Web dev and toxicity: a reply to howlingsilence

[tim]

howlingsilence sent me a private message, but when I tried to reply to it I got the message saying they have chosen not to receive messages. Plus, I wanted to post what I wrote anyway. So I'm replying here; I won't quote the question since it was in a PM, but it was basically asking whether I think back-end Web development suffers from these problems.

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I worked in Web development (what would be called "full-stack" now, but I actually mostly did front-end) in 2005, briefly. The company I worked at (now defunct) had one of the best cultures I've ever been in within tech. It wasn't perfect: I got told not to go to meetings because of one of my medical conditions (sleep disorder causing uncontrollable daytime sleepiness). And yes, some people would love to be excused from all meetings, but no one bothered to take minutes during these meetings so it meant I got shut out and set up to fail at my job -- all because of an illness that I wasn't able to get treatment for because my employer misclassified me as a contractor so they wouldn't have to give me health insurance. Tech: it's not always toxic, but even when it's not being toxic, it sort of is.

On the other hand, my boss there was pretty great and, I think, had a good influence on company culture, and I worked with some other awesome people who I'm still in touch with.

That said, I don't think Web development is especially different from other parts of tech. If anything, you may notice inequality more sharply because front-end Web dev is coded as "women's work" (and pays less) while back-end is coded as more-prestigious "men's work". People have written about this.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
Tim