Google hires a ton of really competent and motivated people with low experience at a low level. Many times undeservedly so.
I’ve seen some phds with 3-4 years of experience being hired at L4 (starting phd level), some masters with 3-4 years of experience, sometimes even leading teams at previous companies at L3 and some experienced managers with 10 years of experience at L4.
Why do these people accept offers? Because although their level is lower, their comp is adjusted to the appropriate (higher end) of the level.
What you notice at Google is that projects and work are scoped to your level so that you can justify your promotion easily. So a PhD with 4 years of experience who’s completely capable of leading a project has to act as an individual contributor fulfilling others’ plans until they get promoted.
There are some exceptions but most people and teams in Google operate as though someone’s level defines their scope of work. Managers/TLs will often talk about how many LXs they have on the project and who is responsible for what kind of work.
So you have a ton of highly competent people hoping that their promotion will finally allow them to play at their true level and contribute in a way that will be rewarded.
A ton of such deserving candidates are passed over during promotion and this is very demoralizing. They still get paid handsomely so they don’t leave and continue to coast while looking for a better alternative (which is hard to come by).
Promos at Google are primarily about self-actualization. The comp is what prevents them from quitting and joining a startup.
Your last sentence sums it all up for me. Having come into Google through acquisition (and product then killed off) maybe biased me, but still. That's how I see it.
I worked at Google for 10 years and didn't have more than a few minutes of job satisfaction and jumped from team to team hoping to eventually find a place where I could fit in and maybe get promotion. But I never went for promotion ever. The whole process looked meant to demoralize. I was clearly not a "culture fit" -- as they call it -- but somehow I soldiered on and nobody cared.
Until eventually, after 10 years of L4, it became clear me I had wasted 10 years of potential career progression because the money was (at least) twice as good as what I would have gotten in a smaller local company where I would have more impact and creative input. The rest of the industry was off doing other stuff, and my friends moving into lead and management jobs, while I putzed around moving protobufs (with just the right comments, indentation and stylistic flourishes) around Google's walled garden. Any interesting work was snatched up by others faster than you could get it.
Promotion level at Google is only loosely corelated with programming or engineering talent. It's a measure of political skill and motivation, and your ability or desire to thrive in a large organization.
Don't get me wrong, the money was excellent and my priority was feeding my family. But it wasn't "retire early" money, not without a lot of severe financial discipline and restraint anyways.
Google got lucky 15 years ago and managed to turn on an absolutely massive firehose of money in ads. Now Google hoovers up as much talent as they can in hopes that they'll strike it lucky and turn on a second or third revenue faucet. But spoiler alert: they never will. So they have to settle for attempting to starve potential competition of talent.
This experience fits mine at Google too. If I had only pushed to start at level 6 my life would have been different. Instead I was level 5. My group was full of people at level 5 who wanted to be level 6. No one ever got promoted. I eventually left Google and have been principal and architect at other companies, like I was before Google. G did pay a lot.
Occasionally I've landed a boring job with good pay. Yes, I'd keep an eye out, but while waiting I worked on floss projects. Not sure if that would've worked for you.
The problem with this approach is the FLOSS stuff being more interesting ends up impacting the success of $work, or the $work distracts you enough that you can never focus long enough on the FLOSS. Plus the guilt.
Plus, at Google in particular, you have to make them aware of your OSS work and go through the motions of getting the licensing set up so either they own it or you get permission.
Even if you "get permission" that's only for copyright. They still claim ownership of other IP (patents, trademarks, trade secrets), ... on _everything_ in your private life. I doubt it gets enforced often, but the employment contracts are draconian.
Yeah, I guess. I try to avoid that as much as I can, such that my rent is currently around 10% of net pay, but I constantly feel an urge to upgrade things (and do, eventually). But it certainly is retire early money if you can fight that urge even moderately. I make less than that and am on pace to retire at 35 with a comfortable middle class lifestyle.
I worked at Google for a while. I started there at 50% more than my previous compensation, but two steps down in terms of responsibility. After a couple of years of my manager saying that I'd be ready to apply for promo when the current project finished and watching projects fly by, I started shopping my resume around.
Google and other FAANGs pay very well, so it's not surprising they can hire PhDs but I sometimes wonder about the negative effects of vacuuming up so many research level people and having them do very mundane work.
That cuts both ways, ability to excel and take on responsibility within Google isn't equal to ability to succeed at Google. That's an argument against making outside hires start at a lower level.
I’ve seen some phds with 3-4 years of experience being hired at L4 (starting phd level), some masters with 3-4 years of experience, sometimes even leading teams at previous companies at L3 and some experienced managers with 10 years of experience at L4.
Why do these people accept offers? Because although their level is lower, their comp is adjusted to the appropriate (higher end) of the level.
What you notice at Google is that projects and work are scoped to your level so that you can justify your promotion easily. So a PhD with 4 years of experience who’s completely capable of leading a project has to act as an individual contributor fulfilling others’ plans until they get promoted.
There are some exceptions but most people and teams in Google operate as though someone’s level defines their scope of work. Managers/TLs will often talk about how many LXs they have on the project and who is responsible for what kind of work.
So you have a ton of highly competent people hoping that their promotion will finally allow them to play at their true level and contribute in a way that will be rewarded.
A ton of such deserving candidates are passed over during promotion and this is very demoralizing. They still get paid handsomely so they don’t leave and continue to coast while looking for a better alternative (which is hard to come by).
Promos at Google are primarily about self-actualization. The comp is what prevents them from quitting and joining a startup.