I am trying to get a sense of what interviewers look at when deciding if you are a fit for L7 or L8. Clear examples would help. I heard a receuiter saying that L8s lead over 1000 people which doesnt sound right. thanks!
Give us info about your exp and qualifications. I imagine L8 role/scope is flexible depending on the org and responsibilities that can't be measured with "should lead > x people"
30 years coding, 20 years of professional , 14 years in sr. leadership roles. Last 6 as an executive (in medium companies but with 200+ reports)
Definitely matches L8 more than L7. Still, important is what has been achieved.
And definitely doesn't have to be over 1000 people. My org doesn't even have 1000 people and we have more than one L8s
What does draw the line between 7 & 8 in your org? Thanks
Sounds right to me.
Yeah we have L8s managing less than 50 ppl in my org
What org is that? Typically - it can happen in the middle of a multi year re-org. L7 - 20 to 70-80 people. That’s when you start pushing the entry level L8. L8s can have 100 something to 1000-1500 people. The latter end - they start pushing L10.
Is it Non-tech?
1000 people is on the higher end, but definitely still on L8 range. Typically L8 starts in the neighborhood ~100 reports and grows from there. L7s tend to be responsible for 1-2 products (for smaller services) or a single product area spanning multiple teams in a larger org (ex. reliability/operational tooling for S3). L8 has broader concerns across multiple loosely related products (ex. development tools) or complete ownership of all aspects of larger orgs (ex. the heads of CloudFormation, ElasticBeanstalk, Autoscaling, and most other moderately sized orgs are all L8).
+1 L7 - 20 to 70-80 people. That’s when you start pushing the entry level L8. L8s can have 100 something to 1000-1500 people. The latter end - they start pushing L10. For external hires, unless there is a domain expertise match as well, coming from non-FAANG, expect to be slotted one level below. I.e if you’re coming from managing a 200 people org (L8 scope) , definitely expect to be leveled at L7.
Why doesn’t it sound right to you?
Well, maybe that is one measure. I was offered L7 positions with 50 reports or less, I was surprised to see the 20x jump
Did you manage 2-3 people at four winds? That’s a nice jump. (Unless you are referring to salary jump)