> What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance.
If. People here sometimes make it seem like a senior engineer can just walk into a FAANG, chat with the receptionist, and walk out with a $300k offer. While it is certainly not the hardest thing in the world, these companies are still pretty selective and only employ about 10% of the total seniors in the market. More likely than not you are not getting that kind of offer. This isn't even taking into account downleveling, which Google in particular is notorious for.
Who cares if you're downleveled? The compensation bands are wide enough that they overlap. This usually means that even though you expected level N, you can get your target comp at level N-1 if you negotiate.
That was not my experience. Google was pretty inflexible and offered me (with 16 years of experience) well under $300k for an L4 position.
A month later Twitter offered me 35% more than Google's best and final offer for a more senior position. I didn't even have to negotiate or mention the rejected Google offer.
Oh, I should add that, in my case, the downlevelling was up front. The recruiter wouldn't even put me in for an L5 interview.
I don't know the details of your experience (were all 16yrs of experience as a SWE demonstrating a deep technical expertise?), but Google puts engineers with even 2-3years of experience on an L4-interview loop.
If you knew that you were being slotted for L4 upfront why did you even bother interviewing? I've seen L4s rack up multiple job offers from different companies and use that as leverage to negotiate; they've all been offered $300k+ or more. Not all experience/education is the same but you gotta know how to play the game.
> I don't know the details of your experience (were all 16yrs of experience as a SWE demonstrating a deep technical expertise?), but Google puts engineers with even 2-3years of experience on an L4-interview loop.
It's all engineering, and the majority (10+) was pure software engineering.
> If you knew that you were being slotted for L4 upfront why did you even bother interviewing?
I didn't find out until late in the process, I thought I was going to get a better offer than I did, and I was trying to correct the mistake I had just made by accepting the job I was then in. I only realized my mistake after the offer came in and I considered what dropping back to L4 would mean.
> I've seen L4s rack up multiple job offers from different companies and use that as leverage to negotiate; they've all been offered $300k+ or more.
That would have been nice, but I barely had time to keep up with one company process at a time without arousing suspicion. I was close with Facebook, but I decided before the actual interview that I wasn't going to take L4 at any price. Facebook rejected me anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered in the end.
It means: You interview at Level X, but they give you later on offer for Level X-1. As a reason, they will claim you haven't scored good enough in the interview loop - which might be true, but also might have been the result of bad questions or an incompetent interviewer.
Sources: I know people in person who got these kinds of offers.
If. People here sometimes make it seem like a senior engineer can just walk into a FAANG, chat with the receptionist, and walk out with a $300k offer. While it is certainly not the hardest thing in the world, these companies are still pretty selective and only employ about 10% of the total seniors in the market. More likely than not you are not getting that kind of offer. This isn't even taking into account downleveling, which Google in particular is notorious for.