Feeling under-leveled and kind of bored / unmotivated
I'm L4 at google. Was hired at L3 and recently promoted to L4 with "superb" rating. My manager even pointed out that "superb" means I'm clearly doing L5 work, but can only be promoted once at a time. I am already doing many things at L5 ladder, and I have 7+ YoE in the field. I'm feeling a bit impatient at L4 while I've been clearly doing L5 work for a while now.
In fact, I wrote a bunch of code that worked fairly well and then a new L5 hire changed everything for the worse (suddenly became impossible to mock and test the code properly, lost a lot of nice compile-time checks). Furthermore, the L5 started stealing / absorbing some of my designs into their own and taking quarterly tasks with the most impact, so it's harder for me to get them now. This isn't a big deal, since I know L5 is also trying to get promo, but I feel like I'm fully capable of doing everything the L5 is doing and more.
I like Google as a company so I don't really want to move companies, but I think I could easily get offers at Netflix/FB at the equivalent of my level+1. I sent some applications to test the market, so we'll see where that goes.
This feeling is making me kind of unmotivated, but I may also just be getting tired / bored of this specific team.
TC 230k, 7YoE
#swe #engineering #software #google
comments
Iβve seen many L4 to L5 promotions within less than 2 years. There are also people get it in less than 1 year, of course uncommon but does happen. Besides level, I think op may consider whether you like the work & team as well before next move.
Here I am hoping to atleast get into Google.
Leave.
However, you sound like you feel you are entitled to it. That attitude will actually get you shot down for a promo. I have personally told two engineers at Google when they reported to me that it was OK at L3, but they wouldn't make it past L4 if they didn't work on their toxic attitude.
This is a regular occurrence at Google.