[HN Gopher] My experience as a Gazan girl getting into Silicon V...
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My experience as a Gazan girl getting into Silicon Valley companies
Hiii everyone, this is my first time posting here! I have read
Hacker News sometimes but only thought about sharing my own post
after seeing Manara's post
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25849054)last month. I asked
them if I can share this here and they said it was a good idea. :)
I'm a 19-year-old Gazan female who participated in Manara last year
and got internships at Google and Repl.it. I'm so excited I will
spend this summer at Google in Europe! I got lots of questions
about my experience when people heard about it on Facebook so I
wrote this blog post (https://daliaawad28.medium.com/my-experience-
as-a-gazan-girl-getting-into-silicon-valley-companies-488062d769a1)
to let other young engineers in Palestine and the Middle East know
how they can get into amazing companies like this too. If you are
an engineer or student like me, read it and apply to Manara, they
will help you so much!! Btw I have a few friends who just finished
the Manara program and are looking for internships now so if you
have opportunities make sure to talk to Manara
(http://www.manara.tech). Ask them about Rula and Hend! :)))
Author : daliaawad
Score : 1026 points
Date : 2021-02-24 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (daliaawad28.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (daliaawad28.medium.com)
| ygmelnikova wrote:
| The message is clear kids. Get skilled and head west. Leave these
| hell holes to the losers.
| mFixman wrote:
| It's hard to overstate how great FAANG internships are for giving
| a leg up in life to third world university students.
|
| Like Dalia, I thought it would be almost impossible to get a good
| job on a developed country if you didn't do well in the birth
| lottery until Google figured out I was good at programming and
| gave me a nice internship project.
|
| I bombed that first internship, but with the extra experience and
| the knowledge that I had more open doors than I thought allowed
| me to get a nice job in the UK after the second one.
| coziestSoup wrote:
| This brought a smile to my face :)
|
| > Repl.it is my best friend as a developer. I use it every day. I
| didn't realize I could work there!
|
| This reminded me of when I first came to the US from India and
| started realizing that all the software I used (Windows, Gmail
| etc) and videogames I played were made by ordinary people like
| me.
| inglor wrote:
| As an Israeli who was involved in Gaza Sky Geeks but didn't get
| to follow up with mentees I just wanted to share that your story
| is inspiring and encouraging and congratulations on your hard
| earned job.
|
| It's shameful we have so many bright Gazans but stupid politics
| prevents the natural technical collaboration that could arise. I
| work with many Arab developers (in a big company) here and the
| divide between Gaza/West Bank/Israeli Arabs is so frustrating and
| upsetting to me.
|
| Best of luck and keep inspiring!
| DSingularity wrote:
| It will be great if you can speak these opinions out loud in
| the office and in public. I know it's hard because so many
| Israelis have strong opinions about regarding Zionism and the
| native population which Jewish immigrants displaced but the
| only way people will stop ignoring the injustice is if people
| like you speak out in public. It is also nice to read your
| comments here also.
| revnode wrote:
| > the native population which Jewish immigrants displaced
|
| This happens everywhere, at all times. People are constantly
| moving around. Yet you seem to be fixated on the Jews. Is
| there a reason for this fixation?
| woah wrote:
| This is a thread on that part of the world. It's insane
| that you would insinuate antisemitism because someone made
| a relevant comment about the region.
| revnode wrote:
| Can you point me toward other threads about other parts
| of the world where a particular ethnicity is singled out
| in a negative light for immigrating? I'll take back
| everything I said if you can find ONE.
| woah wrote:
| Han Chinese in Xinjiang today? Anglo Americans
| immigrating to Western North America in the 1800's?
| Germany's failed attempt to immigrate to eastern Europe
| in the 1940's? All of these are rightfully singled out in
| a negative light.
| revnode wrote:
| Here is the link to today's discussion of what is
| happening in China:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26253886
|
| There is not a single mention of Han Chinese immigration
| to Xinjiang, in either positive or negative light.
|
| The Jews who immigrated to Israel were fleeing
| persecution at home and you chose to attack them. That is
| shameful and you should be ashamed of yourself.
|
| All people have the right to live wherever they choose,
| whether they be Jews, Arabs, or any ethnicity. Singling
| people out based on their ethnicity ... well, that's just
| racist, isn't it?
| core-questions wrote:
| There's a vast difference between legitimate, legal,
| welcomed immigration and invasion sanctioned by foreign
| states that results in the creation of an occupied
| territory, but you already knew that.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| colonies? (like, every single one of them, past and
| present)
| core-questions wrote:
| I mean, if you think that a land that is filled with 20th
| century cities and has a documented history of being
| highly populated for thousands of years is the same thing
| as a continent that is practically empty, I don't know
| what to tell you.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| South America had cities. (not 20th century, admittedly).
| The settlement of south africa involved murdering a large
| amount of natives... I'm not not sure what to tell you!
| reissbaker wrote:
| I agree with you about the injustice that Palestinians face,
| but I think you have been taught incorrectly about "the
| native population which Jewish immigrants displaced" in a way
| that rings of anti-Semitism (e.g. the alt-right's calls that
| "Jews will not replace us," etc). About half of Israel's
| Jewish population is "Mizrahi," which refers to Jews native
| to the Middle East, many of whom predate Arab colonization of
| the Middle East. I know this is a contentious topic in
| general and I don't think you're intentionally being anti-
| Semitic, nor do I think all criticism of Israel's treatment
| of Palestinians is anti-Semitic! But it's easy to also
| accidentally fall into anti-Semitism when criticizing Israel,
| since anti-Semitism is so endemic to Western culture, and I
| think you accidentally did here.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Define "native". Are you considering 2nd+ generation
| immigrant as native? What is your definition of native?
|
| Most moderns Jewish inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael came via
| Aliyah no?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Pale
| s... (you can argue about the title, but just focus on the
| numbers)
|
| By the way, I am part Jew myself and I don't agree with how
| Zionism was implemented. In your perspective, does that
| mean I am against myself?
| golemiprague wrote:
| Define "Palestinian", most Arabs in the Levant are
| colonialists who came from the Arab desert. The name
| Palestine was coined by the Romans for the land of Israel
| after they conquered it, an Arab who calls himself a
| "Palestinian" is like a a European in the US calling
| themselves Navaho or Cherokee.
|
| This racist assumptions that only Arabs, and even worst,
| Muslim Arabs are native to the whole of the middle east ,
| is just plain wrong. It is also a bit weird that Arabs
| refuse to accept Jews in what you call a "Palestinian
| land" but has no problem to live everywhere else in the
| world, even if the Arabs think they got some god given
| right to rule every piece of land in the whole of the
| middle east and north Africa. There are other people and
| nations in the middle east, just accept it.
| reissbaker wrote:
| Mizrahi does not refer to 2nd generation immigrants [1];
| it refers to descendants of local Jewish populations in
| the Middle East. While the Wikipedia demographics link
| you posted is technically accurate (the best kind of
| accurate), it doesn't correctly capture Mizrahi Jews,
| because Mizrahi means native to the Middle East, not
| specifically to the region called "Palestine," the modern
| borders of which were defined by the British after WWI.
| Those borders also include much, much more than just the
| "Palestine" you're referring to -- it includes all of
| Jordan and part of Syria.
|
| Prior to the British occupation, the entire region was
| part of the Ottoman Empire and had been for hundreds of
| years; the modern borders and boundaries of various
| countries were largely invented during the 20th century
| after the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Allied
| Powers. When Israel was founded, most Mizrahi Jews moved
| to Israel due to extreme persecution in the Muslim-
| majority countries, which were mostly also all new
| countries carved up from the remains of the Ottoman
| Empire. Prior to the borders of the 20th century, these
| Jews were citizens of the Ottoman Empire just like
| everyone else in the region, and were native to the
| Middle East. (The Ottoman empire did have provinces, but
| they don't match the British borders or the post-British
| borders.)
|
| Mizrahi Jews make up 3.2 million of Israel's Jewish
| inhabitants [1]. Israel's total Jewish population is 6.7
| million [2], so they're about half.
|
| Edit: Since this is frequently a contentious topic, I
| want to reiterate that I do not support the Israeli
| government's treatment of Palestinians. Israel's
| treatment of Palestinians is terrible. This post is meant
| to counter anti-Semitism, _not_ criticism of Israel. In
| most of my posts in this thread I have also criticized
| Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. The fact that
| many Jews are native to the Middle East does not justify
| depriving Palestinians of land or self-determination.
| However, I think it 's useful in these discussions to not
| rely on anti-Semitic tropes e.g. the idea that Jews are
| non-natives and of Jewish replacement. Jews are in fact
| natives of the Middle East and have been so longer than
| anyone else (well, ethnic Lebanese people actually give
| Jews a run for their money, but those are the two
| longest-dwelling ethnic groups in the region).
|
| Edit 2: Since it looks like you're getting downvoted --
| FYI I didn't downvote you and I think your question was
| legitimate and wasn't ill-intentioned.
|
| 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews
|
| 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Jews
| DSingularity wrote:
| Were Mizrahi Jews persecuted across the entire Middle
| East and North Africa?
| DSingularity wrote:
| When I said natives I meant Palestinians who were
| forcefully displaced from their lands. Those lands then
| turned into colonies which are occupied to this days by
| Jewish immigrants from Europe, North Africa, and other
| regions in the Middle East (Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, and
| Lebanon).
|
| I'm not sure how I could have phrased this better to make
| sure I steer clear of any potential offense.
| core-questions wrote:
| One does not so much "fall into it" so much as one is
| accused of it whenever one's opinion about political or
| military actions runs counter to Zionism.
| reissbaker wrote:
| I would love it if your response addressed the points in
| my comment, but it seems like you're deliberately
| ignoring them.
|
| Again, I agree that the Israeli government's treatment of
| Palestinians is abhorrent. That's not an anti-Semitic
| opinion! Claiming that Jews are not native to the Middle
| East and are an attempt to replace Palestinians is
| factually wrong, though, and does rely on anti-Semitic
| tropes.
| core-questions wrote:
| > Claiming that Jews are not native to the Middle East
| and are an attempt to replace Palestinians is factually
| wrong, though,
|
| You stuck an 'and' between two ideas there. Native? Sure.
| Not an attempt to replace Palestinians? That's an uphill
| argument you've carved off for yourself that runs counter
| to all observable facts.
|
| May as well just fall back on the classic "it was our
| land first" and have done with, since honestly you're not
| going to come up with any moral justification that holds
| up any better.
| pkkim wrote:
| Yes, Jews are native to the Middle East, specifically the
| area of Israel/Palestine. But why should that make
| Palestinians who lost their land feel any better? It's
| irrelevant.
| reissbaker wrote:
| It shouldn't, and it doesn't. I agree that it doesn't and
| that Israel's treatment of Palestinians is terrible. My
| point is we can have this discussion without also
| (incorrectly) relying on anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish
| replacement.
|
| (I am Jewish, but I do not support the Israeli
| government's treatment of Palestinians.)
| fortran77 wrote:
| My Jewish family was kicked out of Gaza in 1929.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots#Jewish_co.
| ..
|
| You've probably never been to Israel or Gaza.
|
| I've very happy to read the story of this woman getting a job
| in Silicon Valley, and of the success of the people in Gaza.
| patall wrote:
| My grandma was born in 1936 in the city of Poznan as
| ethnically german child with a polish passport. Her family
| owned a shop and house the shop was in. Then, the nazis
| occupied poland, and the family prospered shortly. But the
| father, who had been a polish soldier before, had to enlist
| in the german forces and fell on the eastern front. Then
| the SU conquered the entire area and my grandmas familty
| lost every thing they could not carry: the house, the shop,
| the grandparents house with farm land, etc. More people
| lost their lives, greatgrandma was most likely raped, etc.
| Grandma missed a year of shool and ended up 5-10
| centimeters shorter than the relatives.
|
| Now, 70 years later, does she hate the polish, or the
| russians, for what happened? Of course not.
| fortran77 wrote:
| But you haven't been "flagged" for telling your story. I
| get flagged for telling mine.
| dang wrote:
| I think you're getting flagged for personal attacks and
| slurs (e.g. "You're just an American who wants to hate
| someone"), which is quite different than telling your
| story.
|
| I totally get and appreciate why you have strong feelings
| on the topic. But we can't have comments breaking the
| rules like that here.
| 2fc00c733a5519 wrote:
| But why should she ever hate Poles in the first place?
| Poland was occupied by the Germans and Russians, one
| after another.
| poweronselftest wrote:
| Referring to Jewish settlement in Palestine as
| "immigration" doesn't really paint the complete picture,
| generally.
|
| Sure, some Jews immigrated to Palestine/Israel as we think
| of immigration. But many did not.
|
| For example: I had a great-great uncle who was originally
| from Poland. Fearing the Germans, he escape Poland (on
| foot, alone, as a young teenager) shortly after the German
| invasion to live with his family in Ukraine (my direct
| ancestors). They survived together in Evacuation [1]. After
| the war, he decided to go back to Poland. What happened to
| him there, in 1946, was that he was forcefully removed from
| the country by his neighbors [2], who were pleased that
| Jews had been removed from their society and did not want
| them to return. He ended up in a DP camp, and with nowhere
| else to go, went to Palestine.
|
| Did he displace the local population there? I guess. Did he
| have other options? No. What was he supposed to do, drown
| himself? In his story I see a plight not very different
| from Syrian refugees in Europe or Guatemalan refugees in
| the United States. I think his story is hardly unique, and
| explains largely why Israel exists in the first place. If
| you view the presence of Jews in Palestine as European
| Colonialism, I think your perspective has a very limited
| and selective in scope.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_in_the_Soviet_
| Union
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielce_pogrom
| Udik wrote:
| Today the issue is not the existence of Israel- right or
| wrong, it's the birthplace and homeland of millions. The
| issue is its recent and ongoing expansion in territories
| outside its legally recognized borders, and the violence
| and oppression that accompanies it. The situation in the
| occupied territories is one of actual apartheid, with
| Jews allowed to retain Israeli citizenship and subject to
| Israeli laws, and Palestinians basically stateless and
| subject to military laws.
| Daho0n wrote:
| >Did he displace the local population there? I guess. Did
| he have other options? No. What was he supposed to do,
| drown himself?
|
| Those were not the only two options. You mentioned the
| Syrian refugees. They did come here where I live but
| unlike in Palestine they don't displace anyone but became
| part of the populace. No-one is or were forcing anyone to
| displace Palestinians. You are turning a sad story into a
| propaganda piece which helps no-one. Just like my Syrian
| friend, who now owns a restaurant he started with local
| help, one could become part of israel without being part
| of the forced displacement programs.
| DSingularity wrote:
| I've been to multiple cities in Israel and the occupied
| territories.
| Udik wrote:
| > but stupid politics
|
| I wouldn't call 800k Israelis living on Palestinian land
| "stupid politics". That's a bit dismissive of the issue, don't
| you think?
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Udik wrote:
| I didn't mean to criticise, I actually appreciate the
| spirit of the comment I replied to. But I do think- and
| wanted to point out- that waving it off as "stupid
| politics" is maybe a form of self-deception, when you live
| in a country that hugely profits from the situation.
| poweronselftest wrote:
| Wondering why you think 800k Israelis live on Palestinian
| land and not 5-6 million?
| amasad wrote:
| Congrats, Dalia! I understand why chose Google over us -- the
| chance to travel is hard to pass on -- but maybe we'll get you
| next year ;)
| [deleted]
| daliaawad wrote:
| Thank you so much Amjad! I really love Repl.it and I think I am
| a startup person in my heart. If you have a fall or spring
| internship opportunity don't forget about me!
| ublaze wrote:
| I'm curious what visa you'd be using to work at Repl.it (if
| you were going to move to the USA). I'm wondering if our
| startup should be using Manara.
| blobbers wrote:
| This is awesome!
|
| In my graduating class (at a top engineering/cs school) the
| smartest person with the most consistent high grades was a
| palestinian immigrant (who would always whisper the correct
| pronunciations when the professors were butchering the
| pronunciation of a TA's names). I don't think I fully understood
| the life he had come from, but this is a reminder that we should
| stop saddling the youth with the battles of their parents.
|
| Glad to hear you're getting some freedom.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I feel like there are a large number of comments here stating how
| many obstacles the author is likely to face going forward because
| of race and gender.
|
| I wonder whether people have really examined the utility of
| repeating this claim.
|
| The huge obstacle in the author's story was country of birth.
|
| OTOH race and gender can have pluses and minuses. There is casual
| and subconscious bias on one side, but on the other side we have
| explicit corporate hiring policies that seek to counteract this.
| It is possible that the net balance is in favor of the author
| because of this.
|
| Members of underrepresented groups could benefit greatly from
| knowing how many programs are in place to encourage, nurture, and
| welcome them into this industry. This could make it seem more
| achievable and encourage people to try.
|
| Members of underrepresented groups do not benefit from being told
| how hard it will be in tech, and I think it isn't in even in
| evidence when all factors are included. Saying 'you are going to
| face tons of discrimination' is a form of keeping people out. It
| may seem like it is empathy, but it can just have the effect of
| discouraging people.
|
| If we want more diversity in tech, we should be saying things
| like 'This is great! And you will find many people will be very
| welcoming. Please join us.'
| twodave wrote:
| Congratulations and thanks for writing this. It is easy as an
| American male to overlook how much harder others might have to
| work to achieve what I think of as very approachable goals.
| You've not only put in all the work but also had to rely on the
| good graces of these programs to support you! That work ethic
| you've cultivated is what you now must rely on to succeed and by
| far your most valuable asset.
|
| You will still face difficulties because of your gender and
| ethnicity. It's horrible and wrong, and I hope it changes. But
| your tenacity and drive will show everybody your real value in
| the end, and I think you'll do well! I believe you are and can
| continue to be part of the change.
| sitevas35 wrote:
| > You will still face difficulties because of your gender and
| ethnicity.
|
| She is going to Europe, not USA. Unless she picks a really bad
| place (but most Google HQs there are in a good place), she
| won't have any such issues.
|
| Europe doesn't talk as much about gender and race, but they
| actually do things as well, while in the USA everyone kinda
| pats their back for "walking out for Black Lifes Matter" and
| calls it a day.
| phroobster wrote:
| Considering America's obsession with diversity, I find it
| hard to believe that she would have an easier time in Europe
| or anywhere else in the world. In America she would receive
| countless offers purely as a diversity hire. That's not to
| say she wouldn't deserve the offers based on merit, but
| Silicon Valley has decided that pure ability is less
| important to hiring than race and gender. That gives her an
| enormous advantage over white and asian males.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| I'm not sure this is true, having worked in both the US and
| Europe. The US definitely _talks_ about it more, often to an
| absurd excess. But I 've seen far more real-life examples of
| casual racism in Europe, stuff that no one would even dream
| of saying or doing in the US. I'm not hanging out in terrible
| neighborhoods in either place.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > Europe doesn't talk as much about gender and race, but they
| actually do things as well, while in the USA everyone kinda
| pats their back for "walking out for Black Lifes Matter" and
| calls it a day.
|
| Please explain how things like 'Zwarte Piet' fit into your
| narrative? I remember the first time I walked around a town
| center around the holidays and was accosted by multiple white
| Europeans in blackface asking for donations.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into ideological and
| nationalistic flamewar, let alone, god help us, both at the
| same time.
|
| Also, would you please stop creating accounts for every few
| comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in
| the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a
| community, users need some identity for other users to relate
| to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no
| community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https
| ://hn.algolia.com/?query=community%20identity%20by:dang...
| skadamou wrote:
| I suppose everybody's impression of inequity is mostly shaped
| by their experience and perhaps the anecdotal experience of a
| few close friends. The US is by no means a model for how to
| handle inequities but my experience has been that the US
| actually does a better job handling and talking about it, at
| least in the sciences, than do lots of places in Europe. IDK,
| everything is subjective and depends. Bearing that in mind I
| would encourage you to approach commenting on topics like
| this without drawing such a hard line in the sand. Whether or
| not you meant it, your comment comes off as pretty aggressive
| and somewhat flame-war-y.
| headmelted wrote:
| Errr I'd want to see hard evidence this is the case before
| I'd take it as a given.
|
| There's no part of me that finds it easy to believe that a
| female, minority worker in tech is going to get the same
| opportunities as a white male anywhere in Europe.
|
| I'd think the more sinister patting of one's own back is
| assuming that "at least we're not like that here" without
| hard evidence to back up that assumption.
| clarifier123 wrote:
| >There's no part of me that finds it easy to believe that a
| female, minority worker in tech is going to get the same
| opportunities as a white male anywhere in Europe.
|
| I agree, she's a woman, she will definitely get much more
| opportunities than a man. The potential employers will bend
| over backwards to fill their diversity quotas.
| Xevi wrote:
| The (billion dollar) company I work for in Europe has a
| policy that they hire twice as many women as men. Women
| also get twice as long contracts and better career paths.
| They are also trying to hire a lot more people of color.
| Statistically you have an extremely higher chance of
| getting hired as a black female than a white male.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Oof, that certainly doesn't sound good.
| selectodude wrote:
| Excellent point. Europe has solved racism and sexism,
| especially in football.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Having worked in both Europe and the US, and being from
| neither of those places, I can absolutely say that the amount
| of _open_ racism in Europe was significantly greater than in
| the US.
|
| One example out of many: while walking on the street in
| Denmark, there were two instances of passersby on bicycles
| yelling racial slurs at me as they drove by.
| ljm wrote:
| I don't think this is the right place to make a EU vs. USA
| point, to be honest. And a Google HQ itself isn't a safe-
| haven either.
|
| I'm not as confident as you are about the author of this post
| getting an easier life in the EU vs. the US. People escaping
| the wars the EU/US coalition (in whatever form) have started
| in the middle east are going to find their way to greener
| pastures through Turkey, Greece, Italy and be shunned every
| fucking step of the way, no matter where they settle.
|
| But you don't have to be coming from Turkey or be somehow
| Arabic, or Muslim in appearance, you only have to turn to the
| UK to see the sheer derision towards Polish people and
| immigrants further east despite the immense proximity between
| the countries. Or the attitude to the Romani people across
| the whole continent.
|
| The author is from Palestine. She will suffer from prejudice
| purely for having a name that ignorant people will connect to
| Islam or terrorism, and ignorant people who will take
| Israel's side on the matter without thought.
|
| If Dalia Awad has an easier time and avoids issues wherever
| she is, it's because of what she's had to do for it, not
| because she chose the EU over the US.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| -and ignorant people who will take Israel's side on the
| matter without thought.
|
| i don't think Israels' side of the matter means persecuting
| people just because they happen to be Palestinian. That
| just isn't true.
| ljm wrote:
| I took it too far in that respect, and since I can't do a
| faithful edit on HN to correct that (without erasing the
| evidence of me being wrong), it doesn't mean the rest of
| the post is wrong.
|
| The EU isn't the paradise the parent poster thinks it is.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I'm sorry, but this is simply ignorant.
|
| While it's true that racial oppression is often less in
| Europe due to better government regulations and social safety
| nets and whatnot, on a personal level there's still plenty of
| bigotry and xenophobia, sometimes moreso than the US.
|
| I'm an American living in Munich (working for Google
| actually), go ahead and try telling foreigners here that
| landlords they're talking to while applying for an apartment
| treat them the same way as native Germans. The idea is
| laughable.
|
| But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's a poll on
| whether people in different countries feel that increasing
| diversity is a positive change. Note that the US comes out
| ahead of most of the European countries listed, as well as
| substantially ahead of the European median:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/04/22/how-people-
| aro...
| djpr wrote:
| Perhaps Europe is better at gender (due to strong social
| policies), but Europe is't immune to racism.
|
| It's not talked about so loudly like in the US, but I've
| experienced so much low-key, out in the open racism in Europe
| towards Arabs, Moroccans, Chinese, Africans and so on.
|
| I'm not white and while I don't feel like my life is in
| danger, I know from looks and behavior that I'm not on equal
| footing with a white European.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| The US has been grappling with these issues for a long
| time, so it's normal to discuss it there.
|
| In Germany, I get more of the feeling of, "oh, we don't
| have _those_ kinds of problems here ". It's basically
| denialism, like when the Dutch defend Zwarte Piet. Not that
| you don't see that in the US for some people too, but it
| seems to be more widespread in many European countries,
| where the very fact that it hasn't been as widely discussed
| before leads people to believe that it must not exist.
| complexmango wrote:
| Unreal how competitive the virtue signaling is on HN, when the
| reality is that every major tech company is falling over itself
| to hire anyone who isn't A) Male and B) either white or
| Asian/Indian.
|
| What planet do you live on?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| This comment started a flamewar. Please don't do that on HN.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I think the comment was very reasonable. Yes, it mentions
| gender/ethnicity/nationality in a way that is likely to
| incite some people to attack, but in this case gender and
| ethnicity/nationality was mentioned in the article as a
| relevant detail, so I think it's reasonable to include it in
| a comment.
|
| I just feel that it's not reasonable to hold GP responsible
| for a touchy subject, when the touchy subject is part of the
| article they're commenting on in the first place. If it came
| out of nowhere, then obviously that'd be a different story.
| dang wrote:
| > Yes, it mentions gender/ethnicity/nationality in a way
| that is likely to incite some people to attack
|
| That's the point. From a moderation perspective, comments
| are at least partly responsible for the subthreads they
| spawn: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=
| true&sor...
|
| The GP was obviously well-intentioned but unfortunately
| that's only a necessary condition for not starting a
| flamewar. It isn't a sufficient one: https://hn.algolia.com
| /?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| Btw, I don't think it's quite true to say that the touchy
| subject was part of the article. Even if it were, though,
| the burden is on commenters not to take an HN thread
| further into flamewar. This is in the site guidelines:
|
| " _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._ "
|
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics
| unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid
| unrelated controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Okay, but
|
| 1) They clearly didn't _intend_ to incite people to
| attack, and
|
| 2) How much responsibility are you really going to lay at
| their feet for that? If I say in a comment, "yes, we
| really need to do better at fighting climate change",
| there will absolutely be some people who will take that
| as an opportunity to start a flamewar. Some topics are
| controversial enough to where fairly innocuous statements
| might get people flaming -- is discouraging the innocuous
| statements really the right move? You're essentially
| saying that it's each commenter's job not to offend
| people, even if the offended parties are being
| unreasonable. That effectively hands a subject-matter
| banhammer to them.
|
| I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying about
| expected value of the subthread, I just think that
| there's a line there, and in this case the GP stayed well
| on the right side of it.
| Udik wrote:
| > You will still face difficulties because of your gender and
| ethnicity. It's horrible and wrong
|
| I find it pretty strange that you can't see the irony of
| mentioning the issues that she will face because of her gender
| and ethnicity when she comes from a country where people are
| shot at by Israeli snipers (183 dead and 6000 shot in the legs,
| often with permanent disabilities, in 2018-2019 [1]). All with
| the open, enthusiastic and substantially unchallenged support
| of your country (no "Palestinian lives matter" protests in the
| newspapers). Protesting against Israel is even penalized by US
| state laws [2].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-
| BDS_laws_in...
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. Obviously
| any mention of Gaza is one step away from major politics, but
| I don't think it's fair to impose that on the OP.
| decentrality wrote:
| Not the time for "Remember the Asymptote" here actually. The
| world is being taken over by new generations free to break the
| framework. This type of post is about that.
|
| It might also be about spread of corporations into every
| culture, but here I remember the "Other Conquest" in Central
| America where it didn't ultimately matter who came into the
| culture, because the culture held up under force. Both sides
| changed. I am as excited for Google as for the OP. These
| moments make the past unreal, and the future becomes about this
| kind of dream coming true and surpassed.
| dionian wrote:
| Congrats, well-deserved. I hope you encourage other Palestinians
| and Arabs to follow suit!
| daliaawad wrote:
| Yaasss of course! This is why I wrote this post and am sharing
| on social media too. :) lots of people are contacting me now on
| facebook asking how to do it. www.manara.tech will help them.
| that's how I got into these companies. their mission is to help
| palestinian and middle east engineers fulfill their dreams and
| work at international startups & companies! Now that I got in,
| I am going to go back and mentor the next Manara cohorts to
| help more people do it
| 120bits wrote:
| This is inspirational and your hard work paid off!
|
| Congrats Dalia!
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Great to see the excitement and success story for this
| hardworking person.
|
| Depressing to see leetcode and data structures interview prep
| heralded as a positive thing and treated as a neutral, accepted,
| "nothing wrong with this" aspect of the path to getting a job.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Crazy that she can never enter the West Bank or Israel
| popobawa wrote:
| amazing achievement, this article made me smile and i am
| confident you will achieve a lot in the future. Keep up the good
| work
| yawnxyz wrote:
| wow you're more accomplished than I am at 35 haha... really
| impressive. You'll go so far!
| jojobas wrote:
| How about we talk about an elephant in the room: the parents.
|
| Encouraging, or even allowing, a girl to venture outside the
| Strip is entirely unusual. I'd suspect her general interest in
| computers is not an accident either.
|
| You'll find more Gazan parents wishing their children to blow
| themselves up at a bus stop than go live a western life
| elsewhere.
| jedberg wrote:
| Today I learned about Manara. I'd never heard of it before, but I
| look forward to using it the next time I need to hire someone!
| Sounds like an awesome platform.
| daliaawad wrote:
| Yes you should! The Manara community is amaaazing. They are
| super smart motivated people who already have computer science
| or engineering degrees. Manara teach us how to interview at
| companies... both technical and soft skills... I have a bunch
| of friends in their 5th cohort who are looking for
| opportunities right now.
|
| By the way the CTO of Manara is from Gaza too. She often tells
| me I remind her of her a few years ago. :))) She lives in
| Silicon Valley now and started Manara because she knew how many
| smart people there are in Palestine.
| bjourne wrote:
| Best of luck to you! Palestinians are nothing but resilient.
| Bootstrapping yourself to an internship at Google in a territory
| where the unemployment rate exceeds 50% takes an amazing amount
| of grit. Israel's siege of Gaza is truly criminal.
| yesnomaybeno wrote:
| Israel is a apartheid regime that needs to be dismantled and
| replaced with a country that is fair to all its citizens,
| rather than an ethnostate based on racist ideas of Jewish
| supremacy.
| pookeh wrote:
| Congratulations! Looking forward to hearing more positive news
| from you in the future.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| congrats
| dorongrinstein wrote:
| I'm an Israeli/American founder of a software company. I'm very
| happy to hear your story. I hope you inspire many other Gazans.
| I'd hire Palestinians remotely too.I recall my first airplane
| trip. Very exciting times for you. I wish you lots of success and
| happiness in your journey. You've chosen a fantastic path that
| will God-willing reward you and your family. May there be peace
| between our people soon!
| rvz wrote:
| Well done!
| daliaawad wrote:
| Thank you!
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| With Manara and Latam incubators on the rise hopefully the demand
| will drop for tech people in North American companies and they
| will finally be able to pay reasonable salaries to tech people.
| williesleg wrote:
| Nice! But why bring gender, age and ethnicity into the picture if
| we're all supposed to be equals? Or do you just like stirring the
| pot?
| laura2013 wrote:
| wow, this story is incredible.
|
| Dalia, thank you for being so honest about your experience. I
| have no doubt that your dedication and cheerful approach to the
| field will take you far.
|
| Not gonna lie, the end made me tear up a bit. I hope you an
| incredible summer with your friends.
| smusamashah wrote:
| I am from Pakistan and my view of Gaza and Palestine is very
| narrow because all we see on TV is Israel mass murdering everyone
| in Palestine.
|
| What is the tech scene in Gaza? Any software houses, companies
| and startups there? If there are, what are they mostly about?
| mvzvm wrote:
| "my view of Gaza and Palestine is very narrow because all we
| see on TV is Israel mass murdering everyone in Palestine" This
| is a very mature realization, and a great example of how media
| can distort reality. It is far more complex and nuanced than
| that. I suggest you check out sources from beyond Pakistan and
| try to learn more about what is going on.
| comfyinnernet wrote:
| >At Google there were interviews exactly like what Manara
| prepared us for: data structures & algorithms problem-solving.
|
| I'm surprised this hasn't become the main point of discussion
| here yet.
|
| Edit: I mean Google's interview technique, and how people prepare
| for it
| sudosteph wrote:
| First of all - big props to Dalia. She clearly worked her behind
| off to earn those offers.
|
| Second - this definitely, to me, proves that Manara has a good
| business model. I actually don't think the fact that the Manara
| students are from MENA is all that important though. However, I
| do think that their extremely hands-on, and intensive "bootcamp
| for FAANG interviewing" model is clearly an advantage for early
| career technical candidates.
|
| Thinking back to my college days (in the US, mid 2010s) - we were
| not given any sort of class that focused on professional
| interviewing. The college career center was also very general,
| and not knowledgeable about the specifics of passing the coding
| interviews. The best advice I got was a recommendation from a
| guest lecturer to read "cracking the coding interview" (which to
| be fair, was better than nothing).
|
| As a result, the people from my school who did the best right out
| of the gate, were largely people who already knew people already
| in a FAANG roles and who could rely on that person for a
| referral, interview advice and practice feedback. Our school was
| not in SV (or anywhere close), so realistically, that was not an
| option for most of us. Additionally, I always applied for
| internships at FAANG companies while I was still a student - but
| never even got called in to interview - so it wasn't like I could
| practice that way either. I ended up doing fine for myself by
| accumulating a good base of practical experience from local non-
| FAANG companies before graduating, but I really believe my peers,
| and aspirational novice engineers of all backgrounds would have
| benefited greatly from having a hands-on course like Dalia
| described. I especially would love to see efforts like that
| extending out to under-served communities here in the US as well
| (native american reservations, appalachians, rust belt cities).
| SamElliotEsq wrote:
| That's the most long-winded way of saying "I'll fuck your ass"
| I've ever seen in a good while. Never underestimate the pussy,
| I know you boy-boys do. Respect the pussy, dudes.
| khendron wrote:
| Great article, and congratulations!
|
| One thing stood out for me though
|
| > On January 1, 2021, I received an email from Repl.it letting me
| know that I had been selected.
|
| To me this is a huge red flag. To receive a work related email on
| what is probably the most widely recognized holiday in the world
| is the sign of a company with terrible work-life balance.
|
| I hope I'm wrong, but I have ignored such a flag in the past and
| got bitten.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| > I became passionate about programming in high school. My
| teacher selected me for a robotics competition. We built a line
| follower robot using Arduino.
|
| To me this is important to know how to get younger people
| interested in programming. The application approach seems better
| than the "cool, trendy online class" approach.
|
| I also think Dalia is an exception and not the norm. I also want
| to know about those that didn't succeed and what obstacles they
| faced, and as an instructor what can we do differently?
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Just give a damn and focus on passionate students who are
| actually interested in something rather than the superficial
| students doing it to look good for a college application.
|
| Sorry if I use this bit to rant but I'm still mad at a teacher
| from high school decades later. As a child I was mad at the
| injustice done to me. Thinking back as an adult I'm mad at all
| the potential she probably squandered in others.
|
| She taught the electronics classes and was put in charge of the
| cube satellite project. It was an extracurricular activity
| where students work with volunteers to design and build a small
| cube satellite that would launch into space.
|
| It wasn't announced to the school and I only caught word of it
| from a friend. I rushed to get an application filled out and
| turned in but the teacher said that I missed the cut off by one
| day (a date arbitrarily set by her). I was devastated. A few
| weeks later I was told by a volunteer I could still join in and
| help, so I did. I put in some serious work and at some point I
| find out I missed a big meeting. I asked the teacher about it
| and she refused to believe I was a participant and would not
| add me to the mailing list.
|
| All my passion and love for wanted to building something and
| send it into space was converted into vengeful teenage angst
| and by that young logic I wanted to see her name plastered all
| over the failure. The best way to accomplish that was to stop
| showing up and helping. Times goes by and right after all the
| college applications are submitted I find out that most of the
| students immediately stopped working on it. Went from something
| like 100 students down to 3. The satellite was never finished
| and didn't get launched into space.
|
| I'm probably the exception with the after story: taught myself
| some rudimentary things from a RadioShack book, got into
| college and graduated with a BS in EE. Now a days I see all
| these cool youtube videos and how easily it is for kids to
| discover things but have may not necessarily have the resources
| or guidance to get going.
| ThisIsTheWay wrote:
| > Just give a damn and focus on passionate students who are
| actually interested in something rather than the superficial
| students doing it to look good for a college application.
|
| It's not that easy. Teachers are evaluated on the competency
| of the entire class, not just the ones who want to be there
| to learn.
| leetcrew wrote:
| in algebra, sure. like it or not, everyone is expected to
| attain some basic level of competency by the end of the
| course. GP is describing something that sounds like an
| extracurricular/club activity. grades are not involved, and
| it's pretty common for students to abuse these sorts of
| activities to pad out their college applications. as a kid,
| it was dead obvious who was genuinely interested and who
| was just doing it for college applications.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| Congrats!
|
| TLDR: Hard work pays off.
| justblaze23 wrote:
| Congratulations! Extremely well deserved, wish you the best going
| forward :)
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > I'm a 19-year-old Gazan female who participated in Manara last
| year and got internships at Google and Repl.it. I'm so excited I
| will spend this summer at Google in Europe! I got lots of
| questions about my experience when people heard about it on
| Facebook so I wrote this blog post to let other young engineers
| in Palestine and the Middle East know how they can get into
| amazing companies like this too.
|
| That's awesome that you got in, but I have to be 'that guy' and
| ask what role do you think Google plays in the survielence based
| economy in keeping Gaza in it's horrible plight?
|
| Israeli surveillance companies are often the most adept at
| violating and breaking through encryption, and I often think Gaza
| is the lab they use to test out their wares: but what if any role
| does Google have in helping the people of Gaza like yourself in
| re-establishing itself and removing the embargo that has led to
| those atrocious living conditions of so many hapless people?
|
| I literately cried for hours when I watched the Banksy
| documentary in Gaza for the Christmas play and the celebration
| the children (your aged at the time) put on, to have such resolve
| in the face of despotic tyranny is nothing short of heroic, and I
| hope your role at google can evolve in order to place a much
| larger magnifying glass on the crimes against humanity and make
| them accountable for creating the largest internment camp in the
| World (2nd to Xianjing now) that Israel is undertaking and
| justifying with things that happened to a generation of people
| who no longer exists for the most part, and I'm sure would be
| appalled at seeing given what they experienced.
|
| Edit: Will you guys give the downvoting a rest for once, FFS I'm
| asking a sincere question instead of just parroting 'congrats'
| like the rest of you.
| ertian wrote:
| > what role do you think Google plays in the survielence based
| economy in keeping Gaza in it's horrible plight?
|
| What role do _you_ think they play? I'm not aware of any Google
| projects to help with government surveillance in Gaza.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > What role do _you_ think they play? I'm not aware of any
| Google projects to help with government surveillance in Gaza.
|
| I don't know, I don't work for google, and after buying a
| Nexus 5 I never bought another google product and I adopted
| DDG very early on as I never left the Mozilla platform... but
| one has to ask with Google being such a high profile customer
| for nations state's survielence model what role it plays in
| allowing Isreal to keep the gross violations in Gaza
| underwraps is a critical question.
|
| I know throughout the years and several UN inquiries that
| stated Israel committed war crimes in Gaza was brushed under
| the rug almost never appeared via most search engines when I
| tried to look [0], but that is anecdotal at best.
|
| I want to know what she thinks first hand being from Gaza and
| now working at Google.
|
| 0: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=UN+Gaza+war+crimes+isreal&t=lm&i
| a=...
| accounted wrote:
| Isreal has paid shills that scour the internet for anything
| negative about them to downvote, that's probably what's
| happening.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| While they do have such programs, that's almost certainly not
| what's happening.
| vmception wrote:
| Obsessively focusing on oppression just because you recognize
| the name of an area does make you "that guy" and this is not
| the thread for it.
|
| The reality is that people have a day to day life and right now
| we are talking about that.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > The reality is that people have a day to day life and right
| now we are talking about that.
|
| Asking what role Google has as one of the most atrocious in
| privacy violators, is something that is relevant to the day
| to day of Gaza.
|
| The fact that you so quickly dismiss their plight the way you
| do is why this can never be more than a walled garden, and
| why I honestly think she should see what working in Silicon
| Valley minded corps is like before she goes any deeper: you
| want your narrative to be the only one, even while building
| tools that keep people in that position in their very
| business model.
|
| Sidenote: I donated to send food via Flotilla that got raided
| by Isreali forces in 2010, so don't tell me what I think of
| the situation much less belittle my experiences in such a
| condescending way.
| _jal wrote:
| > why I honestly think she should see
|
| Speaking of being condescending, on what ground do you base
| your assumption that you know more than she does on the
| topic? Seems to me someone here needs to question their
| assumptions, and it isn't the person you're responding to.
| vmception wrote:
| ...riiiiiiiight
|
| I didn't do any of those things
|
| Now let's talk about what her experience in Europe will be
| like and all the cool things she should do and see
|
| Not everyone's interest or goal is "using their platform",
| this thread is about being judged by the merits of their
| marketable skills
|
| we can _all_ perceive the involvement of big tech in 100
| applications simultaneously, including the 2 or 3
| government contracts you referred to. this isn 't the
| thread for that and you are trying to shoehorn your
| platform into it
|
| this isn't apathy on our part, its maturity on our part
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > Not everyone's interest or goal is "using their
| platform", this thread is about being judged by the
| merits of their marketable skills
|
| Granted, but then one has to ask why her situation makes
| her so remakable and the exceptional, and the glaring
| situation becomes obvious: she comes from a region that
| is in an internment camp due to illegal occupation from a
| country that uses every surveillance tool at their
| disposal. My question is simple: what role does Google
| play here?
|
| > this isn't apathy on our part, its maturity on our part
|
| The rest of your response goes to show you want to treat
| her like the winner of the hunger games, in some
| perverted and distorted version of reality, instead of
| asking how we got here, you're asking the most feckless
| of questions in a typical Silicon Valley minded manner
| that is so pervasive their now.
|
| You conflate _maturity_ with malice when you do that, in
| my opinion, not apathy. You know what you 're doing,
| which makes it worse than apathy because you know how
| effective it is.
|
| Edit: Came back to this after HN revoked my ability to
| post, probablt automated response rather than dang's
| hand, this will be my last response on this matter, as
| I'm not wasting more time on this:
|
| > Speaking of being condescending, on what ground do you
| base your assumption that you know more than she does on
| the topic?
|
| I don't in regards to Palestine, but I saw Silicon Valley
| go form a cypherpunk based playground from 80-90s with
| exciting tech made by amateur technologists to the
| disgusting censorship, cancel culture, lemming zone made
| up of the privileged class with nothing more than virtue
| signaling via degrees enter into these corps that it is
| now working on the most privacy violating technology in
| what Chamth so aptly described as Silicon Valley and
| FAANG's practices as the 'intellectual lobotimization' of
| some the brightest minds we have on Earth.
|
| Take one step out of bounds and that's your career, hell
| just look at how Google is firing people for having
| unionized, or even Timnit Gebru's situation is very
| telling, given he was trying to explain why being a
| female in tech is rare, let alone why it's even rare and
| even why daliaawad is unicorn. But that's heavy handed
| quelling of bad optics, and using sensationalist mob
| mentality is easier, and this the core premise I want to
| convey.
|
| It's why I'm asking the question that I did, your
| erroneous leap in logic and cancel culture practices seem
| to be redlining as you're ignoring the fact that I got
| upset because now my question is being blacked out. I was
| responding to vmception in his dismissal of what he was
| conveying was a shallow understanding on my part of the
| situation as he wrote this dismissal:
|
| _Obsessively focusing on oppression just because you
| recognize the name of an area_
|
| I'm lost for words, I honestly had a higher opinion of
| you guys collectively than most of you deserve... I've
| lived and worked (my own startup) in the valley too, and
| while I despise what you've built I always respected you
| individually as I recognize your talents and respect your
| skills but then I fear your conditioning to respond
| negatively anytime anyone that deviates from the
| established narrative is hard to undo.
|
| Even when you're not at work.
|
| I wanted to ask a sincere question from someone with more
| knowledge than myself on what her perspective is, and
| instead we've derided this about me and I've wasted 20+
| mins responding to the same absurd things that has made
| me never adopt social media. And got my account frozen
| from posting, again. But it also underscores what this
| FAANG and the braoded Silicon Valley 'culture' is really
| like.
|
| Sorry, daliaawad, I wish we could have gotten to speak...
| but it's clear this place will never change from it's
| censorship based roots that Silicon Valley is built upon
| now, and I hope that makes it clear what you're getting
| yourself into.
|
| I look forward to your work, and what I'm sure will be a
| fruitful career.
|
| All the best!
|
| > Frankly, we have more leverage to fix systemic problems
| if we DON'T ragequit one problematic company after
| another.
|
| Doesn't make a difference, as Google now goes after it's
| tech employees that were involved in unionizing, you
| think making an impact there and 'not ragequitting'
| doesn't ensure you being blacklisted when you try to
| resolve the systemic problems from within?
|
| It's the chilling in effect, and from the outside, though
| I did live in the valley at one point for a short period
| of time, and as a multi generational Californian I have
| to say you people have collectively created a perversion
| of the Californian spirit there for such short term gain
| then enriched the biggest megacorps: the high poverty,
| homelessness and now crime rate are reflecting just how
| deeply rotted your cancer(s) made that place.
|
| Enabled by corrupt politicians, for sure, but it's f'ing
| disgrace what you people allowed it to become. You've
| made your bed, and now you have to sleep in it. I just
| fear it won't be people like you on HN who likely work
| for FAANG that will suffer the consequences, it will be
| everyone else as you can afford to just leave.
| vmception wrote:
| There are several organizations finding ways to work with
| software engineers in Gaza, so I don't view it as her
| being a winner of "the hunger games", I view it as an
| expanding talent pool. What I like about the approaches
| that I've seen is that the administrators are finding the
| interest in software development to be less gendered,
| compared to other markets, which is something I find
| interesting.
|
| For me, this thread is seeing one of the approaches come
| to fruition. I was interested in this thread to see which
| approach was tried and her experience with it.
|
| This thread isn't about how we got here. This thread is
| about the _privilege_ of being able to ask "feckless
| questions" because she is going to be a 19-20 year old in
| Europe. Many immigrants have their own causes and people
| they want to support financially, and that's up to her.
| This thread is about what's new in her life and how her
| career in the broader software engineering world can
| develop.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| To trot out the old tired phrase : "no ethical
| consumption..."
|
| Focus on doing what you can and fixing systemic problems, and
| you'll get way farther that you would by deciding not to work
| at a company and not much else.
| rexpop wrote:
| Frankly, we have more leverage to fix systemic problems if
| we DON'T ragequit one problematic company after another.
| domano wrote:
| I gave a few workshops on golang development in Jordan and what i
| noticed is that women were much more common in the comp sci
| department. They also were way more interested in the topic- is
| the situation in gaza similiar? This was really refreshing to see
| mbroncano wrote:
| In my experience, pretty much everywhere else out of the US you
| will find plenty of women in STEM. Admittedly not 50% but it's
| certainly much more common.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Wow, it really irks me that truthful comments that add
| something to the discussion gets down votes as soon as it is
| stating anything that could maybe be construed as negative
| against the US.
| yannickt wrote:
| I salute you.
| daliaawad wrote:
| Hiii everyone, this is my first time posting here! I have read
| Hacker News sometimes but only thought about sharing my own post
| after seeing Manara's post
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25849054) last month. I
| asked them if I can share this here and they said it was a good
| idea. :)
|
| I'm a 19-year-old Gazan female who participated in Manara last
| year and got internships at Google and Repl.it. I'm so excited I
| will spend this summer at Google in Europe! I got lots of
| questions about my experience when people heard about it on
| Facebook so I wrote this blog post to let other young engineers
| in Palestine and the Middle East know how they can get into
| amazing companies like this too.
| oulipo wrote:
| Really cool Dalia ! I hope you become a great coder and find
| your purpose :)
|
| If after Google you're interested in sustainability and want to
| come work at a cool startup in France, let me know haha!
| daliaawad wrote:
| Ooooh thank you so much! That's great! Also, why don't you
| hire someone else from Palestine though? They're just as good
| and they're available now...
|
| I was in Manara's 4th cohort. The 5th cohort just started
| hunting for internships and jobs. Two of them are my friends
| Hend and Rula, they're just like me, they went to RBK and
| then Manara. You can meet them by emailing Manara
| (www.manara.tech)
| fedelcar wrote:
| Congratulations!
| webmobdev wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this. It was a pleasure to read - the
| youthful zest of your excitement and passion really expresses
| itself in your writing. I was also touched by how one of your
| immediate priorities is to help your parents and brothers
| financially. (Hope you are able fulfill all your wishes).
|
| If you don't mind sharing with us - I am curious how educated
| your parents are and what their profession is currently?
| steve_taylor wrote:
| This is Hacker News, not shaadi.com.
| z3t4 wrote:
| Do you program in - or what do you prefer - right to left as in
| Arabic or left to right as in Latin ? edit: I see now that the
| image was taken through a mirror, I thought it was right-to-
| left programming.
| SamBam wrote:
| My first assumption (which I guess was correct) was that the
| image was flipped, but then I got confused because I started
| looking closer and, while I could see some English syntax
| ("for { ..."), it also looked as if there were Arabic
| characters mixed in, so I wondered if it was some interesting
| mix, and also that they were rendering English RTL.
|
| Then I realized that was much less likely than simply having
| flipped the image.
| slim wrote:
| it's not a choice, we program LTR and in latin because it's a
| requirement of all programming languages (apart from
| insignificant exceptions)
| dang wrote:
| There have been a couple of big HN threads about this - but
| IIRC, it's an art project rather than an executable
| language:
|
| _qlb: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21352508 - Oct 2019
| (623 comments)
|
| _Ramsey Nasser 's Arabic programming language artwork_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700691 - May 2014
| (108 comments)
| judah wrote:
| FWIW, it's the same in Israel.
|
| Despite Hebrew and Arabic being right-to-left languages,
| all coding is done in normal left-to-right Latin (really,
| English) programming frameworks.
|
| As Dalia noted, all major programming languages are left-
| to-right with Latin alphabet, and their
| frameworks/SDKs/APIs are filled with English words for
| functions and classes.
| firebaze wrote:
| Thank you! Wish you all the best!
| primitivesuave wrote:
| Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful story which I am
| sure will inspire many others.
| nosefrog wrote:
| Congrats!!!!
| josephjrobison wrote:
| Probably the best post I've ever seen on HN. You're a really
| good writer too, which is very rare for developers, so you've
| got a huge differentiator there!
| walrus01 wrote:
| Hi, if I can ask, what are your choices for ISPs in Gaza? What
| is the situation like for residential fixed broadband, and for
| LTE services?
| kaladin_1 wrote:
| Congratulations!
|
| Your enthusiasm is actually charming. I'm sure it has put smile
| on many faces. It brings this nostalgic feeling of how many
| actually started. Have a blast in your career!
| bsimpson wrote:
| Welcome to Google!
|
| Excited for your new adventures - congratulations!
| zomglings wrote:
| Congratulations! Have a great time at Google.
|
| On another note, the repl.it interview sounds awesome. It's a
| rare interview process where the candidate gets to do useful
| and interesting work (in this case, work with operational
| transformations) as part of the interview process. Kudos to
| repl.it for their awesome sounding interview process and to you
| for crushing it. :)
| manuelisimo wrote:
| Thanks for sharing such an inspiring story! Best of luck to
| you!!
| adnanc wrote:
| Mabrook
|
| Really happy to read about your journey, incredibly
| inspirational.
| fullstop wrote:
| Hi! I have some statements and one question. I love seeing
| women making their way into the field of technology and I truly
| wish you the best of luck. I have two daughters who are
| interested in computer science and engineering, and my oldest
| will be attending University this fall after being accepted at
| age 16. She has had to fight for things which would have been,
| in my opinion, granted without thought if she were male.
|
| Thank you for being awesome! The world is already a better
| place with you in it!
|
| As for my question, a friend of mine from Palestine told me
| that if I ever make it to Palestine that I must try ice cream
| from Rukab's Ice Cream. I've never made it there, and I'm not
| sure that I ever will. Have you eaten this? How does it compare
| to the ice cream in Europe?
| cammikebrown wrote:
| Rukab's is in Ramallah, in the West Bank. It looks tasty, and
| stretches like taffy.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/08/438473615/go.
| ..
| jis wrote:
| Congratulations from the MIT App Inventor Team. We're glad we
| could play a small part in your success. Wishing you continued
| success and happiness.
| balls187 wrote:
| Congratulations, and I am very proud of you!
| xxxtentachyon wrote:
| Congrats Dalia! Thank you for sharing your story. I just about
| teared up in public reading it. I hope you have a great summer.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Me too! Very uplifting!!!
| benja123 wrote:
| Dalia I want to wish you the best of luck. I am an Israeli and
| I loved reading this. I really hope to see more and more
| engineers from Gaza getting opportunities like the one you
| have.
|
| In a previous role of mine I had the privilege of meeting and
| working with some Palestinian Engineers from the West Bank. It
| was only for a few days as it was an internal company
| hackathon, but it was still great and we are still in contact
| today.
|
| Sure there were some differences and some interesting
| conversations but it also allowed us to hear each other's
| perspective and to solve engineering problems together.
|
| I hope to see more Palestinian Engineers succeeding like you
| are and also more Israeli and Palestinian engineers working on
| projects together.
|
| Good luck and all the best!
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| Peace is around the corner. Soon more opportunities will open
| up for more Gazans. .(edit: i'm looking forward to the day)
| yesnomaybeno wrote:
| Unlikely. The Israelis seem hell-bent on making
| Palestinians endlessly suffer just for who they are.
|
| You'd think they'd have learned a thing or two from the
| Holocaust, but apparently not.
|
| Israel is at early Nazi Germany levels of oppression right
| now. Let's all just hope they don't go any further.
| m1sta_ wrote:
| Leadership will need to change first.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| It's happening already! The Abraham Accords are the first
| step. Another half- generation or so, leadership issues
| will have resolved themselves. There's no point twiddling
| thumbs and waiting for bibi or abbas to expire.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Congrats on your achievement and thank you for sharing your
| experiences. Best of luck in your future endeavors!
| brabel wrote:
| Which country(ies) in Europe you're going to? Hope COVID-19
| doesn't spoil your travel opportunities!
| mmaunder wrote:
| Congrats Dalia. I read your post and then returned here hoping
| that you were active in the comments. Not only are you clearly
| a strong engineer, but you're also a great writer which is an
| extremely valuable skill as you'll hopefully discover. Best of
| luck at Google!
| philangist wrote:
| Congrats! This post is awesome and really put a huge smile on
| my face. It reminded me of how enthusiastic I was about
| programming at your age and there aren't a lot of better places
| to start your career than at Google. Best of luck.
| Siham wrote:
| Mashallah, congratulations!
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Congrats, Dalia! I hope we'll continue to see posts from you in
| the future, documenting your progress.
| daliaawad wrote:
| Thank you so much! Sure I can come back and share more
| updates! :)
| rlonn wrote:
| This is a very uplifting post. Thanks for sharing. I hope more
| people will follow in your footprints, when they see it's
| possible.
|
| About racism, it is sadly alive and well in Europe also. I
| think the tech hubs are likely better than many other places as
| they are more diverse. In Stockholm, where I am, we have had to
| import _lots_ of SW developers as the industry demand is much
| larger than the local supply (SW developer is the single most
| common occupation, all categories) but I still see occasional
| instances of under-the-table racism - e.g. a landlord might
| prefer to rent out an apartment to a native swede before an
| immigrant. And women can also find themselves isolated and
| sometimes have to work much harder to prove themselves in a
| very male-dominated segment. But I think we 're heading in the
| right direction at least. Hopefully, my daughters will not
| experience these things, if they choose to work in SW
| development when they're adults.
|
| Keep up the trailblazing!
| Zababa wrote:
| Congratulations! Your story is really inspiring.
| slim wrote:
| You're doing so much for Palestine just by blogging and being
| the intelligent girl you are
| aanet wrote:
| Such an uplifting post! Your story is one of hope and if it
| inspires at least one more person, it will have achieved its
| purpose.
|
| Congrats to you, Dalia, and best wishes / good luck to your
| mates as well.
|
| To all - investment in girls' education lifts the entire
| society [1][2].
|
| [1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation [2]
| https://www.unicef.org/education/girls-education
| sneak wrote:
| Congratulations!
|
| I'm curious: do people from Gaza primarily identify as "Gazan"
| versus "Palestinian"? I was confused for a moment by the title
| before I clicked, as I'd not seen that adjective used in that
| way before.
| nasser45 wrote:
| After the Palestinian elections of 2006, Hamas won, which
| caused a mini civil war.
|
| The result is a split Palestinian authority: the West bank is
| lead by Fatah, and Gaza is lead by Hamas, which is labeled a
| terrorist organization by several countries inducing the US.
|
| No elections have been held since then.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| In my experience, yes: Palestinians from Gaza usually
| explicitly refer to themselves as Gazan (in Arabic: GzWwy).
|
| Source: lived in the UAE and have a number of Palestinian
| friends.
| [deleted]
| hacknat wrote:
| Thank you for sharing! The world is a dark place right now, and
| your story is very uplifting.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Congrats on your achievement! Do you plan on getting a degree
| or skipping it if you get an offer?
| axbytg wrote:
| You can do anything! You are so powerful. Thank you for sharing
| your story with us.
| jeromeparadis wrote:
| Congratulations! Your story is very inspiring.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your experiences, here Dalia. I have not
| heard a first person account like yours from Gaza before. The
| news we see from Gaza in Australia is almost exclusively bleak -
| a never ending tale of injustices, deprivation, losses, and
| endurance. Your story is a wonderful counterpoint that lifts my
| feelings.
|
| Congratulations for being recognised as a capable engineer by two
| organisations that you hold in high regard. In addition to your
| engineering aptitude, it sounds like you know how to direct
| yourself and to connect with your poise in professional
| circumstances that some other talented engineers might find
| trying. These capabilities are rare and valued, because they
| distinguish you as someone who can join a group and move it
| forward.
|
| Please keep posting here at HN from time to time. I wish you
| happiness and satisfaction, and look forward to hearing how you
| get on with whatever you choose to work at and discover.
| daliaawad wrote:
| Yes I know! Gaza is so much more than that. There are a lot of
| smart motivated people. Did you know that one of the people who
| worked on the Mars Helicopter - NASA that just landed on Mars
| is from Gaza? https://www.linkedin.com/in/elbasyouni/
|
| I want you to know that I'm not the only one. I worked hard but
| so did lots of other people and some of them are even smarter
| than me. 4 people from Manara in Palestine got into Google this
| year and I think there will be more (I was in Manara's 4th
| cohort and the 5th cohort is just applying to jobs now. I think
| at least 6 people are interviewing at Google from both West
| Bank and Gaza).
|
| I'll keep you updated and if you want I can tell them to share
| their stories here too :)
| klik99 wrote:
| I was so worried opening this link, but really made me happy to
| see such a great support system and preparation - without that
| applying can feel like you vs the world. Congrats!
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Well done!
| idclip wrote:
| Ahlen jaretna, respect and admiration.
| georgehdd wrote:
| Mabruk Dalia!
| throw8932894 wrote:
| -
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. We're
| trying for something else here, and the pressures driving all
| related discussions in that direction are pretty significant.
| It takes effort not to succumb to the defaults.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| throw8932894 wrote:
| Fair enough.
| _joel wrote:
| Echoing the sentiment, it's good to see hard work and dedication
| get rewarded, despite such adversity. It's safe to say you'll go
| far and considering what you've had to deal with, a P1 outage
| (which is a rite of passage) will be a breeze :) All the best for
| the future
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I can't begin to say how nice it is, seeing something like this.
| So often, we see complaints (often, accurate, but still
| complaints) about how bad things are. For myself, I try not to
| whine too much (with debatable results).
|
| TBH, when I read the title, I was expecting this to be one of
| those posts that exposes the industry and the process as some
| kind of abusive fraud. I was really happy to see it be pure joy
| and positive affirmation.
|
| I have more than a few qualms about the way things are, but it's
| still an awesome field to be in. I am glad to see you do well,
| and get acclimated to the engineering culture at these
| corporations. I suspect that you will have many opportunities,
| and wish you, and your classmates, well.
| xyst wrote:
| am I the only one that doesn't care about working for a FAANG?
| The only intrigue from these companies is that they offer golden
| handcuffs. I occasionally go through the interview cycle at these
| companies just to get offers I could use to leverage other
| companies.
|
| there's probably a limited number of projects that interest me at
| these companies and knowing my luck I would get assigned to some
| maintenance project doing "plumbing" (internal use only libs for
| example) or assigned to cleanup shitty code from a nearly dying
| project.
|
| if you are graduating college and get into these companies, don't
| drink the koolaid. keep your eyes open and don't waste your
| potential on these companies. Save up your $$$, and build
| something that people will use.
| ck_one wrote:
| What's your shortlist of companies you would recommend to new
| grads?
| fisf wrote:
| Don't go by a list of companies.
|
| Look for a place that works on something you care about and
| allows you to apply and build your skills.
|
| That's pretty much something a grown up has to figure out
| individually.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Not really. What matters is whether the company has the
| political power to get you a VISA in a modern country.
|
| Every grown up has figured it out.
| pk_kinetic wrote:
| You're not the only one. But there are a lot of people whose
| life situation might dictate that choosing a safe FAANG job
| beats the risk of working for a startup or striking out on
| their own. Or maybe they just want to work on interesting
| things, have a good work life balance, and get paid really
| well.
|
| Your golden handcuffs might be someone else's golden parachute.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| >a safe FAANG job beats the risk of working for a startup or
| striking out on their own
|
| There's an entire universe of companies, thousands in the US
| alone, that are not FAANG or a startup, but that employee
| technical people out there.
| frongpik wrote:
| Few of them pay what fang pays, though, and even fewer have
| the same brand recognition. If by 30 she gets bored, with
| conservative investments into broad market funds, she'll
| have a few millions in assets and the luxury to choose
| between a cushy well paid job and maybe starting her own
| thing.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| F and G are off my list because they're detrimental to society
| and individuals. G offered me hundreds of thousands of dollars,
| any department, and to design my own role, but I turned them
| down for the 8th time.
|
| Apple and Amazon are wobblers depending on what type of role,
| the impact you're trying to have, and the benefits vs. harm you
| think they make.
|
| Netflix is essentially harmless because they're a TV and movie
| store.
|
| It's very tempting to go for the big salary and benefits
| package, but then having to rationalize, normalize, or
| compartmentalize the fact that the business makes billions at
| the expense of harming society. It should ultimately make the
| employee feel guilty if they're honest and paying attention,
| but should give pause if it doesn't.
|
| If I could make a steadier living (enough clients with
| periodic, on-going needs) at SRE/DevOps tech and management
| consulting, I would never work for any company other than my
| own.
|
| Younger people should consider working for large organizations
| to get immersed in that field if they're looking to go the
| consulting or related enterprise startups route later.
| blobbers wrote:
| Quit virtue signalling.
|
| This girl is getting the chance of a lifetime because she
| worked hard for it. In all likelihood you grew up eating oreo
| cookies in a big suburban house with two parents that paid
| for your school.
|
| Take a look in the mirror and figure out what you've earned
| vs. what you were given.
| [deleted]
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| What the heck is your problem and why the personal attacks?
|
| I was discussing my take on the aspect of FAANG, and why
| saying "they're all bad" is silly.
|
| You don't know anything about me. I was homeless for 8
| years and paid my way through school by working. It took me
| 10 years to graduate, and I had to go back and forth
| because there was no continuous offering of requisites
| courses and money was tight.
|
| Maybe you're projecting and should consider glass houses
| and such? I hope your life is Oreos and you had nice
| parents, because mine were shit. It's too bad you're unable
| to have positive conversations and have to jump straight to
| prejudice and negative behavior.
|
| I wish you good health, empathy, and better curiosity in
| the future.
| LegitShady wrote:
| You're making a lot of assumptions about this person
| yourself, on the basis of nothing. I'm not sure who is
| virtue signalling here, they or you.
| renewiltord wrote:
| So unnecessary to be this sanctimonious.
| hnxs wrote:
| doing both of the shitty things you're describing at a FAANG
| right now, and I started during the pandemic
|
| yeah, it's way less enjoyable and fulfilling than previous jobs
| at small companies and startups, but:
|
| - i have total control of my workhours, and i can work no more
| than 40 hours if i want to
|
| - i get paid WAY more, and raises/promotions are nearly six
| figures worth of increased TC, instead of 1-10%
|
| - i have clear career progression, and an actual mentoring
| system for once
|
| - dont have to worry about my employer running out of money
|
| - dont have to worry about getting fired with no notice or
| warning
|
| - I'm more likely to get the things I want / ask for
|
| - teammates are nicer and more competent
|
| - ~prestige~
|
| basically everything is better except the work itself. it's a
| trade im willing to make
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| It says that she chose Google instead of Repl.it because
| they'll also send her to Europe for a summer internship, which
| may open up quite a lot of possibilities for her (regardless of
| if she likes/dislikes FAANG). When you're in a relatively
| obscure country outside of the US, every networking opportunity
| counts, regardless of what you want to achieve with your
| expertise.
| daliaawad wrote:
| yes exactly! this is something that I discussed a lot with my
| mentor at Manara and this is what we agreed on. I've never
| been on an airplane before, I think being in Europe will be
| life-changing for my career and also for my personal
| experience. Gaza is tiny, it's 30km x 6km. I want to see some
| new things. :)
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| As someone who works at Google Munich, sounds like a smart
| choice to me! Seeing different parts of the world,
| different lifestyles and cultures can be very eye-opening.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| FAANG companies are good options for foreign engineers because
| they have a very organized application -> visa -> green card
| pipeline. If you're interviewing at a small startup, it's very
| hit or miss whether their legal team will be willing and
| competent enough to get you into the country safely.
|
| I'd actually recommend small startups for most people, given
| growth opportunities, but if your primary concern is to get
| into the US on a permanent basis, it's much safer to apply to a
| large boring enterprise with a good legal team.
| whydoyoucare wrote:
| Organized application -> visa -> blackhole (greencard). If
| you see recent greencard backlog timelines for the categories
| most engineers are on, only first two steps are more
| realistic. :-)
|
| And yes, very well done Dalia, good luck and best wishes!
| renewiltord wrote:
| They're fine for non-Indian/non-Chinese.
| lovecg wrote:
| I don't know why you're getting the downvotes, this is the
| reality of the situation. People who already live in the US
| are in a privileged position and cannot emphasize with this
| point of view.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I've given up using downvotes on HN as a meaningful measure
| of information quality. Reflexive users will downvote on
| keywords. Whatever.
| rendall wrote:
| Same.
| klik99 wrote:
| If you're a foreigner it's much harder to get sponsored by a
| smaller company. I know a bunch of people are essentially
| "locked in" to FAANG until they get their green card and are
| chomping at the bit to work on more exciting things.
|
| Also I think there's a shine to FAANG from the outside (if
| you're young and/or don't know the area)
|
| Count your blessings that you can see things as they are, but
| also remember your perspective
| unishark wrote:
| > If you're a foreigner it's much harder to get sponsored by
| a smaller company. I know a bunch of people are essentially
| "locked in" to FAANG until they get their green card and are
| chomping at the bit to work on more exciting things.
|
| I don't believe this, especially not in the current market.
| Anyone who is actually eager to hire people will be grabbing
| them up too.
| renewiltord wrote:
| FAANG comp is half a million all liquid. Most places can't
| afford that sort of comp.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| FAANG companies offer a bunch of things:
|
| * Excellent pay
|
| * Good benefits
|
| * Stability
|
| * Prestige (looks good on resume/opens doors later)
|
| * Smart coworkers
|
| * Huge customer bases
|
| * Lots of internal transfer opportunities
|
| * Well established competence in handling foreign hires
|
| Now, obviously plenty of companies offer a lot of those things
| too...but not many offer all of them.
|
| And even then, often there's the visibility issue: maybe
| there's a bunch of ~200 person companies that do, in fact,
| offer the same things -- but will {Random Engineer X} actually
| be aware of that? With a company like Google, where I work,
| there's been enough written about it to have a decent idea of
| what you're getting into before you even apply. Discoverability
| is a bigger challenge with smaller companies.
| thrwaccq wrote:
| Really nice ! I have seen code written by folks who have
| participated in Gaza Sky Geeks program. I was really impressed.
| Almost every one I interacted with virtually were very good at
| html / css / js.
| leggomuhgreggo wrote:
| Seconded!
| IOT_Apprentice wrote:
| This was a heartwarming story to read. Congratulations on your
| journey so far, wishing you much success in the future.
| masfrost wrote:
| I interviewed Dalia and a few other people referred to us by
| Manara at Repl.it. It was such a pleasure meeting kids that are
| so smart and have an insane drive.
|
| We have a really high bar for hiring at Repl.it, Dalia and the
| other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at least
| half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the past. We
| extended an offer to one Dalia's classmates and he started
| yesterday as an intern with high potential for full-time, as our
| internships usually are since we invest a lot in them.
|
| It was such a pleasure meeting you Dalia, wish you all the best.
| Hope to work with you in the future (maybe when we can offer US
| visas).
|
| P.S. We're still hiring
| vinger wrote:
| I'm sure Dalia is great.
|
| "other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at least
| half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the past."
|
| This comment caught me a little off guard. You are saying that
| these young people with no experience perform better than half
| of the experienced engineers you interview.
|
| My question is what is wrong with your hiring process? It
| sounds broken.. What part of the process are the experienced
| developers failing in? What are you asking for in candidates
| that these experienced developers lack but can be found in this
| group of inexperienced engineers? Curious about salary, would
| you say Dalia friends makes the same as an experienced
| developer?
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| This is trite, but I am replying for the sake of learning how
| to phrase it. A candidate can be broken down into a lot of
| characteristics:
|
| 1. Base technical skills - typing (yes, typing), ability to
| recognize and solve standard problems, and ability to process
| information quickly.
|
| 2. Familiarity with specific technologies (.NET, Angular,
| SQL, whatever you are working with). This is vastly
| underrated for line of business applications.
|
| 3. Architectural patterns - DRY, SRP, dependency injection,
| inversion of control, queue/msg based patterns, etc.
|
| 4. Domain knowledge, perhaps company specific
|
| 5. Social skills, etc
|
| A lot of senior devs ride out their career on number 4. For a
| new hire, especially for a junior position, #1 is critical,
| because there is no #4 to speak of and #3 and #2 are handled
| by other devs.
|
| From that perspective, it makes perfect sense.
| vinger wrote:
| Might it be pay?
| zukhan wrote:
| I've interviewed hundreds of "experienced" engineers who
| could not code for the life of them. Not sure why you assumed
| the process is broken without first asking about it.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please omit personal swipes from your HN comments?
| Your post would be fine without the "you sound bitter" bit.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| zukhan wrote:
| Done. Thanks for the feedback.
| vinger wrote:
| I was taken by that statement that more than half of the
| people you considered experienced engineers you also judged
| them to have no ability to code.
|
| But you said I shouldn't assume your process is broken. If
| those are your results the process is broken.
|
| Either your pipeline of experienced engineers needs to be
| fixed.
|
| Or your ability to judge either who is experienced
|
| Or your ability to judge who can't code for the life of
| them.
|
| Your comment made it sound like 51% of experienced ngineers
| looking for a job can't code when the truth is 51% of your
| experienced candidates can't. It is broken..
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I agree with this (maybe not the "you sound bitter" part),
| but it still seems like there's something interesting going
| on. Why are Palestinian youngsters outperforming
| experienced engineers from elsewhere? Presumably we would
| expect Palestinian youngsters to perform on par with
| youngsters elsewhere unless they had access to additional
| relevant education or experiences, right? Maybe there's
| some selection process that filters out all of the under
| qualified Palestinian youngsters before they enter
| repl.it's pipeline?
| ilianam wrote:
| Hi all, jumping in here as the CEO and co-founder of
| Manara just to say that all the Palestinians that Repl.it
| interviewed came from Manara (I think). We have in place
| a very intense vetting system and a training program to
| teach these CS grads how to interview effectively. At
| Google our referral-to-hire rate is 67%. That probably
| explains this experience.
|
| The talent in the Middle East & North Africa is very
| strong. We believe it's the next Eastern Europe, which
| used to export refugees and is now a hub of world-class
| talent.
| borski wrote:
| It's simply selection bias. Anyone can write up a resume
| and land an interview. Most great people have jobs and
| aren't interviewing, so the talent pool of 'active
| interviewees' is limited to those who either couldn't
| land jobs elsewhere or are new. It's rare, but sometimes
| someone takes time off.
|
| The quality of folks coming from a very selective program
| in a different country, however, has selection bias in
| the opposite direction; nearly everyone from there is
| going to be better, on average, than the 'average'
| interviewer, because as mentioned elsewhere, roughly half
| (likely a bit more) of people we interviewed could not
| pass FizzBuzz, despite having stellar resumes.
|
| We saw the same thing with MEET, which I helped teach a
| decade ago too.
| monksy wrote:
| You've either have interviewed "hundreds of experienced
| engineers" who truely couldn't code well
|
| Or
|
| You've interviewed hundreds of experienced engineers who
| are bad at coding during interviews and under the problems
| you're asking.
|
| There's a person on the other end of that table. They
| haven't had the time to think about the problem that you
| have had.
| xsmasher wrote:
| This is not a random sampling of youngsters; it's presumably
| an interested, motivated, and exceptional group.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| If other people's hiring and firing processes are broken, it
| might be the case that experienced engineers aren't that
| skillful.
|
| I'm sure many people's anecdata agrees :)
| vinger wrote:
| Skillful judged in broken system is like not being judged
| at all. If I select who is hired based in their birth month
| what are we really judging?
| Inhibit wrote:
| I would assume that the employer has to take the statements
| of these experienced engineers on faith until interviewed
| where as the student may be a more easily known quantity in
| advance.
|
| Hard(er) to fudge your knowledge when your standing (even
| virtually) in front of someone.
| vinger wrote:
| Why trust the employer can judge talent?
| daliaawad wrote:
| Thank you so much Faris! It was such an amazing experience
| interviewing at Repl.it and I am glad I got to know you. For
| sure, I will come back and reapply to to join your team :)
| ingvul wrote:
| > We have a really high bar for hiring at Repl.it, Dalia and
| the other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at
| least half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the
| past.
|
| I really don't want to sound negative, but I find this
| difficult to believe. Sorry if I sound too harsh, but
| experienced engineers who don't perform better than recent
| graduates sure it's a thing, but 50% of the ones you have
| interviewed don't perform better than a recent graduate?
| Perhaps you were exaggerating? Or perhaps your interview
| process is really focused on what recent graduates know best
| (popular algorithms) and not in what experienced engineers know
| best (how to deal with real world codebases). Again, I don't
| mean to sound harsh, I think perhaps that "...at least half..."
| was just a way of saying "Dalia was really good" (which sounds
| more credible).
| remote_phone wrote:
| That's because the interview is basically memorizing
| algorithms.
|
| A real on-site interview should be:
|
| 1) give vague instructions on a fixing/modifying a moderately
| complex piece of software
|
| 2) have them ask good questions until they get to the heart
| of what they are supposed to do.
|
| 3) work with someone to accomplish this task. Use google or
| whatever else you need to finish it.
|
| This interview should be 5 hours long including lunch. This
| is your best indicator of success.
| bostonsre wrote:
| They didn't say all recent graduates performed better than
| 50%, just the ones that they interviewed from Palestine. It
| sounds plausible that they only interviewed a handful and
| they were better than that 50%.
| [deleted]
| Graffur wrote:
| Then the numbers are too low to draw conclusions.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Experienced engineers who perform better than a recent
| graduate are usually not interviewing. They have jobs that
| pay them extremely well.
|
| There's an adverse selection problem with interviewing, in
| that people who are good tend to disappear from the labor
| market and when they do appear on the labor market they get
| snapped up quickly. New grads don't have this adverse
| selection effect: there is a very good reason why they don't
| already have a job. This is why companies invest so much in
| internships: this will often be the only time to snap up a
| promising young developer before they start building a career
| at your competitor.
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-
| deve...
| blub wrote:
| Sounds nice and awfully convenient for those supporting the
| current interviewing practices. But does this apply to all
| experienced engineers, 50%, 5% ? US only, Europe, Russia,
| India?
|
| We need better proof and better data than a 2006 blog post.
| dvt wrote:
| > Experienced engineers who perform better than a recent
| graduate are usually not interviewing. They have jobs that
| pay them extremely well.
|
| Doubtful. There is constant churn in tech, as the best way
| to get a raise is to switch jobs. It's well documented that
| junior/senior engineers (and beyond) switch jobs, on
| average, every 2-3 years. Longer tenures are generally
| favored due to vesting schedules (though I've had several
| friends ditch Amazon before the [iirc] 4-year cliff).
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Yes, but even in that case, they tend to get picked up
| quickly. They're not staying in the pool for months and
| months and months, racking up dozens of interviews.
| novembermike wrote:
| Yep. Last time I interviewed I did one interview at a
| random place I didn't care about just to get rid of
| jitters, one at a mid-tier place I'd actually accept if I
| didn't get another offer and then two at FANG companies.
| I easily passed all of them except one of the FANGs and
| then I was off the market. The time before that I did a
| single interview. The time before that though I wasn't as
| experience and probably interviewed at 20-30 places
| before I got a job.
| Daho0n wrote:
| > I did one interview at a random place I didn't care
| about just to get rid of jitters,
|
| What a shitty thing to do.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Most of the time when people do this, they're open to
| accepting an offer if it turned out to be really great.
| They just know that such an offer from a particular
| company is really unlikely.
|
| I don't see a big problem with it. While it may 'waste'
| some time on the company's part, it also sends a signal
| of, "hey, you could get some of these really high quality
| engineers if you were willing to [pay more/offer more
| vacation/offer remote work/etc.]".
|
| Now, if you're unwilling to accept an offer from a
| particular company even if their terms blow you away,
| then yeah, that's a dick move.
| cbsks wrote:
| Is the constant churn just a Silicon Valley thing? I get
| a raise every year of about 8% which keeps me well
| compensated even after working at the same job for 8
| years. It's possible the company I work for is an
| outlier? We have lots of engineers who have been working
| here for 15+ years.
|
| As a result, my interviewing skills have deteriorated
| significantly. I wouldn't be surprised if a talented
| programmer straight out of college could out-interview me
| even though I have much more experience.
| throwaway_goog wrote:
| I doubled my salary each time I changed jobs, from
| internship -> first job out of high school -> first job
| out of college -> Google. When I got to Google I said, "I
| guess that's the end of the doubling." Nope, my
| compensation doubled again while I was an employee there,
| and then doubled again. Left to do a startup and then
| went back - at double the compensation.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Looking at my friend group, it seems like a mixed bag.
|
| We're in our early 40s. About half have been at their
| current place of employment for close to 10 years now.
| The other half seem to change jobs every couple of years,
| although some of those had a long tenure before the
| recent bought of job swapping (they haven't found a new
| place they like).
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| A steady raise rate of 8% when not being promoted would
| be phenomenal. After 15 years you'd be triple your
| original pay, which, for non-promo compensation, is
| unheard of.
| oblio wrote:
| You're an exception. In developed countries for sure most
| companies don't give out raises higher than a few
| percentage points, and definitely not constantly 8%. For
| reference, at your current rate in 8 years you're
| doubling your salary.
|
| In developing countries your story is a bit more common
| but even there you can accelerate things by switching
| companies once every few years (somewhere between 3-5).
| After a while you probably want to stay put to get
| promotions.
| polka_haunts_us wrote:
| I think you need to define "interview". I recently just
| got a new job and in the interview process I definitely
| did worse on the algorithms than I would've done right
| out of college, but everything else went great. "Here's
| how I've done it for 8 years that has been to the
| satisfaction of people who write paychecks" goes a long
| way for many companies.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Eventually you hit a ceiling, and there aren't companies
| that pay better than your current employer. You're
| getting raises each time you switch jobs because your
| experience & job performance qualifies you for jobs at
| progressively more economically successful businesses,
| which both can and will pay you better. This can't last
| forever: eventually you get to the "center" of your
| industry, the set of companies with more money than
| everyone else, and you're better off performing better
| within them than finding another job.
|
| (Or alternatively, you find a fast-growing startup that's
| growing faster than the wealthiest companies in your
| industry, hop on the ground floor for stock options, and
| ride the stock up. Once that happens you don't need
| money, though.)
| jmchuster wrote:
| Exactly. People who are good are always going to be
| referrals, once they've worked at a few places, their
| networks are just not going to let them get away. The only
| times I've found where you are interviewing someone
| experienced who turns out good is
|
| 1) someone coming from a big corporate job where they were
| undervalued/underutilized
|
| 2) someone coming from a different region, different
| country, where they have no local network
| protomyth wrote:
| _Exactly. People who are good are always going to be
| referrals_
|
| Only inside a community, not coming from outside.
| jmchuster wrote:
| Right, and that's why we still source and recruit, to
| pull in people from outside of our community. It just has
| a much lower hit rate.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Also, referrals still have to go through interviews, so
| it's not really unusual to interview someone who is
| senior and skilled.
| graeme wrote:
| That's not true. You can have people who are in multiple
| communities refer in someone from outside.
|
| I've had it happen to me and done it for others.
| protomyth wrote:
| Its the old boys club. You do realize there are tons of
| programmers in just the US that have no contacts with the
| coasts? This is what makes the Ivy League so valuable
| which is very good at discriminating over large groups of
| people.
|
| My favorite is businesses and colleges that don't take
| applicants from PO Boxes.
| amasad wrote:
| Our interview has almost zero traditional algorithms. And no,
| he's not exaggerating. I've been interviewing people for a
| decade now and neither experience or pedigree is a good
| predictor of success.
|
| Read the post if you haven't because it touched on our
| process. And watch this video to learn more:
| https://youtu.be/kABh44IVWMo
| cheeze wrote:
| College kids often just took an algorithms course.
| Experienced devs have to brush up on this stuff to jump
| through the hoops while also managing their day job and any
| other commitments.
|
| I do a lot of hiring at a "big n" company and I'd agree
| with this
| masfrost wrote:
| We don't really do an "Algorithms and Data structures"
| interview, our interview questions are modeled after real
| world problems we face(d).
| lawn wrote:
| I'll wager doing well in interviews isn't a good predicator
| of success either.
| amasad wrote:
| In our interview it is because it's modeled after the
| real world as opposed to LARPing computer science.
| excalibur wrote:
| Not sure who owns pedantic.com or why it doesn't redirect to
| HN. It certainly should.
| zukhan wrote:
| I believe all of the Palestinians Repl.it has interviewed
| have come from Manara. Manara has a pretty strong vetting
| system and in order for applicants to be accepted into the
| cohorts, they have to pass a coding assessment, video
| interviews, etc. Manara takes strong Palestinian talent and
| tries to make them exceptional. This is the reason why they
| might be performing better than more experienced engineers.
| thewarrior wrote:
| You're simply taking away from an incredible achievement
| here.
|
| She cleared interviews at both Repl.it and Google. She
| implemented an assignment based on operational
| transformations and having studied this myself it's far from
| trivial. If you folks ever retire this question Id love to
| have a crack at it.
|
| She also cleared the Google interview which goes deep into
| algorithmic aspects and system design. Which means that she's
| brilliant at both abstract design and execution.
|
| To be able to do both while graduating does place someone in
| the upper brackets of engineering skill. Some don't fulfill
| it because of other reasons but that's another matter.
|
| It's not like the bar is being lowered. They're held to the
| same bar as Stanford and MIT grads who apply and they come
| from a third world country with only a bit of remedial
| coaching. It's what top school grads already know from their
| campus coaching and tips from their seniors.
|
| People who say this is akin to gaming the process you too can
| easily get the same by dropping a trivial amount of money on
| CTCI, EPI and Pramp for mock interviews.
|
| I wrote this a little bit too much in frustration but I'm
| tired of these assumptions that people from the third world
| cannot show incredible potential sometimes exceeding their
| first world peers and are only held back by bad systems and
| politics.
|
| There are untold depths of genius all over the planet. We
| haven't even come CLOSE to most people on earth realizing
| even a fraction of their potential.
|
| " I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and
| convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty
| that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton
| fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould
| xvector wrote:
| I feel like you're projecting unrelated frustrations onto
| the questions being asked:
|
| > taking away from an incredible achievement here
|
| > held to the same bar as Stanford and MIT grad
|
| > you too can easily get the same
|
| > assumptions that people from the third world cannot
|
| These have nothing to do with the discussion, which is that
| it's disingenuous to call a new grad better than an
| experienced engineer in that the interview process is
| obviously biased towards new grads.
|
| No one is complaining that she got the job. We all know how
| to "game the system." Whether from Stanford or community
| college, anyone with Leetcode and a few weeks can easily
| pass these interviews. So I am not sure why you are
| implying that people are bitter about some perceived
| inability to get such a position.
|
| People are just pointing out how disingenuous of a
| statement it is for the OP to say "better than an
| experienced engineer" when they have literally no metric to
| judge this. And no, system design interviews don't really
| count. A few days with the System Design Primer will solve
| that.
| blub wrote:
| But this is what people are objecting to, isn't it?
|
| That anyone reasonably clever which spends months studying
| CTCI, EPI and Pramp and whatever else and doing mock
| interviews _will_ pass the interview, while an experienced
| programmer will not just by virtue of their skills and
| knowledge.
| thewarrior wrote:
| But OP also passed a different kind of interview so it's
| a moot point in this case.
| babesh wrote:
| The interview process is being gamed. Just read the article.
| I am not trying to single out her. It is an industry wide
| practice. You mostly get people who are good at passing the
| interview versus who know how to program. But that is ok,
| because the promotion process is being gamed too. You have
| people who know how to get promoted vs who know how to
| provide value. Don't worry, our educational system is being
| gamed as well.
| Graffur wrote:
| I agree with this. Here's some truths:
|
| * Experienced engineers will perform better than graduates in
| general
|
| * The distribution of experienced engineers who are poor
| performers won't over represent application to one particular
| company unless they are an outlier (Repl.it is not Google)
|
| This makes me wonder what Repl.it's hiring process is and why
| it is not doing well at attracting good people.
| amasad wrote:
| We have plenty of great people. The best team I've ever
| worked with, and possibly the best in the history of
| startups.
| ball_of_lint wrote:
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-
| deve...
|
| Interview processes are significantly biased towards seeing
| large numbers of non-hire-able people over hire-able people.
| It's not surprising that someone with few connections and
| just starting their career could perform well against the
| biased view of an unfiltered interview pipeline.
|
| oh, nostrademons beat me to the punch.
| radicalriddler wrote:
| Wow, sometimes I get so caught up in my dislike of social media
| (especially facebook), that I forget how useful it is for certain
| underprivileged demographics. Good on you Dalia for grabbing the
| opportunities with both hands :)
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