What else is cultural fit? "Sorry, you don't fit our culture of being heterosexual here."

We're supposed to be adults. We're supposed to know how to get along and play nicely with others, regardless of how different we are from each other. This "cultural fit" line is bullshit apologia for real discrimination.

- Gender matters a lot in hiring. By this I mean a woman is much more likely to hire another woman in a field of qualified candidates. This isn't simply a form of nepotism as such. Two people from the same gender will share a larger common cultural base;

- The race the founders bring shapes the organization. Many startups are started by whites. It shouldn't surprise you that this biases the makeup of their workforces and what they look for;

We wouldn't accept either of the above as a valid excuse for poor hiring practices, even though both statement are true. In modern society we acknowledge that it's all too easy to hire people like oneself, deliberately or otherwise - this is why we go out of our way to minimize the effects of these biases in our hiring.

The tech industry on the other hand seems to celebrate it to the point where "cultural fit" is the core of hiring practice. A lot of the ridiculous Silicon Valley stereotypes come from the immense monoculture it runs.

This is Kindergarten level issues here. You're supposed to know how to tie your own shoes and play nicely with others by the time you're 6 years old. Why do we continue to let the tech industry endorse childish behavior in the work environment?

EDIT: The one job I hated the most was the one where I was hired because I was a "good cultural fit". Turns out, they thought I was of the "culture" that enjoyed working free overtime. Nerf guns and free soda weren't enough to keep me in the office after 6pm, so I started to get squeezed out, culturally.

Sometimes assholes are super-productive geniuses (note that there are more assholes who think they're a genius) so even if they don't get along with the rest of your team (or any humans, really) it's a tough tradeoff whether it's worth having them around.

You have to balance whether they're doing more harm than good to the overall endeavor. In our case, we have one very senior guy who's highly antisocial but absolutely a crack dev. We've given him an extremely flexible work-from-home arrangement. It works out well because we hardly see him, and he's happy communicating over email and just churning out code in his batcave or whatever.

When I'm having trouble with something, the last person I want to help me figure out my problem is an exact clone of myself. I want people used to different tools and different ways of thinking.

You're not getting the point. All of you who keep parroting your master's "cultural fit" line are not seeing the lie for what it is worth. It's not about culture.

We're also human, and I work better with some humans than others.

This question can be asked of anything. Why should it be any less wrong to discriminate based on intelligence? Why should it be any less wrong to discriminate on skill set?

It isn't so much "wrong" to discriminate on race as it is stupid, because race has nothing to do with most jobs (unless you're interviewing to be the grand knight of the klu klux klan or something).

The same cannot be said of which college you attended. Going to Stanford or MIT may not be the best indicator of your potential, it may not even be particularly good, but it requires a certain amount of hard work, determination and intelligence to get into and graduate from good schools like these.

I agree mostly, but for a different reason. I see a lot of people who have experience in years, but not in work. They were basically hired out of school, learned their job in 6 mos. and repeated the same job every 6 mos. for 5 years. Their knowledge is still 6 mos. out of school even though they have been working for 5 years.

This problem is the fault of both the employer and the employee. The employee for not taking control of their own destiny and the employer for being so risk adverse to never move forward.

I just won't care about a problem you've created for yourself.

The H1B lets you transfer your visa very easily. The frustrating thing is that people aren't aware they can do it.

The nature of the country-based priority dates means that Chinese and Indian nationals wait years for the green card application is approved, during which time they (mostly) cannot move.

So if you're strictly on a H1B, yes, it's trivial to switch jobs. If you have a green card application in-process and aren't from China, India, or the Philippines, it's also pretty easy to move (you might have to wait a few months for the right moment). For people from the above three countries it's just pain and misery.