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Shannon Burns, an American technology executive and former Gitpod vice-president of engineering, is at the centre of a legal battle that could become one of the biggest employment compensation cases in the UK.
Recent reports by The Independent, and The Guardian, alongside employment tribunal records, show that Burns is pursuing £76,071,992 from Gitpod after winning a disability discrimination case. The amount has not been awarded to her. The tribunal has only allowed her to continue pursuing the claim. Scroll down to know more...
Who is Shannon Burns?
Burns built her career in the US technology industry before joining Gitpod, a software company that developed cloud-based tools for developers.
Before moving to Gitpod, she worked with companies including Slack and Lyft and became involved in organisations supporting women in technology.She joined Gitpod in late 2022 as vice-president of engineering, one of the company’s senior leadership positions. At the time, her compensation included a £220,000 annual salary and a bonus of about £78,000. Burns had disclosed that she had ADHD and dyslexia. Tribunal proceedings later examined how those conditions affected aspects of her work, including forgetfulness, organisation and processing written information.
She had previously received workplace adjustments at other companies.What happened on the Austria work trip?The incident that brought Burns into the spotlight happened during a Gitpod team-building trip to Lofer, Austria, in April 2023. After drinking with colleagues one evening, Burns returned to her accommodation but could not get into her room because she had misplaced her key. Her roommate was asleep and did not respond, leaving Burns unable to enter.
She eventually spent the night in a sauna.The incident became part of wider concerns raised by Gitpod’s leadership about Burns’s performance and conduct. She was dismissed in June 2023, roughly two months after the trip. However, the tribunal did not determine that spending the night in the sauna itself amounted to disability discrimination. Instead, it examined whether Burns’s disabilities contributed to the circumstances and conduct relied upon in her dismissal, and whether Gitpod had taken appropriate steps to make reasonable adjustments for her disabilities.
Why did Burns win the discrimination case?
A Birmingham Employment Tribunal ruled in 2025 that Burns had succeeded in claims involving discrimination arising from disability and the company’s failure to make reasonable adjustments. One important part of the case involved Burns seeking support for her ADHD early in her time at Gitpod. She had raised concerns about feeling overwhelmed and asked about ADHD coaching. The tribunal subsequently considered whether the company had done enough to respond to her disclosed disabilities.
Her separate claim of direct sex discrimination did not succeed, according to reporting on the tribunal proceedings.
Why is she seeking £76 million?
The £76 million figure comes from Burns’s schedule of loss, which sets out the compensation she says she is entitled to receive. A substantial portion relates to projected future earnings. Her case is that the dismissal disrupted a highly paid technology career and that she could have continued earning at a senior level had she remained in the industry.
Same Reports say the claim also includes other forms of loss, including compensation connected with the impact of the discrimination.
Burns has said she subsequently left the technology sector and has been retraining as a therapist.
Why has the £76 million claim become news now?
Gitpod attempted to restrict Burns’s potential compensation claim to £1 million. The Birmingham tribunal recently rejected that application, allowing her to continue pursuing the much larger figure.The judge noted that Burns had an unusually high earnings history and said it was too early to conclude that her valuation had little reasonable prospect of succeeding without further evidence. The tribunal has also ordered information relating to Gitpod’s recent acquisition by OpenAI to be disclosed, as Burns holds shares in the company.
Has Shannon Burns actually received £76 million?
No. This is an important distinction. Burns has been given permission to pursue a claim worth £76,071,992, but the final compensation has not yet been determined.
A separate hearing will have to establish what, if anything, she is ultimately awarded.If the full amount were awarded, it would be far above the UK’s current known record employment tribunal award of about £4.58 million. The compensation proceedings remain ongoing, alongside an appeal relating to the earlier tribunal ruling. For now, Shannon Burns’s case is not about a £76 million payout already secured, but about a compensation claim whose final value has yet to be determined. The case will now move toward determining how, if at all, those claimed future losses should be compensated in light of her disability discrimination findings and her claimed loss of future earnings.
