My friend got offers from Atlassian (SF) and Spotify but one level down. At Atlassian, she applied for P5 Sr. Designer and got offered, P4 Designer. The recruiter provided excellent feedback on the interviews, but they mentioned most of the interviewers thought she was one level down as she only has 1 YOE as a Senior designer. Similar situation at Spotify. She applied for Sr. designer, but they are also offering her the Designer position. Salary is lower than Atlassian (238k). She is working as Sr. Designer in a Startup. She is just worried because of down leveling other team members will not respect her, and on the other hand, she is also looking at she may be able to get a promotion within one year in both companies by showing value and results. Do you guys think she should take the roles or stay at her current place? Which company, Atlassian or Spotify? Any pros and cons on downlevel? YOE: 4 TC: 215k Atlassian Offered TC: 245k #design
it really depends on what startup she's working in. experience at small firms sometimes aren't valued 1:1 as those gained at big shops imo, even if the responsibilities are similar.
Good point that she is only working in a smaller org compared to Atlassian and Spotify. The current org only got 300+ employees and a small design team.
ok yeah that's a super small shop
Senior in some bigger companies is a big title. I joined Spotify as a Sr. with around 10 years of experience. Some Seniors were a lot less experienced (which was frustrating) but I was coming from an agency and they wanted more product background.
Makes sense! Now another key question Atlassian or Spotify? For the longer run, which has more growth chances and Employee centric culture.
I have no clue :) I have a very partial and not particular pleasant experience at Spotify, but there’s a lot of cool work depending on the team you are in. My main problem there was that people have very low motivation and they were mostly coasting.
Does your friend like the products of one company over the other? I was rejected from Atlassian (three different times...) and my buddy consoled me by telling me it probably would have been very boring. And I honestly hadn't even considered that...
4 yoe is low for senior level. Lots of companies would downlevel her and the fact that she's already got 2 is probably an indication of something. If she truly is senior level she'll get there by promotion. That being said the Atlassian comp is on par with our p4 swe comp which is more than I would have thought. 245k is a strong offer.
Ya what location is this for op?
SF
A senior design position at a startup doesn’t mean it’ll translate to companies that have established design orgs with their own rituals, processes and expectations. Seniors rarely exist with 4yoe in big companies.
If she is comfortable with Salary, then she should take one of the them. Both are very good companies and well reputed. If you have good Salary at P4 .. then don’t worry about title .. if you perform good, you can get promoted in 12 to 18 months at Atlassian. If they offer you P5 at same salary .. then it would be very tough to get to P6 . P4 to P5 is relatively easier
100%
Right level
I have seen people from Spotify came over to Atlassian but not the other way round. Also just recently heard Spotify design isnt great and Atlassian has tons of products and platform teams but Spotify is always known as just the music platform.
The apparent fear is that she doesn't want to be In that situation where she has to leave the company after 4 to 5 months or they kick her out.
And why would she in that situation in either company?
A lot of good answers here - to your question of would she get disrespected for being P4, I would say no. Most designers work on a triad so no matter what level, she would be doing independent work and owning her own projects. It would just be that her responsibilities would be less senior. To demonstrate seniority she would have had to have shown that she’s had experience influencing other senior stakeholders, having an impact on design strategy (or starting to go into that space) or something similar, and I imagine she might not have had the breadth of space in a startup to do this. Happy to chat more if she had any questions!
Thank you for the answer! It makes sense.
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The con is it takes more than 1 year to level back up and her experience from an outside perspective reads like a down level and she isn’t competent at the senior level
In my opinion, she is a Sr. Level, but I can be biased.