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German IT Firm Seeks Autistic Workers
Aguazul2 writes "The German software giant SAP has announced it plans to recruit hundreds of people with autism within the next few years. The project has already started in India and Ireland where a total of 11 people with autism are employed by the company. The program to take on software testers, programmers and data management workers will spread across Germany, Canada and the U.S. this year. People with autism have a neural development disorder that often undermines their ability to communicate and interact socially [...] but in the world of computers the tendencies they often display such as an obsession for detail and an ability to analyze long sets of data very accurately can translate into highly useful and marketable skills."
As anybody who had to work with SAP software can certify, it can only get better.
From that description, I'd guess that 95% of autistic people already work in the IT field.
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SAP want them cause they are easily exploitable. I have sadly had to work with SAP twice, there software is crap and most of their developers are Indians paid like maids (in Sweden). I have no respect for that company or their software (or any company stupid enough to use it).
This browser is 8 days 7 hours and 31 seconds outdated yeah yeah. Need to install a fresh image. DON'T TOUCH ME!
My hiring practice with be women with big tits. Because I have just as much evidence as these Germans do.
A lot of them will finally get jobs.
Sounds very much like Elizabeth Moon's novel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_Dark
Is there any tax breaks for hiring people with autism? I am too cynical.
First person protagonist is an autistic programmer.
A German organization actively 'recruiting' the developmentally disabled? What could possibly go wrong...
I have been saying for a long time if these are our "best and brightest" can we give our worst and dullest a chance to see if things get any better?
Considering how poor SAP software is, this might produce a better product in the long run.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
...with open arms as I find that lately there is not enough that kind of hands on approach to the subject at hand.
SAP aren't the first to do this.
Thorkil Sonne at Specialisterne in Denmark has built a consultancy of autistics.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
This has been a thing in the testing world for a while now. http://www.startfoundation.nl/investeringen/portefeuille/stichting_autest
A major chain looking into it however is something... special.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_Dark
It's a good story in any case, and it's told from the point of view of an autistic person who works for a company that has specifically be hireing people, sounding very similar to this story
David Lang
So now when you apply for a job, you get:
Not qualified. Doesn't have autism.
"Help wanted. Non-autistics need not apply."
Will they still still need X degree and pass over people who have learn on there / went to tech schools?
The old college system may not be the best place for them to learn vs other ways.
I approve. Definitely. I approve. Definitely. 11 people. 11 people. Definitely. I approve. Do I get a stapler? I like staplers. 11 people.
No. They'll just demand 50 years of SAP experience.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
This will be abused. Either the autistic employees will be abused or the non autistic employees will be abused because they are not performing as well as the autistic employees. I think it's a really good thing that these people are being given opportunities, I just don't know how their "talents" won't be exploited by management. Low social functions could also mean not really speaking out when asked (forced) to work 12 hour days.
Maybe I jump to cynical conclusions but it seems generalizing autistic people as some kind of software super people and then seeking to hire them is a bit like generalizing asians as good at math and seeking to hire them into math intensive positions.
They also trying to hire people from the lunatic asylum for managing staff, because some studies show that managers and psychopaths share some personality traits. :-)
The proxy at work hates /. so not bothering to login.
Anyhow they might be following the footsteps of this Danish family that started a business with Autistic employees because their son was autistic and they wanted their to be somewhere for him to work when they were gone.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/putting-the-gifts-of-the-autistic-to-work/
They found out their employees do excellent QA work and they even charge a premium for it.
Don't let EA find out about they guy they had to tell to go home because he was working so late and didn't really notice.
Tekfactory
Will they still still need X degree and pass over people who have learn on there [own] / went to tech schools?
The old college system may not be the best place for them to learn vs other ways.
I think I know why employers pass you over...
...disorder.
Oh really? Any PROOF of this laughable idea?
Oh wait- we can't have people looking at the EMOTIONS of 'autistic' people, or investigating what their parents did to them to MAKE them not want to look them in the eye, and not want to have anything to do with them, no sirree...
After all, all the parents of 'autistic' children WANT it to be a 'neural development disorder', rather than anything THEY did to their own child, so they MUST be right!
So where is the PROOF? What evidence is there that ANYBODY has a 'neural development disorder'? I mean SCIENTIFIC evidence, not 'We say it's so and therefore it is, but we have nothing physical and REAL to prove it".
Cue Slashdot sheep cretins bleating like idiots because they're terrified of THINKING and can't be bothered to investigate things for themselves. LOL.
Not everyone with autism has superpowers. So will they be firing these people by the hundreds in order to weed out the gifted ones?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Didn't Fox just cancel "Touch"?
Sounds like an idea from "A Deepness in the Sky". That is if they are mistaking autistic people as all having some sort of directable OCD that they can harness.
... at least I hope so.
All sharp people are not on the Asperger's/Autism spectrum. These people are good with details, but they tend to be very, very bad in teams and have no hope of being effective leaders. Software development is a social and collaborative activity, so God help SAP investors if they put them there. As a guy who sits in a hole reading system logs or does security audits, these people can be useful. They need to work in a black-and-white world, and product development is anything but.
You'd be sick if you saw the amount of money we waste on them in special education, at least in the US, which doesn't come from other funding- it comes from YOUR kid's education. Typical numbers for per-pupil are $7-8k, where I've known schools with ~700 students who have 6 autistic kids which need 1-to-1 care and special busses/ rooms/ school psychologists/ everything. Their known bill *individually* is $100k, and it comes from diluting the educations of everyone else. A colleague did the math once, and across all students, slightly less than half was actually spent on a normal child- the majority actually goes to fill the gap of the special education children (whose funding far lags their need). Its why American K-12 is falling behind, we're actually spending less on the average or excellent child, and more on the ones who will flip burgers at best, or be institutionalized for life.
Three hundred twenty three sausages on the biergarten grill. Definitely, yes, three hundred twenty three sausages on the biergarten grill. Three hundred twenty three, yes, definitely.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Note: The Google translator is shit and my native language (brazilian portuguese) is complicated to translate, so expect ugly spelling errors
As a bearer of Asperger's syndrome, I can - safely - affirm for you guys that the inability of social interaction is not my choice. It's like yours social skills being always "offline" with no way to be switched on, I am unable to get the "social signals" that everyone realizes without having to learn and I am treated as "invisible" by everyone or even worse, as "easy target".
In contrast, it is easy, pretty easy to me to develop any complex application without neglecting the details and seeing both the whole and the part of the system, in my work I take care of all aspects of a local government system and the users are pretty satisfied with it. Too bad I have to live like a social outcast with no choice (because others actively reject me for not being exactly like them).
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Oracle employs autistics exclusively.
Later, we'll create them. Vernor Vinge called it.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Everyone has varying degrees of ability in different areas.
Some people are sensitive to non-verbal signals, and some less sensitive, and some really have to work at understanding them.
People who genuinely have Asperger do not realize there is such a thing as non-verbal communication until someone teaches them. Their instinctive understanding of human nature does not even include it.
Ironically, their abilities and temperament are actually highly prized in a great many employment situations.
It's job searching where they're handicapped.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. Stretch this kind of thing out over a long enough timeline and Autistics will become the human computers of the future.
Well, SAP hiring people that have difficulty interacting with people explains their UI
Autistic people are not just socially inept and prone to obsession. They're also really poor at understanding what they are supposed to be doing and staying on tasks that don't interest them. A few such people in an organization are OK. Managers can deal with one or two people who require extra supervision. But if your whole department is staffed with autistics, you're not going to get the job done and not be able to cope with the unexpected.
You are confusing "Hockdruck" and "Hochdruck". "Hockdruck" is German for "squatting pressure". Uncomfortably related, though.
Reminds me of my college days, when Marriott hired a bunch of retards to bus the cafeteria tables and wash our dishes. An obviously exploitable group, which made everyone else feel like they were waiting for Godot.
-- Jimtown Kelly
Although I only found out a few years ago. My mother said I was "autistic" when I was a child.
When I was 10 years old, I was getting NASA to send me all kinds of stuff, and I was "designing spaceships" with ion engines and whatnot.
Fortunately, I engage in a life discipline that has allowed me to develop socially; regardless of any conditions that I may have had. That's one reason why I never found out.
For the most part, it has been far more of a boon than a curse. I can code enormous amounts of extremely high-quality code in very short timespans. However, I do have difficulty sharing a codebase with others. I'm best off as a "black box coder," as are most of us. Give us an API and some targets, and leave the rest to us.
Just my experience.
SAP conversions are a nightmare for any company, but I'd hesitate to say that it is the code. I think the problem is generally the human factor; and how the conversion is implemented.
Specialisterne (The danish company who started all this, people with autism as testers) are part of this. They already sell testing services to lots of customers, and are present in many countries. It is all about using the abilities that people have.
Repetitive work is what developers tries to avoid, and what these people love. Perfect fit.
We are just seeing some new articles on this, now that the German revenge for having lost the war (SAP) will also be customers.
I'm definitely on the spectrum and I outscored almost the entire country on a standard Tek Systems programming assessment and my college instructors said I'm the best programmer they've ever seen and yet I still can't get a job because I only have a 2-year degree (two 2 year degrees actually). Until HR pulls their heads out of their asses and treating resumes like baseball cards instead of people, inferior programmers will keep getting hired over me and crappy software will continue to be the norm.
> Will they still still need X degree
Probably, but college isn't an insurmountable barrier for most Aspies, partly because college allows Aspies to thrive in a supportive atmosphere where they have the freedom to arrange their lives to suit their own preferences. You can be nocturnal, take afternoon/evening classes, and be surrounded by others who are like you... in an institution where, unlike much of the rest of the world, other aspies are mostly the ones who are in charge and make the rules.
When a company talks about hiring "autistic workers", they probably mean they're hiring mild aspies with PhDs, and taking advantage of the fact that they can overwork and underpay them with little risk of having them quit as long as they make some workplace concessions that are less expensive than the savings they realize in other areas. Throw an aspie into a bullpen & force him to do customer service, and he'll be miserable and do a shitty job. Give him a quiet office where his distractions are minimized, and a manager who knows how to walk the fine line between "micromanagement" and "indifferent" to shepherd him in mostly the right direction and buffer him from higher management, and he'll do well.
well, when those with Asperger resp. with Autism ( which are really no disease - than the fact, that the society it is, who handicaps them . . . ) realize, that one as programmer or as IT-Crack - can evolve only on Unix resp. on Linux - machines, then they lose their interests in working for $AP and similiar firms. And above all, one member of $AP said, that autistic people only are telling the truth about facts to evolve about for work . . . really, but firms don't tell so much the truth like autistic people, not ? . . .
There's a sw dev company in Dallas TX that's been doing this for several years -- quite successfully.
http://www.salon.com/2010/08/25/german_usa_working_life_ext2010/
"How did Germany become such a great place to work in the first place?
The Allies did it. This whole European model came, to some extent, from the New Deal. Our real history and tradition is what we created in Europe. Occupying Germany after WWII, the 1945 European constitutions, the UN Charter of Human Rights all came from Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Dealers. All of it got worked into the constitutions of Europe and helped shape their social democracies. It came from us. The papal encyclicals on labor, it came from the Americans."
Otherwise, great points.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.