I was interviewing a candidate last year for a software engineering position. Interview was fine and he was capable. I decided to find him on Twitter.

He said immigration was ruining the country, and that there are too many Indians / Chinese in the Bay Area. About half of my organization either have an H1B visa or a green card.

Am I a McCarthyist for rejecting him outright without hesitation?

A while ago I interviewed a candidate for a software engineering position. He seemed quite capable. I decided to find him on Twitter.

His feed was full of things like, "All Cops Are Bastards", many images of the hammer & sickle, and generally hating on white people. He even retweeted an illustration of the White House burning with a hammer & sickle flag being raised in front of it along with the caption "my 2020 goals".

Actually... I lied. The person I described is Steve Klabnik. Despite throwing around extremely offensive imagery and calling for violence against members of certain professions and races, that guy can get a job anywhere he wants. Meanwhile if someone simply says, "all lives matter" or makes an OK sign, they risk getting fired. The double standard could not be more obvious.

FWIW, I would not hire this person. I personally lean right, but I will not hire anyone who posts their political opinions publicly, whether left or right. IMO it shows poor judgement and that you will likely be an unproductive employee, concerned instead about things that have little effect on your life at work.

Would you have done the same if he said there were too many White people in the Bay Area?

Yes, because they explicitly called out race / national origin.

You cannot say "there are too many (X) in the Bay Area". Period, I will not hire you.

Progress happens when people go outside of their comfort zone to explore new thoughts, but it sounds like you'd prefer to write-off the candidate instead of taking the opportunity to change their mind.

Where was Bari punished? She should have been fired for her terrible piece based entirely on a known fake Twitter account.

> Am I a McCarthyist for rejecting him outright without hesitation?

Yes.

Why can’t he have an opposing view from you on immigration?

I was on a visa and could still see the h1b program was being abused.

We often have less than ideal experiences with other cultural groups. That’s normal.

Is your work culture toxic because of your visa holders?

Would you refuse to hire feminist women because you had a mostly male team?

McCarthy was a senator in high levels of government. When I consider who I'm employing to be around the people around me, I expect them to be judged on their merits of the job, not their country of origin or visa status.

You can criticize H1B programs and their abuse, but saying there are too many Chinese and Indians explicitly and rejecting them for that is not "McCarthyism".

> I expect them to be judged on their merits of the job, not their country of origin or visa status.

So do I and so do the vast majority of people who want less immigration.

> and rejecting them for that is not "McCarthyism".

To be fair to the parent - it would be if you tried to make sure they weren’t hired anywhere.

You were making a biased and snap judgement about a candidate - but that happens a lot in the interview process - same as if you rejected an African American candidate because you didn’t think they would fit in.

What would you do if one of your existing employees was found to have that kind of twitter account?

As I said: they _literally_ said, "There are too many Chinese and Indians" in the Bay Area. That's a no go.

That is not the same as having subjective internal biases about an African American candidate.

They seem the same to me?

You are saying you wouldn’t hire them because they wouldn’t fit into your work culture right?

Or are you saying you wouldn’t hire them because you don’t like their beliefs?

Those two things are not the same.

One is a statement made by a candidate that is at best insensitive to people of different races.

The other is a poorly specified scenario where a black person does not fit in? For what reason do they not fit in? Is it because of their race or something else.

> One is a statement made by a candidate that is at best insensitive to people of different races.

It sounds like the parent thought the dev wouldn’t fit in with the other team members and so didn’t hire him.

> The other is a poorly specified scenario where a black person does not fit in?

It’s hard to fit in when you are a small minority.