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Comment by AbbeFaria | Hacker News Reader

You are not alone. I was in this exact same position at MSFT and I put in my resignation. I am an L63 but the work I was doing, was something an L60-L61 could do and I frequently felt I was in one of those Bullshit jobs (courtesy of David Graeber). I was paid handsomely but once the sign on stock ran out, I saw that I was staying in the job just for security. I felt like one of those Hooli engineers who were sunbathing at the Hooli office terrace waiting for their stocks to vest. I am only 9 years into my career and I didn’t see that as the optimal thing for my career rn.

I didn’t have any major financial obligations like you though, so it was a much simpler decision for me.

Hang in there buddy and also thanks for the deeply human comment.

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> I am an L63 but the work I was doing, was something an L60-L61 could do

Maybe the problem is imagining that you need sixty three levels of granularity to describe experience or to establish superiority over sixty two categories of "lesser" engineers?

It’s not like the op invented Microsoft’s leveling system. It looks like junior engineer is 59 and 63 is something like senior engineer. I know at google there is a very meaningful difference in the work and responsibilities expected between our equivalent of 63 (L5) and 61(L4).

Believing in that system so much to say something like that might be worse. Noting against the OP, that kind of Stockholm Syndrome can be found in my past as well.

Not sure I understand. Is your contention that the distinction between senior and non-senior engineers is fake and everyone's doing basically the same thing? Or are you just objecting to the (arbitrary) names Microsoft uses for them?

False dichotomy. Of course not everyone has the same experience/skills, but any corporate system of putting individuals to tiers has little to do with experience/skills.

That's just not accurate. I've seen these systems run at multiple companies, and in every case they had a lot to do with skills and experience. It's true that they're not a perfect classification, and I think it's defensible that some people prefer a system where this kind of leveling doesn't happen.

But the tradeoff is that career advancement becomes less legible in a way that other people often find frustrating. Why does Alice get paid 3 times as much as me to work on cooler and more important stuff? "Alice is L7 and I'm L4" is often an easier answer to accept than "Alice is a better engineer than I am" or "People with Alice's experience have more options than I do".

> That's just not accurate. I've seen these systems run at multiple companies, and in every case they had a lot to do with skills and experience

> I am an L63 but the work I was doing, was something an L60-L61 could do

So you and OP believe that, these systems are good indicators of skills, so much that the last statement sounds normal?

I was thinking like that once, as well, but I got disillusioned. These stuff tend to be gamed.

> Why does Alice get paid 3 times as much as me to work on cooler and more important stuff? "Alice is L7 and I'm L4" is often an easier answer to accept than "Alice is a better engineer than I am" or "People with Alice's experience have more options than I do".

Sure, that's why these system exist. They justify pay, that's all there is.

> So you and OP believe that, these systems are good indicators of skills, so much that the last statement sounds normal?

Op here, yes I do believe, the levels aren’t perfect though. I believe in them because I was once L60 and L61, I knew intimately what was expected of me then and I can assure you the work I was doing as an L63 could be done by someone few levels down, which is to say I was underutilised. The team was also not the right fit for me.

Levels tell you two things, the scope and autonomy you get in your work and more importantly compensation. From the compensation view point, it does tend to be “gamed” frequently by developers hired from outside who might be out earning devs promoted within.

> So you and OP believe that, these systems are good indicators of skills, so much that the last statement sounds normal?

I do. I think it's good not to box people in, where certain work is only for (my company's equivalent of) L63s and an L60 isn't even allowed to try. But when I do see L60s try, they usually need someone to come by and intervene, because there are critical skills that come with seniority that they don't yet have.

To be more concrete, one thing I often notice in junior engineers I mentor is that they're very "task brained". They understand their job to be nothing more than a sequence of development tasks, so they struggle to understand what's happening or how to help when it comes time for important things that aren't tasks. One guy I knew was frustrated that he didn't understand how priorities are set, and yet would never read the customer stories in his email that the company used to set priorities.

I think they measure different things. The ladder levels have to do with the type of jobs you can accomplish in a large organization. I actually find they translate reasonably well to nontechnical roles in corporate structures. It is of course tempting to think that good engineers will be high level in those ratings, but that’s really not what is being measured by levels. A certain proficiency is required, but it’s mostly about responsibility and ability to take on tasks of a certain scale or organizational complexity.

All this to say it is absolutely reasonable for the OP to complain that they are being underutilized at the role of senior being given small byte sized projects of for no other reason than that this would prevent future growth.

Entry-level software engineering at Microsoft starts at L59.

Have no idea why people here are picking up on MSFT’s levelling system? I didn’t invent it.And it actually starts at L59.

The point I made was that as an SSE (L63), there’s a certain amount of scope and autonomy that is expected neither of which I was getting and hence I resigned. I am not trying to bully or denigrate anyone junior.

The levelling system specifies the output and the characteristics of the output expected out of an engineer, that’s it. Whether I believe in it or not is beside the point, I was in the system so I did believe it otherwise progressing through my career would have been impossible.

>Have no idea why people here are picking up on MSFT’s levelling system? I didn’t invent it.And it actually starts at L59.

Because it's standard arrogance by developers not realizing that Microsoft Level system is actually pay bands and because it was developed in 80s, leveling system COVERS all jobs because pay systems didn't support different pay bands back then. So there are lower levels then 59, for things like janitors, secretaries and others who don't make as much as SWE.

I learned in my 30s that most of the software profession works on boring projects. Uninteresting, low value code, for a barely-working product, used by customers who don't really care, in a low-stakes market that doesn't reward excellence, rigor, or quality. If you can find the rare company where this isn't the case, go for it!

What a flex.

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