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> Kelly Ellis, a former Google engineer and one of the plaintiffs in the gender-pay suit against the company, said in a legal filing that Google hired her as a

> Kelly Ellis, a former Google engineer and one of the plaintiffs in the gender-pay suit against the company, said in a legal filing that Google hired her as a Level 3 employee — the category for new software engineers who are recent college graduates — in 2010 despite her having four years of experience. > Within a few weeks of Ms. Ellis being hiring, Google hired a male engineer for her team who had also graduated from college four years earlier. But he was hired as a Level 4 employee, meaning he received a higher salary and had more opportunities for bonuses, raises and stock compensation, according to the suit. Other men on Ms. Ellis’s team whose qualifications were equal to or less than hers were also brought in at Level 4, the suit says. This feels like a part of the issue, but could be really hard to analyze easily.

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
I'm sure Google will learn from this mistake and will mandate the experience to match the qualification. You've spent four years of your career doing some crappy data entry job? Undershot. Rejected. You've been running your own company after the college? Overshot. Rejected.
CydeWeys 8y ago
A lot of it depends on interview performance (which itself is an entirely separate can of worms, including potential gender factors). Many people who get hired on at a more junior level probably wouldn't get offers at all if they were mandated to be a more senior level based on years of experience.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Isn’t Google known to downlevel everyone that doesn’t come from FB?
colonelxc 8y ago
The main thing is that Google prefers to downlevel people who have external experience. I (male) had 5 years of experience, still was hired at L3. I know many others who have the same story. So the L4 person probably had some better story/negotiation which allowed them to start at L4. It of course could be bias. It was really frustrating for me to be at the same level as new grads, though on reflection, I was not at a the same level as other L4 employees around. Some transparency around these processes I think could help candidates a lot. I think the bigger issue is that new-grad phds are almost always hired at L4. They are often less experienced at software engineering than someone with a bachelors and a few years of experience. So unless the person is being hired into an area that actually makes use of their phd, it seems that Google is just willing to pay for the title.
- rafiki6 8y ago
  Can I ask why you might think that you were not at the same level? Why is Google a special software snowflake and none of your external experience is transferable?
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    To use a sports analogy: Two people could each have 5 years of experience playing baseball, but one is in a AAA league and the other plays for an MLB team. Years of experience doesn't necessarily say anything about actual skill.
    - rafiki6 8y ago
      You just told me that Google is the MLB. I don't see any evidence for this. Many great software companies exist. You are working on the assumption that everyone applying to Google is coming from low-rate companies. Further, if I get hired into the MLB from an AAA team, it's likely I am playing at a professional level. I might get a rookie contract upfront, but that doesn't mean that my skill level is that of a rookie. The key difference here is that in the MLB it's much harder to quantify skills whereas that's not the case with software engineers. If I was part of a team that released a solid piece of software, even if it's from a non-giant software company, I'm not entirely sure why my experience isn't transferable to Google (outside of a different stack). By that logic, since people are stuck in the proprietary stack at Google, they would have similar struggles moving out of Google and should be down leveled.
      - CydeWeys 8y ago
        You're reading way too much into my comment. It wasn't meant personally. I'm simply pointing out that years of experience by itself doesn't mean much. It's possible to spend lots of time doing something and nevertheless not be particularly good at it relative to others, for a variety of reasons. I've interviewed plenty of people with 10+ YOE who've sucked. They wouldn't get a position at a top-end employer at all, let alone a senior one.
      - 8y ago
rifung 8y ago
> Kelly Ellis, a former Google engineer and one of the plaintiffs in the gender-pay suit against the company, said in a legal filing that Google hired her as a Level 3 employee — the category for new software engineers who are recent college graduates — in 2010 despite her having four years of experience. I worked for around 4 years before joining Google and was also hired as an L3. I'm male. Two of my new grad friends were hired as L3's at Google too but make like 100k more than I do in total compensation. One is male and one is female. I'm not saying there isn't sexism but I'm not really convinced by this example. It's pretty common that people get "demoted" when coming in from other companies. I made the mistake of not getting competing offers (I wasn't actually looking to change jobs at the time).
- ralusek 8y ago
  Also, number of years worked does not dictate how good of an engineer you are.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    No, its mostly because turning down a offer(no matter what that is) from Google screams privilege. There are a lot of things related to prestige, and other hiring marketing related things that have built up this enormous clout of you having arrived at a big place in life if you land a job at FAANG companies. So people just take whatever is offered. Because, there are tens of thousands of people applying for these jobs. Most of them are likely to better than you and they didn't crack all competitive coding style interview to land a job like you did. So people just find it hard to turn down the offer and take it. It's only later do they realized they are not building the next search engine. Nor building the next gen e-commerce platform, but building Jsons and posting to dataservices. By then you are conditioned to free food and you are not comparing your salary with people outside but inside. Its always hard to admit you didn't negotiate well or fell for the marketing appeal of the company. Its easy to find conspiracies and accuse others of malice. The later story is more appealing, makes you a victim and makes the other side look bad.
    - rifung 8y ago
rafiki6 8y ago
Outside of the obvious reason of needing a job, I can't understand why she didn't immediately begin to interview and look for a job elsewhere. This goes for both men and women. If you are clearly being underpaid for your level of experience and skill, don't stay put.
- lazyasciiart 8y ago
  A few years of google on your resume looks a lot better than a couple of months. And you also have to weigh the likelihood of running into the same problem at other places.
noelsusman 8y ago
I've seen this first hand. I was hired into my position straight out of grad school. I noticed one of my colleagues (a black woman) was in a position below mine that paid about $20k less even though she had all the same knowledge and skills that I had. She had a PhD and had done a post-doc while I never even finished my PhD. She's older, more experienced, and better educated, yet somehow not qualified for my position. I asked my boss about this and he said it was because this was her first real job. When I reminded him that this was also my first real job he just said "that's different" without further explanation.
- dlivingston 8y ago
  Seems to me that if there is truly nothing more to this story, your colleague has a very clear lawsuit.
  - natrik 8y ago
    Negotiations also play a factor, 2 employees with the same tech skillset can have a different way of negotiating resulting in different salaries.
malvosenior 8y ago
Not all college graduates are created equal. There are many people with four year degrees that do not get hired by Google at all. You'd have to look at a case by case basis. Also, a L3 at Google makes ~$200k a year. Someone getting paid that 4 years out of college is not being discriminated against. Source: https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft
fjord_ 8y ago
It sounds like they took both of them into a room with a white board and found out he was a lot better of an engineer than her. Controversial...a man out performing a woman....

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

I'm sure Google will learn from this mistake and will mandate the experience to match the qualification. You've spent four years of your career doing some crappy data entry job? Undershot. Rejected. You've been running your own company after the college? Overshot. Rejected.

CydeWeys 8y ago

A lot of it depends on interview performance (which itself is an entirely separate can of worms, including potential gender factors). Many people who get hired on at a more junior level probably wouldn't get offers at all if they were mandated to be a more senior level based on years of experience.

akhilcacharya 8y ago

Isn’t Google known to downlevel everyone that doesn’t come from FB?

colonelxc 8y ago

The main thing is that Google prefers to downlevel people who have external experience. I (male) had 5 years of experience, still was hired at L3. I know many others who have the same story. So the L4 person probably had some better story/negotiation which allowed them to start at L4. It of course could be bias. It was really frustrating for me to be at the same level as new grads, though on reflection, I was not at a the same level as other L4 employees around. Some transparency around these processes I think could help candidates a lot. I think the bigger issue is that new-grad phds are almost always hired at L4. They are often less experienced at software engineering than someone with a bachelors and a few years of experience. So unless the person is being hired into an area that actually makes use of their phd, it seems that Google is just willing to pay for the title.

rafiki6 8y ago
Can I ask why you might think that you were not at the same level? Why is Google a special software snowflake and none of your external experience is transferable?
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  To use a sports analogy: Two people could each have 5 years of experience playing baseball, but one is in a AAA league and the other plays for an MLB team. Years of experience doesn't necessarily say anything about actual skill.
  - rafiki6 8y ago
    You just told me that Google is the MLB. I don't see any evidence for this. Many great software companies exist. You are working on the assumption that everyone applying to Google is coming from low-rate companies. Further, if I get hired into the MLB from an AAA team, it's likely I am playing at a professional level. I might get a rookie contract upfront, but that doesn't mean that my skill level is that of a rookie. The key difference here is that in the MLB it's much harder to quantify skills whereas that's not the case with software engineers. If I was part of a team that released a solid piece of software, even if it's from a non-giant software company, I'm not entirely sure why my experience isn't transferable to Google (outside of a different stack). By that logic, since people are stuck in the proprietary stack at Google, they would have similar struggles moving out of Google and should be down leveled.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      You're reading way too much into my comment. It wasn't meant personally. I'm simply pointing out that years of experience by itself doesn't mean much. It's possible to spend lots of time doing something and nevertheless not be particularly good at it relative to others, for a variety of reasons. I've interviewed plenty of people with 10+ YOE who've sucked. They wouldn't get a position at a top-end employer at all, let alone a senior one.
    - 8y ago

rifung 8y ago

> Kelly Ellis, a former Google engineer and one of the plaintiffs in the gender-pay suit against the company, said in a legal filing that Google hired her as a Level 3 employee — the category for new software engineers who are recent college graduates — in 2010 despite her having four years of experience. I worked for around 4 years before joining Google and was also hired as an L3. I'm male. Two of my new grad friends were hired as L3's at Google too but make like 100k more than I do in total compensation. One is male and one is female. I'm not saying there isn't sexism but I'm not really convinced by this example. It's pretty common that people get "demoted" when coming in from other companies. I made the mistake of not getting competing offers (I wasn't actually looking to change jobs at the time).

ralusek 8y ago
Also, number of years worked does not dictate how good of an engineer you are.
- kamaal 8y ago
  No, its mostly because turning down a offer(no matter what that is) from Google screams privilege. There are a lot of things related to prestige, and other hiring marketing related things that have built up this enormous clout of you having arrived at a big place in life if you land a job at FAANG companies. So people just take whatever is offered. Because, there are tens of thousands of people applying for these jobs. Most of them are likely to better than you and they didn't crack all competitive coding style interview to land a job like you did. So people just find it hard to turn down the offer and take it. It's only later do they realized they are not building the next search engine. Nor building the next gen e-commerce platform, but building Jsons and posting to dataservices. By then you are conditioned to free food and you are not comparing your salary with people outside but inside. Its always hard to admit you didn't negotiate well or fell for the marketing appeal of the company. Its easy to find conspiracies and accuse others of malice. The later story is more appealing, makes you a victim and makes the other side look bad.
  - rifung 8y ago

rafiki6 8y ago

Outside of the obvious reason of needing a job, I can't understand why she didn't immediately begin to interview and look for a job elsewhere. This goes for both men and women. If you are clearly being underpaid for your level of experience and skill, don't stay put.

lazyasciiart 8y ago
A few years of google on your resume looks a lot better than a couple of months. And you also have to weigh the likelihood of running into the same problem at other places.

noelsusman 8y ago

I've seen this first hand. I was hired into my position straight out of grad school. I noticed one of my colleagues (a black woman) was in a position below mine that paid about $20k less even though she had all the same knowledge and skills that I had. She had a PhD and had done a post-doc while I never even finished my PhD. She's older, more experienced, and better educated, yet somehow not qualified for my position. I asked my boss about this and he said it was because this was her first real job. When I reminded him that this was also my first real job he just said "that's different" without further explanation.

dlivingston 8y ago
Seems to me that if there is truly nothing more to this story, your colleague has a very clear lawsuit.
- natrik 8y ago
  Negotiations also play a factor, 2 employees with the same tech skillset can have a different way of negotiating resulting in different salaries.

malvosenior 8y ago

Not all college graduates are created equal. There are many people with four year degrees that do not get hired by Google at all. You'd have to look at a case by case basis. Also, a L3 at Google makes ~$200k a year. Someone getting paid that 4 years out of college is not being discriminated against. Source: https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft

fjord_ 8y ago

It sounds like they took both of them into a room with a white board and found out he was a lot better of an engineer than her. Controversial...a man out performing a woman....