[nostrademons]

Like others mentioned, Amazon levels are one level below Google levels, and I think their higher ranks are also compressed. Also IMHO Google IC SWE levels of 2024 are about 1.5 levels below Google IC SWE levels of 2009 (i.e. a mid-L6 today is about as good as someone just promoted to L5 in 2010, an L8 promotee today is about a mid-L6 from 2010, a new L4 today is the equivalent of an intern back then). So with that mapping I'd put Google L3-L4 = Junior Developer, L5/early L6 = Developer, mid-L6+ = Senior Developer today.

Fifteen years ago L5 was actually senior, L4 was a developer, L3 was a junior developer. L6+ = you owned major user-visible features with hundreds of millions of users. L9 = you did something world-class like invent BigTable or Google News, and L10 didn't exist.

[mji]

> i.e. a mid-L6 today is about as good as someone just promoted to L5 in 2010, an L8 promotee today is about a mid-L6 from 2010, a new L4 today is the equivalent of an intern back then

This seems extremely surprising. I can believe that the 2010-engineers were more technically capable, but there was also a lot less non-technical complexity involved in getting things done in 2010 than there is today.

[nostrademons]

I'm referring solely to technical skills. I think it is actually harder to be an L6 today because of the sheer number of (both political and technical) constraints you face, but L6s and even L5s in 2010 would do large-scale system design of a sort that basically doesn't exist anywhere within the company today.