[anelson]

When reading BigTech career ladders like this one, I immediately fall into the trap of projecting myself onto the ladder, and getting upset when the level I've chosen for myself is described as something that sounds far removed from what I want to do. I must remind myself to frame this as how Dropbox describes the things that they value in each position. An L7 SWE is the most valuable SWE in Dropbox, as measured by the comp that they are will to offer to L7s.

When I see that "code fluency" expectation tops out at L3, "design" at L5, and "architecture" at L6, I'm taken aback. So in Dropbox, L7s and L3s have equivalent code fluency?? Heresy! Nonsense! Dysfunction!

But I try to see this from the perspective of the (I assume) execs who maintain this document. Is the value of an L7 that they write better Python or React or Rust code than the other Ls? Or is it that they are expected to navigate the bureaucratic maze that Dropbox has become, making things happen and getting things shipped instead of throwing up their hands and blaming corporate dysfunction? I imagine myself as a Director in this same environment, bucking for a promotion which could easily have a seven-figure impact on my comp; who do I want implementing the projects that I am going to put into my promotion packet? Probably I want whoever will make things happen, I doubt I care very much about how finely crafted the code is or how many CPU cycles that hot new feature is going to consume in prod. In fact the document is explicit that all roles are measured on impact, which is only vaguely related to technical excellence.

This kind of thing used to upset me, as I've spent decades refining my craft as a SWE, I consider myself to be very good at it, and here's a Dropbox document telling me that they value my skills at about an L3-L5 level which would typically be 20-somethings on a traditional SWE career path. If I want to work at Dropbox with a title that matches my own self-assessed level (L7, naturally!), I will apparently be expected to do very little of the craft that I love and have honed over decades, and instead should attend a lot of meetings, craft long-term visions, influence strategies, and probably cross-functionally synergize paradigms or something.

But thinking more deeply about this, setting aside emotion, it makes a certain kind of sense. After all, at this point in the lifecycle of Dropbox or any other BigTech, what would have a bigger impact: another hot-shot software engineer shipping code day and night, or a smart technically-minded operator navigating the corporate hierarchy and political minefield to get the right things done in spite of the dysfunctional structures that seemingly every big org evolves into order time? The answer is obvious from my framing, the only confusing thing about this is that they use the title "SWE" for both of those things.

I would be interested in a Dropbox L7 SWE level of compensation, and I've already self-assessed myself as L7, yet my impression from reading this document is that I would be miserable as an L7 in Dropbox. Perhaps not coincidentally, I've spent almost the entirety of my career in startups without rigid career ladders, or vesting-in-place at the big companies that acquired those startups, or most recently founding my own software startup. That this career framework has convinced me that Dropbox isn't the right place for me is probably a good thing, as it saves me and Dropbox interviewers quite a bit of wasted time and effort.

[lucianbr]

> instead should attend a lot of meetings, craft long-term visions, influence strategies, and probably cross-functionally synergize paradigms or something

I never understand how this is supposed to happen. As an employee of a company, no matter the level, don't I need to do the tasks that are assigned to me by the higher level? Be they "write code" or "attend meetings" or "write an architecture document" or whatever? If I am at L4 and whish to grow, can I just skip my coding tasks and instead join meetings uninvited, high-level ones? How can I "influence other teams" if I am not already empowered to influence other teams? As a team member, would I do what some external "influencer" says, or what my team leader / manager says?

It sounds to me like for most advancement, the actual requirement that can be read between the lines is "know how to navigate the rules and people to do what you want instead of what you are told to do". I would guess you would find plenty of people with this skill at NASA right before the Challenger disaster. People who knew how to "make things happen" despite lowly engineers telling them there are problems. Acknowledging problems isn't anywhere in the career ladder document.

[UncleMeat]

Usually the levels don't say "you cannot do X until you are level Y" but instead are "if you are level Y you must be doing X".

This means that if you want to be promoted you go to your boss and say "hey, I want to work towards the next level." They then find opportunities for you to attempt the various things required for the next level and if you succeed you can be promoted.

[jameshart]

> an employee of a company, no matter the level, don't I need to do the tasks that are assigned to me by the higher level?

No, but ‘no matter the level’. Case in point, the IC6 and 7 levels in the Dropbox framework SWE track here both say:

> I transcend organizational boundaries and proactively identify the best way to leverage myself

At a certain level you are senior leadership and it becomes your job to figure out what the most useful thing to be working on is.

[wiseowise]

It's your manager's job to navigate you to a higher level.

[scarface_74]

It doesn’t matter how good you are as a developer, you can only have so much impact coding 40 hours a week. I wanted to move up both to increase my autonomy and my vision is much larger than the amount of work I can physically do with my own hands.

As a 50 year old who has been doing this for awhile, I can and have:

- spent time on zoom calls and flown out to customer’s sites to gather requirements and help close a sale (cloud consulting).

- developed and managed implementation plans

- been both a dev lead and a lead for cloud architecture projects

- can be your standard, experienced enterprise developer

- I know almost every type of database out there and best practices for each

- can set up a “Well Architected” AWS account from an empty account including pipelines to deploy to EC2, Lambda or Kubernetes (EKS).

But I can only do one at a time. My “impact” comes from companies knowing that I can credibly speak to all of the individuals involved and they can fly me out to a customer’s site without me embarrassing them

[anelson]

What you're describing is actually not that different from my own conception of what a senior principal SWE is. Simply stated, I would define that level as a very experienced, knowledgeable, competent SWE whose main value to the org isn't in KLOCs they personally write but as a force multiplier who sees around corners (but also writes their fair share of KLOCs).

What turns me off about the version of an L7 SWE as described in the OP's link is the extent to which it doesn't sound like that at all. Maybe it's my bias against BigTech career ladders, but reading between the lines it sounds to me like it's more about navigating organization, political, and bureaucratic obstacles and attending a lot of meetings and generally being seen to be doing these things.

The point of my comment is that perhaps it is rational for an org like Dropbox to value the ability to do that more highly, but I've been in those roles and I found them personally to be soul-crushing.

[mettamage]

That's a really helpful perspective. Thinking from the perspective of executives is a handy tool. Thanks!