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Comment by az226 | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone at Google want to chime in how easy it is to get from L8 to L10 in two years? And is it reasonable to file a lawsuit over not having been promoted from L8 to L10 in two years and claiming gender based discrimination because you didn't get those promotions?

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Her argument wasn't that you should be able to go from level 8 to 10 in two years.

Her argument was that she should have come in at level 9.

The Bloomberg article clarified it like this:

"She came into the job with 23 years of experience in the financial services and technology field but was hired as a level eight employee while other men who were hired at the same time as her, and allegedly had less experience, were hired at level nine. As a level eight employee, Rowe made about $750,000 a year while some of the level nine employees made over $1 million a year."

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/google-must-pay-fe...

No, she complained that she didn't get the VP job. That's L10. That she was passed up for promotion and that someone else didn't deserve it as much as she did.

I have no idea how things work at executive levels. At lower levels, being promoted from L(n) to L(n+1) in two years is an unusual and difficult achievement, typically it takes longer; and going from L(n) to L(n+2) in two years is something out of fantasy.

Googler here, I agree. L(n) to L(n+2) in two years is pure astronomical outlier. L(n) to L(n+1) is very difficult and can take many years. I've been stuck as a L5 workerbee for five years with no navigable path to L6. It's extremely tough and gets tougher the higher you get.

Not to dox the Google exec here (you can search her LinkedIn): But, to be fair, she seems to have an extraordinary career history. Went from presumably an entry level position at UBS to the executive class in just 12 years. Does that kind of disposition allow someone to bypass the "level gatekeeping" at Google? Maybe, maybe not. I wish I had whatever wizardry she's using.

The actual level can be irrelevant if the perf multiplier gets really high. For example the early Google X / Waymo engineers got tens of millions for driving a prius around freeways with zero end-user impact. Before that, Google Plus engineers got big payouts and a team offsite to Maui for shipping G+ (and then tearing it down).

The root of the issue is that Google’s comp is highly subjective, just as it is anywhere else.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/13/14599186/google-waymo-sel...

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