Ask HN: First-hand experience “coming out” as autistic at a FAANG company?
I've got decades of experience hiding my quirks- this is apparently called "masking".
I'm about halfway through a book called Autism Unmasked and a lot of it resonates with me. On a personal level, I'm warming up to the idea that I've internalized a lot of the negative sentiments people have about neurodivergent folks and could probably benefit from being kinder to myself and more accepting of my quirks. The book talks a bit about the labor that goes into "performing neurotypicality" and how exhausting it is, and the effects of that exhaustion over time. Those bits really speak to me.
At work, there's a box on an HR form where employees can choose between: disabled, not disabled, or prefer not to say.
When I was hired I went with the last option, but could easily log in and toggle over to own the fact that, moderate superpowers associated with my condition aside, I do in fact have a legitimate disability.
My question for HN is: what is your personal experience coming out as autistic at a FAANG company?
Cube-neighbors' chewing noises and perfume and cigarette stink overwhelm me to where I can barely force myself to remain seated in my cube; the "lights out" darkness so many tech workers seem to prefer and inflict on the whole cube farm puts me to sleep. Too-loud audio in a conf room is physically painful.
With those issues and more, when I have to be in the office it's worse than a wasted day. I hold myself together and mostly come across as eager and helpful, because that's what's expected of me. But it's profoundly exhausting. And when I finally get home it take hours to come back to my right mind– and then I have to work overnight to make up for what I didn't get done during the day. And then I do it all again the next day, but with an even worse sleep deficit. It's brutal, but it's what I have to do to pay the bills and maintain independence and an otherwise decent standard of living.
I guess the ideal outcome if I check that box would be to sit down with my manager to sort out what accommodations could be made to enable me to remain at my most productive. I could get so much more done, and done better, if I didn't have to expend virtually all of my energy just trying to mask and contain my sensory overload.
And what I'm afraid of is that coming out as autistic would be "career-limiting". IE, line me up for pruning at the next layoff, or keep me from continuing to get good projects, or keep me from being considered for promotions (let's be real here- there might be laws on the books against such discrimination, but they only exist because that kind of thing is a very common human failing).
So, if you've come out as autistic at work, especially at a FAANG company... how'd it go? What went right, what went wrong, and, if you had the choice to make over again, would you do it again? Did it impact the projects you get? Have you managed to get a promotion in the time since?