Why people hate downlevel?
Don’t get it. Assuming comp is same, why do you care to reject the job? For example, you a true L5, why not accept L4 and if you are truly L5, you would get the promo + work less?
Lower base, lower stock refreshers.
Good point - I have someone who was a big shot somewhere and we made him a senior here - he was ok and then a week after Joining he is worried about his level and pointing to all other problems and says his level is what makes him disappointed - so basically instead of growing he is in a perpetual disappointment cycle which is affecting performance and is likely not going to help and maybe he will get fired soon
Was senior an up or down level to him?
It’s also worth noting that being a successful senior engineer doesn’t always translate to being a successful junior engineer (same is true in the opposite direction as well). The skill sets needed to excel are quite different for a junior vs a senior engineer. Senior engineers who excel in design, architecture and politics are sometimes rusty when it comes to coding and implementation. Thus, someone who can make the L5 to L6 jump could very well struggle in being promoted from L3 to L4.
We “down level” titles a lot coming into Amazon. Scope is often the same, but titles don’t match. For example a MSFT principal is more often an AMZN SDE3. Same responsibilities, different title. Yet so many get hung up on title and turn down a job just on that. We try really hard to level appropriately in the interview loop. Interviews aren’t perfect, but if you get a level it’s because you answered interview questions like that level.
Your on blind and your assessment is that interviews are near perfect...wtf
Or because you were looped at that level. You cant get hired as a 7 if you are looped as a 6. Or because you were looped as an L6 SDE and messed up two edge cases in a single coding interview. Or... you get the gist.
You are assuming that promotion is a function of your work. In reality it is a function of so many things: your work, time, visibility, budget, business needs, management, politics, etc. Most of which are not under your control
Even for L3 to L4?
yes