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Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#71

Post by stretchwithme »

stale2002 wrote: post #48
stretchwithme wrote: post #25

Companies pay some employees more for pretty good reasons. I don't think they're thinking "Jim's a dude so we should pay him $50K more than Sally." No, they're paying somebody more because they don't want them to leave. And if they are paying you less than somebody else, it's probably partially because they don't think you are as much of a flight risk. And if Google is wrong about these decisions, I'd guess we'd see…

Unfortunately for Google, paying women less because "They can get away with it" (ie, women are less of a flight risk), is still illegal.

I don't think that's the situation I'm describing. If a company could replace an engineer that is more likely to leave with an equally productive one who is likely to stay, they wouldn't hesitate to wave good bye.

What amazes me is the confidence with which people equate the work of engineers when they actually have no stake in making that judgement correctly.

You see, if you are paying the money and living with the results, you have a much greater incentive to make this call correctly.

And those who are unhappy with these judgements have a much greater incentive to equate engineers who aren't actually comparable. It's called politics.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#72

Post by dogruck »

skj wrote: post #60
dogruck wrote: post #10

This is noise because these lawsuits are common, and Google has deep pockets. The more interesting investigation is what happens at small companies. For example, look at the early Google employees -- only a few women, and most of those women were not engineers. Once a company is at Google's size, comp levels and hiring become formulaic. Not to mention that Google is a monopoly, with enough excess cash to settle lawsu…

At Google, comp comes from how effective your management chain makes your case. It has a large subjective component.

What happens when the large subjective components yield comp stats that indicate gender bias?

And my original point was that there's much more bias at small companies.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#73

Post by School-Cotton »

dontJudge wrote: post #69
geofft wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I spent a couple of months this summer going through team selection at Google NYC, with a specific request for back-end, low-level, preferably C++ roles (app security, build systems, etc.). I didn't meet or talk to a single woman through the entire process, with the exception of reception, another candidate, and someone who was covering for my recruiter when he was on vacation. I asked every manager I ta…

Your intent on joining a women-based team is very creepy/cringe. This is not a healthy behavior.

It's not creepy at all to prefer not to work in a 100% male environment.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#74

Post by brad0 »

isoskeles wrote: post #37
geofft wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I spent a couple of months this summer going through team selection at Google NYC, with a specific request for back-end, low-level, preferably C++ roles (app security, build systems, etc.). I didn't meet or talk to a single woman through the entire process, with the exception of reception, another candidate, and someone who was covering for my recruiter when he was on vacation. I asked every manager I ta…

If you want to assume something insidious about Google's intentions, am I allowed assume that you just want to find a female coworker to wife?

I'm not really sure what you're trying to achieve with this comment.

In saying that I am curious as to why the GP is looking for females specifically in the team.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#75

Post by brlewis »

skj wrote: post #57
nrmitchi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they sort of do, because those terms don't map so cleanly when you begin spreading into a multi-tiered architecture. You could easily end up with 'server side' work, which exists solely to augment or support a UI, and is not part of the 'core' business applications/services.

You could, but at Google "frontend" work means things happening in the browser.

What about Android?

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#76

Post by pfarnsworth »

brad0 wrote: post #8

One of the women suing complained that a man was hired a level above her with the same years of experience. They both had four years experience. I joined one of the big 4 eight years into my career. Similar to her I was placed at an entry level position. When I started I saw that I had the same ability as people higher than me. I made sure that I displayed that ability to my peers and manager. And what do you know, I…

Where I work, the level is determined by how well the did on the interview, regardless of years of experience.

It might be that the plaintiff didn't do as well on the interview as her colleague. Just because both have have 4 years experience doesn't mean that both did equally as well on the interview.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#77

Post by WalterBright »

kamaal wrote: post #67
WalterBright wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all salesman - and a better salesman gets better results. As nerds we tend to discount, dismiss, overlook, whatever, salesmanship skills. But they still count big time. We sell ourselves all the time, like it or not. Might as well try to learn how to get better at it. All aspects of ourselves can be tweaked to better our salesmanship - grooming, dress, posture, getting our teeth fixed, tone of voice, words use…

What you have written is 100% true. Especially about the dress part. A while back I started wearing a shirt and pant to work. People, especially juniors do tend to take you a lot more seriously if you look formal and well dressed, compared to say showing up in denims and t-shirt. But the negotiation and sales part. That's the issue. Its not easy to get good at that.

I noticed early in my career that people who dressed better got noticed more - i.e. promotions. Habitually wearing flipflops and track shorts to work won't work.

> But the negotiation and sales part. That's the issue. Its not easy to get good at that.

You're right. I work at it all the time, and I have a very long way to go. It will always be a "work in progress" for me.

But at least one can try to not be simply terrible at it. I still shudder at the stupidity of some of the things I did that clearly damaged my career.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#78

Post by kamaal »

waqf wrote: post #29
kamaal wrote: post #22

This might be true and I hope they win. But unfortunately everything that they say applies to men too. I wonder if this due to lack of negotiation skills. I have seen this problem being under compensation for the same skill and peer levels for men too. At work, In one case I discovered a colleague being paid almost 50% times higher than I was. In another case in only a casual lunch conversation I discovered a colleag…

You say everything that they say applies to men too — but that seems like a reason that they will lose. To win, they have to prove that they could reasonably have been paid more but weren't because they were female . If they show that they could reasonably have been paid more but weren't because they are bad at negotiating, they get nothing. So, yeah, don't mistake discrimination law for something which would make su…

>>To win, they have to prove that they could reasonably have been paid more but weren't because they were female

I'm only saying if you replace 'female' by:

1. 'not good at negotiations'.

2. 'not good at making friends up management'.

3. 'not having good political skills'.

etc.

You still arrive at the same result, regardless of the gender. Which happens with us men too.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#79

Post by manigandham »

rhizome wrote: post #53
Gustomaximus wrote: post #15

> (women) hold only 20 percent of the company’s higher-paying engineering jobs. I believe women make up less than 20% of comsci graduates? So wouldn't this be about right then. Also I'm assuming women in comsci have lower workforce participation than men do (as in broader economy) so Google must be hiring women at a higher ratio than men from the available pool. I'm 100% in support of open workplaces for gender/race/…

Sure, lack of advancement indicates a lack of ability. It's an old rationalization, but it's a post hoc fallacy. That is: lack of ability to do what ? Can you clarify?

> lack of ability to do what

To be recognized as more valuable.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#80

Post by WalterBright »

kamaal wrote: post #59
KGIII wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This might be true and I hope they win. Can you elaborate on this? Namely, the burden of proof is higher than 'might be true.' I'm guessing you meant something more like, 'If this is true, I hope they win.' I can never tell, anymore.

If this is a merely negotiation problem than the problem gets stated in a different tone. I have been told many times that I need to work on my negotiation skills. One manager has even asked me whom do I go lunch with. And why don't I go to eat with the big shots. Of course you need to act all pally and buttery, saying yes to anything they say all the while. What they mean to say is stop expecting the system to be fa…

A friend of mine worked for years at a firm, and did well as a salesman. But he would get overlooked for promotions. He finally figured out why.

He was frugal, and would bag his lunch and eat it at his desk. The others would get together and go out for lunch. He failed to realize how much networking and business was conducted over lunch.

A corollary is that working remotely is probably not a good idea if you're ambitious.

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