[ftufek]

L5 used to be the terminal level, at least for most engineers. L8+ is very rare in my experience.

[lokar]

8+ was about 0.5% of eng a few years ago

[jeffbee]

Yeah and 6+ was < 10%. This list definitely seems biased toward the higher levels. 41 Staff SWEs and only 60 Senior SWEs is a crazy ratio. Consistent with the rumor that they targeted high comp packages.

[Thorrez]

Where you do see those numbers? When I look at the chart I see 87 L6 (Staff) IC SWEs, and 211 L5 (Senior) IC SWEs.

https://i.imgur.com/7jXgFd7.png

[jeffbee]

Maybe I don’t know how to use airtable…

[jsnell]

I think you were looking at the count of rows within a single category, rather than the column that sums up the values of the rows.

[jeffbee]

Thanks, that's exactly what it was. I thought each row corresponded to exactly one individual.

[jefftk]

When I joined Google my TL was an L6 on the engineering track, 10 years ago. My vague memory of the engineering ladder when I joined went up to L9.

[kodah]

Terminal level generally indicates a glass ceiling that most folks can't rise above. Senior and Staff are generally terminal levels for the rest of the industry.

[saagarjha]

s/can’t/aren’t ”expected” to/

[kodah]

I would bias towards can't for these reasons:

- Organizations are very bad at promoting

- Retroactive pay scale adjustments are rare

- Promotion requires tenure and often companies don't align incentives towards tenure

[mikebenfield]

"Terminal level" doesn't mean the highest level.

[jefftk]

Interesting! I don't think I'd seen the term before, but it does seem standard: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/23/pace/

With that usage, the point at which the company stops being "up or out", it was L5 when I joined, and L4 when I left.