[gonehome]

IIRC (don't work at Google myself, but friends do) - you start out of college as an L3 and are expected to make promo twice to L4 and then L5.

Once at L5 it's okay to just stay there and do good work, the pay is still really good and you're not expected to go beyond that unless you want to (and you're capable of it).

The main issue I've heard is that to go from L3 -> L5 there are incentives around 'impact' and launching products (or leaving for another company/startup and getting hired back).

This means people are incentivized to ship something to get promo, but working on an already shipped thing is bad for career progress.

An oversimplification, but seen through this lens Google's many chat apps make sense.

[GoatOfAplomb]

Some years ago, the official ladder descriptions changed to reflect what was already unofficially the case in (most of?) the company. Roughly: you can hang at L4 pretty much forever, as long as you're willing to keep learning new things as required for your role.

That leaves the pressure of getting from L3 to L4, which, admittedly, people do feel. But L3->L4 is also a much more straightforward promotion. It's not nearly as sensitive to finding the right project/right team/right boss, and the promo comes more from your impact on the project than your project's impact on the product/company.

[lrem]

I work with many brilliant engineers who have been in Google for 5-10 years and are at L4. The pay is good enough if you don't have a large family to support and they simply can't be arsed to play that game.

[ganafagol]

Complaining at a high level. People with 3 kids make do with jobs at Walmart and McD.

"Pay is good enough" yeah sure.

[klipt]

> People with 3 kids make do with jobs at Walmart and McD.

Very difficult in the Bay Area given the housing costs. I guess it's possible if you lucked into a below market rate apartment and qualify for government assistance like Medicaid and food stamps.

[ganafagol]

You are saying that all Walmarts and McDs in the Bay Area are staffed with people who have a 3 hour commute?

[tudorw]

'BAY AREA LEADS NATION IN COMMUTERS TRAVELING AT LEAST 3 HOURS EVERY DAY, STUDY SAYS' https://abc7news.com/super-commuters-bay-area-traffic-3-hour...

[ta988]

Yes I'm sorry to tell you that this area is much much worse in term of human respect than you think.

[manigandham]

How much more is “good enough” when you’re already in the top 1% of the world?

[lrem]

You're top 1% in the world working in a SF McDonald. You're in the top 1% in the US when you're about L7-8 in Google, according to https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom... and levels.fyi.

[peteretep]

McD SF is paying you $35k[0]. For 2018 figures: «A $35,000 income in the United States has enough buying power to put you in the 82nd percentile globally for per-person income. Within the United States, your income falls around the 20th percentile.»[1]

0: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Mcdonalds-Crew-Salary-...

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/global...

[lrem]

Your source is paywalled, but it's in line with my intuition. It doesn't state the global percentile in absolute money, does it?

[peteretep]

It’s pulling data from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/global_...

[fjeifisjf]

If you look at age adjusted percentiles, 1% income is much lower than $750K/yr. 30 yr olds making $350k/ are 1%ers, and when they reach 40 or 50 they have substantial investment gains bolstering their compensation.

[DonHopkins]

There's a difference between "make sense" and "can be explained".