I have an offer from Amazon SDE L5 but feel like i have been down levelled. I have 8 years of experience. I tried to negotiate for L6 but been told that i interviewed for L5 which i thought was a generic SD interview. I haven’t accepted the offer yet. Is it possible to interview for L6 in different org now. Will other recruiter know that i have an offer in hand from Amazon. Also if i accept the offer can i interview for L6 and move internally? How hard it is for lateral level up transfer? How long it takes from L5 to L 6 promotion in general? #swe #amazon #offer
If you join at L5, just assume 0% chance of leveling up outside of formal promotion. And moving from L5 to L6 promo depends on tons of factors. Does the team you are joining have L6 scope work not already being easily handled by an L6? But the process is pretty rigorous and annoying. Need to have lots of datapoints to prove it to others and require some big deliverables. If you’re confident in your ability to pass L6 interview and adamant you don’t join as L5, then you should just reject the offer and find another team to interview for.
The team doesn’t have any L6 and using a sister team L6 as a resource for now. So everyone in team will be fighting for L6 when the opportunity comes.
The worst case for your promo would be you join and another teammate gets promoted to L6 within a month...
Avoid
L5 means less tc but more wlb, enjoy the chill
5 pay is still good. That said L5 is terminal. Only top tier make it to 6 and beyond as IC at AWS. If you’re ok staying at L5 take it.
Some clarity around leveling. High 64 / Low 65 maps to L6 at Amazon. L6 at Amazon is a large band. The lower end maps to Senior while the upper band maps to Staff. For internal promotions, you can get promoted if you're performance is in the 25th percentile of L6 whereas external hires are expected to be performing at at least at the 50th percentile. This gap of internal/external expectations may explain why you are seeing 6 YOE L6s (I know a few myself). As for promotion time, it varies a lot... 1) How fast is your org growing? 2) Does your organization think of L6 needs to be performing at Senior or Staff Bar? 3) Can you find the scope to justify L6 promotion? IMO if you're 64, I wouldn't take L5. Instead focus on either promotion or getting other offers elsewhere. I think the churn of switching companies > growing internally and getting upleveled via internal promotion or interviewing. (I have some bias as I interviewed up from an L5 role at Amazon to a L6 role in another tech company)
8 YOE and you think you should be L6 at Amazon? You need to chill. No I don't think you can perform at L6. Promo from L5 to L6 can take from 2 years to infinite.
Amazon is having L6 at even 6 YOE. I personally know some employees there working at L6. The reason i am looking for L6 is because i am already working as a senior.
You don’t wanna be L6 here at Amazon if youre only L63/64 at Microsoft. You’ll want to end it all.