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Most people won't reach T7 in 10 years. The expectation for each level is: L3: you are expected to do projects assigned to you well L4: you are expected to lea
by yegle 8y ago
Most people won't reach T7 in 10 years.
The expectation for each level is:
L3: you are expected to do projects assigned to you well
L4: you are expected to lead a project in your team well
L5: you are expected to lead a project across multiple teams in your organization well
L6: you are expected to lead a project across multiple organizations well
I think the L6 engineer is basically a CTO role in many other companies. L7 is even beyond that.
- vonmoltke 8y agoI'm confused. Are you posting the "meets expectations" descriptions for each level, or the "qualifies for promotion" level? L4 is mid-level and L5 is senior. I have never heard of mid-levels being expected to lead anything, or seniors being expected to lead cross-team projects. Maybe that is my non-Google experience talking, though.
- usaar333 8y agoYour L4+ levels seem pushed up by one to two. Levels should align to manager equivilent scopes. Based on my own experience at peer company and https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-job-levels-in-Googles-technical-career-track https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-job-levels-in-Googles... L4: Capable of independent work on a project and coordinating with a small group (1-2 others). (note this is PhD starting level) L5: Capable of leading your team (e.g. as a tech lead). Maps to entry-level manager L6: Capable of leading a large team (e.g. large team TL). Maps to more seasoned manager. L7: Lead project across multiple teams well. Maps to senior manager (manager of managers) L8: Lead project across multiple orgs/large org. Maps to director (manager of managers of managers). At a series B stage company (say 100 eng), on manager track, L7s might be called directors. L8 would be VP engineering.
- josh2600 8y agoTo be clear, there are different levels for managers and engineers. An L7 engineer is a seriously dope engineer (like the kind of person you'd want to found a hard technical company with; think low-level problems like DMA). An L7 manager maps to a senior engineering manager. I have talked to a couple L9 engineers and they're monstrous. L9 managers are directors or VPs.
- Benjammer 8y agoCan you give an example of a project an L9 engineer would work on?
- __float 8y agoWhy is "hard tech" == "low-level"? There are plenty of interesting and challenging technical problems that are "higher level" but more difficult due to scale/latency/etc demands.
- Cyph0n 8y agoBesides, DMA isn’t really a “hard” problem as far as I am aware...
- deanmoriarty 8y agohttps://baus.net/you-cant-impress-developers/ https://baus.net/you-cant-impress-developers/
- Cyph0n 8y agoOh, so now we need to feign being impressed so no one gets their feelings hurt? The fact of the matter is, were DMA indeed a hard problem, I would not have posted the comment. So instead of posting a link to a blog post, perhaps you could try to disprove my claim?
- joshuamorton 8y agoYour comparison to a 100eng company seems off. There are L8s that lead orgs of more than 100 people they'd map to cto or ceo. Indeed given my own experiences, many L6s have L5 TL/M reports. I'd say L7 is the better mapper to vp of eng at a 100 eng company. That allows you to have 2-3 VPs under the CTO.
- usaar333 8y agoWe're thinking the same scope, just different titles. I'm more familiar with companies that level set as follows: VP Engineering -> runs the 100 person org <L8 equiv> Director -> manages managers (30 person org) <L7 equiv>