I assumed that was hyperbole.

Well it dilutes a conversation when someone implies a senior Google employee is surely to be expected to be at the tier of disrupting entire markets in order to get and keep their job.

If that is what really what defines an L9 job at Google I think we'd all have been praising the typical L9 Google employees on HN long ago. And we'd all be justified in being angry Google decided to fire such a person.

Or maybe Google should pay their salary indefinitely because they were capable of disrupting a market at some point in the past? Or maybe yes, such a person needs to work at Google type company so all of us can benefit from the optimal situation from which to maximize their talent, even though such a company would let them go. Otherwise we'd all lose out on such a person being capable of contributing to the world if Google lays them off.

What else could they do then without a company who doesn't appreciate them keeping them on?

I’m not sure what exactly is a L9 at Google, but this looks a lot like research positions in many huge companies.

For instance there was researchers on voice recognition at Yahoo! way before the voice assistants became a product, and if I could imagine one of them bring up a well working model 6 months before the competition, and have a voice assistant hit the market.

It would disrupt an entire market.

But they’re not alone of course, and I don’t know how many other researchers are on the payroll trying to breakthrough other fields. All of them have a “disrupt the entire market” expectation I think, and of course their employer is also expected to give them enough time and leeway to make progress. They probably bring small improvement on existing things, and the number of papers published every year could be another measure as a temporizing strategy. But their actual stated goal is probably very ambitious and they’d be failing at it for a very long time.

Vint Cerf

Not really sure what you're trying to say, but Vint Cerf is a VP (i.e. L10).

Research is a career path, not a level.

As levels go up, each new level is a new job.

In the SWE track:

L3 is a new graduate

L4 is mid level (an engineer who you can generally trust to complete the tasks they're assigned)

L5 is Senior (who owns/shapes the direction of the team)

L6 is Staff (who has to see upcoming problems and shape efforts across the organization)

L7 shapes a product

L8 shapes a division

L9 shapes an industry

The expectations are sky high, but so are the comp. If you want to get millions, you'd better do something worth millions.

Huh. So L7-L9 are L3s that are good at marketing and slap the Google badge on everything they do?

Well, I guess that explains both why they fire them and why golang.org became go.dev.

From your ranking, L9 seems to not depend on the company anymore, looks more research. You cannot expect to shape/redefine industry every year, that's absurd. By this model every math/physics/chemistry research teacher should be fired every year.

And to be honest I don't think google has these expectations. Most probably he was was fired for different reasons, not performance

Research is theoretical. These roles are very much practical. These are the kind of people who drive partnerships across companies, lead important industry standards, and come up with ideas for entire new markets and products.

This is not a job everyone wants or is capable of doing. There are a very limited number of such positions, and those who want them must justify the position's existence.

I can't speak for Google, and Amazon doesn't have an L9, so our Distinguished Engineers are L10.

But a decent bunch of them are the types of folks to have wikipedia pages:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Roskind

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray (not anymore I guess)

The ones that don't probably would if it was public about how much of a significant contribution they've made to some foundational AWS services everyone knows. I think they don't mind.

Do they "redefine the industry" every cycle?

That's basically in the job description for the highest levels though. They're expected to literally lead the industry in their field. If they're merely now a solid and productive programmer/uber tech lead then they don't remotely merit such a high position. Since demotion doesn't exist for various reasons, the only solution is separation.

a lifetime ago back at Microsoft, Peter Spiro described these folks job expectation as "walk on water". if you wanted to exceed expectations, you had to "leave no wake"...

The very best engineer I've ever worked with at any company (Anna B.) just got promoted to Distinguished last year. She accomplished one or two industry-leading things before that :-)

Leading the industry clearly isn't good enough. They are expected to regularly redefine the industry.

Happiness is not enough! I demand constant euphoria!

Their managers earning as much or more don't lol

haha their managers' job is just redefining expectations of what is required.

A L9 manager has a very different job. That's a VP and they've probably got 500 people under them. Very high level ICs are also somewhat often directly managed by lower level managers (who are also paid much less). It isn't terribly uncommon to see an L8 managed by a L7.

Managing 500 people is a far lower responsibility than "redefine the entire industry". The entire industry is probably a hundred thousand workers and dozens of companies making hundreds of billions of dollars and you have to completely change the game for all of them. Why should someone who only manages a mere 500 people get more than one thousandth of the compensation? They probably only have a dozen direct reports anyway.

That's just a reflection of the fact that it's much easier to have a big impact if you direct an entire org to make it happen rather than trying to be a hero and doing it all individually.

We already know that part. They take credit for other people's work and they will fire you if you don't earn them a big payday.

> Since demotion doesn't exist for various reasons

maybe not in faangs, but I've seen CTOs and directors downshift to ICs in multiple startups and public tech companies. Honestly kicking them out instead sounds like a huge waste, if the person can make solid contributions in a different, maybe less intense, role, why not let them?

At Google it is actually common to have directors or VPs who don't have reports for a while, but we are talking about people who are ICs already. For each management position there is an equivalent IC position at Google with similar pay. I believe L9 would be a senior director.

From what I've seen these senior people with no reports at the moment (or those with org sizes too small) were hardest hit in the layoffs, simply because of the misfortune of bad timing.

It sounds like you're describing people getting a different job at a different company? That's not the same thing at all.

When I joined Google I was "demoting" myself from TL/M equivalent to mere L4 SWE. The much higher pay didn't make it feel like a demotion though.

nope, switching to a lower level at the same company

Well my origin comment was saying that it doesn't happen at Google. I can't speak for other employers.

Ah, clueless tech companies and the infinite growth myth, name one more popular duo.

Granted, it was hyperbolic, but at L9, often. This isn't just an extremely competent engineer, it's an industry leader.

I try to imagine the standups these people have: "Which industry have you redefined yesterday? Which industry are you redefining today? Do you have any blockers?"