23 June 2021

I'll Take Deeply Racist Company Culture for $500, Alex

I'm referring, of course, to the Chocolate Factory, AKA Google, who has shuttered a diversity training program because the graduates were systematically underpaid, and too many of the quit.

This is racism presented as performative anti-racism:

Google has scrapped a scheme designed to train and hire engineers from diverse backgrounds – after people who made it through the program to become Googlers complained they were screwed over in pay.

The engineering residency program, known as Eng Res, has run since 2014. It’s aimed at those who don’t quite qualify as entry-level engineers; these folks are then trained up in various departments in the Chocolate Factory, and after a year they’re either hired as a proper developer or dropped.

The idea is to identify and top up the skills of people who show potential but have not had the same opportunities as others to learn and grow, or have faced unfair career-limiting hurdles, prior to applying for a role at Google. Newbie coders get a place at one of the world’s biggest names in tech, and Google gets a workers from a diverse range of backgrounds.

But after completing the program, alumni are given lower salaries, smaller bonus payments, and no stock units compared to their peers, a group of over 500 current and former Googlers have claimed.

Over time, this pay gap creates “systemic pay inequities,” according to presentation given to the web giant's top brass by Eng Res graduates, Reuters reports.

Now, Google has dropped Eng Res altogether. A spokesperson told The Register a new program will be put in place.

It appears that the salary/bonus/stock option deficit was on the order of tens of thousands of dollars, and followed them throughout their careers.

I gotta figure that this blatant racism is central to Google corporate culture.  They think that "Those People" should be grateful for having a place at Google, and that this justifies underpaying them.

Guck Foogle.

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