6 ms·

AWS director sues Amazon, alleging systemic racism in corporate office

48 points by daenney 6y ago

bradhe 6y ago
Man, what a damning article. This could be really tough for Amazon. > During the 2017-2019 time frame, no Black employees were hired at or promoted to the director level ("L8") within Amazon's public policy division, the suit alleges. Neither were any Black employees hired at the next level down, L7, until December 2018. That's pretty specific. I wonder how big the public policy division is? If I look at amazon.jobs there are like 8 pages of open recs in public policy...so it's a pretty huge organization. And global, too. > she did the work of an L7 job for several years before receiving a promotion to that level in fall 2019. This one is a little tougher for me. It's pretty common to "do the work" of the next level for a promotion. In isolation, this doesn't seem so bad. But if she was deleveled before even taking the role that's...not a good look.
- myroon5 6y ago
  Unfortunately, de-leveling seems common as well
- throwaay 6y ago
  We don't know the poolsize for any of these numbers. Hope the lawsuit goes into that. Would be good to see numbers for all ethnicities as a comparison. For eg: how many asian people at amazon vs directors? Offhand, I think you will see that there are fewer asian directors when considering the total asian pop at amazon vs white. Is that a problem? From my anecdotal experience, I just don't see too many black or latino people in tech companies so I would assume this is partly a pipeline issue which we can address at the correct spot in the funnel rather than bringing in token black l8s. Otherwise the next spate of articles will say "Black L8s fired at higher rates than other ethnicites". Also, re-levelling during interviews is common at Amazon: just because you applied for a position doesnt mean there are enough data-points in the interview that support you getting that position (esp at L6+ level), but we may think you are "amazonian" enough to be extended an offer with re-level. What probably happened is the candidate was re-leveled, then was setup for success by being provided multiple opportunities to prove themselves, which took a few years. This also makes sense because a promo-doc requires consistent evidence of performing at the next level. Now, a senior manager should know all this so A) this is a bad faith lawsuit driven by entitlement or, B) she decided that this was a big enough problem to burn a few bridges. I'm interested to see what data the lawsuit dredges up.
  - bradhe 6y ago
    I'm wondering how clear it was to her about the re-level when she accepted the offer. I'm sure it must have been pretty clear? I agree with what you're supposing in terms of how it likely went down. I don't think that would really qualify as "doing the work of another level" or whatever they originally said. Great insight, too, on the subsequent headline if Amazon just starts recruiting black candidates willy-nilly.
    - throwaay 6y ago
      When you accept the offer, the recruiter should have messaged it similar to what I said (ie: you have been re-leveled at l6). Also, comp ranges are very different + you can easily see what level you are. Failing that, after accepting the offer and doing some interviews + performance management as an L7, the situation would have been clear.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    > From my anecdotal experience, I just don't see too many black or latino people in tech companies so I would assume this is partly a pipeline issue which we can address at the correct spot in the funnel rather than bringing in token black l8s. The thing is, this wasn’t a tech role. It was in “public policy” which I take to mean lobbying, and her previous experience was as a staffer to a US Senator. So her career is in politics rather than tech. The other thing is that suing a broadly unpopular company for discrimination isn’t really going to be a career limiting move. Most companies settle most lawsuits, so you get to put on your resume that you successfully and publicly sued a big unpopular company for discrimination. But maybe I’m just being cynical about people who go into professional politics.
- shostack 6y ago
  Drawing conclusions on org size based on number of job postings at big companies doesn't always tell you much. Many postings for the same role are common either because they may be testing different descriptions to see what gets quality candidates, have a general pipeline they try to keep filled, or both.
- ksec 6y ago
  > From the start, she alleges, she was "de-leveled"—hired at a position below the one for which she applied and for which she was qualified—and undercompensated as a result. Underpaying Black employees through de-leveling is routine at Amazon, the suit (PDF) alleges. Unpopular opinion. Underpaying, de-leveling, and under compensated is pretty much the norm in all organisations and across all industries. I would actually argue that is the problem because of ALL HR and Recruiters. ( Sorry I have never met any good one ) So without lots of evidence it may not be specific to gender or race. But sexual harassment and assaulting are very serious.
0xy 6y ago
>From the start, she alleges, she was "de-leveled" Oh, so she was treated like literally everyone applying there? This is not uncommon. >During the 2017-2019 time frame, no Black employees were hired at or promoted to the director level ("L8") within Amazon's public policy division, the suit alleges This statement is meaningless without knowing how many black employees were eligible or applied. >While working for Amazon, Newman alleges that she faced multiple instances of colleagues overtly engaging in racial stereotypes to discuss her or her work, describing her as "just scary," "too direct," or looking "like a gorilla." Only one of those is a racial stereotype, and a single incident does not imply systemic racism. This looks exaggerated at best to me. Everyone experiences downleveling regardless of race.
- tharkun__ 6y ago
  This is really the crux I find in these situations. A pure statistic doesn't tell the whole story. But for pointing it out you usually get labelled a racist. If there are less people of color applying or objectively eligible for a job the statistics will "paint a damning picture". But maybe the picture isn't damning at all and if the same people had been white they also wouldn't have been chosen. The smaller the numbers involved the less we can just assume that because of the sample size something like this has 'worked itself out'. It's like looking at my coding statistics for the last week. That says nothing as there's so much variability week to week depending on circumstances. But looking at a full year any outliers should have been reduced enough to be able to make decisions based on the numbers. That said looking at the sibling post as well, there seem to be quite a few positions open in that department. So now one could probably start deducing. EDIT: and there comes the down voting for 'being a racist' for pointing out that statistics are statistics and that it looks like statistics might actual favor the article protagonists odds. Awesome!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- amccloud 6y ago
  > Only one of those is a racial stereotype Which one?
thecleaner 6y ago
"Senior AWS Manager" should be the title not "AWS Director". This feels like someone running the whole AWS is suing Amazon.
- throwaay 6y ago
  +1 Senior mgr is 1 level down from director and generally has a lot less scope.
dolni 6y ago
I hope Amazon gets slammed by this lawsuit. They're incubating the woke nonsense that got them into this mess anyway. Funny how all of the most liberal companies are those which are sued for some kind of racism.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
delhanty 6y ago
Aren't these sort of articles from tech media whataboutism to distract from their own lack of diversity? This article gives some perspective: https://oonwoye.com/2020/07/31/tech-journalism-is-less-diverse-than-tech/ https://oonwoye.com/2020/07/31/tech-journalism-is-less-diver... Amazon is actually the most diverse company that Oo Nwoye surveyed.
IronWolve 6y ago
I have no idea whats going with amazon, had an interview for DNS expert, (I ran the backbone DNS for the largest telecom in the world), said I wasnt experience enough. Tried to get a senior linux administration role, said I didnt know linux. After I passed their linux tests, and started multiple ISP's running linux, and been a linux/solaris admin for 20+ years. Their interview process is crazy.
- broknbottle 6y ago
  How are your LPs?

48 points by daenney 6y ago

Man, what a damning article. This could be really tough for Amazon. > During the 2017-2019 time frame, no Black employees were hired at or promoted to the director level ("L8") within Amazon's public policy division, the suit alleges. Neither were any Black employees hired at the next level down, L7, until December 2018. That's pretty specific. I wonder how big the public policy division is? If I look at amazon.jobs there are like 8 pages of open recs in public policy...so it's a pretty huge organization. And global, too. > she did the work of an L7 job for several years before receiving a promotion to that level in fall 2019. This one is a little tougher for me. It's pretty common to "do the work" of the next level for a promotion. In isolation, this doesn't seem so bad. But if she was deleveled before even taking the role that's...not a good look.

myroon5 6y ago
Unfortunately, de-leveling seems common as well
throwaay 6y ago
We don't know the poolsize for any of these numbers. Hope the lawsuit goes into that. Would be good to see numbers for all ethnicities as a comparison. For eg: how many asian people at amazon vs directors? Offhand, I think you will see that there are fewer asian directors when considering the total asian pop at amazon vs white. Is that a problem? From my anecdotal experience, I just don't see too many black or latino people in tech companies so I would assume this is partly a pipeline issue which we can address at the correct spot in the funnel rather than bringing in token black l8s. Otherwise the next spate of articles will say "Black L8s fired at higher rates than other ethnicites". Also, re-levelling during interviews is common at Amazon: just because you applied for a position doesnt mean there are enough data-points in the interview that support you getting that position (esp at L6+ level), but we may think you are "amazonian" enough to be extended an offer with re-level. What probably happened is the candidate was re-leveled, then was setup for success by being provided multiple opportunities to prove themselves, which took a few years. This also makes sense because a promo-doc requires consistent evidence of performing at the next level. Now, a senior manager should know all this so A) this is a bad faith lawsuit driven by entitlement or, B) she decided that this was a big enough problem to burn a few bridges. I'm interested to see what data the lawsuit dredges up.
- bradhe 6y ago
  I'm wondering how clear it was to her about the re-level when she accepted the offer. I'm sure it must have been pretty clear? I agree with what you're supposing in terms of how it likely went down. I don't think that would really qualify as "doing the work of another level" or whatever they originally said. Great insight, too, on the subsequent headline if Amazon just starts recruiting black candidates willy-nilly.
  - throwaay 6y ago
    When you accept the offer, the recruiter should have messaged it similar to what I said (ie: you have been re-leveled at l6). Also, comp ranges are very different + you can easily see what level you are. Failing that, after accepting the offer and doing some interviews + performance management as an L7, the situation would have been clear.
- philwelch 6y ago
  > From my anecdotal experience, I just don't see too many black or latino people in tech companies so I would assume this is partly a pipeline issue which we can address at the correct spot in the funnel rather than bringing in token black l8s. The thing is, this wasn’t a tech role. It was in “public policy” which I take to mean lobbying, and her previous experience was as a staffer to a US Senator. So her career is in politics rather than tech. The other thing is that suing a broadly unpopular company for discrimination isn’t really going to be a career limiting move. Most companies settle most lawsuits, so you get to put on your resume that you successfully and publicly sued a big unpopular company for discrimination. But maybe I’m just being cynical about people who go into professional politics.
shostack 6y ago
Drawing conclusions on org size based on number of job postings at big companies doesn't always tell you much. Many postings for the same role are common either because they may be testing different descriptions to see what gets quality candidates, have a general pipeline they try to keep filled, or both.
ksec 6y ago
> From the start, she alleges, she was "de-leveled"—hired at a position below the one for which she applied and for which she was qualified—and undercompensated as a result. Underpaying Black employees through de-leveling is routine at Amazon, the suit (PDF) alleges. Unpopular opinion. Underpaying, de-leveling, and under compensated is pretty much the norm in all organisations and across all industries. I would actually argue that is the problem because of ALL HR and Recruiters. ( Sorry I have never met any good one ) So without lots of evidence it may not be specific to gender or race. But sexual harassment and assaulting are very serious.

0xy 6y ago

>From the start, she alleges, she was "de-leveled" Oh, so she was treated like literally everyone applying there? This is not uncommon. >During the 2017-2019 time frame, no Black employees were hired at or promoted to the director level ("L8") within Amazon's public policy division, the suit alleges This statement is meaningless without knowing how many black employees were eligible or applied. >While working for Amazon, Newman alleges that she faced multiple instances of colleagues overtly engaging in racial stereotypes to discuss her or her work, describing her as "just scary," "too direct," or looking "like a gorilla." Only one of those is a racial stereotype, and a single incident does not imply systemic racism. This looks exaggerated at best to me. Everyone experiences downleveling regardless of race.

tharkun__ 6y ago
This is really the crux I find in these situations. A pure statistic doesn't tell the whole story. But for pointing it out you usually get labelled a racist. If there are less people of color applying or objectively eligible for a job the statistics will "paint a damning picture". But maybe the picture isn't damning at all and if the same people had been white they also wouldn't have been chosen. The smaller the numbers involved the less we can just assume that because of the sample size something like this has 'worked itself out'. It's like looking at my coding statistics for the last week. That says nothing as there's so much variability week to week depending on circumstances. But looking at a full year any outliers should have been reduced enough to be able to make decisions based on the numbers. That said looking at the sibling post as well, there seem to be quite a few positions open in that department. So now one could probably start deducing. EDIT: and there comes the down voting for 'being a racist' for pointing out that statistics are statistics and that it looks like statistics might actual favor the article protagonists odds. Awesome!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
amccloud 6y ago
> Only one of those is a racial stereotype Which one?

thecleaner 6y ago

"Senior AWS Manager" should be the title not "AWS Director". This feels like someone running the whole AWS is suing Amazon.

throwaay 6y ago
+1 Senior mgr is 1 level down from director and generally has a lot less scope.

dolni 6y ago

I hope Amazon gets slammed by this lawsuit. They're incubating the woke nonsense that got them into this mess anyway. Funny how all of the most liberal companies are those which are sued for some kind of racism.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

delhanty 6y ago

Aren't these sort of articles from tech media whataboutism to distract from their own lack of diversity? This article gives some perspective: https://oonwoye.com/2020/07/31/tech-journalism-is-less-diverse-than-tech/ https://oonwoye.com/2020/07/31/tech-journalism-is-less-diver... Amazon is actually the most diverse company that Oo Nwoye surveyed.

IronWolve 6y ago

I have no idea whats going with amazon, had an interview for DNS expert, (I ran the backbone DNS for the largest telecom in the world), said I wasnt experience enough. Tried to get a senior linux administration role, said I didnt know linux. After I passed their linux tests, and started multiple ISP's running linux, and been a linux/solaris admin for 20+ years. Their interview process is crazy.

broknbottle 6y ago
How are your LPs?