Autistic Adults Getting Jobs In Tech Industry

Culture Of Appreciation

“We are trying to create a culture where we appreciate each other,” said Ultra co-founder Rajesh Anandan. The company is adding four to five employees every six to eight weeks to keep up with demand for services and the vast majority are autistic, he said. “If we are really successful, we’ll employ hundreds of folks, maybe a few thousand folks.”

People who find work through Specialisterne get jobs within standard salary ranges for their descriptions, Grein said.

“Our mantra is, we want sustained employment at market wages,” Grein said. “If current college graduates make $50,000-$60,000, our people should make the same.”

Wage inequity does exist, though it’s primarily seen at companies that only hire people with autism, according to Ari Ne’eman, president of Autistic Self Advocacy Network, which represents people with autism and their families.

“We do see and are concerned by reports that autistic people are employed at below market wages in segregated workplaces,” Ne’eman said. Some of the companies “are paying significantly below comparable wages for non-autistic workers in similar positions” at other companies, he said.

Mortgage company Freddie Mac, which has an internship program for people with autism, is finding that they can fill a variety of positions, including in data analysis and customer service. All the full-time employees hired through that program have worked out, said spokeswoman Ruth Fisher.

At SAP, just two people who started in its program are no longer with the software maker.

“The retention rates for our Autism at Work program are consistent with and no different than other groups of employees,” SAP spokesman Scott Behles said in an e-mail.

‘I Have a Career’

A year ago, SAP hired Charles Hollenden to solve customer software issues. The 32-year-old, who has Asperger’s, spent years in a rash of less-than-satisfying retail and customer-service jobs. At night, he’d work at home on his passion: the Minecraft game. He said his disability, which affects him mostly on a social level, held him back in past jobs.

“I have a career now,” said Hollenden, who lives with his parents in Ridley Township, Pennsylvania. “I am doing a job that feels like what I was kind of doing for my hobby.”

Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability in the U.S., according to the Autism Society, an advocacy group.

With statistics like this, companies had “better be prepared to work with them,” said Robert Lux, Freddie Mac’s chief information officer who has an autistic 14-year-old daughter. “You got to open your mind, let them in. By the time my daughter enters the workforce, I hope it’s not going to be just a handful of companies.”