Yesterday I made a rare trip downtown for a work-related meeting.  Normally December is a time spent with quietly writing away in my home office since our quarter system does not have regular classes between Thanksgiving and the start of the new year.  But a technology company in Chicago is interested in recruiting students from the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul, and the staff member who handles employer relations likes to have a subject-matter expert with her.  I left the meeting with a lot of new information, but two pieces stand out to me: 1. Employers are desperate to hire computer science graduates and 2. technology companies are most interested in people who blend into the (somewhat unique) culture of their workplace.

I then spent today reading most of the latest issue of ACM Inroads, for a paper I’m writing on diversity in gaming.  There are many fascinating articles in that issue, but one theme stood out to me.  Computer scientists have put, and continue to put, a lot of energy into improving diversity in the field.  From college-level initiatives like those at Harvey Mudd College, to NSF-funded programs to improve access to computing among the disabled, to a transformation of the high-school curriculum, computer scientists are deeply interested in seeing women and underrepresented minorities participate at higher numbers.  The hope, of course, is that these projects and programs will succeed, resulting in a transformation of computing into a field where gender parity is within reach.  In that process and with that goal, I think that computer science is serving as a model for other technology-focused disciplines.

The interaction I had with the employer-relations staff member after our visit yesterday made me wonder if technology companies are ready for this change, should it actually occur.  She and I started discussing the need that technology companies have for employees to fit their culture, and how their culture can be very different from other industries.  In response she told me a story about a visit she paid to a large technology company based on the West Coast (that will remain anonymous for reasons about to become obvious).  A representative for this company emphasized that adapting to the culture was important, causing the DePaul staff member to ask how the representative would describe the culture.  The response: The average employee age was 26 and the culture was like a “frat house”.  (Note that this company has been around for at least 8 years, so this is not a small start-up).  I rolled my eyes when I learned this and commented that I certainly would not be recommending the company to any of my female students.  She countered that this company was particularly interested in hiring female graduates.  We noted that the lack of reflection on this situation was intriguing.

Now I understand many technology companies are encouraging of and enthusiastic about the goal of broadening diversity in computer science.  But I think it takes more than a diversity initiative, which I know that the company described above has, to make the workplace welcoming.  It particularly remains unclear to me whether technology companies are ready to deal with the changes that would come from a pipeline that begins to approach gender parity.  On the other hand, technology companies are nothing if not adaptable, so maybe they would surprise me.