Job descriptions for junior positions and tech leads are not the same.

Agreed, maybe a bad example.

But a team of SWEs at different experience levels for the same role won't be different job descriptions.

I'm in this situation right now, I have a minimum requirement, it could be MET with someone with 1-2 years of experience or 20 years.

But that is the MINIMUM, if I find someone that meets that minimum but I get a lot more, I will pay more. But I'm still not making multiple job descriptions with different ranges.

> But a team of SWEs at different experience levels for the same role won't be different job descriptions.

Why would you put people with different experience levels in the same role? You'll have three classes of people, only one of them "happy", for the others it'll be too much or too little. You cannot put a junior in the same position as a person who wants to be tech lead?

I think maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, because having one job description for those three roles don't make much sense as I understand it currently.

I'm probably not explaining myself well, but besides from FAANGs that use levels, this is how every company i've worked at does thing.

We need a team of X people, we have minimum requirements. We are open to anyone as long as they are close to the requirements (100% match is never possible).

We evaluate the comp based on interview feedback... then as the team gets filled what we look for starts to narrow to "fill out the bench" so to speak.

But we won't ever go back and update the description or pay-band, no need.

You could just put multiple ranges and add additional details for what seniors/leads look like. You would have minimums for what those things are too, and those qualities would actually overlap a lot with a previous level's nice-to-have items.

There's valid conversation around the nuances of "what if this need isn't specific to a level?" but those don't excuse keeping people in the dark about what the job offers or requires.

Operational flexibility is a thing. A small company could be looking for competent and motivated people in general and adapt their internal processes to match the hire's experience level.

Couldn't you have a single job advert with a wide range and in the description say that you're looking for juniors, mid, and seniors and that you'll tell people early on where you think they'd slot in?