Joined Amazon with 13 years of experience but was offered SDE2. Although I felt I was downleveled but I joined anyways as I wanted to move to Canada. I've been here almost 2 years and have been trying for promotion, but due to constant reorgs I haven't been under a single manager for more than 6 months. Ive started feeling that it might be easier to grow up by moving out of amazon. I'm even tempted to try Microsoft if they offer level 63 or 64. Other options can be Splunk or Shopify. Does it make sense to stick with Amazon? TC 180k CAD
Getting hired at a higher level elsewhere will require 1-2 months of leetcoding. Getting an L6 promo under those circumstances will require an act of god. Either suck it up and job hop or suck it up and switch to a more stable org.
how’s the tech scene in canada? what options do you have?
In Vancouver the known brands (I believe) are Amazon, Microsoft, Shopify, Splunk, elastic, salesforce, Expedia
Microsoft Vancouver office was mostly a revolving door. If one has US visa issues, they are parked in Vancouver. It is close, same time zone and the person could visit the US team every few months. This means lots of individuals sit together in Vancouver but don’t necessarily work together. However someone was telling me some org has a Vancouver team now...
Go to new org. Only option except leave company.
Try to change team.
Change company. Promotions don't give u any substantial increase for another year or two
Try Microsoft. You didn’t give much background on skills etc. but if you can code + design etc, L63 is doable.
Thanks. I have designed backend services from scratch