Closed thread - Google L7, Career advice AMA
I am grateful to have received a lot of mentorship and supportive sponsors in my career. Hosting an AMA here to share the goodness. I've been both a TL/Manager and IC for many years. 15 yoe TC ~700k Note: No questions about Google specifically will be answered.
Is there fulfillment at end of the road for all this promo/TC chasing? How have your life goals changed as you’ve aged?
I love many aspects of my job. I struggle with others. Each level and promotion has come with a similar challenge. I have enjoyed some aspects of my job and struggled with others. Now I have learned to find a good balance of things I enjoy and accept that I have to do some things that I don't enjoy as part of every job :) Overall, my life goals have changed over the years. I was obsessed with working and promotion and how I looked to others. Now, I care less about many of those things and seek learning, personal growth, growth of skills that give me fulfillment. I am not sure if the changes are because I got promoted or because of changes in perspective because of what life has thrown at me outside of my career. Looking back, I regret chasing promo/TC in my early years, hoping it'll give me fulfillment or joy. Hindsight always 20/20
It’s because you got promoted
Assuming scope is the same, is it worse to stay at a place with title inflation where you have a lofty title, or to go somewhere that will hit you with a massive downlevel? Or does it really matter, especially relative to having appropriate scope?
I would say it depends on each individual situation and what the trade-offs are. If titles are generally inflated at a company, people in the industry already know about it and don't value the title anyway. I would prefer to work with people I can learn from, make good money and do exciting work than have a fancier title.
So you wouldn’t say there’s inherently some concern about going say from a principal title at a one company to a senior at another? Speaking just about how the title change looks. My concern is it could say “oh she couldn’t hack it as a principal, that’s why she left X for a senior role at Y”.
What would you do if you could restart your career?
I would focus more on learning in my initial years, take more risk, work on different products, maybe a couple of switches in companies in the first 3-4 years. And not stress so much about salary or promotions. I would have been a stronger engineer if I learnt more and had stronger basics early on
How, specifically, would you have learned more besides just working more hours? Work on a lot of different things? Go deep in a certain area?
Can you share some projects that you worked on in your early/mid years which lead to promotions?
Specific projects wouldn't be useful to share here. However, I started finding more impactful work for other people - initially it was for a few people on my team and that expanded to finding more impactful work for multiple teams to staff. This is what led to each promotion so far.
Could you elaborate on finding more impactful work for other people? What did that entail?
What's the right amount of time to wait before starting to move around if career growth is not happening at the current company?
I try to look ahead 6 months and see if things look like they will change. If there is no light at the end of the tunnel even post 6 months, it is never a bad idea in my opinion to look around to see what opportunities exist.
What's your background? Where did you start out of school? Did you actively think about career growth? If so what influenced your decisions when it came to picking verticals, companies, optimizing for salary vs learning, etc.?
I started in CS but I didn't enjoy coding or did not think I was good at it. I actively thought about growing my skills but not necessarily career growth. I had severe imposter syndrome so for years it was just about feeling like I'm surviving and good enough to keep the job. My decisions to pick companies was also driven by imposter syndrome, salary and interest in the product initially - Google let me join a product I really cared about. But, now I continue to stay because of the autonomy I have, the scope of work I can influence and the people in my immediate group that I work with. I initially optimized a lot for salary and not learning and this is one of my regrets in my career.
What was your trajectory: what level hired? Duration to achieve each next level until landing at current L7?
I got hired a few years into my career at Google as L4 and I have gotten promoted approximately once every 2 - 2.5 yrs.
Where did you work prior to Google?
Advice to get promoted from L3 SWE to L4 SWE?
L3 -> L4 is a lot of execution. So focus on learning the systems and code well enough to execute fast, debug, send out reviews with clean code and documentation.
Have been at Google for 4 months but still fell not confident enough, everyday I will unearth something which I wasn’t aware of… but slow on pushing the code as well compared to my previous job… is this normal or Im not picking up the pace?
Very normal. As a manager, I expected ~6 months of ramp up time and that does not mean you don't unearth new stuff, it only means you can independently figure out who you should talk to, dig through code and docs, and ask informed questions.
What was the best advice you got that helped you grow technically over the years?
I struggled with severe imposter syndrome. My therapist told me to believe what others are telling me - if so many of them are saying it :). I didn't feel good enough but chose to believe something if multiple people around me that I can trust are saying the same thing about my abilities. I continue to practice this.