IMO years of experience is not the right way to determine who belongs at a level. I've seen an effective L5 with 2 "years of experience" (AKA 2 years out of sch

IMO years of experience is not the right way to determine who belongs at a level. I've seen an effective L5 with 2 "years of experience" (AKA 2 years out of school) and with 10 years of experience. People develop at different paces and focus on their career to varying degrees. This discrepancy can be possible for a variety of reasons: - Different amounts of focus on career development - More success/effectiveness in focusing on career development - Luck of being in the right or wrong place at the right time - Development of other skills that are unrelated to what makes someone a successful L5 I realize after I type this that this does not really address what you said - I don't mean to nitpick your use of the word "experience", and as you can tell I do agree with what you're saying that L5 can be career/terminal position.