L4 now or wait a few years
One of my friend said since it’s so hard to get internally promoted to L5 from L4 at Google. He rather interview later when he gets promoted to the same level as L5 then do the interview. Is this true? He is saying that I would be stupid to take a L4 offer now because I would be stuck in L4 for a very long time. 3.5 YOE New TC: 260k
What’s your old TC? If it’s a sizable bump and then team seems good to spend a few years on at L4 to get to L5, do it.
Pretty huge bump since I was at a L3 level.
Solid. Welcome to Google! (Also if you think about it, joining google now at L4 means even if the worst case passes and you don’t get L5 on your desired timeline, then you can go somewhere else for L+1 at that time like you’re doing now.)
If you are already getting offer, take it. If you wait for 1-1.5 year, then prepare and join as l5, anyways you would be wasting 2 years. You can get promoted in 2 years if you work hard and meanwhile enjoy all google perks and better TC
That’s what I thought. Guess my friend is just being a sour grape.
Beware. Getting from L4 it L5 at google is very difficult. I have almost 10 yoe, got SEE for three cycles and still haven’t been promoted...
YOE?
Google L4 offer details please?
What level are you now at Indeed? L2? I would take the T4 offer for sure. You have a shot to make it to T5 realistically within 3 years. But it's gonna be tough to get a T5 offer with 6.5 YOE. When I joined Google, I had 8 YOE and they would only let me interview for T4, I wasn't even given a shot at T5.
I disagree only because system design interviews are harder at L5 without practical experience in big tech and not easy to just grind like LC interviews. I'm taking an L4 MLE offer since it's hard to get system design experience at no-name companies. Hopefully I will learn system design at G, if I don't get promoted at least I will learn something for interviews
anything at goog better than indeed. take what you can get
Definitely. Just curious why people think like my friend.
your friend is right that getting promoted to L5 is really tough internally but they are also not guaranteed to get an L5 offer in a few years just because they are senior elsewhere. (they aren’t even guaranteed to get an offer at all) but if they have some better opportunity now than google L4 or are confident they’d get L5 offer in future then i can see it making sense