Former Amazon Employees Sue Over Alleged Systematic Underpayment of Women Through Job Misclassification

Amazon is facing two separate federal class action lawsuits — filed years apart but alleging nearly identical conduct — accusing the tech giant of systematically underpaying female employees by slotting them into lower job classifications than equally qualified male colleagues doing the same work.

Gayatri Srinivas and Amy Cisneroz say they faced a discriminatory system at Amazon that saw roles held by women underpaid based on job classifications, according to a proposed class-action complaint filed April 8 at federal court in Seattle. One of the ways the plaintiffs say Amazon underpaid women was by coding their roles as lower-paying “non-tech” jobs. The new complaint follows an earlier 2023 lawsuit filed by three other former Amazon employees making strikingly similar allegations — a case that survived Amazon’s attempt to have it dismissed and is now heading into the evidence-gathering phase of litigation.

Together, the two cases are building a legal record that could expose Amazon to significant liability across a potentially large class of women who worked at the company over the past several years.

Quick Case Snapshot

Lawsuit #1 — Wilmuth et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc. (2023)

Field	Detail
Case Name	Wilmuth et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Case Number	2:23-cv-01774-JNW
Court	U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington, Seattle
Judge	Hon. Jamal N. Whitehead
Filing Date	November 20, 2023
Plaintiffs	Caroline Wilmuth, Katherine Schomer, Erin Combs
Defendant	Amazon.com, Inc.
Claims	Equal Pay Act violations, Title VII sex discrimination, retaliation, FMLA interference/retaliation, state anti-discrimination laws
Damages Sought	Back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief
Current Status	Motion to dismiss denied (December 12, 2024); proceeding to discovery

Lawsuit #2 — Srinivas & Cisneroz v. Amazon (2026)

Field	Detail
Plaintiffs	Gayatri Srinivas, Amy Cisneroz
Defendant	Amazon.com, Inc.
Court	U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington, Seattle
Filing Date	April 8, 2026
Case Number	Not yet disclosed
Judge	Not yet assigned
Claims	Gender-based pay discrimination, job misclassification, federal and state equal pay laws
Damages Sought	Not yet disclosed
Current Status	Newly filed; proposed class action

How Amazon’s Job-Level System Allegedly Works Against Women

To understand these lawsuits, you need to understand how Amazon pays its corporate employees. Amazon assigns each employee a job code upon hire, with lowest-level workers receiving Level 4 (L4) status and top employees categorized as Level 12 (L12). The company “considers past compensation” when assigning a worker’s job code, which effectively determines their base salary, bonuses, and other compensation.

The plaintiffs in both lawsuits allege that this system — specifically how job codes and job levels are assigned — has been applied in a way that consistently advantages men over women. Women doing identical or more complex work are placed into lower levels or categorized as “non-tech” employees, immediately placing them in a lower-paying tier regardless of their actual responsibilities. Because future pay, stock awards, and promotion decisions all flow from these initial classifications, a misclassification early in a woman’s career compounds over time into a substantial pay deficit.

One of the women from the 2023 lawsuit said the company misclassified her job level, effectively underpaying her for the work she performed. She said that while she was an L7, a male colleague with the same manager and a similar-sized team was classified as an L8. Amazon’s pay bands differ by level. She also said that two male colleagues who reported to her made more than her, one of whom was paid $190,000 more than she was.

The 2023 Lawsuit: Wilmuth, Schomer, and Combs

Caroline Wilmuth, Katherine Schomer, and Erin Combs — who were all part of Amazon’s Worldwide Communications team — said they were paid far less than their male colleagues, including, in at least one case, men they supervised.

The specific allegations paint a detailed picture. Wilmuth was hired to perform a research scientist role but was not classified in a research job category. She was also hired at an L7 level, whereas a male colleague with less education and experience was hired at an L8 level. As a result of this misclassification, Amazon underpaid Wilmuth by hundreds of thousands of dollars, the lawsuit alleges.

Wilmuth’s direct report, fellow plaintiff Katherine Schomer, became aware of her misclassified job code and subsequent pay discrepancy when compared to another male colleague on the Research & Strategy team who was performing the same level of work and reporting to the same supervisor. Their different job codes resulted in Schomer being paid approximately 150% less than her similarly situated colleague.

The third plaintiff, Erin Combs, described the problem as something she had heard about across the company. “The way that I and my female peers are spoken to, the opportunities that we collectively are given, the visibility and access to leaders that the women have is markedly different than that of our male peers,” said Combs, who has worked at Amazon since 2020.

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Raising Concerns Only Made Things Worse

All three women say that when they tried to address the pay gap internally, Amazon responded not with corrections but with retaliation.

The three plaintiffs tried to raise pay equity issues with their managers and HR. Instead of fixing the problem, Amazon retaliated against them in numerous ways: they were demoted, taken off key projects, stripped of responsibilities and team support, downgraded in their performance ratings, and had their stock and compensation cut.

Post-lawsuit retaliation was also alleged. Combs had her performance rating lowered from “top tier” to “meets expectations” after she filed the lawsuit, which “resulted in a significant loss of stock compensation” and an effective demotion. After filing complaints about Amazon’s retaliatory behavior, she felt she had no real choice but to resign. Schomer was placed in an internal performance management program called “Focus,” which harmed her performance rating and salary. Wilmuth said she was fired while on disability leave.

The 2026 Lawsuit: Srinivas and Cisneroz Add New Claims

The April 2026 complaint brings two new named plaintiffs with careers spanning over a decade at Amazon — and raises the same core allegations.

Srinivas, who started at Amazon in 2011 and left in 2025, went from what is known as an L5 technical writer to an L6 senior technical writer. Cisneroz, who worked for Amazon between 2022 and 2024, was an L7 principal product manager. The complaint said Cisneroz was terminated in October 2024.

The two former employees say they were “substantially” underpaid relative to male co-workers who had the same job titles, had similar experience, and performed similar work. One of the ways the plaintiffs say Amazon underpaid women was by coding their roles as lower-paying “non-tech” jobs.

Srinivas’s 14-year tenure at Amazon is particularly significant. A plaintiff who experienced the alleged pay gap from 2011 through 2025 — across multiple job levels and policy regimes — provides a long historical window into what the complaint characterizes as a persistent, systemic problem rather than isolated incidents.

Amazon’s Response

Amazon has denied the core allegations in the 2023 lawsuit. Amazon in 2023 said those claims were false and that the company does not tolerate discrimination. The company pointed to its own pay equity data: women globally and in the U.S. at Amazon earned 99.8 cents and 99.9 cents, respectively, for every dollar that men earned performing the same jobs, according to the company’s 2023 data.

However, plaintiffs and their attorneys argue that Amazon’s pay equity methodology obscures the real disparity by comparing men and women only within the same job level — not accounting for the fact that women are systematically placed into lower levels in the first place. If the level assignments themselves are discriminatory, comparing pay within levels does not capture the full picture of gender-based wage inequality.

Amazon sought to have the 2023 lawsuit dismissed entirely. Amazon unsuccessfully tried to evade the lawsuit by filing a motion to dismiss, which was denied by a federal judge in Washington on December 12, 2024.

Amazon has not yet publicly responded to the April 2026 complaint.

The Law Behind These Claims: What Statutes Are At Stake

These cases rest on two of the most important workplace equality laws in the United States, as well as Washington state equivalents.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 requires employers to pay men and women equally for substantially equal work performed under similar working conditions. Crucially, the work — not the job title or classification — is what determines whether two employees are comparable. If women are doing the same substantive work as men but labeled differently to justify lower pay, that can constitute an Equal Pay Act violation regardless of how the employer defines the roles.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on sex, including discrimination in compensation and the terms and conditions of employment. Unlike the Equal Pay Act, Title VII also covers retaliation claims — making the alleged demotions, performance rating changes, and terminations legally actionable if connected to the plaintiffs’ protected complaints.

The 35-page 2023 lawsuit alleged the company violates a slew of state and federal laws by maintaining compensation policies that result in a gender pay disparity.

Why This Case Is Bigger Than Amazon

The gender pay gap has narrowed in recent decades, but progress is moving at a glacial pace. In 2024, women earned 85 cents for every dollar men earned, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2003, women earned 81 cents on the dollar compared to men. The gender wage gap is even wider for most women of color.

The legal theory at the center of these cases — that employers use facially neutral classification systems to embed pay discrimination — is one of the most significant frontiers in employment discrimination law. If the plaintiffs succeed in certifying a class and proving their claims, it would put major tech companies on notice that internal job-leveling systems can be challenged as discriminatory instruments, not just neutral administrative tools.

The potential class in the 2023 case is large. The proposed class includes women who worked for Amazon in certain job levels for any amount of time in the last three years before the filing or resolution of the lawsuit. Given Amazon’s size as one of the world’s largest employers, even a narrowly defined class could encompass thousands of current and former employees.

What Happens Next

In the 2023 Wilmuth lawsuit, with Amazon’s motion to dismiss denied, the case has moved into the discovery phase — where both sides exchange evidence, take depositions, and build their factual records. A motion for class certification will likely follow, which is the pivotal step that determines whether the case proceeds as a class action on behalf of all qualifying women, or only on behalf of the three named plaintiffs.

The 2026 Srinivas/Cisneroz lawsuit is brand new and has not yet been assigned to a judge. The early procedural steps — service on the defendant, Amazon’s initial response, and potential motions — will unfold over the coming months.

The proximity of the two filings — with the second arriving just weeks after a major ruling kept the first alive — strongly suggests a coordinated legal strategy designed to build cumulative pressure on Amazon’s pay practices. Whether Amazon will seek to consolidate the cases, fight them separately, or pursue settlement discussions remains to be seen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can potentially join these class action lawsuits?

 Women who worked at Amazon in corporate roles and believe they were assigned lower job levels or “non-tech” job codes than male colleagues performing comparable work may qualify for the proposed class. The 2023 lawsuit proposed a class of women who worked at Amazon in covered job levels at any point in the three years before the lawsuit was filed or resolved. The 2026 case has not yet defined its class parameters. Interested individuals should consult with an employment attorney.

Has Amazon been found guilty of pay discrimination?

 No. Both lawsuits are in their early stages and no court has made a finding of liability. Amazon denies the allegations. The December 2024 ruling only means the 2023 case can proceed — it is not a ruling on the merits.

What does Amazon say about its pay equity? 

Amazon has said that women globally and in the U.S. earned 99.8 cents and 99.9 cents, respectively, for every dollar that men earned performing the same jobs, based on the company’s 2023 data. Plaintiffs argue this comparison is misleading because it only compares pay within the same job level, without accounting for the alleged gender bias in how levels are assigned in the first place.

What damages could affected women recover?

 In Equal Pay Act and Title VII cases, successful plaintiffs can recover back pay (wages lost due to discrimination), compensatory damages for emotional distress and career harm, punitive damages in some cases, and attorneys’ fees. Individual amounts would depend on the length of employment, the magnitude of the pay gap, and the ultimate class size.

What is job “misclassification” in this context? 

In this context, job misclassification does not mean that Amazon improperly labeled workers as contractors versus employees (a separate legal issue common in gig economy cases). Here, it refers to assigning women to lower job level categories or “non-tech” job codes relative to male colleagues doing substantively identical work — resulting in lower base salaries, smaller bonuses, reduced stock grants, and fewer promotion opportunities.

Has Amazon faced other workplace discrimination claims?

 Yes. Amazon has faced multiple workplace-related lawsuits in recent years. The gender pay cases are among the most high-profile, but the company has also faced claims from warehouse workers, EEOC investigations, and labor organizing disputes. The two gender pay lawsuits described here are distinct from any wage-and-hour or warehouse worker litigation.

Last Updated: April 19, 2026

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Allegations in a complaint are not findings of fact. All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven otherwise in a court of law. If you believe you may have a gender pay discrimination claim, consult a qualified employment attorney.