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Comment by jcalvinowens | Hacker News Reader

It's been incredibly frustrating. I recently did a round of onsites for a staff level position at a big company you've heard of.

After the interviews, I was told I was going to be offered a lower level role instead. I met with the hiring manager and expressed disappointment, saying it felt like a step backwards from my previous job, and I wanted to understand the new lower level role in more detail

What followed was one of the most surreal conversations I've ever had: he assured me that I would have the exact same set of tech lead expectations and responsibilities we originally discussed, just without the staff level title or pay.

Obviously, I rejected the offer.

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Was the compensation a step down? Plenty of tech companies levels are different. Boggles my mind someone might turn down a better job with more pay because for whatever reason they give a slightly lower title.

I took a 'step down' in title at a FAANG and still got a huge jump in compensation.

>>> without the staff level title or pay.

Right but senior at Netflix/G/Meta might pay a lot more than staff at IBM or Samsung or Ford.

Just because they want the candidate to be a lead, but won’t give staff level pay, is not a reason to reject a job imo.

It was an absurd catch-22.

I was told, more or less: "We don't think you're qualified for level X, but we still want to hire you into this specific specialized role we advertised as level X, doing all the same specialized work, with all the same expectations and requirements, at level X-1. We pinky promise you we'll promote you quickly because we are confident you are already qualified to handle these level X responsibilities, even though you're not qualified to be level X yet".

That reads like something straight out of McSweeney's.

Right but was it still going to be a big raise? I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out? Did you reject the job because it was a step down in pay, or simply because of the tile?

Usually reqs at Google are for two levels. So a manager can hire a lead, and it can either be senior or staff. G has strict perf requirements so people are much quicker to downlevel and then promote vs. hire at L6 and then fire.

Either way, it's a bait and switch. I wouldn't be interested at all because the company is apparently not to be trusted for their word.

It's not a bait and switch, it's called leveling. People can come with 20 YOE and get an L4 offer at google (mid level). and some people take it, because it's still a compensation increase.

Others try for staff and they get senior, which has a wide pay band and can sometimes pay as much as lower staff offers. So calling it a "bait and switch" isn't really accurate at all.

The people who decide your level are not the hiring manager or the interviewers too.

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