Affirmative action is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer or have suffered from discrimination within a culture[1]. Google is an affirmative action employer[2]. If women are favored over men, then wouldn't it make sense that a less skilled woman has the potential of being selected over a more skilled man?
I don't see any support for [2] in the page you linked (maybe because I am on mobile). There may have been efforts to recruit that were directed at women (e.g. sending employees to Grace Hopper), but ultimately the bar was the same for everyone.
That's assuming that there's only a handful of people to pick from. But if your top choices are all top tier developers, then slicing it up by gender or ethnicity shouldn't make a difference.
No. They could just be spending 3 times as much to recruit women, for example. They could have recruiters dedicated to finding women. They could be funding women in tech programs at many levels. etc...
