Chapter 1 · Practice 4 of 4
Compare roles by expectations, not by titles or level numbers
Why it matters
"Senior" at a five-person startup and "Senior" at a large company can mean very different scope. Level numbers are not comparable either: one company's L4 is another's L5. Even inside one company, tracks such as reliability, data, machine learning and security engineering may have their own level lists, as the Dropbox framework shows.
When you compare an offer or a move between teams, ask what the role owns:
- Scope: a feature, a system, a product area or several teams?
- Ambiguity: are problems handed to you, or do you find them?
- Reach: who outside your team do you influence?
Those answers tell you more about growth than the title does.
Do
- Ask what a role owns and who it influences
Avoid
- Taking a bigger title with smaller scope and calling it growth