More autism in IT?

This is the fifth post in a series for autism awareness month.

Three years ago, I created a channel called hashtag #autism on my company's Slack. I wasn't sure what to expect. On the first day, about 20 people joined, roughly one in six of the company at the time. Four personal testimonies came in within hours. Dozens more wanted to understand better. I later renamed it hashtag #neurodiversity to be more encompassing.

That wasn't a trend. That was a room full of people who had been waiting for the door to open.

So: is there more autism in IT? Or does IT just make it easier to be autistic?

Probably both, and they're not contradictory.

My wife worked for years as a psychologist with autistic children. Shortly after our second child was born, she started noticing patterns in him that she recognized professionally. It took ten years to get a formal diagnosis. When the psychiatrist finally explained why our son was on the spectrum, I remember thinking: he's describing me.

That's not an unusual story. Autism has a well-documented genetic component. Autistic people are more likely to have autistic children, and certain fields, IT among them, have been quietly concentrating people with this neurological profile for decades. Long before most of them had a name for it.

The cognitive traits that make social navigation harder — needing explicit structure, struggling with unspoken rules, finding small talk costly — are often the same traits that make technical work easier. Pattern recognition, deep focus on narrow problems, a preference for systems that behave predictably, a low tolerance for ambiguity that, in code, is actually a feature.

IT didn't create more autistic people. It created conditions where autistic people could function, contribute, and sometimes thrive — without anyone necessarily noticing why. The diagnosis rates are rising because awareness is rising, not because something new is happening.

Next Monday, I'll post about sensory overload and autistic burnout.

This is part of my April 2026 autism awareness month series. First published on LinkedIn on 2026-04-10.