I’m a long time Amazonian and I’m finding it really difficult to progress from SDE 2 to SDE 3. My career isn’t growing and I blame it on my manager. The amount of politics is insane while I see other developers outside of my org become SDE3 easily. Is something wrong with me? How has others experienced been. How do you manage career growth ?
What’s the percentage of SDEs that are SDE3s now? There was a point in time where 90% of the SDE population was at SDE1/2. I always got the impression SDE2 at AMZN was a terminal level.
How many years at Amazon?
7 :(
That doesn't sound too bad. Isn't that about average or just slightly above average?
I've seen people going from from 1 to 3 in 4 yrs. My coworker went from 2 to 3 in less than 2 yrs. Since there is no immediate TC bump anyways - get a job at G/FB. and if you still feel like coming back, boomerang. But I just think there no point - sde 3 is generally a team lead, with way more responsibility than l5 at G/FB, for same or less money.
Leave and boomerang
+1, boomerang best strategy. Also get much higher TC overall when you manage to do that. Cons: need to pass sde3 interview process, that's never a guarantee pass
Bad advice. Bar is higher for an external SDE3 higher relative to an internal promo. I’ve actually seen (just once, in many years as a BR) a case of someone who left after getting promoted, realized they didn’t like it, and boomeranged back. Loop was not inclined at their previous level despite leaving on good standing. He was barely at the bar but not raising it.