To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter

Sun Apr  7 20:09:36 PDT 2013


I have long felt that one of the most important societal problems is
extrapolating from one's own tiny world, especially those in privileged
worlds.  This has always been exemplified in my mind by the big
industrial tycoon who, during the Great Depression, remarked, "Oh, I
never advertise my firm on the radio on Sundays, because everyone is
busy playing polo."

Unfortunately, the "polo player" I'll cite in this posting is someone I
have admired, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who has now made what
probably is the most outrageous statement I've encountered in all the
time I've been writing about H-1B:

      "There’s not a single trained computer scientist in this country
      who can’t get a job — at a really high salary."

See http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/04/07/facebooks-coo-sandberg-says-parents-need-to-push-girls-towards-tech/

I, of course, know a number of unemployed or underemployed CS people,
counter to Sandberg's statement.  I know a lot more who left the field
after encountering repeated difficulty in finding CS work.  (As I've
pointed out before, the underemployed and the left-the-fields show why
unemployment figures are misleading.)

But there is more to what she said.

The alert reader of this e-newsletter who brought Sandberg's statement
to my attention is not a fan of Sandberg's other recent statements,
especially about women in tech.  Let's start with the title of the above
article, "Facebook’s COO Sandberg Says Parents Need To Push Girls
Towards Tech."

My reader points out that Sandberg herself is NOT in tech.  She is NOT
an engineer.  Anyone who worked for Larry Summers as chief of staff, as
Sandberg did, has got to be very sharp indeed, but that doesn't mean she
knows what it's like to be an engineer; she doesn't.

I've emphasized over the years that there is serious age discrimination
in the tech industry, starting at about age 35--and the H-1B fuels the
problem, by providing a ready supply of young workers.  And I've said
the problem is even worse for women.  So should parents really push
their daughters towards tech, as Sandberg says?

I've mentioned before that when CS enrollment plummeted following the
Dot Com Bust, the female numbers dropped a lot more than the male ones.
I interpreted that as being due to women being more practical.  Hard
evidence supporting that came a few months later in a survey that found
that women put much more emphasis on the practical when choosing a
college major, compared to male students.

Sandberg's boss, Mark Zuckerberg, once stated that only young people can
make good software developers.  He later apologized for making the
remark, but clearly he believes it.  I've visited Facebook on a number
of occasions, and it looks like a giant dorm room; The vast majority of
the developers are 20-somethings.   Just go to their slide show, at
https://www.facebook.com/careers and see for yourself; other than the
odd manager or two, these look like my students, including my graduate
students, and that's exactly what I've seen every time I've visited the
place.

I've pointed to a number of instances in which employers say they are
"desperate" to hire, but then mention that they are hiring mainly new or
recent grads.  Remember, that is an official job category at these
companies.  Here is one at Facebook, for a job titled, "Production
Engineer, University":  

https://www.facebook.com/careers/department?req=a2KA0000000HUz6MAG&dept=grads&q

I at first was puzzled by the word "university" in the job title, until
I realized it means new graduate, shown in the smaller type "New Grads,
Masters & PhDs."

I just looked at the job listings for their main location, Menlo Park:
https://www.facebook.com/careers/search?q=&location=menlo-park  By my
count, there were 83 openings in engineering, 20 of which were for new
grads and/or internships.  
Most of the rest look to be aimed at 20-somethings; the one at

https://www.facebook.com/careers/department?req=a2KA0000000LjYgMAK&dept=engineering&q

for instance, asks for 3+ years of experience, and my long observation
of the industry has shown that "3+" doesn't mean 15.

So for those who wonder, "What planet does Sandberg live on?" the
answer is "Planet Facebook, where all developers are below average--in
age."

Norm


Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/PlanetSandberg.txt