Can Level be negotiated at Amazon
So I finished my Amazon onsite. I was hoping for L6 but they offered me L5. The systems design round went fantastic, the hiring manager told me in the interview itself that it was amazing (multiple times). Can I negotiate the level too? No numbers yet. Just a verbal “Congratulations” call from recruiter. 5.5 years, L63 at Microsoft.
Anything can be negotiated if they want you enough
I’m looking more for an empirical evidence. I’m sure this statement is true, but just want to know how hard and what factors effect this!
Not true. Amazon bar raiser here. We never budge on level once a decision is made on debrief. Manager / recruiter have no ability to influence level as part of negotiations.
Levels are not negotiated; at least not something that I heard off so far at Amazon
YOE? level at Microsoft?
If the people who you're working for have put reasonable effort into determining your scope then level should not be negotiable. I.e., if you joined at the higher level then you'd be fucked because your scope wouldn't be able to validate a high perfoance rating when you go to calibration.
No. The entire interview loop agreed on the level. It's possible the get your level changed after you start (I did), but it requires Director, or VP depending on the org, level sign off.
Can you tell us more about how you got your level changed after you started? How did you and your hiring manager know this was the right thing to do, and what was the timeframe?
My manager handled a lot of the process, but I'll speak to what I know. So after a few weeks of general onboarding, I was tasked with scoping the work required to adapt and scale our team's products to accomplish a giant, cross org initiative. Most of my first couple months were spent diving into code bases and documentation and drafting designs and defending them to conference rooms full of L7s, 8s and 10s from our org and others across Amazon. It was a pretty unusual start. I had no idea why I was even in the room, but they liked what I came up with. About 2 months in to my time at Amazon, my manager approached me about his effort to relevel me and wanted information about projects I had worked on and things I delivered throughout my career, beyond what's on my resume. Apparently, the interview loop was very split on which level to place me in. There was one area of experience they weren't sure I had that held them back. Shortly after I started, Amazon released a new role that fit my experience better and my manager worked to change my title to the higher level in the new role. It required sign off from the entire interview loop, the Bar Raiser, another Principal in my org as a calibrated reviewer, my skip, my Director and my VP. After all that was done, they made an off cycle promotion.
It is possible, but might need some executive approval if the HM needs you real bad or you have competing offers at the higher level and you are ready to walk out. As much as I'd say it's better to get it at a higher level, I have seen (perceived) high performers get promoted within a year of joining.
You can always negotiate to level down with a higher TC. 😝
No, level is not negotiable at Amazon. If it's a deal breaker then it's a deal breaker.
No It's not negotiable. They will lie to you that if you perform well, you have a change for early promotion. But once you join, you will be part of the existing shit. You will slog for hours trying to prove that you are the best among your teammates, your manager will motivate you to keep working hard. When the time for promotion will come, they will say you need more time. L5 to L6 will take anywhere from 3 years to 30 years. You will also see good L5 with 2 years of experience and 40 year old L5 who are there for the vest. You will also see incompetent L6 whom you think don't even deserve to be L4 engineers. You will then be frustrated after 1 year and start leetcode again. P.S. I am on question 168 now on Leetcode.
This. So true.
I am curious to know the same.