Two former Amazon employees accused the company of underpaying female employees, levying complaints similar to those in an ongoing lawsuit filed in 2023.

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 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.

Corporate Amazon employees are placed in a job-classification scale with levels running from 4 to 12. Srinivas, who started at Amazon in 2011 and left in 2025, went from what is known as an L5 technical writer to a L6 senior technical writer. Cisneroz, who worked for Amazon between 2022 and 2024, was an L7 principal product manager.

Cisneroz, who worked in Amazon's fashion division, alleges she was told the reason she was paid less than men in similar roles was because her job was classified as "non-tech." Cisneroz said she learned through conversations with colleagues that "tech"-classified jobs were paid more, even if the job titles were the same.

She alleges that a team member with her same job classification held similar credentials to her yet was paid more. Cisneroz also said that when the employee went on leave, she took over his projects and they didn't require new or different responsibilities.

Despite performing similar work to the employee on leave, "Amazon at all times kept Plaintiff Cisneroz in a non-'tech' position," the lawsuit reads.

The complaint said Cisneroz was terminated in October 2024, but didn't disclose the justification offered by Amazon.

Srinivas said in the lawsuit that she became aware of pay discrepancies early in her 14-year career at Amazon after speaking to a male colleague with the same job title.

She told him she believed her compensation was below industry standard while he said his met the standard. Later in Srinivas' career, a manager said her salary was below the industry standard based on her level and experience. The lawsuit claims she had extensive prior experience and was the longest-tenured technical writer in AWS.

Even when she received a pay bump, Srinivas said her compensation never reached the higher end of her job classification's pay band.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are asking that the court certify the case as a class action in order to seek compensation on behalf of Amazon employees who have similar experiences with the company.

The complaint is remarkably similar to a proposed class-action suit filed in 2023, in which three women accused the company of paying them less than their male counterparts.

The three women, who worked on Amazon's Worldwide Communications team, said they raised concerns with the company repeatedly over systemic gender discrimination in pay and eventually faced retaliation as Amazon stripped them of responsibilities.

Amazon in 2023 said those claims were false and that the company does not tolerate discrimination.

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.

Amazon sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, but, in 2024, a federal judge in Seattle rejected the attempt.

The company argued that it did not discriminate against the three plaintiffs and "will ultimately prove that on the merits," according to a motion from February 2024. In the meantime, Amazon said, there was no basis for the women to "repackage their local, individualized grievances on a 15-person team into sweepingly broad state and nationwide class and collective claims."

In a December 2024 order, U.S. District Judge Jamal N. Whitehead denied Amazon's motion to dismiss, calling Amazon's efforts "premature.

Amazon has not yet responded in court to the more recent lawsuit.

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