Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?
Woman at a ~100 person startup here -<p>Wanted to comment because there are a lot of posts on here that seem to promote some idea that the company has to really push for women-friendly policies&#x2F;activities to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to completely disagree with (save for policies that could be classified as human-friendly such as leave and flexible hours).<p>I work at a mediocre startup (first engineering job, don&#x27;t judge!) and therefore we have some trouble hiring people. We&#x27;ve got the ping pong and kegs, which I couldn&#x27;t care less about, and plenty of brogrammers and other bromployees, but day to day those really are irrelevant if you&#x27;re getting interesting work and have a good manager.<p>We absolutely have a diversity issue - I&#x27;m the only female engineer on a team of about 20, the company as a whole has maybe 1&#x2F;3 women, it took the company about 6 years before they had their first woman go on maternity leave (many men are fathers, though their paternity leaves were short), and I don&#x27;t work with anyone who would be considered underrepresented in tech.<p>Because we have trouble hiring, we&#x27;ve tended to get people who are super green but excellent coworkers, or who are great programmers with mediocre-to-awful people skills. Of the latter, 2 had very clear misogynist tendencies, and both were fired after complaints made by men. One of the two made my life really uncomfortable when I surpassed his skill level, but only for about a week and then he was fired. I didn&#x27;t even have to complain - my manager saw it and acted immediately.<p>We don&#x27;t have a very active diversity group, though we tried to at one point and it fizzled out. But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a diversity group and they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that really do not make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts, etc).<p>Basically, my company looks like the exact type of place you might want to avoid if you want a female-friendly workplace, but it&#x27;s been a wonderful place for me to grow as an engineer. It has some major problems, but is really trying to take concrete steps to improve. I&#x27;d love to have some female role models and a more diverse group of coworkers, so please don&#x27;t discount companies like mine for looking like the stereotype!