Latinos make up about 20% of the population of the Bay Area, but you wouldn’t know it if you spend time in any tech office. Many Latinos in tech (myself included) have gotten used to being one of the few (if not only) Latinos in our workplaces. Even outside the office, social gatherings usually reflect the same lack of diversity seen at work. While Latinos make up 18% of the overall US population, they hold only 8% of the positions in tech.
Why are Latinos so underrepresented in tech? While many articles describing diversity in the field focus on metrics and hiring practices, stories from Latinos in the field are lacking. For those working in tech, how did they get there? What difficulties do they face, and how could the industry do a better job of addressing them? I decided to reach out to some friends to learn about their experiences.
The lack of representation made even reaching out to friends for this article a challenge, as I struggled to find Latinos I knew personally that worked in tech (let alone Latinas). Most friends were classmates that I had known from Stanford, which doesn’t fully represent the broader community of Latinos working in tech and their experiences. I surveyed the following friends:
Angel: A software engineer at a FAANG company
Brandon: A software engineer at a ride-share company
Eduardo: A solutions architect at a FAANG company
Oscar: A product manager at a fintech startup
Victor: A startup founder and former software engineer
I wanted to learn more about how and why they entered tech, the difficulties they faced, and thoughts on how Latino representation can be improved. Below are the questions I asked and their responses.
How did you learn about tech as a career?
Angel: I went to college in Silicon Valley, it was impossible NOT to hear about it.
Brandon: Lots of friends in college were doing it.
Eduardo: I learned about tech as a career during undergrad when I took an introductory course in computer science. Before college, I did not know what it took to get a career in tech.
Oscar: I learned about it in college. There is a big tech community surrounding Stanford. Through that community, I learned about startups and opportunities in tech.
Victor: Being a freshman at Stanford. People in my dorm mentioned CS over and over and I eventually decided to take the intro CS class in my first quarter, which gave me even more context on what tech as a career could mean.
Why did you enter tech?
Angel: I've always enjoyed STEM, but I grew up with a financially unstable background and saw that working in tech was very lucrative. Naturally, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.
Brandon: I didn't like memorization or repetitive tasks. So no Medicine/Law/Sales. Engineering lets me build new things.
Eduardo: I entered tech through luck and networking. My major in undergrad did not directly funnel people into tech careers, but tech seemed like a way to gain financial security and strong career progression.
Oscar: I love building things. I had a strong business background before entering tech. My technical degree from college made it easier to transition to Product after graduating.
Victor: It was what (I perceived as) some of the smartest people at my dorm were doing and I wanted to be like them! Also sprinkled in there at the beginning was a mix of 1) wanting to do challenging things and 2) the financial opportunity that some professors mentioned.
What is difficult about being Latino in tech?
Angel: You are almost always the only Latino within your team/org. This makes establishing credibility more difficult, often because you have to do more to prove you're just as talented and productive as your peers.
Brandon: Not a lot of people look like you. Minorities with enough representation (Indian, Chinese) like to stick to themselves.
Eduardo: The difficulties arise when it comes to microaggressions and lack of shared experiences.
Oscar: There aren't that many Latinos in tech, so you often don't see other people that look like you or have the same life experiences. I think that is one of the most significant challenges.
Victor: My parents have no clue what I do and I don't have a good language to articulate to them what it is. Other than that, maybe the strange feeling that I know I am a diversity hire and therefore can be valuable to companies as a statistic.
Why do you think Latinos are underrepresented in tech?
Angel: It is almost certainly because we as a group are undereducated and have far fewer opportunities than others who get into tech. Most Latinos cannot afford to send their kids to great summer camps/preparation schools/expensive tutoring sessions, and that has vast downstream impacts once we enter higher education.
Brandon: The US immigration system does not prioritize high-skilled immigrants from Latin American countries.
Eduardo: My opinion is that it's due to a lack of exposure to tech opportunities from an early age. Latinos associate success with traditional careers such as medicine, law, or engineering without knowing much about the opportunities that tech can present.
Oscar: There are many reasons why Latinx are underrepresented in tech. The two largest are: 1.) Training for tech roles and awareness that not every position requires a technical background 2.) Access to opportunities. Many people are helping close the gap in training and awareness via coding boot camps and other initiatives. However, access to opportunities is much harder to solve. Early-stage and mid-stage hiring for startups is more commonly done via introductions, limiting the hiring pool.
Victor: Probably for the same reasons Latinos in the united states are also underrepresented in universities, getting BSs, MSs, PhDs, etc.? Probably also valuable to distinguish between internationals living in the US, immigrants, 1st 2nd 3rd + gen, and socioeconomic status, as I would imagine all those experiences vary widely.
What do you think it would take to increase Latino representation in tech?
Angel: Invest in vocational/education outreach to Latinos, and invest in making access to that education affordable/free. This is a systematic problem, and attempts to change the existing tech companies to increase Latino representation are simply putting a bandaid on a much bigger issue.
Brandon: Move tech out of silicon valley. Less elitism in hiring. Better engineering education in high school.
Eduardo: Majority Latino schools/school districts can introduce computer science courses to their curriculum. In my experience, these schools historically invest in vocational classes and I argue that similar effort should be allocated towards computer science classes to start Latinos on a path to tech early on.
Oscar: 1.) Training and awareness programs in entry-level roles, including engineering, Product, Design Support, and Sales, are beneficial for late-stage or public tech companies. These companies have the training infrastructure to handle entry-level roles and partnerships with different groups. 2.) Increasing Latinx representation at the manager and senior manager level will help make and expand hiring opportunities.
Victor: Really spitballing here, couple of things that pop into my mind: 1) generally improving educational attainment in Latino communities 2) a little bit of time since tech is getting more and more widespread in curricula around the country 3) more role models.
What do you think companies can do that would make the Latino experience in tech better?
Angel: Latino experiences in tech will only improve with sufficient Latino representation in tech, and that will only be achieved by addressing the financial and educational barriers that Latinos face.
Brandon: There are many good engineering schools in LatAm. They should hire direct.
Eduardo: Several underrepresented populations have focus groups within their respective companies. I believe Latinos would benefit from having a similar approach within their respective companies.
Oscar: The more critical and significant goal would be to work to ensure manager and senior positions reflect the make-up of the US. With the Latinx population making up approximately 18% of the US, the hiring managers at a company should be roughly 15-20% Latinx.
Victor: Continue to invest in bringing on board thought leaders in diversity & inclusion and letting them run experiments and have an impact. Seems like a lot of the issues perceived as specific to Latinos might be shared by everybody that considers themselves diverse, so tackling the topic at the root might benefit everyone.
For all of us, the lack of representation in tech is a problem. Being one of the few Latinos in our companies can lead to feeling excluded, experiencing microaggressions, and questioning whether we belong. And this is just the Latino male perspective. Latinas hold only 2% of positions in tech.
At the same time, the lack of representation did not hold us back from entering the field because of the opportunities we saw. The tech industry allowed us the ability to work with smart people in a field that is fulfilling, creative, and a lot of fun. Additionally, it allowed us the ability to build financial security for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
We would all like to see more Latinos in our workplaces and have different ideas on why there are so few. Two major themes are education and access to opportunity. Difficulties in reaching higher education (and the expenses associated with it) can be a blocker to opening the door to tech jobs (as well as other professional fields like law and medicine, where Latinos are underrepresented at 4% and 5.8% respectively). The other issue is access to opportunity. Without exposure to tech as a career path, many Latinos might not know that opportunities exist there. We were all lucky to have gotten that exposure at Stanford. But even beyond college, many careers in tech are empowered by having a strong network, especially at smaller startups. Being a minority in tech can mean knowing fewer people in the field that can help you get connected.
Part of the solution is ensuring that more Latinos can get a university-level education (a stat that has been improving but still has a long way to go). Additionally, ensuring that more Latinos are aware of opportunities in tech and how to reach them should be a goal. Nonprofits like Techqueria are doing a good job of organizing Latinos in tech, but more outreach to current college students (especially outside Silicon Valley) could be helpful to expose them to tech career opportunities.
As a business leader, what can I do to improve the Latino experience at work? For one, hiring more Latinos, either within the US or internationally. While some of us felt that the issue was getting more Latinos into the pipeline, Dr. Joy Rankin suggests that the “pipeline problem” is actually a convenient excuse. With the advent of remote working, companies can do a better job of reaching potential candidates where they are (Latino talent can be found in Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston). For leaders at larger organizations, ensuring that Latinos have a community or employee resource group can be a huge benefit in helping Latino employees feel connected.
Is there anything I as an individual employee can do to improve diversity at work? For one, make sure leadership is aware of your needs, specifically for more Latino coworkers or a Latino employee resource group. In addition to sourcing potential coworkers directly, being involved in hiring to root out unconscious bias is key. At the same time, stay involved with your community (especially Latinos in high school and college) so that they are aware of the opportunities and have access to role models and mentors.
Latino representation in tech, while having made progress, is still lacking. But for those of us in the space, it’s incredibly important that we do the work, either as individuals or company leaders, and make our voices heard. This is the only way we can open the door to more Latinos entering tech and experiencing the opportunity the field has to offer.