Woman sacked from £220k job after boozy work trip sues firm claiming 'tech bro' CEO was 'even more drunk'
15 May 2025, 16:58
A woman who was sacked for getting drunk at a work event is suing the company after her male colleagues faced no punishment despite being “far more intoxicated”, an employment tribunal has heard.
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Shannon Burns was earning £220,000 in her executive role at software company Gitpod but claims she was sacked following a work trip to Austria in which she lost her hotel room key after getting drunk.
She has told the tribunal other senior male figures, including chief executive Johannes Landgraf, were also drinking and behaving in a way which she says was “far more damaging” yet “faced no action”.
The engineer is now suing for discrimination, claiming there is a rampant “tech bro” culture in the “male dominated” firm.
She explained “tech bro” as a stereotype term referring to “mostly younger white men”, who “embody aggressive, entitled, self-aggrandising, risk takers”.
It “often includes excessive drinking, confrontational and aggressive communication styles”, she added.
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Ms Burns had told a female colleague she felt “overwhelmed and pressured” by the environment soon after starting remotely in January 2023, exacerbating her symptoms of ADHD.
The executive said she had started to hear from multiple women that Mr Landgraf had a reputation of being a “tech bro” and that other female executives had highlighted the “problematic male-dominated culture” within the leadership team on “multiple occasions”.
In March, she was made aware of plans for a “Hackathon” work event set to take place off-site, before relaying concerns of colleagues to Mr Landgraf that the trip would be used as a test for who would be fired in the next round of layoffs
During the trip in Austria in April, a “slurring” Mr Langraff asked a “mortified” Ms Burns for the identity of those colleagues who had shared their worries about the trip, the tribunal heard.
Ms Burns said the CEO was “so intoxicated and inappropriate that he could not recognise the damage he had just done by shouting these words, within earshot of the people he was talking about”.
She told the tribunal: “By the end of the evening I was intoxicated but by no means more so than either Johannes or other male colleagues who were consuming alcohol.”
It was heard that at the end of the evening, Ms Burns had to spend the night in a suite-like room, after she got locked out of her hotel room.
That day, she received a message from a senior male executive, saying she must “lead the team by example” and “stay in control”.
The executive described feeling “admonished for drinking too much” when she had “not had more drinks than most of the rest of the people there that night, including the CEO”.
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In June 2023, Ms Burns was “unexpectedly” called into a meeting and told her employment was being terminated with immediate effect due to “the way [she] showed up at the off-site (which) eroded trust and confidence in leadership, team and others at the company”, it was heard.
Immediately after her dismissal, Mr Landgraf held meetings with staff, who reported to Ms Burns they were told she had been sacked for “performance issues and for being drunk at the off-site”.
Bringing her claims to the tribunal, Ms Burns said: “My male colleagues were drinking alcohol/drunk at the off-site but I was the only one who was dismissed.
“One of my male colleagues [Johannes] behaved in a far more damaging way for both his own reputation and for Gitpod after consuming alcohol at the off-site.”
Ms Burns is also suing for disability discrimination as she believes her dismissal arose from her ADHD.
Gitpod deny that she was fired for being drunk and say they were unaware of her disabilities. The hearing continues.
