>If I’ve learned anything in my decade plus in tech on both sides of the hiring table it’s almost no one cares about the race/gender of candidates, and that lack of care generally favors white men.

I don't think it "favors" white men. Go into any university Computer Science or engineering class and what will you find? Mostly White men and foreign students. Of course there will be other genders and ethnic groups but the majority of students are white men and foreign students. Therefore most of the candidates for jobs right out of school for most engineering positions at tech companies are white men because it is hard for foreign students to obtain work permits.

This would say the issue with diversity needs to be solved elsewhere. I think businesses should be judged on the diversity of the departments based on the diversity of people with the proper credentials. It is as asinine to think a tech company's engineering department should match the demographics of society when the demographics of the people obtaining the necessary skills to work in that department are so far off.

You can find demographics data here: https://datausa.io/profile/cip/computer-science-110701

> experienced software engineer

I’m an associate-level engineer. Why would a company, many of which are increasingly proud of their diverse team, pick a white engineer when there are hundreds of equally skilled junior applicants that won’t bring down their recruiting metrics?

I’ve literally seen recruiting KPIs at previous startups involve how many black or woman engineers they hire in a quarter.

My current attempts at breaking into the industry is currently being made more difficult by the previous decades of inequity in software engineering teams.