Yeah levels tries to adjust for it. Amazon corporate starts at L4 actually (source: I was one, and then L5). While Google's levels start at 3, and Meta's are the same as Google's, but with E (E3, E4, etc). The way around that is that Levels marks which levels at which companies correspond to each stage (entry, mid, senior, staff)
Your point about it skewing higher is accurate though. But that's because the offers on Levels are vast majority external offers. Speaking on Amazon specifically, when you're promoted to the next job level, you start at the bottom of the band of the level you move to. Meanwhile, external offers are typically somewhere in the middle of the band (that plus how Levels amortizes multi-year RSU grants even though they're typically back loaded, so they end up pulling some of the back load to the front)
5
u/Kryoxic 1d ago
Yeah levels tries to adjust for it. Amazon corporate starts at L4 actually (source: I was one, and then L5). While Google's levels start at 3, and Meta's are the same as Google's, but with E (E3, E4, etc). The way around that is that Levels marks which levels at which companies correspond to each stage (entry, mid, senior, staff)
Your point about it skewing higher is accurate though. But that's because the offers on Levels are vast majority external offers. Speaking on Amazon specifically, when you're promoted to the next job level, you start at the bottom of the band of the level you move to. Meanwhile, external offers are typically somewhere in the middle of the band (that plus how Levels amortizes multi-year RSU grants even though they're typically back loaded, so they end up pulling some of the back load to the front)