If they come to you unsolicited, it is a pretty good bet it is for competence.
Otherwise, if you are applying for something cattle-call style, you may not know. Depending on the age and size of the company, they may not actually have those requirements yet.
You can always ask your manager, but they may have been fed candidates from the recruiting team without being given the choice of non-diverse ones, so they may honestly tell you that you were simply the best of the people they interviewed.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/Women-in-Programming-As-a-woman-in-technology-how-do-you-know-if-you-are-being-hired-for-diversity-or-competence
Originally Posted On: 2015-01-30