Leaf&Core

In 2018, Duolingo’s New Hires were 50% Women

Danielle from Leaf and Core
Reading Time: 5 minutes.

Duolingo's owl and name logoWomen make up just over 50% of the population in the United States, yet we only make up about 47% of the workforce, as of 2015. Of those who do work, we take home about 18% less than our male colleagues on average. Hispanic women see the largest pay gap. They make 54% as much as white male workers. Companies don’t often put women in leadership positions. Tech companies hire women at rates lower than the graduation rates for women with computer science (CS) degrees in some areas. There are more women who want to get into tech than companies are hiring.

Diversity isn’t just fair, it’s also good business. A diverse group of people from diverse backgrounds bring diverse ideas. In tech, we call diverse ideas “innovation.” It’s the difference between a company that flounders and a company that shines. Constant innovation and constant efficiency improvements requires diverse thinking. The best way to get that is through diverse hiring practices. This means hiring people from different racial, financial, and religious backgrounds, as well as people who represent men, women, non-binary, and LGBTQ people, as they also have unique and diverse experiences. It means hiring people with different levels of physical abilities as well.

Diverse groups create diverse ideas, and that diversity is directly connected to making a profit. That’s why the top 25% for of companies for racial diversity are 35% more likely to see financial returns above the national medians.

That’s why Duolingo set out to ensure that half of their new hires in 2018 were women. They succeeded.

How Duolingo Did It

Making your workplace more inclusive is difficult. Ask any hiring manager who has tried to introduce diversity in their office. A lack of diversity in an office space can work against hiring more diverse employees. If a woman comes to an office and sees she’ll be the only woman on the team, the benefits aren’t female-inclusive, and finds that even the feminine products in the bathroom are behind a vending machine, she’s going to walk away. Furthermore, if you have all men, it’s going to be hard to attend workshops for improving diversity. You may not have any idea how someone might get in to tech if they didn’t follow the same path as you, and all the guys around you may agree.

However, the internet exists. You can find a large number of tips on how to attract and hire diverse candidates that will want to stick around. Here’s what Duolingo did to take their first big step to improving diversity at the company.

Recruit from the Right Colleges

In the U.S., the average number of female CS degree graduates in any college class is 18%. In 1985, that number was 35%. Women have been pushed out of tech, and it shows. Women are 45% more likely to leave STEM careers due to harassment and misogyny they face.

Still, our numbers are growing. Schools that work to foster women in STEM have higher percentages of female CS graduates. Those are the colleges Duolingo looked at. By attending recruitment workshops and job fairs at these colleges, Duolingo found more female candidates. Basically, their problem wasn’t that there aren’t qualified women, just that they weren’t looking for them in the right places.

Minimize Unconscious Bias

Your car broke down. You take a look under the hood, and it’s just dead. There’s nothing you can do here on the side of the road. You call a tow truck driver. Quick, picture the tow truck driver. Picture a mechanic. Picture a programmer. You knew where this was going, I’m sure, but you likely hold a picture in your mind of men in these roles. When someone is hiring, looking for new ideas, or listening to internal complaints, those gendered biases affect their decision making. Studies show that women are more often interrupted by men, especially in professional settings. They also show that women are judged far more harshly in the interview process and later, during their work.

This is called unconscious bias. It leads to employees pushing women out of the workplace and hiring more men than women. It both causes and is reinforced by microaggressions, small changes in the way people treat women to show them less respect than they’d show a man.

Educating employees about unconscious bias and microaggressions is the best way to put a stop to it. Most people don’t want to be sexist. They don’t want to prop up the patriarchy or keep women out of the workplace. When they learn they’re doing something wrong, they’re quick to stop.

This can have an added benefit of more conscientious employees who are also less likely to argue with or harass each other. It fosters a work environment where everyone can work together to create great things.

Attend Women’s Conferences

Grace Hopper Celebration 2018 crowd. Photo: Nikki Ritcher

Duolingo made a list of the organizations they knew of and found at job fairs. They found Women in Computer Science, Women@, Society of Women Engineers, and more. These groups hold networking events in many cities. They have dinners, happy hours, tech meetups, and talks. They do community outreach and education. By getting involved, Duolingo found one of the best recruitment tools finally working to their advantage: word of mouth. The best employees are references.

Duolingo also made an investment. They sponsored the Grace Hopper Conference in 2017, and sent all of their female employees. The Grace Hopper Conference sees over 18,000 women each year, bringing women in tech together for talks, lessons, keynotes, and networking events. This alone helped them find 250 female engineers to recruit from.

I don’t care who you’re looking for, if you’re a recruiter or a hiring manager, and you hear of a way of getting 250 brilliant candidates in one setting, you do it. You’d be terrible at your job to ignore such an opportunity, especially when those 250 candidates will improve diversity at your company. The Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) will be in Orlando Florida this October. If you’re in charge of it, consider sponsoring and sending a few employees.

Duolingo was a “Silver Tier” sponsor this year, the lowest level. If that minimum corporate sponsorship is enough to net 250 qualified candidates alone, GHC is an incredible investment. Beyond that, the conference taught Duolingo not only a lot about computing, but also how to recruit more women. It was an investment that will pay off for years to come.

How Duolingo Could Improve

https://twitter.com/Panopticrat/status/1050630412572090369

Until we reach complete hiring and pay parity, there are always ways to improve. For example, Duolingo and other tech companies like it should expand their search. In one Tweet, a Duolingo employee pointed out that they hired women who were the top of their classes in college. However, this ignores the fact that many women do not earn a CS degree. Often, they either can’t afford it or no one pushed them into STEM in high school. As a result, many women find education through boot camps, after school programs, adult education programs, or their own hard work.

Also, grades aren’t everything. I waltzed through college, largely unchallenged. I was going through many personal issues and refused to sit down and study or do my classwork. Make no mistake, I did well on tests, but did terribly when it came to homework, class participation, and attendance. As a result, my GPA wasn’t top-tier. But when I go to interviews, I sail through with flying colors. When it comes time to work late, I’m burning the midnight oil during “the crunch.” Many people with ADD or other similar learning disabilities likely aren’t just finding dull lecture-based education challenging or stimulating enough. GPA is not a person’s life story. It’s not their work ethic, their skill, or their potential.

Duolingo and other companies need to adopt a true meritocracy. Don’t look at silly indicators like a GPA, look at coding questions, algorithm design, and passion. See diverse people as more than the product of their grades but as an investment in innovation. Duolingo’s on the right track, and should stand as an example for other tech companies, but we all have a lot to do to improve.

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