13 ms·

Google drops engineering residency after protests over ‘inequities’

105 points by ricardou 5y ago

b20000 5y ago
“don’t be evil”
- b20000 5y ago
  downvoting won’t help you in 20-something years from now
MikeUt 5y ago
> 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/ https://diversity.google/annual-report/
- Imnimo 5y ago
  Google hires many people who are not from the US to come work in the US, so I don't think the 61.5% is reflective of their hiring pool.
  - MikeUt 5y ago
    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.
    - Imnimo 5y ago
      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.
      - MikeUt 5y ago
        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.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        Google serves the world as their customers. It seems to me that having a preponderance of US-based employees that's wildly out of proportion to their customer (or revenue) base is still heavily in favor of US workers.
        MikeUt 5y ago
        Many large companies serve the world (Xiaomi, Hikvision, Hitachi, Samsung, Mitsubishi..) while their employees in their home countries are overwhelmingly native. So if international customer bases are the norm, but only Google (or US companies) have significant international hiring, that effectively disfavors US workers.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Should the null hypothesis be that Google discriminates in favor of white, Asian, and male applicants? Or should it be that Google is not discriminating improperly? It seems strange to put people in a position where showing a datapoint that would otherwise tend to refute a hypothesis (which IMO should not be assumed to be true in the first place) is not enough to be considered as evidence against the hypothesis being true.
- akomtu 5y ago
  What's "white" even mean? Descendants of north Europeans? Surface albedo of skin greater than 0.85 in the visible spectrum?
  - artichokes 5y ago
    Descendants of Europeans. It's not ambiguous.
    - akomtu 5y ago
      What degree of purity is required to count as a European? Europeans can and do mix with non-europeans.
      - artichokes 5y ago
        The 99% of white Americans for whom all ancestors were from Europe, are European.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > The 99% of white Americans for whom all ancestors were from Europe, are European. “White Americans” average a little under 99% Eurooean ancestry, but far fewer than 99% have exclusively European ancestry.
        akomtu 5y ago
        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.
        5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- temporalparts 5y ago
  I think it's worth considering the following points: * The critics are talking about Software Engineering (~1/3rd of the company?), whereas the source you cited is about all of Google. I wouldn't be surprised if the White/Asian/Male splits are far worse when you only look at software engineers. * Google has many international offices (e.g. there's > 1000 employees in Google Japan).
  - throwaways885 5y ago
    > The critics are talking about Software Engineering (~1/3rd of the company?) It's closer to 2/3.
Manuel_D 5y ago
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 time role with no opportunity to get their foot in the door.
- tdeck 5y ago
  That was my impression as well. The eng residency program is intended as an entry point for those who aren't yet qualified for Google's entry level engineering positions. It's a kind of apprenticeship. I have heard (but can't confirm) that folks are sometimes invited to apply for residency after not passing an ordinary engineering interview. I also got the impression that there are strong incentives to always convert residents at the end of their residency. I have had limited experience with residents on the job so I can't really comment on their qualifications.
- maxcan 5y ago
  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 prestige assignments. Personally, I don't buy this because the alternative is not that these Eng Residents would have been given entry level roles at google with the commensurate pay and benefits but rather no role at google.
  - toast0 5y ago
    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.
anonygler 5y ago
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 began with this residency and they'd still be struggling without it. I don't even know how to describe this. You get less pay but an amazing opportunity, and then you look back and are upset that you weren't given more? Google took a large risk on these candidates with the assumption that they'd fail and eventually have to be let go. But they did it anyway just to create opportunities.
- Imnimo 5y ago
  >with the assumption that they'd fail and eventually have to be let go. This seems at odds with the article: >Nearly all residents converted to regular employees, according to the presentation
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- b20000 5y ago
  “ 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.
  - badlucklottery 5y ago
    >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".
    - 5y ago
ergocoder 5y ago
Google has the too much SJW problem. These are extreme leftists who exaggerate everything to the max. I remember in memegen. One person commented that, if you voted for republican, you would be killing me (because they were gay). There were a bunch of mentions like this that just sounded exaggerated that nobody could have a reasonable convo. It is also extremely contradictory. For example, we should get all killers in jail. In this case, it would be 49% of the country. If these republican voters kill gay, then why don't we put them in jail yet?
- judge2020 5y ago
  Using an anecdote from one person doesn't actually prove the point you made in the first line. If you can find repeated cases of over-reactions from Googlers over multiple months/years, then you might have evidence to support your argument.
  - patmorgan23 5y ago
    The James demore event is another data point here. His "misogynist manifesto" basically said that google should implement policies that make the workplace better for everyone not just women or whatever minority. I believe one suggestion was to be more flexible with work hours and work from home. This policy helps everyone but has the biggest impact on mother's.
    - JorkJork 5y ago
      The "James demore event" was a guy arguing that some of his coworkers were less-than-qualified because they were women. This is wrong and actual misogyny, and does not get a pass because he framed it as a debate.
      - concordDance 5y ago
        > The "James demore event" was a guy arguing that some of his coworkers were less-than-qualified because they were women. That does not match my recollection. Did you read his memo or just second hand reports of it?
pancaku 5y ago
I'm not commenting on whether these programs are a good idea or not. But I wanted to point out one thing about these programs I find funny is while the candidates races may be diverse their educational background is usually quite similar. A program at my work is very similar, and the majority of students went to the top ten CS schools.
- Siira 5y ago
  The education system’s admission criteria is heavily correlated with the hiring criteria, even without taking the prestige of their degrees into the account.

105 points by ricardou 5y ago

b20000 5y ago

“don’t be evil”

b20000 5y ago
downvoting won’t help you in 20-something years from now

MikeUt 5y ago

> 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/ https://diversity.google/annual-report/

Imnimo 5y ago
Google hires many people who are not from the US to come work in the US, so I don't think the 61.5% is reflective of their hiring pool.
- MikeUt 5y ago
  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.
  - Imnimo 5y ago
    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.
    - MikeUt 5y ago
      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.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Google serves the world as their customers. It seems to me that having a preponderance of US-based employees that's wildly out of proportion to their customer (or revenue) base is still heavily in favor of US workers.
        MikeUt 5y ago
        Many large companies serve the world (Xiaomi, Hikvision, Hitachi, Samsung, Mitsubishi..) while their employees in their home countries are overwhelmingly native. So if international customer bases are the norm, but only Google (or US companies) have significant international hiring, that effectively disfavors US workers.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Should the null hypothesis be that Google discriminates in favor of white, Asian, and male applicants? Or should it be that Google is not discriminating improperly? It seems strange to put people in a position where showing a datapoint that would otherwise tend to refute a hypothesis (which IMO should not be assumed to be true in the first place) is not enough to be considered as evidence against the hypothesis being true.
akomtu 5y ago
What's "white" even mean? Descendants of north Europeans? Surface albedo of skin greater than 0.85 in the visible spectrum?
- artichokes 5y ago
  Descendants of Europeans. It's not ambiguous.
  - akomtu 5y ago
    What degree of purity is required to count as a European? Europeans can and do mix with non-europeans.
    - artichokes 5y ago
      The 99% of white Americans for whom all ancestors were from Europe, are European.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > The 99% of white Americans for whom all ancestors were from Europe, are European. “White Americans” average a little under 99% Eurooean ancestry, but far fewer than 99% have exclusively European ancestry.
      - akomtu 5y ago
        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.
        5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
temporalparts 5y ago
I think it's worth considering the following points: * The critics are talking about Software Engineering (~1/3rd of the company?), whereas the source you cited is about all of Google. I wouldn't be surprised if the White/Asian/Male splits are far worse when you only look at software engineers. * Google has many international offices (e.g. there's > 1000 employees in Google Japan).
- throwaways885 5y ago
  > The critics are talking about Software Engineering (~1/3rd of the company?) It's closer to 2/3.

Manuel_D 5y ago

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 time role with no opportunity to get their foot in the door.

tdeck 5y ago
That was my impression as well. The eng residency program is intended as an entry point for those who aren't yet qualified for Google's entry level engineering positions. It's a kind of apprenticeship. I have heard (but can't confirm) that folks are sometimes invited to apply for residency after not passing an ordinary engineering interview. I also got the impression that there are strong incentives to always convert residents at the end of their residency. I have had limited experience with residents on the job so I can't really comment on their qualifications.
maxcan 5y ago
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 prestige assignments. Personally, I don't buy this because the alternative is not that these Eng Residents would have been given entry level roles at google with the commensurate pay and benefits but rather no role at google.
- toast0 5y ago
  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.

anonygler 5y ago

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 began with this residency and they'd still be struggling without it. I don't even know how to describe this. You get less pay but an amazing opportunity, and then you look back and are upset that you weren't given more? Google took a large risk on these candidates with the assumption that they'd fail and eventually have to be let go. But they did it anyway just to create opportunities.

Imnimo 5y ago
>with the assumption that they'd fail and eventually have to be let go. This seems at odds with the article: >Nearly all residents converted to regular employees, according to the presentation
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
b20000 5y ago
“ 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.
- badlucklottery 5y ago
  >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".
  - 5y ago

ergocoder 5y ago

Google has the too much SJW problem. These are extreme leftists who exaggerate everything to the max. I remember in memegen. One person commented that, if you voted for republican, you would be killing me (because they were gay). There were a bunch of mentions like this that just sounded exaggerated that nobody could have a reasonable convo. It is also extremely contradictory. For example, we should get all killers in jail. In this case, it would be 49% of the country. If these republican voters kill gay, then why don't we put them in jail yet?

judge2020 5y ago
Using an anecdote from one person doesn't actually prove the point you made in the first line. If you can find repeated cases of over-reactions from Googlers over multiple months/years, then you might have evidence to support your argument.
- patmorgan23 5y ago
  The James demore event is another data point here. His "misogynist manifesto" basically said that google should implement policies that make the workplace better for everyone not just women or whatever minority. I believe one suggestion was to be more flexible with work hours and work from home. This policy helps everyone but has the biggest impact on mother's.
  - JorkJork 5y ago
    The "James demore event" was a guy arguing that some of his coworkers were less-than-qualified because they were women. This is wrong and actual misogyny, and does not get a pass because he framed it as a debate.
    - concordDance 5y ago
      > The "James demore event" was a guy arguing that some of his coworkers were less-than-qualified because they were women. That does not match my recollection. Did you read his memo or just second hand reports of it?

pancaku 5y ago

I'm not commenting on whether these programs are a good idea or not. But I wanted to point out one thing about these programs I find funny is while the candidates races may be diverse their educational background is usually quite similar. A program at my work is very similar, and the majority of students went to the top ten CS schools.

Siira 5y ago
The education system’s admission criteria is heavily correlated with the hiring criteria, even without taking the prestige of their degrees into the account.