Google down levels everyone?
Heard google down levels almost every engineer. Currently L4 at Amzn. I was planning to give google a shot, when i get to L5 at Amzn. But if Google's gonna downlevel me to L3 at Google, that means start from the beginning. Does it make sense to stay at Amzn for L5. Wondering if I should just start preparing for interviews ryt away. Let me know your thoughts.
So I’m currently in this position and have done a good bit of research on the topic. I’m at Microsoft. 3 yoe, level 61. I just got a google offer at L3. I was/am pretty frustrated it wasn’t L4. But from what I understand, google is notorious for knocking you down a level to give a conservative offer if they have anything other than a 100% strong hire signal. FWIW, I studied a lot for my interview and believe I did *quite* well. However, on one of the 5 interviews my performance was weak. I got a little tripped up at the beginning and we were pressured for time at the end. We still had a good discussion and I got some code written. But basically I believe that this one mishap is the reason they are offering me at L3 instead. So sounds like if you are in the ballpark for l4, you need a flawless interview execution otherwise you will get an L3 offer. The strategy in general then would be to do 5 faang interviews and take the best offer. But If like me you particularly wanted to work at google, then yeah you might just get downleveled. I know a lot of people on blind troll that you’re garbage if you don’t nail every faang interview and etc, but honestly doing any interview, let alone google, at 100% perfect execution in one try is pretty hard.. so downleveled offer is plausible. I can’t speak to how easy it is to go from L3 to 4. But just because they put a certain number on you doesn’t remove your years of experience. So in theory you can prove your capabilities are higher than they’ve pegged you
I agree with the last bit. But L5 at Amzn would probably pay more than L3 at Google. I probably don't care much of earning money here. But leaving a better pay might hurt a little :)
Also from your experience, i would rather interview for L3 right away than hope to give a flawless interview performance for L4
Op, its not a down level from 4 to 3. It's a lateral move. 5 to 3 would be a down level.
A recent promotion at Amazon probably won't impact leveling at Google. If you have 3+ YOE, just do an L4 interview loop. Whether you just got the promotion or not shouldn't matter.
If you're an L4 at Amazon, you will most likely get an L4 at Google.
L4 is new grad at Amazon.
Check levels in case you don't know our progression. Assuming L5 Amazon = L4 Google?