[memetomancer]

Your comment is almost completely incomprehensible to me, as someone that doesn't work in the Meta context...

I take it being an L5 is a good thing? but just six months ago you were an L8, and competition to become an L6 was a coin toss? No idea what 'price discovery' could mean in this situation, other than a fairly weird way to say 'salary range'? And any of this having to do with 'the bond market' is just baffling!

The reason I bring it up is that I'm genuinely curious what life is like in other corners of the tech world. Any way you could translate the above into non-Meta terms?

[umanwizard]

I worked at Facebook for 4 years and also don't understand that comment. I think it's just worded confusingly.

[Supermancho]

> I worked at Facebook for 4 years and also don't understand that comment.

I have never worked for FB and I thought it was fine. None of that is FB-specific.

> I take it being an L5 is a good thing?

It's implied lower numbers are better.

>> it was me and 20 other L8s interviewing for the same L6 opening

> but just six months ago you were an L8, and competition to become an L6 was a coin toss?

Yes, due to the number of people competing for the same position.

> No idea what 'price discovery' could mean in this situation, other than a fairly weird way to say 'salary range'?

Salary range implies stability. eg What a company is willing to pay for what positions. There has been a lack of standardization in talent across tech and instability in compensation. Another way to think of it is an increased risk tolerance in wages. This has been fueled by leniency in promotion/raises/hiring when profits were higher.

> And any of this having to do with 'the bond market' is just baffling!

Monetary policy (around interest rates) is directly related to profit margins and hiring. Suffice to say, this is common knowledge for anyone who owns property (beyond a car, maybe) or tracks the job market.

[umanwizard]

You may have thought you understood it, but you don’t. Lower numbers in engineering levels are not better. That’s why the original post was confusing.

[benreesman]

That is a minor nitpick that misses the point about a deeply insightful observation around bond markets and macro outcomes.

I thought it was too minor to even note.

[jeffreyq]

Can you further elaborate on why monetary policy is directly related to profit margins? My understanding is that monetary policy / interest rates is controlled by the FED. When they raise rates then money is more expensive, therefore profit margins shrink, and the hiring bar has to increase.

[benreesman]

I addressed at least part of this question downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36914919.

I was 35 years old before I had the faintest idea how money works, like even a little.

And the only way I learned even a little is because I lived in NYC for a bit and ended up hanging with a bunch of Street cats after work, who laugh their asses off about how clueless we all are (in that moment personified by yours truly).

But you get a few G&Ts into them and they’re pretty happy to teach you Econ 101.

[jeffreyq]

Incredible, thank you for taking the time to knowledge share!

[jleader]

https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook,Amazon,Google&track... says higher numbers are better (more senior, more highly paid) at Facebook, so maybe the GGP post is talking about working at Meta, leaving, and then coming back to apply for a less senior role than they'd had previously? It confused me.

[benreesman]

Much obliged, you answered that better than I could have.

[benreesman]

Ah one minor critique, you didn’t tell them about the last time the same office that goes after terrorism and money laundering and stuff took time out of their day and busted all these same firms for wage fixing in the ancient days of just over ten years ago in federal court.

That’s at least tangentially germane. :)

[benreesman]

Cool, I was in PA in 2011, MPK 2012-2017, and FBNY 2017-2018?

Did we cross paths at all?

I was on Ads for ages, Sigma for like a year, and IG ranking Ml for like 2-ish.

What did you work on? You should pop in the Ex-this/that groups from time to time if you havent, very cool crowd.

[umanwizard]

We overlapped in NY. But assuming your username is your real name, I don’t remember you. I worked mostly on iOS infra stuff (crash reporting, battery usage tracking, etc).

[bluecheese452]

They were hired as a level 5 over a decade ago. They got promoted a bunch until they were level 8. At some point they left. Now they are trying to come back. The market is so bad that they have lowered their standards and are only applying for level 6 roles. Still a bunch of other level 8s are competing for that lower level job so the chance of them getting it is lower.

The bond market/interest rate comment is saying this is part of why the economy is bad.

Price discovery I am not that confident in the meaning. I think it means companies and candidates are having a hard time figuring out what each other are worth. So you have highly skilled people not getting the offer numbers they want because their skills are not being recognized.

[benreesman]

L8 is a bit of a guess. I was an L7 five years ago and have been training hard since. Maybe I’m still a 7.

I think you and I are thinking similarly about price discovery. Markets get disrupted, it’s not unprecedented or anything, but in general there’s some price between zero and infinity that a person can make, and seeing that go from X to “no transaction” abruptly is less ideal than it going from X to X - Y because supply and/or demand changed.

Well behaved pricing curves are existential in a bunch of really key markets, to the point that institutions preserve those properties.

Whether one is a tech worker or a struc steel pro or a teacher, anything, it seems a weird exception to “we need differentiable pricing curves here”.