For pay ranges check out some charts we’ve compiled at http://levels.fyi/charts.html

I decided to focus on power engineering instead of software in the mid 2000s since I thought a lot of software jobs would be offshored. Big mistake in terms of compensation!!

Ah, okay. Pay scale, got it. Yea we have similar. Just no actual titles.

It's not just about pay, it's also about scope and expectations.

Sort of. I didn’t mention it because level doesn’t really limit your scope. If you have a way to make a big impact nobody is going to tell you to not do it because you’re too junior. It’s just that the higher levels are expected to operate at company-wide scope all the time.

You can hide your level such that other people don’t see it, which is another difference between Google and my current company where people introduce each other by their titles, which makes me want to quit every time. Nobody at Google has ever said “And now I’d like to turn the meeting over to Principal Engineer Jane Doe”. Most people don’t mention it.

I've heard the phrase "well, a T7 said otherwise, who am I to argue" and similar from people.

It’s up to each individual to make the most of an environment where the utterances of senior engineers are just advice. You don’t need their permission.

Of course not, I'm just saying it _is_ part of the current culture to assign hierarchy to levels, probably more so with younger/more junior people. Hierarchy tends to look flat looking down.