| Here's how it really works usually at non-tiny companies: 1. You negotiate a salary when interviewing.
2. If they like you at that salary they make you an offer
3. HR assigns you whatever title corresponds to the salary band that contains the salary you happened to manage to negotiate, as per HR's list of salary bands. In other words, in theory, the system is supposed to look like they go find an engineer, figure out if they're senior based on interviewing them and other signals etc, and if they're senior they get the senior rate. The reality is the opposite-- they just figure out whether they want you bad enough to pay the rate you want, and then, if so retroactively justify it as corespondening to whatever HR says they have to call you back I justify that salary. So for example, this makes it easy to end up with a senior who is more 'junior' than a non senior, if 'senior' was hired when the job market was very hot, while the 'junior' who is actually more experienced was hired during a slow market. Title indicates salary, not the other way around! |