Unless it's in writing, you should never, ever, ever take a statement like this at face value.
"You are coming in at level X, but this role is actually scoped at level X+1."
In reality, it means nothing and you can get promoted in lots of different ways. It is just a trick that unethical recruiters and managers play.
PIP is scary to foreign workers who are on temporary worker visa. Losing a job means that you may have to leave the country, which is a life changing event.
It is so scary that, in immigrant communities I am familiar with, it becomes a common sense to not to even dream about getting out of PIP. If your manager put you on PIP, start looking for a new job immediately because you don't want to risk losing your immigration status.
Don't try too hard on the PIP project, don't try to please your manager, only put reasonable amount of effort into the project so they don't have a reason to fire you immediately, and try to get the f** out as fast as you can.
This is always a HUGE RED FLAG. Never agree to this. Ever. For any reason. Even if you can get it in writing, you can be laid off, fired, etc.
Get the title when you walk in or don't walk in.
The problem is that titles generally have salary bands. You'd much rather be at the low end of a better title because the high end of the band is higher.
The flip side is that you better know that you can actually do the job. If you come in as a Principal, you're going to be expected to work as a Principal and not a Senior. If you're work is only up to Senior, you're going to get fired.
I, sadly, had to fire a guy who got into this position somehow. He was a nice guy. He could do Senior work. But he was at HR Principal level. We were a startup struggling to survive and I didn't have the time to teach him. So, I had to fire him to free up my slot so I could get an actual Principal that I desperately needed.
He took my advice to land somewhere else as a Senior, and I gave him a nice recommendation. He got pretty close to the same salary and killed it for them at that level.
Diabolical thing. I remember laughing (other place, other times) as my manager friend told me about a manager in the org practicing it. It was an exception though, and I see how it may be a regular practice at AMZN.
You interviewed for a PE role but instead was offered and somehow accepted a SDE2 position?
That's a 2 level downgrade and would mean a very different role for you with significantly lower compensation.
It's not news that the big-A wants its software engineers working 60 hours per week. I interviewed for a principle engineer role and everything seemed to be going well. But when the offer came it said "Software Engineer II." I asked about that and they said... "Oh, don't worry. We have to hire you in at a lower grade 'cause we can only hire so many principal engineers per quarter. you'll get automatically promoted at the end of the next quarter." The money was still pretty good so I didn't think anything about it.
Eventually I figured out that they had stiffed me on typical stock options. The whole bait-and-switch thing was their way to try and hire Sr. people for Jr. engineer's option grants.
Of course I wasn't automatically promoted and my boss mentioned, "oh yeah, you have to do a Dev III project to get promoted to Software Developer III first." And they expected me to do that project on my own time. sigh
Then in the middle of doing a software project for Amazon on my own fucking time I get moved under a different manager. The first thing he does is say I've been underperforming and he was going to put me on a PIP (I had perfect reviews the year before.) How the hell can you review my work two weeks after I start working for you?
About this time I bumped into a former-coworker who mentioned how happy he was after leaving Amazon. So I say to myself "f** this sh*" and quit in a couple weeks after getting a decent offer from another company to do consulting.
About two months later our HR rep returns from vacation and calls me up asking why I quit and I tell her it was clear I wasn't Amazon material, having had perfect reviews for a year and then being put on a PIP. She then asks "you were on a PIP? that's news to me," and another friend I knew in HR tells me managers will do this slimy thing to get more performance out of people during the holidays where they tell them they're on a PIP, but they really aren't. If you're on a PIP, HR will be involved.
Amateur ass-clowns. Everyone talks about how much dosh you'll bank at AMZN. Not really. I now make about the same amount in salary, but have a significantly higher equity stake in a smaller company.
It might be okay for your first or second job (it's not all negative, there's plenty of opportunity to learn about computing at scale.) But you're going to be working 55-60 hours per week to be promoted and told you're on a PIP just before Thanksgiving.