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Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

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Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ way for people from unique backgrounds to enter into the software engineering field with less stringent interview requirements” - sounds like discrimination and should be illegal. meanwhile, people in their 40s are dealing with leetcode BS to get a reasonable position with that sort of compensation even though they have an extensive track record.

>sounds like discrimination and should be illegal IME the "unique backgrounds" are "doesn't have a CS degree or a couple years of experience at a big software shop".

yep, discrimination

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#22
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What degree of purity is required to count as a European? Europeans can and do mix with non-europeans.

The 99% of white Americans for whom all ancestors were from Europe, are European.

Just checked that there are 7 millions Jews in the US. That's a lot more than 1%. About 3 millions are Slavic people. Many millions are european-type Arabic people. They all look like white Americans and if they grew up in the US, they won't even have an accent. The number of "true north-european descendats" must be a lot lower, maybe 60% of white Americans. And this number is going downhill rapidly because Americans don't hesitate to mix with other races and nationalities. My point is that albedo of skin is a really poor predictor of ancestry, about as good as a coin toss.

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#23
post #7
post #3

> Critics have long argued that Google and its tech industry peers favor white, Asian and male workers Google was 51.7% white in 2020, down from 54.4% in 2019 *. The US is 61.5% white, meaning whites are under-represented at Google, and increasingly so. How can one then argue they are favored? Why do reporters not apply even the smallest degree of scrutiny to such claims? * https://diversity.google/annual-report/

What's "white" even mean? Descendants of north Europeans? Surface albedo of skin greater than 0.85 in the visible spectrum?

Race is self-reported. There isn't someone in Google HR researching your ancestry, they ask you what race you identify as when you join. If you self-identify as white then you are white according to Google HR.

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#24
post #8
post #4

It seems like this engineering residency program is essentially an extended internship, which converts to a full time role if the worker does well. Google searches say residents are paid ~$95k a year. This is by no means bad pay for entry level work. I'm really struggling to see the injustice of this program. It seems to me that axing it only leaves the people who used this role as a stepping stone to reach a full ti…

I'm pretty sure that I agree with you, but if I had to steelman the argument against Eng Res it would be that since pay and promotion seems to follow percentage increments year to year, if you start at a lower point than someone else, you are going to be consistently behind them. So, having this program essentially creates a second class of engineer at google, predominantly URMs, who will be given lower pay and lower…

I don't know how Google does their salary, but a lot of big corps do salary bands by level, and when the 2x a year (one of which might not be advertised) company adjustments come up, they determine merit based rases and then adjust to try to tighten the bands. So if you're underpaid, you'll probably get a bigger raise than otherwise and if you're overpaid, your raise will be adjusted down.

You might not ever catch up to someone who started higher (and certainly won't for the integral of compensation), but the gap should narrow over time.

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#25
post #11

That's insane. The residency program is a way for people from unique backgrounds to enter into the software engineering field with less stringent interview requirements. SWE can pay upwards of $500-600k after 5-10 years of experience. This was an incredible opportunity and it's an absolute shame that internal protests killed it. Yes, you get less pay and a smaller stock refresh, but I know a few people who's careers…

“ way for people from unique backgrounds to enter into the software engineering field with less stringent interview requirements” - sounds like discrimination and should be illegal. meanwhile, people in their 40s are dealing with leetcode BS to get a reasonable position with that sort of compensation even though they have an extensive track record.

>sounds like discrimination

discrimination can either be legal or illegal. google legally discriminates by giving offers to those who get the hiring committee's approval. i think getting the hiring committee's approval is a form of legal discrimination.

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#26
post #8
post #4

It seems like this engineering residency program is essentially an extended internship, which converts to a full time role if the worker does well. Google searches say residents are paid ~$95k a year. This is by no means bad pay for entry level work. I'm really struggling to see the injustice of this program. It seems to me that axing it only leaves the people who used this role as a stepping stone to reach a full ti…

I'm pretty sure that I agree with you, but if I had to steelman the argument against Eng Res it would be that since pay and promotion seems to follow percentage increments year to year, if you start at a lower point than someone else, you are going to be consistently behind them. So, having this program essentially creates a second class of engineer at google, predominantly URMs, who will be given lower pay and lower…

> since pay and promotion seems to follow percentage increments year to year

So ... leave?

Put a couple years of FAANG on your resume to bootstrap and then bail out to the job that pays correctly. That's what everybody has to do to keep their salary from lagging.

If the analysis only includes those who haven't bailed at least once, it's for sure going to have lagging salaries.

A more interesting question would be what those who bailed and then came back to Google are making.

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you know, Middle Eastern folks from Lebanon and Egypt fall under the race of "White" in the US census. Source: https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-no...

The US Census categories are incorrect.

10 bucks says you could meet some of these folks on the street and you'd think they were European.

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#28
post #25
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ way for people from unique backgrounds to enter into the software engineering field with less stringent interview requirements” - sounds like discrimination and should be illegal. meanwhile, people in their 40s are dealing with leetcode BS to get a reasonable position with that sort of compensation even though they have an extensive track record.

>sounds like discrimination discrimination can either be legal or illegal. google legally discriminates by giving offers to those who get the hiring committee's approval. i think getting the hiring committee's approval is a form of legal discrimination.

> discrimination can either be legal or illegal

Right, every nonrandom decision is discrimination, but in the US private discrimination is generally legal unless it effects a protected category; because of the rational basis test, in the US, public dsicrimination is generally invalid unless it meets some bar of justification, but unless a particularly protected basis of discrimination is involved or a particularly important right impinged, the bar for validity is very low (a rational relation to a legitimate government function.)

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#29
post #13
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, okay. So we can keep claiming Google, a US company, favors white workers until when? Until less than 10%* of their US workers are white? Is that what being favored means? That companies in your own country look elsewhere to import workers? *Ballpark white global population.

All I'm saying is that your statistic does not disprove the allegation that Google's hiring processes might favor white workers. You're making an apples-to-oranges comparison, and drawing a conclusion that isn't demonstrated by the data. I'm also not saying that these numbers prove that Google does favor white workers. Only that they are not sufficient to disprove the idea.

The choice of hiring pool is part of the hiring process. Expanding that pool to other countries is itself an act of disfavor to US workers.

Re: Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

#30

That's insane. The residency program is a way for people from unique backgrounds to enter into the software engineering field with less stringent interview requirements. SWE can pay upwards of $500-600k after 5-10 years of experience. This was an incredible opportunity and it's an absolute shame that internal protests killed it. Yes, you get less pay and a smaller stock refresh, but I know a few people who's careers…

The IT residency you don’t even get stock.
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