Of course, as far as race is concerned, it is just irrelevant. I mean, who but a racist would seriously believe that you have to be (fill in some race) in order to write web software for (same race)?
Unfortunately it is not irrelevant. Few people believe that a black person CAN'T do software development (for example). However it's a hard road for many, many black people to take, - especially if they are poor, which black people disproportionally are. What you have to realize is that even though the legal barriers have fallen, the social and economic barriers are alive and well.
I'll give you an example. I don't know if you're familiar with the radio show "This American Life". Anyway, on one episode they interviewed a number of talented but poor college kids that were given scholarships based on their academic achievements along with their lack of ability to afford college.
One of the kids was black and got an scholarship to MIT for some technical degree program (which I don't remember). He talked about how much he loved the classroom and lab work but how hard it was for him at the school. He felt like he didn't fit in. There were few other people there that shared his background. He felt like he continually had to prove that he deserved to be there. He had to dress better than most of his peers, and he had to behave better than most of them as well. His high school academic training had been woefully inadequate in some areas so he had to take additional classes to make up for that.
It was almost worse for him at home. While his family was proud, many of his old friends didn't want to hang around him, - accusing him of acting "too white" and selling out. Even the friends who stuck by him were on different paths and he couldn't share with them what was going on school and have them understand.
The other students told very similar stories. The point is that the inequalities in our society are deeply ingrained and won't go away simply by making it illegal to not hire somebody based on gender or ethnicity.