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Comment by nrds | Hacker News Reader

I've worked at both Microsoft and Google in the past 6 years and the notion that msft "Principal" is equivalent to goog L5 is crazy.

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Meaning Msft Principal is below L5? I got the same feedback from one of my friends who works at Google. She said quality of former MSFT engineers now working at Google was noticeably lower.

I mean if you go by pay in the UK a Microsoft principle is equivalent to an L4 at Google if levels.fyi is too be believed....

I mean imputed prestige within the organization. Being an L5 is nothing; it's the promote-or-fire cutoff at Google AFAIK. But being a Principal is slightly more than nothing; it's two levels above the promote-or-fire cutoff.

I mean, _now_, sure, I'd assume Microsoft Principals should be hired around L4 at Google. But that's just due to a temporary inbalance in the decline of legacy organizations. Give it a few years and it will even back out and msft 64 will be in the middle of L5 range like levels.fyi claims.

L5 hasn't been the promote or fire cutoff at Google for perhaps a decade. L4 is the new L5, mostly because Google would have to pay L5s more, and it has been terrified of personnel costs for years.

But even so, an L5 at Google is basically a nobody as far as prestige or convincing other people to adopt your plan goes. Even L6 is basically just an expert across several mostly local teams. L7 is where the prestige gets going.

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