An Aspie only company

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www.specialisterne.dk

A Danish IT company founded by Mr Thorskil Sonne, who recruits only people with AS. The jobs are all IT based and the founders of the company claim that people with Aspergers are ideal for doing precise and technically skilled work like this. The company has been making headlines in several countries' papers and has a corporation deal with Microsoft already. The company so far operates in Denmark only so speaking Danish is needed to be recruited, but in a few European countries people have witnessed the company and started the process of founding other similar companies.

What do you think of this concept?
Is it positive discrimination or unneeded segragation between Aspies and NTs? Or would you love to work in a company where all colleagues are Aspies?

I have read about it earlier this year. That article mentioned a startup in Belgium, where Aspies were also put to work as testers. Partly because of the repetitive nature of the work.

I am working also in IT, but not as a tester but an software engineer. Sometimes I do some testwork, but to be honoust... I HATE IT! Creating is so much better than criticizing.

Damn, Belgium... I am from Belgium and I don't want to go back. If it had been another country I may have shown interest to send my vacancy.
Specialisterne itself wants to expand to the UK but I lived there before so I am not really that keen on going back to a country I've been before (with the exception of Turkey but I doubt any Aspie-only company will open a branch there anytime soon)

I do like the idea itself though. I think it must be a very pleasant working atmosphere when all colleagues have AS. For once you'd not be the exception who others fail to understand, you could speak openly about AS to people who all have the same issues and thus understand you well, probably making friendships at the office would go a lot smoother, the risk of a boss who doesn't understand your issues is inexistant, ...
So generally I do like the concept of an all-Aspergian workplace. I hope more such companies will come, although I guess much will depend on the actual long-term success of the one that exists now. If Specialisterne keeps on doing well, this may inspire other people to form likewise companies.

The workspace sounds OK to me. Only the testing work not... but for engineering I could be asked

There is a disadvantage however, you are not working a lot with NTs, that would maybe take a bit out of the challenge of the working place. On the other hand, it would be more relaxed to be yourself.

I think software testing is a great job for the stereotypical technical Aspie. Testing can be extremely detail oriented and repetitive in addition to being technical. I'm not sure about working in a company full of Aspie's. Someone needs to be good at communicating.

I worked as a developer in test for several years and my basic job description was to make sure the product behaved as specified. I got to write many automation tools that did everything from attack the product to measure it's performance. And when the product crashed, it was my job to find the bug in code, detail to steps to reproduce the bug, and submit potential fixes to the development team. And when it got to the end of the product cycle, development wasn't allowed to submit fixes until test reviewed the code changes and signed off on them. You must not have very good testers if you consider their work "criticizing."

Maybe an aspie only policy is extreme. What I mean is, if being an aspie is a trait that makes you well suited to a given job, than it makes sense that being an aspie helps you get the said job. However, if a neurotypical can do the same job more or as effectively, it isn't any fairer to discriminate against that neurotypical than it is to discriminate against a black person.

Though personally, I find the concept of an aspie only company exciting.

Works well when you have a 50:50 mix of aspie/NT too. That's the balance where I work. Us aspies are great for persistence, technical detail, recall, noticing the smaller details, and the NTs are great for dealing with customers or suppliers who need lots of socialising before they can be bothered to get down to business.

I like the idea. Having a coupleof NTs to help brainstorm ideas does help sometimes though, depending on your business. My boss and I work well together most of the time since he is willing to let me "think outside the box" and appreciate my ideas. We work together to prepare large proposals all the time. We bring totally different perspectives to the table. I told him recently I was Aspie and he wasn't surprised at all. He promoted because i was so different than the average employee and was highly analytical.