Female engineers getting disrespected.

[u/CurvyChristina]

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[u/TWAndrewz]

A good candidate will engage everyone, but start with the person who asked the question, and end with asking that person "did that answer your question?" or similar.

For all the dudes in the comments getting butthurt about this, any candidate that does this is 100% likely to fail in other ways as well.

[u/CurvyChristina → u/TWAndrewz]

I heard that a while ago, too, that it’s super helpful when somebody asks a question, if you state that question back to them, but in the form of a statement just to confirm that you heard and understood what it is that they were asking you. Sorry if that was confusing. Lol

[u/monty228]

I (M) was being trained for a HVAC job by a woman, and this is day 5 for me, and the customer kept directing questions to me and she would answer. Eventually I just said something like “Dude, I have no what I am doing here, she’s the one training me”

[u/boogierboi]

[u/boogierboi]

[u/TechpriestV]

Lol, we do this when we can. Held over 100 technical interviews with this setup. For 99% of people it’s not a problem but it’s so obvious when it is.

[u/The_Celtic_Chemist]

I've noticed I do this a lot to people regardless of gender. I just tend to talk to whoever seems to have been showing more interest in what I have to say. I often have to remind myself to talk to everyone in the group. Ironically, it's fairly typical that I speak directly to women over men.

[u/Ambitious_Life7537]

When I was in grad school, I accompanied my dad on a building inspection. A male engineer, not that old, looked at me (a 22-year-old woman), smiled, and asked, “Are you Daddy’s little helper?” I replied, “Well, I’m working on my master’s degree in structural engineering, so I guess so!”

[u/Skritch_X]

Ha I've encountered this before. Person being interviewed would not look at the one woman (an engineer) interviewing on the smal panel and would not answer towards her during it. It was fucking surreal.

[u/Lost-Concept-9973]

We do the same in disability services interviews at my company. Weeds a lot of people out that claim to be inclusive but don’t give visibly disabled people proper respect when they are talking to you directly.

[u/EhMapleMoose]

I get why people do this, but I personally don’t like it. I hate sitting across from multiple people in an interview because I never know if I’m looking too much at one person when I give an answer.

[u/mrwishart]

I've worked with hires like that.

A) They are rarely as good as they think they are

B) Even with the few that were, it was still a net negative in terms of how much they fuck up the working environment for everyone else.

[u/orbit99za]

I see this often, my coworker is a female Engineer and if we are both in the same meeting, it seems like no one listens to her, i say the exact same thing 2 seconds later and they actually listen.

Its so sad in 2026

[u/LookIWashedForSu]

Answer the person who asks you the question, why is this so hard.

[u/Flipflapfloppin]

I worked at, what is now the richest and most successful tech company in the world, for 5 years. Female engineers were non-existant. Not because there were none, but because the male engineers didn't have the emotional or sexual maturity to deal with them. Usually the ones they'd hire would be undervalued, and inadvertently (sometimes advertently ignored), or just made to feel shitty until they left (again, inadvertently sometimes advertently). Few of the males ever questioned why, they just assumed it was because the females were too emotional. Meanwhile, the male engineers were some of the most delicate, emotionally unstable, and socially inept people I had ever met in my life. I quit, in spite of being a well paid male, with a very cushy, insulated position, because the company was so soulless and wasteful, I was losing faith in humanity.

[u/Scared_Painting_5837]

If the cause of your aversion to eye contact is due to having autism, then you should be fine because it will be obvious that you’re equally avoiding eye contact with both the man and the woman.
If your defense is that you have bad social skills, work on them.
If you think this is a fake scenario, you’re probably a man and haven’t asked a woman about their experiences in situations like this.
If you’re offended by this and feel called out, ask yourself if you do shit like this on purpose. If not, okay and good, just keep in mind that some people do.
If you just treat men and women like people then you’ll be fine. Stop trying to justify sexist behavior.

[u/gwmccull]

This happened at my company. A guy passed all of the interview rounds for a senior software engineering position. We were going through them all in our feedback meeting and it was going well for the candidate until at the very end, one of our more junior, female engineers mentioned she had a bit of a weird experience when she and a male engineer took the candidate to lunch. She said that every time she asked him a question, he would turn to the male engineer to respond. After hearing that, we were quick to reject the candidate. I have no time for a candidate that can't respect and communicate with all of my colleagues

edit: missing word

[u/ripe_mood]

As the only woman and highest ranking in my procurement department when sales men direct questions to my colleagues that they know they cannot make decisions on they all know to say " that's not my call, you're going to have to ask her." It's funny because about 30% of the time the conversation just ends there and they don't ask me directly. 🤷

[u/Defiant_Okra_664]

I've seen this a lot with H1B engineers. They are downright rude to women.

[u/bunduz]

Not hiring me because of my lazy eye? That's discrimination. Also who you looking at when its a video call?

[u/Descendant3999]

People saying that some engineers are just nervous to look at a woman, especially if attractive as if it was a valid argument.

Bruh, this is a fucking interview. You can't force yourself to respect two interviewers equally? Regardless of gender, I feel super fucking awkward if I don't acknowledge someone right in front of me in a conversation.

But I also get that interview is already a high pressure situation but you have to take care of a few pointers people. It shows prep

[u/DepletedPromethium]

i answer the persons question directing my answer to them but if the answer is long i will rotate and direct it at each person so they all feel spoken to.

[u/beckbristow32]

Who the hell doesn't look at, and respond, to the person that they are talking to. I hope they tell them that is why they will not get the job.

[u/NuggetMelon]

Crazy how so many people in the comments think that only the best engineers are subconsciously sexist. Speaking as an engineer - the “best” engineer is NOT special lol. Most engineering jobs really aren’t that hard (relatively speaking). If someone lacks basic social skills, there’s no need to hire them because there will be definitely be people behind them that can do just as good of a job and hopefully know how to be a decent human being