constant learning on that areas.. even the experts.

thats a rather large oversight. makes me doubt their expertise.

Promoting diversity is more than just counting the blue people and then the orange people and making sure the numbers are the same. It also involves making an environment that's inviting to different groups of people. They want you play a role in that even – and perhaps especially – if you're part of the majority group.

And what if people want to work at a job focused on their technical field, and not on diversity? If the mission of the company is some diversity thing than it's their prerogative to test whatever views they want to test about it. But for anyone who actually wants to spend their time doing developer work, it's a big red flag that you might not want to work there.

> And what if people want to work at a job focused on their technical field, and not on diversity?

Then companies that care about diversity would be right not to hire them.

All companies do more than just a single thing. People work there, which makes a healthy work environment automatically important to any non-psychopathic company.

I suppose you could reasonably argue that there is value to that approach, if you are optimizing for it. That said, anecdote incoming, I have this one buddy, who is not very welcoming, but is very good at what he does. Frankly, I think the company would be in a much worse position were it not for him. As a manager.. what do I want more of?

I guess they would look whether he's a jerk to everyone equally hehe. Of course there are limits of this, and at some point no amount of genius can compensate lack of teamwork.