It's tough to see the arguments, I can't sympathize with her because doesn't seem to be offering arguments in good faith. To her credit, gender discrimination

It's tough to see the arguments, I can't sympathize with her because doesn't seem to be offering arguments in good faith. To her credit, gender discrimination is hard to prove and perhaps she felt she really had a strong case (based on the risk she took - this action may close some doors for her), but allowing these arguments to go through really erodes what facade of meritocracy we have left in the industry. The claims seem to be have gone as far as saying she should have been hired as VP. Her background was senior tech management at a bank, which no doubt is a significant appointment, but I don't think it's easy for anyone to argue that bank tech management easily transfers to big tech. Giving L8 and presumably a sizeable raise from her bank role means Google already valued her experience very highly. Much more highly than I would have tbh; if someone was top level management in an bank, effectively at least partially responsible for the poor culture of bank tech, and then hired as senior tech management at my company, us grunts would be running for our lives. As she didn't get consistently stellar performance reviews as L8 (which Google uses as argument), the only thing one can argue for is that the performance reviews were biased - which again to her credit tends to be hard to prove - but there's no reason to believe that say a third party looking at those reviews would have given her a promotion. I also can't fathom someone is arguing in good faith that at this level MS in CS should be a barrier. It should be clear to any Google L8 that MS in CS means absolute jack shit for anyone who manages to get to L6, if not L5. It should only be a factor in junior-ish hiring. For one, Google's technical work even at L6 level can literally shape curriculums at universities. It may just be a legal tactic but I don't want US courts to lend any credibility to this argument, and anyone who wants the court to sanctify this point is basically someone that damages my profession and I don't want near my jurisdiction.