
Compare career levels across companies - kposehn
https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft
======
seattleeng
Huge fan of this site, for two reasons:

\- It lets “outsiders” to the tech scene understand salary and levels at big
companies. If you went to MIT you probably already have frat brothers/sorority
sisters or an alumni network that consists of senior engineers at these big
companies that know the promotion and compensation schemes well. But if you
were an equally smart student who went to a non target school, many of these
organizational “open secrets” are hidden and must be earned through work
experience, which costs time and career opportunity.

\- Even if you do have some access to a network, these schemes evolve over
time. Salary especially (levels not so much). Having up to date data is huge
for assessing options during a job search or even planning for one.

The site isn’t perfect— a lot of the leveling data is subjective AFAICT and
not based on cross company moves, and the comp info seems a bit skewed for
some companies and more senior roles. But its a huge step in the right
direction towards empowering employees.

~~~
JimboOmega
There are two problems with these:

1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's
_really_ difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you
like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something
you can easily stick a dollar value on.

2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar
experience levels as you making FAR more money (perhaps 50%, or even double),
because you aren't at a FAANG company (or whatever we're calling them now). It
can really make you feel like you haven't learned/grown/accomplished anything
in your career when you see people starting at a similar comp to what you get
for a decade+ of experience.

Some people act as though these companies are an easy alternative for anyone,
but the reality is that there are only a handful of them. For me, with a ruby
background(+), I'm not particularly interesting to any of them, and I know I'm
not the only one.

It's neat that between Facebook/Apple/Google you can compare apples to apples,
but for a lot of people, it's really an apples to oranges comparison, and a
frustrating one.

Also, I imagine it's that much worse for people outside the Bay Area.

(+: While I'm happy to learn new languages on the job and not tied to any
stack, it's still not easy. For instance, a Google recruiter once told me to
spend a few months becoming a Python expert, and then they'd interview me (in
Python); another time a Microsoft recruiter insisted that I do the interview
in Java and then got frustrated when I struggled with syntax I hadn't touched
in 5 years.)

~~~
mav3rick
So what you're saying is that this tool is bad because it makes you sad ?.
Information is empowering use it to make informed choices about your career.
If you're taking less money, make sure there is some trade off you're happy
with.

Also, most Google jobs are language agnostic. You can code in pretty much one
of C/C++, Java, Python, Google hires for generalists. Your Ruby experience is
not what's holding you back, so don't get bogged down.

~~~
ACow_Adonis
Says google is code agnostic.

Provides list of the three languages you specifically need to code in.

Perhaps agnostic means something different in my language :p

~~~
danillonunes
I think code agnostic in this case means they don’t hire based on a language,
but they still work with a limited set.

It makes sense if you think about it. A small startup with 5 Python engineers
can’t afford to hire one with heavy experience in Ruby and who knows a thing
or two about Python.

First, it may be the case that this person can actually transfer their
knowledge and do a good job with Python, but there’s also a chance they can’t
and that will disturb the entire operation for a team that small, that’s a big
risk.

Also, this person is not going to be paid as a Jr. Python because they have
the options to be paid as a Sr. Ruby somewhere else, so the startup need to
step up their pay game, now that’s a big and expensive risk.

A big company like Google, on the other hand, can afford to have that risk. If
everything goes right, they end up with a great Ruby and Python engineer, if
things goes wrong, Google is so big they probably have some other projects
somewhere that can use a good Rubyst, and in the worst case scenario, if the
person really can’t fit anywhere, a company like Google can still afford to
let them go and eat the costs of a wrong hire.

~~~
PakG1
Everything you said is not wrong. But it still seems to me that agnostic is
the wrong word to use here, and code agnostic is the wrong phrase.

edit: mav3rick has clarified below, it does indeed seem code agnostic.

------
Zaheer
Maker here, posting this as a top-level comment for visibility. Lots of folks
are interested in the salary information alone. We have a dedicated page for
compensation information:
[https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html](https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html)

There's also a short url: [http://www.comp.fyi](http://www.comp.fyi) :)

Edit: You can also contribute by adding your comp here:
[https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html](https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html)

~~~
tedsanders
Very interesting, thanks for putting this together.

One thing that I'd like to see - on compensation, can you clarify whether the
stock grants are valued at time of grant or at time of vesting?

If they are valued at time of vesting then the numbers will be much harder to
(a) compare against one another, and (b) extrapolate into the future.

Right now the submission form is ambiguous, which I worry is muddying your
dataset. I highly recommend picking one and clarifying that on the submission
form.

~~~
Zaheer
The submission form [1] asks explicitly for what would appear on your W2 (ex.
vested value). Part of the reason why comp packages have been so high in last
1-2 years is that stock grants that were given to employees 2-4 years ago have
shot up in value via a bull run stock market. To attract these employees,
companies have to outbid their current expected take-home pay. Thus the vested
value is actually most relevant when you are comparing your current
compensation and new offers.

[1] [https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html](https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html)

~~~
refurb
This is really true. A lot of people ask “what kind of a developer makes
$300-400k per year?”.

The answer is one working for a company with equity that is increasing in
value rapidly.

Take that away and it’s more typical to get $150-200k base plus another $50k
in equity.

------
slivym
Here's a slightly related open question: Are Engineers in the US just much
richer than in the UK?

For perspective, I started my career with an MEng in Electronic and Electrical
Engineering as a Hardware Design Engineer at £35k (I out-earned most of my
fellow graduates). It seems like these salaries are just comically disjointed
from my entire experience of life. Can anyone here speak to the differences?
Everything I've seen points me to Californians just living an incredibly well-
off lifestyle, but everything I read also indicates the people who have those
lifestyles do _not_ feel well-off?

~~~
lordnacho
The UK is just very skewed, due to finance. I studied in the UK, and there was
a 6 month placement internship programme.

Engineering firm (industrial measurement) wanted to pay me $11K to be an
engineer. Marketing department at a major semiconductor said £15K. So I took
it. My friend at Goldmans got £37K.

So guess what I did after uni. I even met loads of people in finance with
engineering degrees who said they were now earning multiples of what their
previous bosses in engineering were earning.

Anyway, if you do have tech skills, finance is after that. Particularly right
now as all the trading is going full auto. Amazingly there are still places
that don't have straight through processing in place, so plenty of work. At
the fun end there's a lot of demand for people who can write trading algos,
which I did for a long time.

This is after years of IT people in finance being second class citizens.

~~~
spbaar
My understanding of finance as vaguely magical makes this easy to believe. Buy
why does does engineering pay so low in UK?

~~~
lordnacho
Mystery to me as well. The only people I know from the course who do it live
far from London. Even then I'm not sure how it makes sense when you could get
a remote job.

------
imbusy111
Either I was: 1) seriously underpaid at Google, 2) things have changed a lot
in the past half year or 3) the stats do not reflect real averages.

~~~
Zaheer
Keep in mind that new hire salaries at the same level are typically higher
than folks internally who have been at that level for some time. The market
rate has actually gone up significantly in last 1-2 years.

~~~
vonmoltke
I have 16 years of engineering experience and Google has made me two offers
(original and revised) for a T4 position in NY that are well below the numbers
reported on Levels (in fact, below the average on the site). So, either I am
getting low balled like hell or there is skew in the numbers.

Edit: there is _skew_ in the numbers, not _some_ in the numbers.

~~~
closeparen
My company is allegedly aligned with Google’s levels here, and people
routinely make Senior within 4 years. Spending more than 2 years at Eng I or
Eng II is considered a cause for serious concern.

So T4 after 16 years is very surprising. Something is off.

~~~
morgante
It is not especially unusual for industry hires (even those with plenty of
experience) to come in at T4 for Google. Being productive and effective within
Google is an additional skill which is not identical to the outside, so it's a
risk avoidance measure on both sides.

Assuming your experience translates well, people frequently go for promo
within a year or two.

~~~
vonmoltke
> Being productive and effective within Google is an additional skill which is
> not identical to the outside

I don't buy that. I get that Google has a whole lot of proprietary stuff they
have built their business on, but being in that situation is not unique to
Google.

> Assuming your experience translates well, people frequently go for promo
> within a year or two.

If that's the case, I'm not going to feel bad rejecting this offer.

------
Zaheer
Hi, I'm one the makers of Levels.fyi. Happy to answer any questions and would
love to hear feedback! We have a lot of features in the coming months that we
think folks will love!

~~~
Pfhreak
Consider adding non-binary genders to the comp reporting. Something as simple
as 'other' or 'non-binary' would be nice. The challenges that non-binary folks
face can sometimes be different, and it might be nice to see that reflected in
the comp tool.

Edit: I wouldn't ask, except that the tool already asks for gender. If you are
already asking for a gender, you should consider include options beyond
male/female.

Curious about the downvotes without responses. Tech has people who are non-
binary, whose salary negotiations may be impacted by that, and who may
struggle to find data that represents them.

~~~
Zaheer
Good feedback, we'll get this added shortly. We added gender recently based on
feedback to highlight the gender wage gap. Agree that non-binary folks may
experience another set of challenges and will be good to see the data.

~~~
Pfhreak
Thanks, who knows if enough non-binary folks will report, but I appreciate you
taking the feedback!

------
m4r71n
Does anyone know of similar data but for EU countries? As was already
mentioned in this thread, salaries differ from the US quite a bit, but it
would still be nice to know what the norm is.

I'm considering moving to Germany and have no idea what salary I should be
asking for in interviews for a senior software engineer, nor do I know where
to find out this information.

~~~
saiya-jin
glassdoor? Or check expat forums in germany for the same question (I am sure
they will be annoyed to hear it a millionth time, but you should find useful
info)

~~~
m4r71n
Glassdoor is a good starting point but it would be nice to know of a
community-gathered data source. Any pointers to specific expat forums?

------
kweinber
Sites like this are recruiter-bait. (Notice that Triplebyte is a recruiter).
They purport to have real salary info from the richest companies in the world
to unsettle employees. (With no claim to even be telling the truth). This
inspires people to be job flippers when they are closer to the average
salaries that pay well but don’t compete at the high end.

Changing jobs every year might get you quick raises early but actually
achieving meaningful results takes time and gets you bigger
raises/satisfaction in the long run. Don’t let recruiter-bait push you into
someone who hops around out of envy and never really commits to anything.

~~~
bb611
> actually achieving meaningful results takes time and gets you bigger raises

Do you have evidence this is true? I agree with your point about satisfaction,
but I've seen a lot of people who believed this about salary and got totally
screwed as a result.

------
amazon_tossaway
Amazonian here. Can anyone else from Amazon speak to whether you think these
numbers look accurate?

I'm sitting here in almost disbelief at how little I apparently make at AMZN.
I don't think I have anyone to ask that would know and would be willing to
give any kind of answer.

I've been fairly content at Amazon. I've done good work, and have been a
resource to others on my team. But if these numbers are right, I don't think I
can stay much longer.

~~~
colmmacc
I've been an L5, L6, L7 and L8 at Amazon over the last 10 years. My experience
is that once you've been here a while the total comp is a rollercoaster that
follows the stock price. I haven't had a salary increase since I was L6 (and
don't want one!) ... so for me it all comes down to when I got stock and how
it performed over the next few years. Personally I've done very well that way,
as it's nearly always outperformed expectations. I think that tenured people
like me skew the comp distribution because of that factor.

In general though, although it's human and natural, I wouldn't focus on what I
make vs my colleagues or try to measure worth quite like that. It's simpler to
think about it terms of "What would I make elsewhere and would I really be
willing to leave and go through the disruption and risk of a change in jobs
for that".

~~~
amazon_tossaway
Is the reason you haven't received a salary increase since L6 because you
reached the max base pay?

Why do you say you don't want a salary increase?

Regarding your last point, my focus is actually not on what I make vs my
colleagues, but rather what I make vs what I could potentially be making
elsewhere. You're of course right about the risk of a job change, but I
wouldn't leave unless I felt confident that I found a good fit.

~~~
colmmacc
I'm not at the max base pay ... though I have gotten to the point where the
majority of my comp is in stock anyway. It's always a gamble, but I have
enough confidence in Amazon for the long term that given a certain total comp
target, I'd prefer as much of the comp as possible be in RSUs. Then again, I
have enough financial security that I can also afford to lose that bet.

------
henryw
I ran into this site before from all the compensation discussions on
[https://www.teamblind.com](https://www.teamblind.com)

~~~
bradleyjg
I don't think I'd want an activation email sent to my work account.

~~~
ummonk
You can always send activation emails to random people at your workplace as
well.

~~~
maerF0x0
or even everyone

------
pcurve
Wow, I'm 40 year old director at big fortune company... and I find this mildly
depressing lol.

Why is this so different than Glassdoor?

~~~
taurath
Glassdoor doesn’t look at stock grants as income.

~~~
bb611
They have started collecting that data.

The real issue is they don't seem to properly weight responses to get accurate
current year numbers. The estimated total comp for my position is about 1/3
low on Glassdoor, it's about 1/30 low on levels

------
Cthulhu_
I've been in the software industry for idk, 9 or so years now and nowhere have
I worked where there was like a level up system. You're judged - and paid for
- by merit and personality (the last one is unfortunate, I'm a bit autistic
and cynical so I'm nowhere near where I could be income-wise). We do have
people with job titles from time to time beyond 'developer' but they seem like
exceptions - like, having to invent a CTO title because the guy hit some
income ceiling for the software development department.

------
Kaveren
With anonymous submissions on sites like these (see also: Glassdoor), I wonder
if there's any sabotage going on where companies submit fraudulent information
about competitors.

Isn't it a potential downside to this open approach without any verification?

~~~
compumike
Anonymous, self-reported compensation data will likely skew higher than
reality due to reporting bias.

In contrast: [https://triplebyte.com/software-engineer-
salary](https://triplebyte.com/software-engineer-salary) shows the actual
width of the salary distribution, and the dataset includes all offers made to
engineers on our hiring marketplace -- no reporting bias or fudging numbers
upwards. (Disclosure: made that page. But also love Levels.fyi. Transparency
is good for engineers.)

Edit: previously discussed
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15808549](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15808549)

~~~
dublidu
I actually think Triplebyte’s numbers are low because they don’t reflect RSUs
and refresher grants. It’s also hard to compare ISOs to RSUs.

------
CM30
It's an interesting site, and it seems like a nice way to compare salary and
the possibilities for advancement at the companies included.

However, am I the only one who kinda thought it'd give a bit of information
about the responsibilities and required skillsets for each level? Personally,
I've always found the hardest bit around shopping around for a job knowing
exactly what they expect of a hire with X number of years of experience, or
what they consider a junior/middleweight/expert engineer. It'd be interesting
to see something like this which says say, Google expects a Senior Software
Engineer to know these languages and have these skills, whereas Facebook
expects them to know these languages and have these other skills or what not.

~~~
Cyph0n
At a large company like Google or FB, responsibilities for the same role may
vary widely between orgs or even teams within the same org. So I don’t really
think that you can define “responsibilities” in a way that allows you to
compare between companies.

------
Apocryphon
I like how the sample question on Triplebyte tests API memorization instead of
algorithms knowledge.

Of course, you can't win. At a whiteboarding session, there will always be
applicants who give out the method from the library instead of providing an
algorithmic solution.

~~~
saagarjha
I found it to be an ok question; not at all an API one. The answers differ
quite a bit, and by choosing one and explaining why you can show that you
understand what you’re doing. For example, if you choose str.indexOf(‘ ‘) you
clearly have no idea what you’re doing, and if you pick str.count(‘ ‘) - 1 you
look like you saw the actual solution somewhere and are picking something that
looks similar without really thinking about it (why are you subtracting one
from something that seems like it returns the number of spaces in a string?).
The last one would require the knowledge that “words” is not a common API that
any language vends.

~~~
Arnavion
I agree with you about A and C, but not your reason for discounting D.

In particular, [https://doc.rust-
lang.org/1.0.0/unicode/str/trait.UnicodeStr...](https://doc.rust-
lang.org/1.0.0/unicode/str/trait.UnicodeStr.html#tymethod.words) is an ancient
counter-example (it was replaced by split_whitespace).

~~~
true_religion
Counting words isnt strictly the same thing as counting spaces, so without
knowing Javascript, you can still guess that it is wrong.

Most of their questions are like SAT questions. They require you have some
knowledge about the field in general, then place the answer within the wording
of the question itself, or allow logic to determine the right answer.

------
domlebo70
What is it like working at Google? I work at a startup, and these numbers are
insanity to me. I have 10 years experience in mostly Haskell & FP (and that's
what I enjoy doing). What would I do with my skills at one of the bigger tech
companies?

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
With ten years under your belt, if you've been spending the time learning and
growing your skills, you can do almost anything you want at Google. Except if
you insist on doing it in Haskell. There are probably a handful of teams
across the company that are using that language, but they might not have
headcount to hire you at any given point in time.

Google is most definitely not a polyglot programming environment. There are
five and a half blessed languages (C++, Java, Python, JS/TypeScript, and Go),
and getting a new one added and approved is a major undertaking, and not
guaranteed to succeed no matter how much effort you apply. And you'll still
need to do your job. Even if your language of choice does get added, that
doesn't mean you can use it on your project of choice. You code in what the
rest of the code near you is written in. It's a sacrifice, but one I'm
personally willing to make.

~~~
domlebo70
Thanks, this is some useful insight.

Can you perhaps talk a little about what your team and the teams around you
are working on? What are the problems you are trying to solve? Happy to take
this to another forum, if you don't want to talk publicly.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
I work on the search systems that serve things like calendar, gmail, and other
private data stores. In terms of the types of problems, some of the stuff I do
is paying off technical debt (fixing mistakes that were made earlier in the
system's design), and I'm also working on a big migration from one storage
backend to another (sorry, can't go into detail). Earlier this year I spent
time using a SAT solver to assist with query planning. There's a variety of
different sorts of work, even within a single project, and you can often guide
the sorts of problems you want to target by telling your manager what you're
interested in.

------
lordnacho
Can you really make a million bucks with just 10 years experience as a T7 at
Google? What does a "Senior Staff SWE" do? Are there a lot of them?

~~~
yegle
Most people won't reach T7 in 10 years.

The expectation for each level is: L3: you are expected to do projects
assigned to you well L4: you are expected to lead a project in your team well
L5: you are expected to lead a project across multiple teams in your
organization well L6: you are expected to lead a project across multiple
organizations well

I think the L6 engineer is basically a CTO role in many other companies. L7 is
even beyond that.

~~~
usaar333
Your L4+ levels seem pushed up by one to two. Levels should align to manager
equivilent scopes.

Based on my own experience at peer company and [https://www.quora.com/What-
are-all-the-job-levels-in-Googles...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-
job-levels-in-Googles-technical-career-track)

L4: Capable of independent work on a project and coordinating with a small
group (1-2 others). (note this is PhD starting level)

L5: Capable of leading your team (e.g. as a tech lead). Maps to entry-level
manager

L6: Capable of leading a large team (e.g. large team TL). Maps to more
seasoned manager.

L7: Lead project across multiple teams well. Maps to senior manager (manager
of managers)

L8: Lead project across multiple orgs/large org. Maps to director (manager of
managers of managers).

At a series B stage company (say 100 eng), on manager track, L7s might be
called directors. L8 would be VP engineering.

~~~
josh2600
To be clear, there are different levels for managers and engineers. An L7
engineer is a seriously dope engineer (like the kind of person you'd want to
found a hard technical company with; think low-level problems like DMA). An L7
manager maps to a senior engineering manager.

I have talked to a couple L9 engineers and they're monstrous. L9 managers are
directors or VPs.

~~~
__float
Why is "hard tech" == "low-level"? There are plenty of interesting and
challenging technical problems that are "higher level" but more difficult due
to scale/latency/etc demands.

~~~
Cyph0n
Besides, DMA isn’t really a “hard” problem as far as I am aware...

~~~
deanmoriarty
[https://baus.net/you-cant-impress-developers/](https://baus.net/you-cant-
impress-developers/)

~~~
Cyph0n
Oh, so now we need to feign being impressed so no one gets their feelings
hurt?

The fact of the matter is, were DMA indeed a hard problem, I would not have
posted the comment.

So instead of posting a link to a blog post, perhaps you could try to disprove
my claim?

~~~
deanmoriarty
In my experience, if you think that implementing from scratch a DMA solution
is not hard, then you are an extraordinary talented engineer, far above the
level you find at FAANG, so your opinion on this matter is not terribly
relevant. It would be as if Jeff Dean came and said writing MapReduce is not a
hard task. Nice, but not relevant for the 99.9999% of the talent pool.

I got a couple offers over the years for L5-L6 positions at FAANG
(specifically Google and Facebook) to work on low level stuff, including
system programming and kernel development, since I have a few dozens upstream
Linux kernel contributions in some subsystems I dabbled with.

I also had to deal with writing a video4linux custom driver for an embedded
industrial machine and a very custom acquisition card using DMA in the past,
and it was significantly difficult even to just make it work playing with the
well-defined kernel DMA APIs. I can easily see how the complexity required to
write the entire kernel plumbing framework that makes DMA possible to leverage
for normal developers like me would be a hard engineering task, definitely one
that deserves an L7 architect/engineer capable of coming up with the right
level of abstractions, incredibly important for a C kernel API. Just because
one can explain on a whiteboard what DMA is and how it is supposed to work by
remembering the OS college class (I'm not saying that's you), it doesn't make
it an easy engineering task, engineering it's about making things work. I'm
sure if you go back to the LKML mailing list and look at the time period where
DMA support was initially introduced in the kernel, you'll be surprised at the
sheer engineering complexity that was discussed when introducing such core
kernel feature.

In conclusion, the fact that FB and GOOG wanted to hire me to work on stuff
relatively close to what we're talking about, at a level that is considered
senior, gives me some legitimacy to say that me thinking it's a hard problem
isn't probably too far from the truth, otherwise we are somehow assuming that
FAANG extends offers to incompetent people (multiple times), mistakenly
considering them senior engineers.

I take your original comment as naive as the people who say "I could have
built Instagram/Whatsapp tech in a week!", because you either are a super
expert, or you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.

Perhaps you should consider getting an offer for $1M/y (or more! Since L7
tasks are easy for you maybe you can shoot for an L9 and ask $2M/y, I have a
close friend at GOOG at that level who gets paid that much) there then, if
you're not already in that elite band of compensation?

~~~
Cyph0n
Perhaps we’ve understood the original comment differently.

I took it to mean writing a driver that uses an existing DMA API to talk to a
controller.

But yes, I agree: implementing such a DMA interface from scratch — even with
an existing controller — is not a trivial problem. Testing and verifying said
implementation would also be difficult.

Well, I hope that one day I can make 1M/yr! For now, 3 months into my first
job, I’m fairly satisfied with where I’m at :)

I’m considering shifting into kernel development next. Given your experience,
would you advise going down that career route? Any tips for a career in low-
level development?

~~~
deanmoriarty
In my opinion (which is not shared by many these days) understanding things at
a reasonably low level is critical, I firmly believe that makes you a better
programmer, even if you end up doing frontend development.

My experience with the kernel has always been mostly tangential, typically a
byproduct of what I do day to day, which is working at a SaaS startup at scale
and wearing many hats, from backend development (Java/C++) to infrastructure
management. As I find performance problems, many times I find myself digging
into the kernel code and exploring parts of the networking stack (e.g. finding
out the specific behavior of a socket option), virtual memory management (e.g.
finding out some quirks about the page fault management system), ...

Sometimes that leads to some small kernel patches and I've done several during
the years, so that's typically my limit. The v4l driver I mentioned above was
6-7 years ago when I was in college and took a part time job working on that
with a very talented team.

Apparently FAANG likes those kind of background, especially if you can get
into a more SRE-type role where they are actually not looking to quiz you only
on dynamic programming algorithms, but also on your ability to reason with
system design, low level systems and performance, at least that's my
experience.

------
robynsmith
This makes salaries and compensation in Toronto seem outrageously low. Wow.

Maybe I should be moving? Crazy.

(Sadly, family is here, so moving is unlikely)

~~~
radicaldreamer
This is the usual reaction for those outside the Bay Area. Cost of living is
very high in SF though, as are home prices.

~~~
robynsmith
True. But Toronto is pretty bad too. And we generally don't have the high
levels of stock compensation. That looks like it could make a huge difference.

------
unionemployee
As an average potential software engineer in the Midwest, it's at first
exciting to see these salaries, but I also feel the need to check myself and
realize that, in some ways, this is another universe to which I probably don't
have access.

~~~
twoquestions
It seems getting access to this world requires either superlative ability, a
network of people who can teach you the lingo, or university pedigree.

Probably a matter of time until programming is another power-law career like
music or law is, where only the top hundred or thousand in the world can get
by.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> where only the top hundred or thousand in the world can get by.

I don't think that's correct - music or law employs a ton of working
professionals at all levels. If working at one of the big companies is the
measure of "getting by" that means if you're a lawyer in a small town you're
probably not getting by, which is absolutely not the case.

------
kabdib
I was an L66 at Microsoft six years ago; the numbers there line up pretty well
with my own, and the other numbers I'm aware of there.

------
georgeburdell
Perhaps a stupid question, but are the comparable levels for equal seniority
or impact of work, or equal compensation? If the latter, they definitely don't
line up, especially FAANG vs. non-FAANG. If the former, it seems about right;
wife and I are both staff-level at two different companies and the tiers are
next to each other.

~~~
Zaheer
We take a holistic approach to level comparisons. The ultimate goal being to
answer, "If I join X company, what level will I be placed at?". Compensation
as you've pointed out, is not reflective of this because it varies wildly
based on the size of company.

------
agoldis
I left Amazon just 5 months after being employed there as an SDE, it was
terrible. It's not all about the money. The levels have nothing to do with
tech or experience. It's the ability of person to navigate his career through
corporate bureaucracy and politics.

~~~
oculusthrift
no offense but when i hear leaving after 5 months it just sounds like serious
underperformance.

~~~
agoldis
Why?

I left after 5 month voluntarily, I wasn't fired. I performed well and they
wanted me to stay, 5 months was just enough to understand what kind of company
is it.

------
eeks
The IBM ranks are inaccurate. Fellows are not above DEs. Both are the highest
ranks indeed, but of two different tracks. DE is the highest rank of the
engineering track, while Fellow is the highest rank of the research track.
Fellowship have also be granted to non-research people over the past 20 years,
diluting the merit of the title IMHO. Examples of fellows are: John Backus,
Gene Amdahl, Ken Iverson, Benoit Mandelbrot, etc.

Both levels may reside in different pay bands, but they are both at the
executive level. And DEs cannot become fellows, and vice versa (some
exceptions to the rule may have existed).

~~~
tytso
I was at the IBM LTC from 2001--2009 as an STSM, and my understanding was that
DE's could absolutely get promoted to Fellows. So assuming that Fellows are
"just" the highest rank of the research rank is not really accurate. Perhaps
that's what you mean by "diluting the merit of the title", but that sounds
like you're coming from the Research side of IBM. :-)

Yes, it's rare for a DE to get promoted to be a Fellow, but that's because
there are very few Fellows at IBM. And there's no reason why a Fellow would
want to become a DE, since that would mean taking a pay cut. (See below)

From a salary band perspective, STSM is actually the highest rank of the
engineering track (aka Band 10). A DE is paid on the bottom rung of the
executive track (Band D), while a Fellow is paid as an Executive Band C. Which
means a Fellow may be the highest rank of the "research track" but a Fellow is
still going to rank below an SVP or GM from a salary perspective. :-)

~~~
eeks
You may be right about the DE -> Fellow promotion, although I only heard of it
once, and that person was pretty spectacular. The Fellow -> DE path is unheard
of. As is the RSM -> DE. All the DEs I know came from SWG and were STSM.

Re: my “dilution” comment, i was not thinking about DEs. I was thinking about
non-technical people (management, law, accounting, ...) that have been
creeping up the Fellowship lately. Also the bluewashed executive that were
given a fellowship package to seeeten the pot.

~~~
tytso
Well I had the privilege of working with Paul McKenney who invented (and
patented) Read-Copy-Update (RCU). He came to IBM as part of the Sequent
acquisition, and was part of the Linux Technology Center, which was in the
Systems and Technology group.

If you take a look at some of IBM's press releases, you'll see there are
plenty of Fellows that come from the SWG and STG, and not just Research. For
example:

[https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/7142.wss](https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/7142.wss)

------
partycoder
Some companies have a higher technical level. Do you think a principal
engineer at a non-descript company can find a job as a principal engineer at
Google for example? I highly doubt so.

Do you think an engineer at working in v8, Blink, Skia, Chromium are at the
same level as an engineer indirectly using those technologies?

Do you think an engineer working on internet-scale APIs is at the same level
of a user of such APIs?

------
1timeaccount25
FAANG companies have had huge stock increases in the last few years. A hiring
bonus stockgrant 4 years ago for 50k is now delivering close to an extra 100k
per year as it vests. It's not clear if folks are counting their stockgrant at
the original value or the current value which could differ significantly.

------
hagope
Is this an accurate representation of comp? For the equity portion, for
example if the value is calculated at 2018 peak stock market levels (RSU are
granted in # of shares, not value of shares) then shouldn't all the equity
values be discounted by the 10-20% drop in FANG stock values?

~~~
dublidu
Yes. Senior engineers at these companies are heavily compensated via equity.
Total comp can fluctuate by tens of thousands each month. Its crazy hoe much
picking a job has become an exercise in stock picking, and it’s crazy how
little our individual performance correlates with comp.

~~~
woolvalley
I have a saying that we didn't become all of a sudden better people, but that
we are over priced like houses in the bay area, subject to similar dynamics
because the demand is large and from the wealthiest companies in the world.

------
khalilravanna
I'm not super familiar with big companies, having worked mostly at startups
with less structured "levels", but is there a separate scale or set of levels
for managers? Or can you be "Senior SWE" _and_ a manager at Google for
example?

~~~
oculusthrift
It’s essentially the same in internal levels just different title. For
instance at Microsoft most managers are Principal level. And google most are
atleast l5. (with some exceptions). But instead of being called principal
engineer they are called principal engineering manager.

------
oculusthrift
these are obviously new hire figures (includes signing etc). does anyone know
if one can expect similiar compensation if hired as l3 and move up to l4
versus if hired as l4 directly. wondering if it’s better to switch jobs for
promotions in that case.

~~~
mav3rick
It's always better if you come in new.

~~~
oculusthrift
right but thinking for instance. would it make sense to leave to facebook just
for the comp bump at l4 even if you really like your job at google? just
because being a new hire would give you more comp?

~~~
mav3rick
I think this is where big companies get comp wrong. They should incentivize
staying because after 4 yrs, you're right, there is a big comp fall. For me
personally, I am happy with my work, comp, team and manager. That happiness >
my willingness to practice for interviews again :)

------
oculusthrift
when comparing msft/amzn with the rest keep in mind the state tax and CoL.
that being said goog and fb also have seattle offices. but msft and amzn have
bay area offices that pay more as well

------
truth_seeker
Netflix - Senior Software Engineer, only one level across the company

~~~
vonmoltke
Similarly, Bloomberg only has two: Senior and not-Senior.

------
kevinyun
I remember seeing this site being posted by an indie hacker / startup guy(s?).
The interface feels very familiar. Was this acquired by Triplebyte? Did
Triplebyte acquire levels.io?

~~~
Zaheer
Yup we were featured on IndieHackers [1]! Triplebyte is our sponsor. We are
independent.

[1]
[https://indiehackers.com/interview/da7a4f5d63](https://indiehackers.com/interview/da7a4f5d63)

------
tinkerteller
It seems equivalent levels at Microsoft are severely underpaid by the factor
of 2 and sometimes even 3. How the levels considered equivalent across
different companies on this website?

------
mawburn
This is surprisingly not as insane as I expected. I was expecting to feel
underpaid in comparison and they do make a bit more at the same level, but
this actually makes me feel better.

------
ErikAugust
I’ve never worked in a major tier locale or for a FAANG so these TCs are wild
for me. We’re hiring mid- to senior developers at probably half the big league
Bay Area companies do.

------
mkhizar53
This is so clean!!!! Glassdoor is so messy compared to this!

------
nerdponx
Would be nice to see data science in here as well.

~~~
Zaheer
We rely heavily on crowdsourcing. If you can send us levels for datascience
roles at any companies you know that would help a lot! hello [at] levels [dot]
fyi

------
arminiusreturns
Why are sysadmins so ignored in things like this?

~~~
Zaheer
We'd love to add more roles but we don't have enough information yet. If you
can help us with leveling information for sysadmins please email us at hello
[at] levels [dot] fyi

Edit: Is DevOps the same as sysadmin? We have some salary data (click 'View
Compensation' on main site) for sysadmins but it's marked as DevOps in our
compensation form.

You can add your own here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18349421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18349421)

~~~
arminiusreturns
Cool, thank you for the response, Ill try to at least add to the other thread
to help out.

------
dodders
Barclays - missing VP (between AVP and Director), and Capital One isn't an
investment bank...

------
christopher8827
Wow.... these salaries make salaries (including mine's) in Sydney really,
really low.

~~~
wingerlang
I live in Thailand and mine looks -extremely- low.

~~~
thundergolfer
Unfortunately for Sydneysiders their cost of living is just as high as Bay
Area. At least Thailand is much cheaper.

~~~
christopher8827
True, Sydney is Soo expensive I have 3 years experience as a JavaScript
developer and I haven't made six figures yet.

------
tinkerteller
BUG: Level 66 salary for Microsoft is more than level 67!

------
Havoc
Awesome. Could you add Big 4 accounting firms please?

------
diamondcompany
can you compare career level for
[https://www.adc.com.au/](https://www.adc.com.au/)

------
bitpow
How does Netflix have one engineering level?

~~~
Zaheer
They have a fairly unique leveling system / culture and only have one level.
Check out their culture:
[https://jobs.netflix.com/culture](https://jobs.netflix.com/culture)

------
shmerl
Those stock grants values are crazy high.

~~~
nemo44x
I believe based on comments here that they are reflecting current value, not
initial grants. Many of these companies have performed insanely well over the
last 10 years and anyone getting typical grants have done well by them. An
AMZN grant from 4 years ago is worth over 5X from then, for instance. 6.5X 1
month ago for that matter but October was rough.

Being at the right company during the right 10 years is transformative and
leads to early retirement.

~~~
Bahamut
This is not true of most of the numbers on levels.fyi that I can tell. I know
for my own FAANG employer, the numbers seem right on the dot with numbers I
have seen elsewhere and my own compensation (RSUs being at time given, not
current value).

