Ex Twitter engineer seeks to show women climb only so high

Tina Huang says it’s time to pry open maledominated barriers in the tech sector

The way Tina Huang tells it, the path to her resignation from Twitter Inc was a Kafkaesque experience. She said she was denied a promotion, led to believe her coding skills were inferior, asked to take a leave of absence, and scolded for taking that leave.

Two years ago, she sued, contending that the company systematically thwarts the advancement of female engineers. Since then, she’s been gathering data on gender and pay for her peers there and says she can prove Twitter stacks the deck. By January, she plans to ask a state judge for permission to represent 133 female engineers at Twitter, in what would be the first group case of its kind in Silicon Valley if certified.

Huang said in an interview the time is ripe to do something that’s never been done before: pry open entrenched, maledominated barriers in the technology sector. One catalyst, she said, was a February blog post by former Uber Technologies Inc engineer Susan Fowler, which detailed a predatory work environment, infighting, a “chaotic” organisation and blatant sexual harassment. That post helped Tina Huang joined Twitter eight years ago as one of its first engineers. In 2013, she was one of a number of people being considered for a promotion.

Engineers at Twitter are placed on a “technical ladder,” with an eight-rung hierarchy. When Huang joined the company, the ladder didn’t exist, but she was eventually slotted into the fourth rung. No woman had ever reached the fifth rung, yet it was a critical step because it’s where engineering jobs shift from coding and discrete projects to higher-level management. lead to the founder and chief executive officer’s ouster. “You not only saw real action happen at Uber but you also saw the amount of the conversation” that followed, Huang said. “Women were emboldened by it.”

Twitter has rejected Huang’s claims in court filings and in a statement — saying that she resigned voluntarily after being denied a second promotion and company leaders tried to persuade her to stay.

“Twitter is deeply committed to a diverse and supportive workplace, and we believe the facts will show Ms Huang was treated fairly,” the company said.

Twitter said in a court filing that Huang’s supervisor never suggested she take time off. While she vacationed, Huang’s manager asked her what he should tell colleagues and she confirmed “personal leave,” according to the filing.

The lawsuit against Google cites data from a 2015 review of the company by the US Labour Department, which in a separate federal administrative complaint found “systemic compensation disparities against women.”

Jason Lohr, Huang’s lawyer, thinks he can make a similar, evidence-based case. By using statistical samples to show how it takes women longer to be promoted or that there are fewer women being promoted, the lawsuit will focus on company policies that produce that outcome, he said. Huang has since gone on to lead a start-up, Transposit, with an infusion of venture capital. What she’s learnt about how Twitter works since filing her lawsuit has convinced her that criticisms of the quality of her coding skills weren’t legitimate. “I saw all the data, I saw all the feedback,” Huang said. “It was just used as an excuse.”

Lohr, Huang’s lawyer, says there’s safety in numbers. “You can’t turn to all women engineers at Twitter and say there’s a problem with all of them.”