Difference between FB E5 vs E6
In practical terms, how are the roles different? And how many years of experience one needs to get E6? To give an example, I work at a startup and have 8yoe, in infra. This startup is not full of particularly smart or talented people, so a comparison with how I would perform at FB based on how I performed at my company is probably not very fair. However, at my current company I’ve basically never been told what to do, I’ve always started a project by either getting an idea and trying to pursue it, or by recognizing a current problem and tackle it. Sometimes I’ve been able to fully and independently execute on the project, other times my lack of specialized skills forced me to either look for help of some other team members, or leave the work at a prototype stage. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve never been too much focused on sprint/epic task list given by some PM, where the only thing I could provide was the implementation of a specific feature in the 2 weeks sprint. I solved problems. Would that sound like E5 or E6? Do you think I would have problems with this less structured mentality when performing at FB? Thanks
There is no difference in the roles. FB has private levels, so only your manager will know your level. E5 or E6 will affect your compensation and the minimum expectations for your work. If you join as E5 and perform super strongly, you will receive outsized bonuses & stock which will balance out most/all of the comp difference. Being levelled as E6 based on 8 years of experience is not impossible, but very rare.
Thanks
Hard to say without more details. What kind of problems you solved, in what domain? Doing what a PM gives you, is like L3-L4 work. Independently doing a project, or solving a problem could be L5 , depending on problem scope. One way to measure is, how long were those projects you solved yourselves? How complex were they? L6 is the ability to think and act strategically on a problem domain, over a long time. But that too, when done in a well established technically strong company. I think it is v hard to aim for L6 based on startup work, without clearly showing the impact on business your individual work had.
Ofcourse after all of this, you also need to clear interviews for a particular target level. To get a successful offer, you need both. Clear interviews, andcalso show your experience matchesca level
Most of them were pretty long projects, easily 6 months each or more. Always in the infrastructure domain. I also acted as team lead, and some of those things were innovative enough that I have a couple patents in my name filed under the company, and I spoke at relevant tech conferences about this work and wasn’t thrown oranges. I ask because 2 years ago Google leveled me at L4 and FB leveled me at E5. I didn’t accept because it felt like a step down.