It's a Beautiful Day In This Neighborhood
Hi! I'm Cass!
Please take a minute to look at my dog:
This talk is based on the results from a survey I sent to the Denver Area Developer Community.
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Which of the following best describes you?
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What levels of education you have completed?
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What kind of editor/environment do you use?What kind of editor/environment do you use?
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What neighborhood do you live in?
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How do you pronounce 'Gif'?
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What did you want to be when you grew up?
Sample of Questions Asked
Survey Data and It's Reliability/Validity
- Voluntary
- Honesty of participants
- Sample Representativeness
- Bias of the survey creator
- Unanswered questions
- Errors
This data is not representative of all the developers in Denver.
https://sli.do
Q312
Plan Of Action
Who We Are
Titles of Participants
Years in the Industry
Gender
Ethnicity
5% identify as LGBTQ+
Most participants who identified as LGBTQ+ have only been in the industry for 1-3 years
Same goes for participants who are not White or European Descent.
Same goes for participants who do not identify as a man.
Plan Of Action
Improve Diversity In The Community
Religion
How We Write
What We Know
What We Want to Know
Plan Of Action
Improve Diversity in the Community
Let's Learn Together!
Subject Studied in School
How We Feel
24% of participants have experienced depression
34% of participants have experienced anxiety
79% participants experienced imposter syndrome in the last 6 months
Plan Of Action
Improve Diversity in the Community
Let's Learn Together!
Improve Mental Health in the Community
93.8% feel neutral or better about their life.
On the flip side, that's 6.2% of participants who aren't liking their life at all.
And of that 6.2%, at least half are from an underrepresented group.
Plan Of Action
Improve Diversity in the Community
Let's Learn Together!
Improve Mental Health in the Community
89% of juniors/mid-levels feel like they belong.
82% of seniors feel like they belong
80% of management feel like they belong
88% people are neutral or positive about their current position.
- Good Culture
- Feature Development
- Good work / life balance
- Lots of perks
- Impact
- Autonomy
- Welcoming
- Remote Work
- Learning a lot
- Great company / Field of Work
- Paid well
- Flexible time off
- Great team
- Respected
- Challenging
- Great people
How We Work
Language Used In Current Position
frameworks and libraries in current position
Frameworks Used in Current Position
Databases Used in Current Position
Editor VS Location
Approx. Yearly Income
Salary ranged all over for all levels of developer and, at most, a slight correlation between happiness and amount.
How We Live
Location
Top Ten Hobbies
Plan Of Action
Improve Diversity in the Community
Let's Learn Together!
Improve Mental Health in the Community
Let's Hang Out!
Pronunciation of Gif
What We Wanted to be When We Grew Up
Other Stuff About Us
- About lack of gender equality in tech
- Regarding lack of diversity in the industry here
- Some people are from Texas
There were a few common comments in the free text section...
...one participant said they know this non-existent language.
Takeaways?
Without statistically significant data, I wouldn't feel comfortable providing suggestions based on the data.
With that being said, I think it's safe to implement our plan of action regardless of what the data says.
Plan Of Action
Improve Diversity in the Community
Let's Learn Together!
Improve Mental Health in the Community
Let's Hang Out!
Improve Diversity In The Community
What can you do?
- Ask your boss to do diversity trainings
- Set up a formal mentoring program
- Analyze your language and habits for hidden bias
- Climb to a position in which you have the power to hire diverse talent
- Talk to your coworkers or employees
- Get educated
- Speak up when you should
Let's Learn Together
What can you do?
- Attend Local Meetups
- Talk at conferences
- Stream / Participate in Streams
- Attend Workshops
- Host a hackathon with your friends
Improve Mental Health in The Community
What can you do?
- Talk to your boss about providing more vacation time
- Encourage others to take breaks
- Talk to your boss about EAP benefits
- Provide quality positive feedback when it is due
- Talk to your coworkers or employees
- Organize bonding events
- Work on your personal mental health
Let's Hangout!
What can you do?
- Attend meetups (again!)
- Develop Happy Hour
- Denver Devs Board Game Group
- Organize work events
- Organize non-tech events for the community
Charlie Rose: How many kids do you think are out there, who in 30 years you've influenced, who you've made a difference in, made them feel something special?
Fred Rogers: I don't care how many even if it's just one.
We get so wrapped up in numbers in our society and the most important thing is that we're able to be one to one, you and I, with each other, at the moment.
If we can be present to the moment, with the person that we happen to be with, at the moment, that's what's important.
Thank you so much!
Find more information and some of the graphs at this Gist
It's a beautiful day
By Cassandra Torske
