What level should I be applying for?

[u/GreenMango19]

Hey all! I am currently applying for roles at FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies.

Here is my experience in a nutshell:

(1) BS degree in CS (graduated 16 years ago)

(2) Worked 2 years at a mid-size tech company (~5000 employees), desktop development using C#

(3) Spent 5 years completing a PhD in a related/adjacent scientific field (not CS). Coded daily in C# (for desktop) Matlab, Python (for data analysis), and C/C++ (for embedded/firmware)

(4) 5 more years working as a “research engineer” within academia. Continued using all the same technologies (C#, C/C++, Matlab, Python). Also added Xamarin/.NET MAUI to the list (for C# mobile dev)

(5) The most recent 4 years working as a “research engineer” at a small company (less than 20 people). Continued using many of the same technologies. Added Flask (for Python server-side stuff), tensorflow (for Python ML stuff), Flutter (for more mobile dev), and have also learned KiCad (for circuit board design), and still heavily work with C/C++ for firmware dev and C#/.NET MAUI for mobile dev. Also added Godot for game dev over the past year.

16 years total experience. I love my job and everything I work on, but unfortunately I’ve max’d out my salary potential at the small org that I’m at. I was hoping I could earn a lot more by going to FAANG.

Given my experience, what level do y’all think I should try to apply for?

[u/multipless]

Definitely at least senior. (Do not listen to the people saying mid-level.) Maybe staff. You have significant experience and FAANG loves PhDs.

Don't sell yourself short.

[u/lhorie → u/multipless]

Staff would be a bit of a tough sell IMHO unless they can demonstrate cross functional impact, which generally implies experience working in a large org (i.e. your peers are mostly tech leads of disparate teams)

Source: I interview staff level candidates 

[u/gaiaforce2 → u/lhorie]

Yeah agree staff is a reach, but senior is certainly attainable

[u/GreenMango19 → u/lhorie]

Thanks for your input. A little bit more info: I’m actively interviewing for 2 roles at the moment. One of the roles I’m not really sure what level they’d put me at, but the other role they’ve told me that I am being considered for L5.

[u/Federal_Employee_659 → u/GreenMango19]

Each companies pay bands are a little different. At most companies I be worked at, band 5 is the one above ‘junior $something engineer’, and the first payband for managers.

you should definitely ask them “ok, how does your banding work? How ‘wide’ is band 5, do I need a promotion to go to band 6/ what are the requirements to get promoted to 6” etc.

[u/lhorie → u/GreenMango19]

L5 is senior. Good luck!

[u/Kitchen-Shop-1817 → u/lhorie]

Depends on the company. At Amazon L5 is mid-level. At Apple it's staff. At LinkedIn it's "senior staff" (which maps to staff).

[u/GreenMango19 → u/lhorie]

Thank you!

[u/Kitchen-Shop-1817 → u/multipless]

Staff IC would need them to lead an 8-person (?) team (as TL) or project maybe. OP sounds just right for senior.

[u/NewChameleon → u/multipless]

Staff? wouldn't surprised if he gets PIP'ed within months even if he somehow secures such offer, he has 0 previous big tech experience and L6 expectation in big tech is pretty insane

[u/GreenMango19 → u/NewChameleon]

I value everyone’s input, but I must say it seems like someone from a small org must have really done you wrong at some point in your career because you don’t seem to respect small org experience that much haha.

Certainly small organizations are VERY different than large organizations - I won’t deny that, but I absolutely love the time I have spent at smaller companies and also in academia. Because of the organization size, I’ve been expected to/been able to wear a lot of different hats throughout my career. The opportunities for growth have been plentiful (except with respect to salary, which as I already noted is my main reason for interviewing at FAANG now).

[u/NewChameleon → u/GreenMango19]

not quite, I've worked at both small and large companies although I've never worked at companies THAT small (for slightly different reasons, I'm on a visa so company having immigration lawyer is a hard requirement for me), and it was still kind of a culture shock when I first jumped to a big tech environment

your academia time is irrelevant because the university is not going to PIP you in 3 months for failing to deliver sufficient business impacts, but big techs absolutely will do that, and in your PhD you'll never have to wake up at 2am to fix "holy shit our server is down, fix it now!" bugs but in industry you might actually have to do that, lots of differences like those

[u/GreenMango19 → u/NewChameleon]

Luckily I’m not applying to webdev roles, so I don’t plan on fixing “the server is down” stuff. I am sticking to roles that fit my expertise.

You are correct that in most circumstances you won’t be fired from a PhD role in 3 months. PhD programs are very self-guided and you must learn to lead projects independently. If you don’t excel in a PhD program, you typically get kicked out either at the end of year 1/2 (most programs have “qualifying exams” around the end of year 1 and will kick you out at that point if you fail the exam), or after you’ve dragged along for 5-7 years with no progress.

To add a bit more info about my experience: I also led a team of 20 junior research assistants for the entire 10 years I was in academia (20 people at all times, so about 100 people total over 10 years), so I have plenty of management experience and I know how to lead projects to successful completion.

[u/lhorie]

Probably around senior

[u/rnicoll → u/lhorie]

Agreed on senior. They can typically adjust if you're interviewing at the wrong level, too.

If you want to go for staff you could, but be prepared to devote a LOT of time to practicing system design, unless you've done large scale systems before.

[u/Reasonable_Bunch_458]

Depends what role 

[u/NewChameleon]

mid-level L4

despite your 16 YoE, from what I could gather, your 'actual', non-academia YoE is only 6 YoE, sorry your time spent doing PhD doesn't count, and even for those 6 YoE, 4/6 of those years are at a tiny startup

[u/lhorie → u/NewChameleon]

PhD does count for something, you would be minimum L4 at my company. And size of company isn’t really how one determines L4 vs L5, it’s more about level of autonomy and technical leadership

[u/NewChameleon → u/lhorie]

you are correct, read what you just said

size of company isn’t really how one determines L4 vs L5, it’s more about level of autonomy and technical leadership

he has 0 YoE in big tech environments

I could realistically possibly maybe see a push to L5 but I also wouldn't be surprised if he gets PIP'ed out within a year for L5 for not meeting expectations or not knowing how to play big tech perf games etc

[u/lhorie → u/NewChameleon]

I came into big tech (from no name companies) at L5 myself, and have conducted a few hundred interviews since then, so I like to think I’m pretty well calibrated.

The perf concern is valid but also quite a bit speculative. As it happens, I have visibility/input into the whole PIP quota/stack ranking thing and let’s just say it’s not that simple