The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- John Furner
Black staff at Google make $20,000 less on average compared to their white coworkers and women are paid less than men in almost every department, according to leaked data reviewed by news site Insider.
The spreadsheets lay bare the salaries and bonuses of over 12,000 Google employees in white-collar roles across the search engine giant’s US offices nationwide.
Beyond numerous eye-popping six-figure and seven-figure sums, the tech company does not appear to be upholding the ‘equity’ portion of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy — with clear trends in unequal pay by race and gender.
The revelations come despite recurring news in recent years of Google managers attempting to ban ‘offensive’ terms like ‘man hours’ and ‘chubby,’ or company plans to flag politically incorrect terms for users within search bars and Google docs.
For Google’s offices in the Big Apple, the average ‘minimum base salary’ came to a reported $48,000, barely enough to make rent within the city in 2023. And, at Google’s offices around the San Francisco Bay Area, the average ‘minimum base salary’ was just $39,962
The leaked salary data shows that Google employees of Black or African descent made over $20,000 less, on average, than their White or Asian counterparts. Above, Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a press event in Berlin for Germany’s national women’s team
But, in keeping with these gestures toward ‘wokeness,’ the leaked salaries did show some outliers within Google, where pay-rates defied corporate stereotypes: women on Google’s sales team, for example, do earn more than men on average.
Google’s average ‘minimum base salary’ is lowest in two of the most expensive areas to live in the US: New York City and Silicon Valley.
For Google’s offices in the Big Apple, the average ‘minimum base salary’ came to a reported $48,000, barely enough to make rent within the city in 2023.
And, at Google’s many offices around California’s San Francisco Bay Area, which has the third highest cost of living of any city in America, the average ‘minimum base salary’ was just $39,962.
The statistic was culled from Google’s eight office locations across Silicon Valley and its surrounding suburbs, including: Mountain View, Sunnyvale, San Francisco, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Redwood City, Palo Alto, San Jose
The data was compiled and shared internally by Googlers themselves, US employees who voluntarily submitted their 2022 salary, equity and bonus data.
Their spreadsheet was leaked to Insider, where data journalists crunched the numbers.
The pay data includes employees from many roles within the tech giant, including software engineers, business analysts, and salespeople.
It also included data tagged by race, showing that Google employees of Black or African descent made over $20,000 less, on average, than their White or Asian counterparts.
Indigenous and Hispanic/Latino employees also suffered from a pay disparity.
The issue may come down to company culture, as in the US as of 2023 the majority of Google’s American staff is either Asian (44.8 percent) or White (46.2 percent) based on the company’s own reporting.
| Race | Base salary | Equity | Bonus percentage | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asian | $170,000 | $88,000 | 43% | $31,000 |
| Black/African descent | $147,000 | $50,500 | 40% | $25,000 |
| Hispanic/Latino/Latinx | $152,000 | $70,000 | 43% | $28,000 |
| Indigenous | $158,500 | $92,000 | N/A | $27,750 |
| Middle Eastern/North African | $171,000 | $90,938 | 42% | $29,700 |
| White/European descent(including mixed race) | $170,750 | $92,000 | 43% | $31,000 |
| White/European descent only | $171,000 | $93,000 | 43% | $31,140 |
| Two or more races | $159,000 | $78,535 | 41% | $29,478 |
The leaked spreadsheet also included data on the how employee compensation was divided by gender, with the oft-stated disparity between male and female employees proving true to stereotypes — except in sales.
Female employees in ‘enterprise direct sales’ and female sales strategists both appear to be making more than their male coworkers, with the direct sales team earning tens of thousands of dollars more in base salary alone.
Company-wide and among software engineers, nonbinary employees appeared to be earning less in base salary than either men or woman on staff.
| Gender | Base salary | Equity | Bonuspercentage | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Female | $165,000 | $77,000 | 40% | $29,500 |
| Male | $172,500 | $95,000 | 43% | $31,500 |
| Nonbinary(neither male nor female) | $154,070 | $74,000 | 45% | $27,750 |
| Female software engineer | $168,000 | $90,000 | N/A | $30,500 |
| Male software engineer | $175,000 | $103,000 | N/A | $32,000 |
| Nonbinary (neither male nor female) software engineer | $153,570 | $75,000 | N/A | $27,500 |
| Female engineering manager | $245,000 | $199,500 | N/A | $61,000 |
| Male engineering manager | $246,000 | $210,000 | N/A | $59,000 |
| Female enterprise direct sales | $145,000 | $41,250 | 150% | N/A |
| Male enterprise direct sales | $127,500 | $40,450 | 150% | N/A |
| Female legal corp. counsel | $267,000 | $136,875 | N/A | $59,500 |
| Male legal corp. counsel | $272,500 | $163,000 | N/A | $75,000 |
| Female sales strategy | $186,000 | $76,000 | N/A | $34,000 |
| Male sales strategy | $183,500 | $71,000 | N/A | $32,000 |
Company-wide and among software engineers, nonbinary employees (neither male nor female) appeared to be earning less in base salary than either men or woman on staff
When reached for comment on the leaked spreadsheet, Google spokesperson Tamani Jayasinghe replied, ‘We compensate Googlers based on what they do, not who they are.’
‘We run a rigorous pay equity analysis every year to make sure salaries, bonuses and equity awards are fair,’ Jayasinghe added. ‘This spreadsheet has old, self-reported data that has not been verified and is not an accurate representation of compensation across our workforce.’
While the accuracy of the leaked spreadsheet and the overall fair treatment of all these sub-groups among Google’s employees might be debatable, one thing that is certain is that Google employees are some of the highest paid in tech.
Including bonuses, and stock option equity stakes in the company, the median total compensation for the average Googler in 2022 was $279,802.
As noted in past reporting on the leaked dataset, the spreadsheet did not comprise a complete roster of Google talent, because it only goes up to level seven out of 11, meaning some earn far more than reported here.
But the highest-paid person in the data set worked in human resources, managing all the rest.
In 2022, Google’s chief people officer, Fiona Cicconi, was reportedly paid a base salary of $1 million, according to Insider, which reports that other C-suite executives at the company enjoyed similar pay bump at the start of that year.
