I see a listing for what I can discern is an L7 spot with Amazon. It says it wants 7 years experience, but that seems low. I've taken several solutions to market, and lead development and operations teams. What is the actual expectation for an L7? I see posts saying it's two steps removed from CEO like roles, but 7 years seems low for that kind of role.
7 years of experience is L5 or L6
Ok. So the 7+ on the job description is a "don't even consider it if your at this line." Got it. Call it 10 and I'm still close, but senior manager of product seems like a leader of PMs. Do they generally work across verticals on the same product? Are they industry aligned and an expert on getting teams to apply said product in an industry? I've worked in a few different industries leading teams across many differing types of tech. Are they looking for a specialist or generalist?
An L7 PM role is actually very senior. But PM is a weird role at Amazon. Role is generic as hell. I've seen PMs do rote operations work at L6 as well as PMs who pretty much call vision (well heard of. I haven't actually seen ones of those in person). L7 PMs I've seen have either been at amazon around a decade plus or have twenty years of experience outside of it at major orgs that have decent reputations. L7 generally means you have to have impact on the entire org as a whole. I have never met a specialist L7. Though James Gosling can be considered a "specialist" L10. For reference, L7 SDEs are principal engineers. L7 SDMs generally manage 30+ SDEs. I have no idea what industry aligned means.
Depending on the role, some L7s have over 50 people under him, and some have none. It’s hard to generalise, L7s mostly own a whole operation/domain where everyone in the company would treat him as the subject matter expert. I guess it’s equivalent to a position of ‘Head of xxx’. The few recent L7s I know have been VPs, for over 5 years, from smaller companies like VMware, HPE, Juniper etc
Thanks!
PM me the JD and I can help you decipher.
Is any posting that asks for 7 years a L6 and 5 years. L5.?
What is a good L7 comp package?
Tree fiddy
If you are asking these kind of questions you are not level 7 - if you are an engineer, then at best you will come in as level 5 from non Fang.
Working for years on digital innovation, tech strategy and product team's while asking expectations in a very different company means I'm not ready? I'm not sure how the logic works there. Also, while an engineer in the past, I'm not sure how you look at a title line with a big 4 consultancy in there and give an engineer response.
“Digital innovation “ , “tech strategy “ are all buzzwords and mba speak that no body here at apple will give 2 shits about. Amazon folks can probably back me up on this, on how they view a resume filled with nonsense like this, but I am inclined to think it would be the same. Most fang discount non fang experience since it rarely scales. I don’t much about Deloitte and it might be really awesome, and if it is you are going to be rewarded richly and rise consumerate to your ability. But otherwise they will be just considered like everyone else and your experience will be discounted.