A subjective leveling system and HR investigation gaps proved costly for the tech giant
A federal court has upheld a jury verdict finding Google liable for gender discrimination and retaliation against a female technical director.
In an opinion issued on April 3, 2026, the Southern District of New York denied Google's attempt to overturn the October 2023 jury verdict in favor of Ulku Rowe, a former technical director in Google Cloud. The court also slashed the punitive damages award from $1,000,000 to $250,000, while granting Rowe's request for attorneys' fees and costs.
The case turns on a set of facts that HR professionals will find uncomfortably familiar. Rowe joined Google in December 2016 as a technical director in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. She was assigned to Level 8 – a designation that was never mentioned in the job description, the interview process, or her offer letter. She later discovered that five men hired for the same role were brought in at Level 9. At trial, three of those male comparators testified that their work was functionally the same as Rowe's. One said they were doing the same sort of work under the same circumstances. Another described her role as identical to his, aside from the industry vertical.
Rowe raised her concerns with her supervisor in late 2017 and was directed to HR. The response she received was that there was no mechanism to revisit leveling decisions after hire – the only option was to pursue promotion through the...
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