I interviewed with Amazon this week for an SDE III role. I just received the call that they would like to hire me but at an SDE II position instead. I am supposed to have a call with the hiring manager on Monday to get his feedback and understand the reasoning for the down-leveling. Obviously this has substantial implications around TC but also responsibilities and expectations. I'm open to accepting the lesser position, but only if I can be brought in at the higher range of TC for an L5 and be given a clear list of shortcomings that need to be addressed within a target timeline to reach L6. I'm looking for any advice as to how to manage negotiations around this scenario and any specific questions I should ask on Monday.
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Forget about the title or the level. Take the offer if you feel the manager, the work, and the scope of growth is right for you.
Questions I'd ask:
* What's his role at Amazon? How long? In what roles? How has his career grown? How long in current team?
Finding a manager with the same desired growth trajectory as you in critical. Otherwise you get a bum of a manager.
* How many people has he promoted to L6? Current org? Previous org? How many were externally joining L5s?
You want a manager that can fight for you, and fight for your promo in a highly political way.
* How many L6s on his team currently? How many L6s in his skip's org?
Too many L6s in his team might mean less scope for you. Unless his scope is rapidly growing. Typically a L6 manager would only have 1-2 L6s.
* Is there a principal engineer in the org? What are they responsible for? How much access would you have to them?
To get to L6, you want a principal engineer that you can work with and can speak volumes about your work. Ask recruiter to set up chat with them and see if it's someone you genuinely like.
* What's his team's charter? How does the team impact and influence other teams? Who are those other teams? At same org? Outside of org?
Scope of influence beyond the immediate team is required for L6s. The more opportunity there is for that, the better. If it's within the same larger org (Director), great, it'll be easier to convince them to do things. If it's beyond the director, then it's harder to get things done but the impact would be higher.
* What's the team's current status towards their charter? Are things still being built? Are services in production? If production, what's the operational load like? How many Sev1 tickets do they get in a month? How many Sev2 tickets?
Things still being built: Lot more opportunity for you to show what you're made of.
Things in production: Watch out for the high operational load. You'll want to make sure aren't being woken up at 2am.
I have talked with the HM, and got honest insights that there was a chance to get promoted after 1~2 years depending on the impact I have if I were to join, but nothing promised (HM would be less trustworthy it he had the promotion promised to me).
It is unlikely that I would join for below reasons:
1. I am still undervalued by the future team since down-leveled.
2. TC is not better than my current comp(my current comp comes with a lot of equity, and I think the offered TC could be close to it if I discount the equity considering it is not a public company).
3. SDE III would involve more tech design and cross functional work which is similar to my current work and I enjoy that part more than the SDE II work, which is supposed to be more focused as an IC.
So considering all the above, I don’t think moving to the down-leveled position is better than staying at my current position.
Since everyone’s situation is unique, I won’t advice whether it is a good move to join Amazon for OP, but I hope my two cents help. And there is always another option to interview with other companies. I know it is a hard time for interviewing, but with OP’s experience there are still plenty of openings available.