Is Tech a Meritocracy?
istechameritocracy.com
istechameritocracy.com
There may be some draw, I'll grant, in the ability of the individual to have truly massive impact via tech as a force multiplier, but beyond that I've never been convinced as to why tech as an "industry" wouldn't pick up the modus operandi of more matured industries, anti-meritocratic practices and all, once that force multiplier is effectively harnessed, understood, and boxed into just another means for a worker to deliver productive output. All of the same management and incentive structures are relatively comparable across industries.
As is my tendency, this was a bit of a rant, so in summary: There is certainly some merit based reward in tech, perhaps to a greater degree than in other industries due to the aformentioned single-dev-power. But as in all things this is heavily influenced by the opportunities one is presented and the tools one is able/willing to use. (trying to encapsulate everything from "working overtime" to "playing political games" in this)
The greater question to me seems to be, "how do you unseat those with vested interest and power in maintaining the status quo, if you're playing by a set of rules that they aren't (and are starting at a disadvantage)" (if I may handwave at the recent bigCo wage/hiring collusion), or perhaps more deeply, "is it possible to have a complex societal/corporate structure without there being loopholes/social constructs that can be exploited to detract from there ever being a pure meritocracy, and do we even WANT the constrained system that would allow for this?"
There aren't a whole lot of fields that allow someone with only a high school diploma to make upwards of $150K. And I'd argue that those that do are usually meritocracies too.
Someone with a highschool diploma CAN certainly succeed (two of my strongest mentors, one of which a googler, did not have college degrees) but they had _significant_ hurdles to get where they did; and even in my own experience I've run into (nearly verbatim): "Since you have never held a senior rank, we are not willing to look at you further" (turning down any opportunity to "prove onesself" as well).
As I've said in posts elsewhere, tech is as susceptible to needing other signaling channels as any other field, even if we weight the signaling of "personal achievements" higher.
If we're coming at this from different angles around the basis of whether these side effects preclude the existence of a meritocracy, I can accept that disagreement; since I do tend to take a more pessimistic take on things and could see how the opposite could be argued. (and as I said in the OP, I'm not convinced a "pure meritocracy" could even happen, so perhaps that's a vacuous comparison anyway)