Roblox Corp. employees speak up about alleged lack of diversity

gamedeveloper.com:

Roblox Corp.'s efforts at promoting a diverse workforce aren't going far enough—and a series of microaggressions and perceived lack of interest in diversity from upper management may be driving some workers from the company.

That's what current and former employees of the company behind Roblox told Bloomberg News in conversations about the company's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Though said report lacks any high-profile accusations like those seen in previous allegations against Riot Games and Activision Blizzard, it does shine a light on the fact that until recently, the company may not have been proactively pursuing a diverse workforce.

The allegations of demeaning comments made toward women and employees of color at Roblox occurred against the background of a massive hiring push from 2020 to 2022. According to Bloomberg, the company capitalized on a pandemic-driven spike of interest in Roblox and grew from 830 full-time employees to 2,100 at the end of 2022.

But in that time period, the company reportedly implemented few practices that would encourage workplace diversity.

Symptoms of Roblox's lack of interest in diverse hiring were reportedly visible across different parts of the company. Former recruiter Brandon Davis told Bloomberg that the company made "little effort" to hire diverse candidates, in contrast to his experience at other tech companies like Meta.

Davis claimed that during his time at the company, there were not enough Black employees to form a hypothetical "Black at Roblox" advocacy group.

When different employees raised this topic in different contexts, they were apparently greeted by comments like those from co-founder and CEO David Baszucki, who said that the company has a "very high bar" for