African American exec quits Twitter saying company is failing on diversity

Twitter’s engineering manager has quit because of how the company is dealing with its diversity issue.

Leslie Miley announced he has left the company with a post on Medium.

Miley was the only African American engineer in a leadership position at Twitter, and says there are now no “managers, directors, or VPs of colour in engineering or product management”.

He says Twitter will be unable to improve its diversity problem with its current homogenous leadership team.

“From this position, Twitter may find it difficult to make the changes to culture and product,” Miley says in the post.

“Any change would be approved by people who all think alike. There was very little diversity in thought and almost no diversity in action.”

Twitter has recently made several moves to try to improve the diversity gap in its workforce, but Miley says a number of his experiences working at the company since 2013 led him to question how seriously it was taking this issue.

“There were moments that caused me to question how and why a company whose product has been used as agent of revolutionary social change did not reflect the diversity of thought, conversation, and people in its ranks,” Miley says.

The post highlights a lack of communication with Twitter’s black employee resource group, attempts to solve the problem through last-name analysis software and an inability for senior Twitter figures to grasp the nature of the issue.

“Leadership keeps citing the pipeline when the data does not support it. They continue to churn out ethnic and racial minorities and women but still claim a commitment to diversity,” he says.

TechCrunch reports that Miley was including in Twitter’s widespread culls last month after he had already told the company he would be quitting, and also rejected a severance package so he could speak publicly about his experiences.

Leslie Miley’s full post can be read here.

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