Yet one common trick they pull on experienced hires is to force them into a lower "level". While low-balling is an industry-wide practice, they have clearly taken it to the next level (ahem) by abusing the equivalence relationship to the Google/Facebook ladder.
To begin with, the "Senior" level at Amazon is designated L6; while Google/Facebook designates their "Senior" level L5/E5. If you visit Levels.fyi [1] you can see this equivalence clearly laid out... except Amazon recruiters / hiring managers seem to really believe that only someone who roughly qualifies for Google L6 can qualify for Amazon L6. I find this delusional at best, because precisely as another comment here said, Amazon does NOT currently allocate enough compensation premium to justify this "high bar". Heck, from the PoV of an actually competent candidate, why would they pick Amazon over other offers, if it means they would have to take a "title hit" in return for... mediocre total comp, worse WLB, constant gaslighting, and low job security?
I do not understand how you can lowball or downlevel people at scale. Everyone I know interviews at multiple companies and then compares offers. Some offers are more competitive some are less - just pick the best one in term of level/comp/interest.
The only hard thing is frankly balancing salary vs interest. Do you want more money to work on increasing ad click rate by 0.1% or less money to design software for Mars mission.
> I do not understand how you can lowball or downlevel people at scale
A common tactics is to enforce YoE requirements aggressively --- basically the jokes along the lines of "10 YoE w/ k8s". These days they do it less blatantly (i.e. the specifics are not written in the JD) but the spirit remains.
> The only hard thing is frankly balancing salary vs interest
I can only say from my recent experience that this is a simplified model. Not saying this is wrong, but some circumstances call for analysis of other factors, such as those involving career path planning. Wouldn't go too deep here but the trick is a lowball'd and/or downlevel'd offer at BigTech/FAANG might actually remain desirable. This unfortunately reinforces their (predatory) behavior, but such is the force of the market after all...
To begin with, the "Senior" level at Amazon is designated L6; while Google/Facebook designates their "Senior" level L5/E5. If you visit Levels.fyi [1] you can see this equivalence clearly laid out... except Amazon recruiters / hiring managers seem to really believe that only someone who roughly qualifies for Google L6 can qualify for Amazon L6. I find this delusional at best, because precisely as another comment here said, Amazon does NOT currently allocate enough compensation premium to justify this "high bar". Heck, from the PoV of an actually competent candidate, why would they pick Amazon over other offers, if it means they would have to take a "title hit" in return for... mediocre total comp, worse WLB, constant gaslighting, and low job security?
[1]: https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,Cruise,Facebook,Googl...