3 ms·

I assumed that was hyperbole.

dmix 4y ago
Well it dilutes a conversation when someone implies a senior Google employee is surely to be expected to be at the tier of disrupting entire markets in order to get and keep their job. If that is what really defines an L9 job at Google I think we'd all have been praising the typical L9 Google employees on HN long ago. And we'd all be justified in being angry Google decided to fire such a person. Or maybe Google should pay their salary indefinitely because they were capable of disrupting a market at some point in their career? Or maybe yes, such a person needs to work at Google type company so all of us can benefit from the optimal situation from which to maximize their talent, even though such a company would let them go. Otherwise we'd all lose out on such a person being capable of contributing to the world if Google lays them off. What else could they do then without a company who doesn't appreciate keeping them on?
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I’m not sure what exactly is a L9 at Google, but this looks a lot like research positions in many huge companies. For instance there was researchers on voice recognition at Yahoo! way before the voice assistants became a product, and if I could imagine one of them bring up a well working model 6 months before the competition, and have a voice assistant hit the market. It would disrupt an entire market. But they’re not alone of course, and I don’t know how many other researchers are on the payroll trying to breakthrough other fields. All of them have a “disrupt the entire market” expectation I think, and of course their employer is also expected to give them enough time and leeway to make progress. They probably bring small improvement on existing things, and the number of papers published every year could be another measure as a temporizing strategy. But their actual stated goal is probably very ambitious and they’d be failing at it for a very long time.
  - hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
    Vint Cerf
    - aix1 4y ago
      Not really sure what you're trying to say, but Vint Cerf is a VP (i.e. L10).
  - Arainach 4y ago
    Research is a career path, not a level. As levels go up, each new level is a new job. In the SWE track: L3 is a new graduate L4 is mid level (an engineer who you can generally trust to complete the tasks they're assigned) L5 is Senior (who owns/shapes the direction of the team) L6 is Staff (who has to see upcoming problems and shape efforts across the organization) L7 shapes a product L8 shapes a division L9 shapes an industry The expectations are sky high, but so are the comp. If you want to get millions, you'd better do something worth millions.
    - tete 4y ago
      Huh. So L7-L9 are L3s that are good at marketing and slap the Google badge on everything they do? Well, I guess that explains both why they fire them and why golang.org became go.dev.
    - lopiar_zen 4y ago
      From your ranking, L9 seems to not depend on the company anymore, looks more research. You cannot expect to shape/redefine industry every year, that's absurd. By this model every math/physics/chemistry research teacher should be fired every year. And to be honest I don't think google has these expectations. Most probably he was was fired for different reasons, not performance
      - Arainach 4y ago
        Research is theoretical. These roles are very much practical. These are the kind of people who drive partnerships across companies, lead important industry standards, and come up with ideas for entire new markets and products. This is not a job everyone wants or is capable of doing. There are a very limited number of such positions, and those who want them must justify the position's existence.
        akostadinov 4y ago
        Yeah, but if you have to lead a standard, it may take years and it sucks a lot of time. So can you, while trying to direct 15 other possibly clueless people, disrupt the industry in another way?
- amzn-throw 4y ago
  I can't speak for Google, and Amazon doesn't have an L9, so our Distinguished Engineers are L10. But a decent bunch of them are the types of folks to have wikipedia pages: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Roskind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Roskind * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray (not anymore I guess) The ones that don't probably would if it was public about how much of a significant contribution they've made to some foundational AWS services everyone knows. I think they don't mind.
  - manusachi 4y ago
    Do they "redefine the industry" every cycle?

dmix 4y ago

Well it dilutes a conversation when someone implies a senior Google employee is surely to be expected to be at the tier of disrupting entire markets in order to get and keep their job. If that is what really defines an L9 job at Google I think we'd all have been praising the typical L9 Google employees on HN long ago. And we'd all be justified in being angry Google decided to fire such a person. Or maybe Google should pay their salary indefinitely because they were capable of disrupting a market at some point in their career? Or maybe yes, such a person needs to work at Google type company so all of us can benefit from the optimal situation from which to maximize their talent, even though such a company would let them go. Otherwise we'd all lose out on such a person being capable of contributing to the world if Google lays them off. What else could they do then without a company who doesn't appreciate keeping them on?

makeitdouble 4y ago
I’m not sure what exactly is a L9 at Google, but this looks a lot like research positions in many huge companies. For instance there was researchers on voice recognition at Yahoo! way before the voice assistants became a product, and if I could imagine one of them bring up a well working model 6 months before the competition, and have a voice assistant hit the market. It would disrupt an entire market. But they’re not alone of course, and I don’t know how many other researchers are on the payroll trying to breakthrough other fields. All of them have a “disrupt the entire market” expectation I think, and of course their employer is also expected to give them enough time and leeway to make progress. They probably bring small improvement on existing things, and the number of papers published every year could be another measure as a temporizing strategy. But their actual stated goal is probably very ambitious and they’d be failing at it for a very long time.
- hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
  Vint Cerf
  - aix1 4y ago
    Not really sure what you're trying to say, but Vint Cerf is a VP (i.e. L10).
- Arainach 4y ago
  Research is a career path, not a level. As levels go up, each new level is a new job. In the SWE track: L3 is a new graduate L4 is mid level (an engineer who you can generally trust to complete the tasks they're assigned) L5 is Senior (who owns/shapes the direction of the team) L6 is Staff (who has to see upcoming problems and shape efforts across the organization) L7 shapes a product L8 shapes a division L9 shapes an industry The expectations are sky high, but so are the comp. If you want to get millions, you'd better do something worth millions.
  - tete 4y ago
    Huh. So L7-L9 are L3s that are good at marketing and slap the Google badge on everything they do? Well, I guess that explains both why they fire them and why golang.org became go.dev.
  - lopiar_zen 4y ago
    From your ranking, L9 seems to not depend on the company anymore, looks more research. You cannot expect to shape/redefine industry every year, that's absurd. By this model every math/physics/chemistry research teacher should be fired every year. And to be honest I don't think google has these expectations. Most probably he was was fired for different reasons, not performance
    - Arainach 4y ago
      Research is theoretical. These roles are very much practical. These are the kind of people who drive partnerships across companies, lead important industry standards, and come up with ideas for entire new markets and products. This is not a job everyone wants or is capable of doing. There are a very limited number of such positions, and those who want them must justify the position's existence.
      - akostadinov 4y ago
        Yeah, but if you have to lead a standard, it may take years and it sucks a lot of time. So can you, while trying to direct 15 other possibly clueless people, disrupt the industry in another way?
amzn-throw 4y ago
I can't speak for Google, and Amazon doesn't have an L9, so our Distinguished Engineers are L10. But a decent bunch of them are the types of folks to have wikipedia pages: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Roskind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Roskind * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray (not anymore I guess) The ones that don't probably would if it was public about how much of a significant contribution they've made to some foundational AWS services everyone knows. I think they don't mind.
- manusachi 4y ago
  Do they "redefine the industry" every cycle?