Sure, someone that is an entry level programmer will not have deep technical knowledge, that's not what I was trying to say though. My point is that levels only make sense in organizations that are big enough that tech leadership can't directly assess and compare ICs work because there's too much going on for any one technical expert to assess. Smaller organizations sometimes cargo cult leveling systems because it helps their ICs resumes and give a sense of progression even though the organizational problems that are the raison d'etre for staff+ levels don't exist at that scale.
To say it a different way: consider hobbyist developers who have spent a lot of time developing technical skills. These folks will tend to be very good at creating greenfield apps, and depending what they do, they may also have technical chops that are applicable to large companies as well. So they may be able to be hired as L4 or L5 (Google leveling) just based on technical chops. L6+ will be tough though, unless they have very deep specialist knowledge, because the most common L6+ work is about using technical knowledge to achieve outcomes that depend on navigating multiple teams and stakeholders in a way that the solo dev never has to deal with.
To say it a different way: consider hobbyist developers who have spent a lot of time developing technical skills. These folks will tend to be very good at creating greenfield apps, and depending what they do, they may also have technical chops that are applicable to large companies as well. So they may be able to be hired as L4 or L5 (Google leveling) just based on technical chops. L6+ will be tough though, unless they have very deep specialist knowledge, because the most common L6+ work is about using technical knowledge to achieve outcomes that depend on navigating multiple teams and stakeholders in a way that the solo dev never has to deal with.