> As I've said before, I think this is a corrosive aspect of the perf/promo process at many FAANGs.
So I have to ask: do you or have you worked at a FAANG with these systems? I may be wrong but I suspect you haven't, particularly if you're equating them with more traditional hierarchies.
The whole point of a system like this (and I have direct experience at Google and Facebook) is so you can go pretty far as purely as an IC. You're not forced to become a manager.
So at Google for example, new hires start as a T3 (T4 for PhDs). There is an expectation for growth up to T5, meaning technically you are meant to progress over time. When I was there this wasn't strictly enforced (eg I knew people who had been T4 for 5+ years) but it may vary from PA to PA or manager to manager and it may well have become stricter.
IIRC the general guidance was 2-3 years T3 to T4 another 2-3 years for T4 to T5.
At that point you can sit at T5 forever if that's what you want to do. People's desire to get promoted leads them to becoming managers because it is demonstrably easier to promoted from M1 (T5 equivalent) to M2 as en EM than it is from T5 to T6 as an IC.
These higher levels are really an indication of your organizational and technical impact and for this you really have to influence others. This is not being a people manager however.
But the point is that there's no "up or out" (beyond T5) like you may find at IBM or KPMG.
Now there are definite issues with Google's approach here and that's really a whole other topic. I just don't think your observations here adequately describe the FAANG career paths (IMHO).
> So I have to ask: do you or have you worked at a FAANG with these systems?
Yes, 9 years at Google. But yes, not experience beyond the L4/L5 tier.
It is true that the IBM type structure isn't the same, and yes, Google is fine with you staying around L5 forever (well, L4 now). But the matrix of things to get beyond L4 really is, in the grand scheme of things, about moving beyond development and into delegation, or at least ownership. It's not management, but it is about leadership/cross-team collaboration and "demonstrating impact" to others. So, like I said elsewhere, small-p political.
At least that's my experience from seeing the L4 to L5 transition. But it may also be a product of my smaller office, where the number of projects is smaller, team size is smaller, and larger technical contributions of impact are harder to find.
EDIT: Also I've seen a lot of change in the 9 years, in terms of how the organization as a whole behaves, and it is becoming more and more like a traditional BigCorp. I just checked percent/ and within engineering 86.43473% full-time employees are newer than me. And a lot more if you count non-engineering. It is a way larger company than I started in.
EDIT2: I should underline, that the perf/promo process obviously works for a large, perhaps the majority, number of people. But it doesn't for all. It requires adapting to an organizational model that not everybody accords with. And I think that's in the spirit of the original topic: organizational structures / procedures that become your career goals may not make you happy, so find a company whose process matches what you want to get out of life. Or try.
The senior IC ladder saves you from being responsible for people, their job satisfaction, their career progression. But it is still a kind of management.
Facilitating meetings, reviewing documents, tracking schedules, reporting progress, convincing teams to prioritize the work, negotiating with those challenging the technical decisions, securing credit, deflecting blame, getting resources, etc. The model of an effective L6 or L7 IC is part secretary, part Frank Underwood.
You're right that you don't have to pursue L6/L7, but L5 is attainable in < 4 years. No 46 year old wants to be doing the same thing for the same pay as a 26 year old.
> No 46 year old wants to be doing the same thing for the same pay as a 26 year old.
Why not? Being a T5 SWE at Google is (or at least it can be) pretty chill. It's a sweet spot for low stress and relatively high compensation. Why exactly do you need to "advance" your career, particularly if you don't want to be actually or effectively managing other people?
The alternative is the "up or out" approach that drives engineers in other industries into being (usually bad) managers.
L5 / "Senior Software Engineer" expectations are such that you have to have "influence beyond yourself", own some area of work, set technical direction for some other engineers. You're either a team lead or an "exceptionally strong individual contributor".
It's not really that chill, and if you don't continue to do those things (lead or be exceptionally strong) that will show on your perf and therefore your compensation. Going from L4 to L5 means committing yourself to doing that on an ongoing basis. Remember at Google that "consistently meets expectations" is only a 2 out of 5 rating, just above "Needs improvement."
Coasting at L4 ("SWE III") could be fine. Large independent technical contributions, manage your own priorities, participate in design, etc. Solid individual contributor. Really equivalent to "senior developer" at most other jobs.
But now let's say you want to go transfer to a new project. The manager on the other team sees you've been at Google many years, but still at L4. Hm. Results may vary.
Not everyone makes a good team lead. Especially in a place like Google surrounded by PhDs and super achievers. But the expectation at Google up until very recently was basically that you should become that, or get out. Now in the last few years, it's been stated it's perfectly fine to plateau at L4. But I'm not convinced that that's the reality of the culture or expectations of managers.
So are you basically describing stack ranking here?
It's just impossible for everyone in a company to be a team lead, so not everyone can become that to become an L5.
Which leaves the other option, to become an L5, which is to be an "exceptionally strong individual contributor" and being that "on an ongoing basis". Not everyone in a company can be an "exceptionally" strong person, otherwise it wouldn't be exceptional any longer.
You're saying the expectation was to either become L5 or get out. So now we have all these PhDs and super achievers working at Google, but only some of them can be exceptional vs. the others.
You were exceptional vs. regular people and made it to L5. Now comes in a super achieving PhD that's a tad better than you and now he's exceptional. You are no longer exceptional. You're just an average super achiever. So get the eff off Google's lawn. Stack ranking completed.
Two years is a long time to stay in one job. Two years is an eternity for a team's headcount not to grow. It's virtually certain that you'll be a mentor to several new hires in that time. You'll also have a long head start on understanding the codebase and tools relative to many others who will be working with them. If you're not some kind of leader at that point, something's wrong.
Unless you found one of those rare teams that stays together for the long haul, but the experience with such a special phenomenon should make it more than worth your while.
If L4s are not getting opportunity to lead, they are on a sinking ship anyway and the smart ones are LeetCoding.
(Obviously this all reflects the crazy economic moment of the last 10 years in Silicon Valley, but so does the level system you're critiquing).
> Two years is an eternity for a team's headcount not to grow.
Teams do not expand until infinity. In fact, it is often better for teams to not expand.
If you are expected to be leader after two years, because the teams are expanding regardless of whether more people are needed and because everyone else is fresh new, then there is issue with managemet
Where do you think the crazy stock growth for the entire tech industry over the last 10 years is coming from? Having a massive backlog of productive opportunities, scaling up to execute on more and more of them in parallel.
I don’t expect that to last forever, but it’s the context that this system is built for.
So I have to ask: do you or have you worked at a FAANG with these systems? I may be wrong but I suspect you haven't, particularly if you're equating them with more traditional hierarchies.
The whole point of a system like this (and I have direct experience at Google and Facebook) is so you can go pretty far as purely as an IC. You're not forced to become a manager.
So at Google for example, new hires start as a T3 (T4 for PhDs). There is an expectation for growth up to T5, meaning technically you are meant to progress over time. When I was there this wasn't strictly enforced (eg I knew people who had been T4 for 5+ years) but it may vary from PA to PA or manager to manager and it may well have become stricter.
IIRC the general guidance was 2-3 years T3 to T4 another 2-3 years for T4 to T5.
At that point you can sit at T5 forever if that's what you want to do. People's desire to get promoted leads them to becoming managers because it is demonstrably easier to promoted from M1 (T5 equivalent) to M2 as en EM than it is from T5 to T6 as an IC.
These higher levels are really an indication of your organizational and technical impact and for this you really have to influence others. This is not being a people manager however.
But the point is that there's no "up or out" (beyond T5) like you may find at IBM or KPMG.
Now there are definite issues with Google's approach here and that's really a whole other topic. I just don't think your observations here adequately describe the FAANG career paths (IMHO).