
The Secret Shame of an Unacquired Tech Worker - Libertatea
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/secret-shame-of-an-unacquired-techie.html
======
dnlbyl
The article really tries to make this about her gender when on the face of it
it's about her role. "she had been paid a salary of $60,000, half what her
male colleagues made" doesn't sound as bad when stated as "the designer had
been paid a salary of $60,000, half what her engineering colleagues made".

I'm sure I'd feel pretty bad too if I was in her place. I hope she can get
through it and learn and grow from the experience.

~~~
mrxd
The average salary for a UX designer in Mountain View is 7% less than an
engineer.

[http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=User+experience+designer&l1=...](http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=User+experience+designer&l1=Mountain+view%2C+ca&q2=Software+engineer&l2=Mountain+view%2C+ca&tm=1)

~~~
johnny99
Depends tremendously on experience level, whether or not the designer can
implement in code (ie, works in HTML/CSS rather than Photoshop), and other
important factors.

Having recently hired both designers and engineers, I can say with confidence
that the pay differential is a hell of a lot more than 7%. Double is
absolutely plausible.

------
steven2012
"Talking through her tears on Monday night, Amy said she didn't know if she'd
be able to recover from what she considered the worst setback of her
professional life. After what happened at Google, she wasn't even sure she
could bring herself to interview for another job."

One of my friends lost his job during the dot-com bust. He was married only a
few weeks earlier. He was on an H1B and about to get kicked out of the
country. He couldn't find a job anywhere because of the bust. He paid money to
a body shop to keep his H1B "active", and then he got whatever jobs he could
for 2 years, moving around CA taking the shittiest jobs just so that he had
money for his family. He went from a software engineer to pumping gas during
the midnight shift in Redwood City and getting paid under the table, just so
that he would have money. Finally after two years, he got a break and got a
job at a big tech company, moved to Austin, and is thriving in his job, made
senior manager, and has 3 kids. He suffered great indignities just to survive
and to make money and his perseverance paid off, thankfully.

To hear this person say they don't know if they can never interview again
because they weren't good enough to join Google, and they would look bad in
front of their rich friends, frankly it _sickens_ me. No wonder the hate of
Silicon Valley is increasing in these past few years, it's producing people
like this that can't take the fact that their feelings were hurt.

~~~
ebiester
What we say in the emotional raw state is not what is going to determine our
future. Otherwise, I would have given up more times than I can count. :)

And it's not just her feelings that were hurt -- it could have short term
negative consequences on her job prospects. "If Google didn't want her, what's
wrong with her?"

~~~
nissimk
> And it's not just her feelings that were hurt -- it could have short term
> negative consequences on her job prospects. "If Google didn't want her,
> what's wrong with her?"

If she doesn't know how to spin that, she should get someone to help her out
because it's really just a matter of perception. I'm no communications expert
but I'd start with "Google wanted engineers," "Google was looking for a
different skillset," etc. This is the type of thing that a good recruiter can
actually really help with.

------
endtime
The following is personal opinion/experience and I do not represent Google,
etc.

My experience at Google is that we love hiring women both for SWE roles and PM
roles. All three tech leads I've had over 2.5 years have been women, and I've
worked with about as many female PMs as male ones. However, we generally hire
PMs with a solid technical background (often a CS major or minor), which the
author doesn't mention and so I assume does not have. I would be flabbergasted
if she wasn't hired because she's a woman.

------
ef4
I've grown keenly aware of the gender disparities in tech and it's an issue I
care about fixing.

Which is why I want the "tech undervalues non-coders" meme to stop getting
dragged into these gender discrimination discussions. It muddies the waters
and only serves to discredit the person bringing it up in the eyes of
technology people who still need to be convinced that we have a gender
discrimination problem.

A similar example I saw recently at ([http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sex-
and-the-startup-men-w...](http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sex-and-the-
startup-men-women-and-work)) put it clearly:

"The roots of the vast gap in power and value between men and women in Silicon
Valley begin very early in the life-cycle of a startup, often before the
startup officially has employees or executives. For example, in a company like
Facebook... women from the beginning of the company did work that had not yet
been conceived or compensated as work. Women who casually dated the founders
before the company had employees found themselves doing everything from
recruiting engineers from their social networks, mediating founder
relationships and disputes, providing product feedback, designing social
events, and performing emotional and affective labor."

"When startups begin hiring employees, the fact that nontechnical work may
have been originally done for free by friends often leads founders to continue
to devalue that labor, considering it optional or “fun,” perhaps a matter of
social obligation, rather than serious and valuable. Engineers become highly
prized commodities to hunt and value highly, while labor that isn’t technical
is often expected to be freely performed by people who may have other jobs at
the company (such as administrators) or who may not have any job at the
company at all (such as girlfriends and dates). And because this labor often
goes underpaid or not paid at all, it also doesn’t signify when equity is
divided up."

The author of that needs to ask: _why_ can you find people to do the non-
coding work for free or cheap, but you can't find people to do the coding for
free or cheap? It has everything to do with the supply and demand of skills.
Developers are still more scarce than all those other roles. Full stop.

We absolutely need more powerful women in tech -- by letting more women become
great coders. Not by pretending coding ability doesn't matter.

~~~
phillmv
You're missing out entirely on the point of the article.

The notion is that "women's work" is devalued, and there are all these social
reasons women find themselves being underpaid or not paid at all for above and
beyond "supply and demand".

It's ultimately shitty that everyone in the company _but_ the designer got to
fail upwards and land in cushy jobs while she got $10k and a pat on the head.
Did she not put in long hours? Did she not sacrifice her personal life, etc,
in a way commensurate with the developers?

You need one designer for every 3 or 4 programmers, but that doesn't mean you
still don't need good designers or that their individual contribution is
automatically less valuable.

~~~
natrius
_" The notion is that "women's work" is devalued, and there are all these
social reasons women find themselves being underpaid or not paid at all for
above and beyond "supply and demand"."_

It's an interesting hypothesis, but I haven't seen any data to back it up. The
common sense explanation seems like it fits. Work that can be done by lots of
people gets lower (or zero) wages. If the problem were _women_ getting
underpaid, we'd see the same problem among female developers. Do we?

Designers are worth less in an acquihire. As a result, designers should demand
wages that are closer to the market rate than developers do when they work for
startups.

~~~
phillmv
Data is tricky in these situations.

I doubt anyone collects statistics on acquihires let alone "girlfriends or
wives who help out in startups but don't get paid for it", or "HR people who
got shafted with useless stock options".

(Female developers being somewhat underpaid is a common enough trope, though)

So, we're left with anecdotes. "Unpaid female work" is an common theme. You've
got the MVC article linked above or say this one here
[http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/ceo-archetypes-7-joan-
of-...](http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/ceo-archetypes-7-joan-of-arc) and
I'm reminded of Scott Weiss' post on the disruption his personal life suffered
due to this startup ( [http://scott.a16z.com/2014/01/17/success-at-work-
failure-at-...](http://scott.a16z.com/2014/01/17/success-at-work-failure-at-
home/) ) and tucked away in there is a bit where his Harvard MBA wife had to
stay at home to look after the kids.

~~~
chaostheory
There are plenty of designers who can't code, who are both male and female.
Really way too many. Consequently, unless you're beyond extraordinary, demand
is low as are the salaries. However, if you're a designer who can code i.e. a
front end engineer, you can get a king's ransom regardless of gender.

I've known plenty of designers who aspire to code "one day" but they never do
for whatever reason.

I don't doubt that there is gender discrimination and ageism in the industry.
However I don't feel that this is a case of one.

------
kenjackson
It sounds like she sort of got a raw deal, IMHO. Although I blame Google less,
and more her company. For a company this small I don't think I'd let Google
acquire us w/o hiring everyone. Or at least really compensating the one they
didn't hire.

Maybe there is more to this story, but at face value, I think this is a
failure of leadership to protect the team.

~~~
michaelochurch
_For a company this small I don 't think I'd let Google acquire us w/o hiring
everyone._

I doubt you'd get that. As of 2011, Google's pretty firm on regular employees
of acquisitions being contractors first, and sub-80 conversion rates happen.

 _Or at least really compensating the one they didn 't hire._

I agree. They should have done that.

I think the founders took a deal that was good for them and failed to make
sure it worked for everyone. She got a crappy severance; they got jobs at
twice what they'd get under normal terms. Not that it excuses their betraying
her, I think they were probably a bit panicked about their own job security.

 _Maybe there is more to this story, but at face value, I think this is a
failure of leadership to protect the team._

They saved themselves. You could say that they weren't leaders, then. It's
unclear what their other options were.

~~~
nissimk
It's typical bad business. At such a small firm especially when the employees
are underpaid with the expectation of some large payoff in the future, the
management should ensure that there is a positive outcome for all of their
employees. Unfortunately, this frequently does not happen. This scenario is
similar to when companies sell out for a per share value below the employee
stock option strike price and the senior people all have stock so they get
paid while all of the option holders get nothing. Or the startup that fired a
lot of their employees with unvested options just prior to the ipo
announcement.

These things happen and they are upsetting. There are many bad operators who
wouldn't think twice about screwing over the people who helped them get where
they are. On the other hand, there are folks who will try to do their best to
make sure everyone comes out ok and these are the people who you should try to
seek out.

------
mblack68
>It was seeming proof that even within the happy-go-lucky world of tech start-
ups, there are winners and losers, and more often than not, the losers in
situations like these are the designers, who are more likely to be female than
their engineer counterparts, and whose "soft" skills are seen as less valuable
than coding chops.

If a field is dominated by women, the pay tends to be less. Anecdotal, no
proof. But this rule of thumb has worked for me. I am often asked to do UI and
design stuff. I could be good at it, but I refuse to do it because it shunts
me into a lower paid position. I stick to programming and don't allow my male
counterparts to make the assumption that I will do their prettifying.

Design work is necessary, and I enjoy my attempts at it on personal projects.
If it were my dream job, maybe I would feel differently? I don't know. I just
know that as someone who is viewed as "creative", my personal experience is
that the stereotype is stunting.

~~~
badman_ting
Agreed, and that is shrewd thinking, though I'm not sure if it is related to
gender. It may be part of it, but I think also design is a more attractive job
than coding which is gross and technical, so there are more people who want to
do it -> more labor supply -> lower pay.

Same thing with games, tons of people grow up playing them and want to make
them -> more supply of workers -> get paid & treated like crap.

~~~
theorique
It is definitely a supply demand thing. Lots of people go to art/design
school, and jobs are scarcer.

Also, look at your average consumer/business startup - by the time you get to
10-20 coders, you might have one full-time designer. Maybe. Or a freelancer
whom you bring in for a project when you need them.

------
LaurensBER
It's a bit hard to make sense of this story. Google might not think that her
UX/Design talent is a good fit for them (the Design and engineering teams at
Google are "separate" from what I've seen). That doesn't say anything about
her.

I also don't really think that the part about her rich boyfriend is relevant
and it feels a bit weird that the article mentions it. She also sounds very,
very negative towards the end of the article. Some of my friends in other
sectors have applied to 100 jobs, received one offer and got fired after 6
months because of budget cuts. They still get up every day and try again.

If I was her I would ask why they didn't hire me (feedback is always useful),
take the 10k. Travel for a month and get ready to try again. I get that it
hurts but working for a startup company the possibility of failure is always
around the corner and "selling" to Google and getting some money doesn't sound
like the worst way to fail.

~~~
vellum
The article mentioned her boyfriend because:

 _her financial cushion had made it easier for her colleagues to leave her
behind.

"Their attitude was, We can leave you with nothing because you’re a girl and
you have a rich boyfriend," she said._

------
gozmike
Faced with a similar prospect in my small company, the founders agreed (in
writing) to set aside a portion of their proceeds (including a portion of
gross salary) to ensure that payments were made to anyone on the team who was
not hired.

In my opinion, even if your teammate doesn't "need the money", it's important
that you express how valuable they have been to you (for even just believing
in your journey and sticking through it).

~~~
001sky
A nice gesture like this done before the fact helps mitigate perception
problems. The problem is "damaged goods" repulation, its not the "rejection".
New hiring managers will silently discriminate against her (surely). By giving
your employees something to point to, you are being more responsible in how
you do the buyout transaction. I actually don't agree with the view that this
is some type of mis=placed "entitlement", because the problem is a real
problem regardless of who it impacts. Although she also shouldn't over-worry
if she's falling into a hot market with a strong support network.

------
sunir
I'm really dismayed by this story, because it reminds me of too many
conversations with young professionals who are stuck in their career because
they are not professionally developing out of some inner rage. Quoting:

> "Amy admits she'll "never know" if she wasn't hired by Google because she's
> female, because she's not an engineer, or whether there was something else
> wrong with her application."

If you go through life believing that any prejudice (sexism, in this case) is
dominating your career growth, you will always look for it in the tea leaves,
project it onto any situation, and in return invite it. In truth, the person
who is prejudiced is you.

You have to live your life assuming good faith unless you have direct evidence
of bad faith. You're crippling yourself to assume an ethereal, non-specific,
constant prejudice against you because you are putting the locus of control
outside yourself.

[http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith](http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control)

In fact, in Amy's words:

> "I feel like I have no power, that this happened to me, and it’s my fault,"
> she said. "I feel so betrayed. And, at this point, I don't really feel like
> I have it in me to fail again."

It's critical as a professional to believe that the situation is something
specific, direct, and within you sphere of influence, so you can look to ways
to improve.

In this situation, if you start with the assumption no one was being sexist,
it's not that difficult to identify the most probable reason she was not hired
and her salary was lower. Google acquihired the engineering team; she was a
designer. Therefore, she was not hired.

If you see that as a cause, then it becomes easier to think of ways to
improve, such as gaining software development skills or taking on a larger and
larger product design roles to make yourself more valuable as an employee. Or
just looking for another job.

Of course, they could have been sexist towards her, but the article doesn't
provide direct evidence, only Amy's perception of their attitude, which I
fully trust she believes is fact even though I also believe she is just
projecting.

> "'Their attitude was, We can leave you with nothing because you’re a girl
> and you have a rich boyfriend,' she said."

The lesson in an nutshell is to never assume prejudice. Only draw that
conclusion from direct evidence.

~~~
kenjackson
_If you go through life believing that any prejudice (sexism, in this case) is
dominating your career growth, you will always look for it in the tea leaves,
project it onto any situation, and in return invite it. In truth, the person
who is prejudiced is you._

For better or worse, disadvantaged minorities always have to consider this.
It's probably one of the biggest privileges that white males have in day to
day life -- they rarely need to consider if race/gender played a role in any
decision they encounter.

There was an interesting experimental study that showed that a white male just
released from prison was as likely to get a job callback as a black male with
no criminal record [1].

There are typically multiple factors at play for any employment decision, but
race and gender loom very large -- large enough that ignoring it is just
ignorance.

And note, that the domain matters. Jeremy Lin faced discrimination as a
basketball player being Asian. But for most domains, being a white male is
preferred.

[1] Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment, Am Sociol
Rev. Oct 1, 2009; 74(5): 777–799,
[http://www.princeton.edu/~pager/ASR_pager_etal09.pdf](http://www.princeton.edu/~pager/ASR_pager_etal09.pdf)

~~~
sunir
First, not everyone here is a white male.

Second, statistics that measure the state are not direct evidence. Individual
cases may or may not fit. There may be statistics that measure a company that
demonstrate a bias, but unless you have direct evidence of that, it's better
to not burden your mind with that negativity.

Third, you aren't a statistic. You have to keep developing and getting better.
Don't internalize the statistical oppression. Internalization is the worst
form of oppression.

~~~
tedks
It is incredibly, blindingly privileged to say that internalized oppression is
the worst form of oppression. Being oppressed is the worst form of oppression.

And, for people who aren't white men, oppression is a lived reality, not an
abstract concept that you can attempt to rationalize away. It is both rational
and justified to think that prejudice is a predominant factor in virtually
everything, because it is.

Finally, oppression isn't "statistical." The people who cause those statistics
have names, faces, and addresses. As do the people who act as their
apologists. The personal is the political, but the political is also personal.

~~~
ivanca
If this is true why so many homeless are white men? If this is true why being
a soldier, the worst job in the world (because amputations and PTSD are no
fun) is done by so many white men? Where is the "privilege" you talk about
there?

And there is no intrinsic racism against others by white men, where I'm from
(Colombia) everyone is brown-ish but there is still a lot of racism against
black people, just for being the majority not for being white.

~~~
seestheday
What are you talking about. Being a white male is easy mode.

I'm a white male. This shit is awesome. I won the genetic lottery.

Does anyone ever assume that I can't speak English - No

Does anyone ever assume that I might have body odor - No

Does anyone ever assume that I am not technical/intelligent before speaking to
me - No

Am I ever physically/sexually harassed - No

If I move to any high tech friendly city anywhere in North America will I be
in a minority and possibly have difficulty finding friends who understand my
culture - No

Do I ever worry about little things like having to search for somewhere
special to get my haircut - No (I've heard this is a problem for Black and
possibly Asian people, I honestly have no idea)

Every door is open, no doors are closed.

It should be the same way for everybody, but right now it isn't and that is
really unfortunate. Is it really too hard to recognize that others have it
harder?

[edit - formatting]

~~~
ivanca
You should try to start from scratch somewhere else in the US without using
your tech/management knowledge, your current money and current friends. I bet
you would change your views about the relevance of your skin color.

Is not hard to also see it in statistics: Men are 68% vs Women; and between
races White (non-hispanic) is the largest one:
[http://homeless.samhsa.gov/ResourceFiles/hrc_factsheet.pdf](http://homeless.samhsa.gov/ResourceFiles/hrc_factsheet.pdf)

------
neilk
It may not have been any better for her if she joined. A friend of mine was an
evangelist of a startup, acquired by Google for their technology. She was
humiliated by having to essentially re-apply for her job and be ejected a few
months later. (Incidentally, this woman is an accomplished programmer and
project leader, but not quite the C++ rock star that Google looks for).

As for the OP's case - we only have only her side of the story. If the team
jettisons one of their own when acquired, it may be that they are
contemptible, or that she is and they were happy to get rid of her. Or,
possibly both.

------
zengr
I don't think this has to do anything with Amy being a woman. I personally
know about 2 cases where a silicon valley big corp company interviewed
employees before an acquisition and let go some of them. Maybe because they
are not that important for the job.

------
frodopwns
I can't say I am surprised. Google probably needs about 1 designer for every
50 engineers. They could have given her a year though.

------
protomyth
The actual link has a lot more comments than the published story
[https://www.secret.ly/p/feexnrnpunzjadkhinaegigziy](https://www.secret.ly/p/feexnrnpunzjadkhinaegigziy)

I would love to hear the other side, but I cannot help but think leaving one
of your team to fend for themselves is not exactly the act of a standup
person.

------
smartician
Do acqui-hires go through the same rigorous hiring process as regular hires at
Google? I wonder how many engineers that are hired as part of an acquisition
would actually pass the infamously hard interviewing process at Google.

~~~
michaelochurch
As of 2011: regular employees convert to contractors (red badges) and have 12
months to prove themselves. Obviously, executives get a sweetheart deal they
arguably don't deserve.

~~~
rdl
What are the financial terms? i.e. would people who don't convert lose
everything due a a 1 year cliff?

~~~
michaelochurch
That I don't know. I'd hope not.

~~~
rdl
I do know I'd be "orange" or more when negotiating with Google in general,
based on this kind of thing. It really is down to the CEO to make sure the
whole team gets a fair deal in an exit (not necessarily the _same_ deal, but
something as far as possible for each of them).

Where it will really hurt Google is not so much acquihires (where you're
doomed otherwise, especially without other options), but when there's any
competition. Taking 75% as much money overall but having a great work outcome
for everyone for the next 2-6 years is probably worth it, especially if you
ever plan to do a startup again.

Which is sad, because Google sounds like an amazing place to work (your
concerns for early-career people might be valid, but for senior people, people
in infosec, or people at Google Labs, it sounds awesome).

------
jqm
It sucks and I feel for Amy. Then again, she did make 60K a year for period.
As a designer. And 10K isn't much but it's enough to buy a few nice things.

Really, I guess I don't feel that sorry. People work their hearts out all over
the world for little more than subsistence. Work and business is brutal and
full of millions of sad stories.

The level of self entitlement displayed by the "startup culture" is astounding
at times.

------
mynewwork
What a ridiculously terrible article.

The company "decided to sell itself to Google as a last resort, after failing
to find traction in the market". But the engineers got hired, so probably the
product was good but the failure was in marketing, branding, etc. Who was in
charge of that? "I did our user experience, our logo, the marketing – all that
stuff," she said.

So the article could have been written "Strong technical team makes valuable
product, but bad marketing and UI prevents success" and no one would be
surprised that the engineers got hired and the marketing & design people
didn't.

But that wouldn't fit with the sexism in tech narrative the author wanted, so
let's ignore the most significant and obvious facts.

~~~
wpietri
Your notion that good programmers = good product is absurd. As is your rush to
blame somebody for failing to find traction.

If a startup fails to find traction, there's no clear reason to blame anybody.
Most startups do that.

~~~
mynewwork
I edited my comment several times and I think the message I was originally
trying to convey got less clear as a result.

I don't for a moment believe the startup actually failed due solely to the
designer. And yet, it's more likely that the designer just wasn't google-
quality than libelling google by claiming it was sexism that caused them to
hire a few engineers but not the designer from a failed startup.

~~~
wpietri
Show me where she libeled Google and claimed it was sexism?

------
onmydesk
> "'Their attitude was, We can leave you with nothing because you’re a girl
> and you have a rich boyfriend,' she said

She wasn't an engineer. Perhaps they wanted engineers. Whats wrong with
pointing out she happens to be cared for financially so won't have that to
worry about? Its not the reason, its a fortunate circumstance.

Playing the sexism card is in rather poor taste. Did she complain when they
took her on board because she suspected there was positive discrimination at
play?

Doing 'the logo' and 'all that stuff' is suitably vague. Is she not fortunate
to have got away with coining 60k for a lowly role in the first place?

~~~
nissimk
I didn't get that. It looked to me like she took 60k at the startup instead of
a higher number at a more established company with the expectation that she'd
get paid out the difference at the exit. Isn't that the risk/reward
expectation of startup employment?

And what's wrong with pointing out her external financial situation is that it
is not relevant to the decisions of the business. Is it less wrong to screw
over a girl with a rich boyfriend than it is to screw over anybody else?

------
evan_
The first time I heard about "Secret" I thought it sounded awful, and assumed
it would be full of spiteful gossip and behind-the-back-talking, and decided
I'd never use it and would ignore anything I learned that was sourced from it.

Anyway recently a friend showed it to me on their phone and it turns out it's
actually full of banal not-interesting-enough-for-twitter observations,
obviously made-up half-jokes, and trite glurge nonsense that sounds like it
was stolen from my grandmother's email forwards. In a way, this reality is
even worse.

------
elchief
I'm getting tired of these stories.

If you want to make more money, try to train in and work in a field that makes
more money.

~~~
thanatropism
Relevant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0)

Coffee's for closers.

~~~
ForHackernews
You realize that he's not a positive role model, right?

~~~
thanatropism
He's not a role model at all. He's not in the original text, and does not
appear again in the movie.

It's a talking reality check.

------
thanatropism
> Amy admits she'll "never know" if she wasn't hired by Google because she's
> female, because she's not an engineer, or whether there was something else
> wrong with her application

Because she's not an engineer. The company folded, the underlying tech may
have some value. The branded design? Her years of toil? Did the company have a
cleaning person for the office as well?

Someone post this to /r/TumblrInAction already.

