Level and tier

A level is a company's statement of how much you own, how vague a problem you can be handed, how far your influence reaches and what you deliver without help. A title is one company's name for that level, and titles do not travel: "SDE-2" at a Bengaluru product company, "Senior Engineer" at a services firm and "L5" at an India centre are rungs on different ladders, and level numbers mean nothing across companies. This lesson teaches you to read the two pages that decide your level, a company's own ladder, the level in a job description and the level line in an offer letter. It lines titles up by scope, says where Rs 1 Cr sits on them by the author's estimate, and ends with what each round reads at each level.

Your level is decided twice

Two documents fix your level. The first is the requisition, written when a team gets approval to hire. It names one level, and that level's pay band exists before any candidate is seen. The second is the levelling guide, the company's description of what each level does; after your last round, interviewers and any hiring committee read their notes against it. Some companies publish their guide; most keep it internal. Between the two pages sits most of what a switch decides: your loop, the band your offer comes from, and where your next raise starts. Both pages, invented, look like this:

  JOB REQUISITION                                   (invented)
  Req PAY-114 · Senior Software Engineer (L5) · Bengaluru
  Band: L5 (figures held by the compensation team)
  Team: payments reconciliation · 8 engineers
  Must have
    · designed and owned a service end to end, incl. on-call
    · led a project that took more than a quarter, across teams
    · reviews and mentors two or more engineers
  Loop: coding x2 · system design · LLD · hiring manager
  Also consider at L4 if the design round reads mid-level

The levelling guide behind it, laid out as a grid in Figure 1.1, has the same four rows at every level.

No company the author found states a rule such as "one level down if one round is weak". The author's judgement is that a debrief can place you one level below the requisition, so prepare for the neighbour as well as the target. How to check: on the first recruiter call (lesson 4), ask which level the requisition is for, what that level owns on this team, and whether the loop can assess you one level up. Write the answers down with the date.

Next stop: Reading a company's own ladder, 2 min

Reading a company's own ladder

A career ladder, or career framework, is the public version of a levelling guide. These are the public ones opened on 31 October 2026:

Laid side by side, the ladders' words reduce to the four rows of Figure 1.1. The frame is the author's synthesis; no company uses these exact names.

When a company you target publishes a ladder or an engineering-careers page, read it like this:

StaffEng's guide adds a warning: ladders describe populations rather than individuals, and reflect intent more than reality, especially at Staff and above. No published engineering ladder was found for the Indian product companies the author checked; the author's reading is that they keep theirs internal. For those, ask the recruiter what the level owns on the team, read the company's engineering blog for the scope its engineers describe, and treat the answers as the ladder. How to check: open the Dropbox or Etsy ladder, read the page for the level you think you are, and find one sentence your strongest project of the last two years satisfies. If you cannot, read the level below.

Next stop: Titles side by side, 2 min

Titles side by side

The table lines titles up by scope, not by name. The title words are the author's estimate (not measured) of common usage; no company maps its titles this way. The last column places this guide's Rs 1 Cr (lesson 0) on the same rows, also the author's estimate (not measured).

Three caveats mark where it misleads. The Dropbox cells are the author's reading of its overview page, not Dropbox's own mapping. A services ladder often adds rungs faster than a product ladder, so a services "Consultant" is not a Staff engineer by default. And a services Tech Lead often carries delivery and people duties as much as technical scope, which is why a move to a product company is often levelled a rung lower than the title suggests (the author's estimate, not measured). Find your row by evidence, then read across; never start from your title's cell.

Next stop: Years against scope, 1 min

Years against scope

The public ladders contain no years, and companies post one opening across two levels ("SDE-2/3"). At best, years narrow the field to two rungs, and the interview picks between them. Argue from evidence of scope, one example per row from the last two years. Asha, the invented engineer from lesson 0, has six years and is an SDE-2 at the Bengaluru centre of a US-listed product company:

How to check: write your own four rows, one true example each; your self-reviews are the quickest source. Your level is the column where most examples sit comfortably, not the one your best example reaches. A row you cannot fill is the one the loop will probe.

Next stop: Reading a job description's level, 2 min

Reading a job description's level

A JD carries three kinds of level signal: the years range, the title and the verbs. The verbs carry most of the weight. The readings below are the author's; no company or jobs site states them.

No Indian rule requiring a pay range in a job posting was found (not finding a rule is not proof there is none), so the band comes from the recruiter, not the JD. Figure 1.2 maps the verb rows onto the levels.

How to check: underline every verb in a JD and sort them into the three verb rows. Note the width of the years range, write the two levels it could mean, and ask the recruiter which one the requisition is for.

Next stop: Reading your own offer letter for level and band, 1 min

Reading your own offer letter for level and band

The level you are offered is printed on paper, and so is the band if you ask for it. Figure 1.3 shows where the level is set and where it surfaces.

When an offer arrives, and in the letters you already hold, read these lines:

A band in writing from the company and your own letters are the only pay figures this guide asks you to rely on. If the level line says the neighbour, not the target, that is the moment to ask what evidence would place you higher; lesson 13 covers that conversation.

Next stop: How the loop tests your level, 2 min

How the loop tests your level

The same question is asked at every level; the level is read from what you do with it. This table is the author's judgement, drawn from the published ladders, not any company's rubric.

One rule runs through every row: what you raise unprompted counts for more than what you handle when asked. Four moves follow from it.

1. Place yourself by evidence. Say your level in the guide's words: "I own the refund service end to end, including on-call; I wrote the plan for moving it off the nightly batch; two other teams now publish to the event bus I designed." Each clause is one row.
2. Target one level and its neighbour. Between two levels, ask for the higher loop: a lower loop rarely produces evidence for a higher level, while a higher one can still place you lower (the author's judgement). Decide now what you would do with an offer one level down.
3. Build your expected range from the level, not a hike. Ask for the band, place yourself in it by how comfortably your evidence sits, and test the bottom against your floor from lesson 0 using lesson 2's tables.
4. Aim at two tiers, one for practice. Take your first loops where a bad round costs less, and book the tier you want once you have done its format for real. Lesson 3 builds the list; lesson 5 the plan.

Practice with an AI: the prompt kit in the appendix has 1 card for this lesson.

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