How was Rahul able to interview for a Meta E5 SWE position with 3 YOE

Rahul also mentioned he received an L3 offer at Google (which makes no sense btw!). I'm curious to know how there was such a large variability in the offer levels. Thanks!

Oh yeah, I have an answer for this one: Google is the undisputed (and shameless) mega king of downleveling.

This is because Google hiring still believes that it's 2012 and Google is the hottest company on Earth that everyone wants to work for. While Google is still undeniably an amazing company to work for, it's pretty far from being super #1. That title obviously goes to OpenAI at the moment.

Here are the reasons why:

1. While UCLA is a Top 15-20 CS school, Stanford is a Top 1 CS school (Stanford is literally why Silicon Valley exists). There's a big difference and power law starts applying very hard once you go from Top 10-ish to Top 1.
2. Rahul has a Master's and I don't.
3. Pinterest is a far stronger company than PayPal and Course Hero.
4. Rahul got like 5 competing offers from FAANG-level companies and I didn't.
5. The economy was better back then, and Meta was more willing to splash the cash as it was still in hyper-growth phase.

You can still get interviewed at Meta as E5 with 3 YOE (I have mentees doing this), but you need to have an equivalent level first. So if you are a true prodigy and are already an SDE 3 at Amazon or a Google L5, you will get interviewed for E5. Meta has a big internal matrix mapping external company levels to internal ones. That's the main thing used for leveling, and I think that's the right call.

Here's an in-depth explainer of Big Tech levels (Amazon, Google, Meta): "What do career levels structure in big tech company look like? What are the responsibilities for each level?"

Of course, if you're currently interviewing, your current level is your current level and it's not likely you can change that in the short-term. I made a video on the levers you do control to prevent getting down-leveled as part of my master job-searching course here: Don't Get Downleveled

I don't think we should fixate on a particular person did what at a particular company for a particular level. Each is a different case, and it was also a different time. We should focus on ourselves and the general trend instead.

Not all experiences are created equal. Rahul has a brand name, Stanford on his resume as well playing a key role in a startup that was acquired by Pinterest. It was a different time as well, I believe that 6 to 7 years is required for a candidate to interview for an E5 role at Meta these days but I am sure that for the right candidate there is always an exception made. Would love to hear Rahul's take on this.

Some great answers here already, and Alex hit the nail on the head. A few things I'll add:

• Of the 5 interviews I had at Facebook, I crushed every single one. At the end of the on-site, I was almost positive I'd get an offer, but I didn't know what level. (This is rare, but it felt great when it did happen.)
• Pinterest was a pretty hot company back in 2017, and there was a bunch of cross-pollination (in both directions) between Pinterest and Facebook.
• I joined Pinterest via a startup acquisition, which added more credibility to my profile. Facebook has a very startup-friendly culture. I also had 2 Stanford degrees. So I presented at least 4 different data points that de-risked my abilities as an engineer.
• Finally, I framed my profile as an Android specialist, which was in high demand at Facebook. I had done Android at Pinterest and also had a few published apps at this point.

As a follow-up, a few questions I have:

1. Why did Alex get down-leveled for Meta, and what could Alex have done to not get down-leveled and even potentially get up-leveled?
2. Besides interview performance, what factors go into leveling a candidate? Amazon is presumably a more prestigious company than Pinterest (and maybe as a higher engineering bar) but OP isn't considered for L5 whereas Rahul is?