Ask HN: Senior Staff at Google vs. Principal Software Engineer at Amazon?
If you have experience with any/both of these could you provide some information about the daily life of each one, the impact they make at their team/organisations and career growth potentials?
I don’t have experience working with Senior Staff’s at Google but in regards to Amazon L7, they’re often very high impact influencing several ‘two pizza teams’ as Amazon calls it. Almost all L7s are expected to be hands on to some degree. This is a stark difference than most companies in which at this level people rarely touch code anymore. Amazon had a very defined track. Moving to L8 is very difficult as it should be. There are probably leas than 50 L8s in all of Amazon if I had to guess. For comparisons check out www.levels.fyi I’m one of the cofounders so happy to answer any other questions as well.
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I agree with this advice with the caveats that you
1) Take care of your mental health first and foremost 2) Ensure you don't tie your self-worth to your income, as so many do on that app
It is a cess-pool yeah, but their is good insight on occasion.