Sweaty Imposter

Levels

Which Level Am I?

Titles vary by company, and the same title can carry different scope at two employers. Place yourself by the scope of the role you're interviewing for, then check the title map below. Your level sets session pools, rubrics, and your plan.

Place Yourself by Scope

  • Junior

    Delivers well-defined tasks with guidance. The work arrives scoped, and reviews focus on correctness and clean code.

    Interviews: Online assessments, easy and medium problems, and explaining your own code.

  • Mid

    Ships features on their own, from a ticket to production, and knows when to ask for help. Owns pieces of a system.

    Interviews: Mediums, object design, a first system design round, and AI-assisted coding.

  • Senior

    Owns a system end to end: its design, its reliability, and its roadmap for the next few quarters. Leads projects across a few engineers.

    Interviews: Two design rounds with deep dives, tradeoff defense, and a project retrospective.

  • Staff

    Sets direction for an area that spans several teams, through design docs, reviews, and influence, over a year or more.

    Interviews: Project deep dives, design doc critique, and influence without authority.

  • Principal

    Sets technical strategy for an org or the whole company over several years, and answers for decisions that are expensive to reverse.

    Interviews: Architecture reviews, multi-year strategy, and executive communication.

Titles at Large Companies

Approximate. Ladders differ by org and change over time, so confirm scope with your recruiter.

Google Interview Guide

Meta Interview Guide

Amazon Interview Guide

Microsoft Interview Guide

Apple Interview Guide

Stripe Interview Guide

Netflix Interview Guide

Uber Interview Guide

Airbnb Interview Guide

LinkedIn Interview Guide

Architect, Lead, and Other Titles

  • Senior Staff Engineer

    Practice at Principal. Its sessions also draw Staff material, which covers the overlap.

    Principal

  • Senior Principal, Distinguished Engineer, and Fellow

    The top of the ladder. Expect architecture reviews and strategy conversations with executives.

    Principal

  • Tech Lead or Team Lead

    A role that sits on top of a level. Leading one team's design and delivery reads as Senior; leading work across several teams reads as Staff.

    SeniorStaff

  • Software Architect or Application Architect

    Place it by reach. Architecture for one product is Senior scope; standards and designs shared across teams are Staff scope.

    SeniorStaff

  • Solutions Architect

    Usually customer facing. Expect system design, tradeoff discussion, and behavioral rounds about working with clients.

    SeniorStaff

  • Enterprise Architect, Chief Architect, or Principal Architect

    Company-wide technical direction, platform choices, and long-range roadmaps.

    Principal

  • Senior Engineer at a Small Startup

    Startup titles run high. If you owned whole systems and their roadmaps, practice at Senior; if you mostly shipped features, start at Mid.

    MidSenior

Common Questions

Is Staff above Principal?
On most ladders Staff comes first and Principal sits above it: Google, Meta, and Apple all put Staff below Principal. Microsoft and Amazon have no Staff title, so their Principal is the first rung above Senior, closer to Staff elsewhere.
What level is a Senior Staff engineer?
Senior Staff sits between Staff and Principal. Practice at Principal here, since Principal sessions also draw Staff material.
Which level should I pick if I'm between two?
Pick the higher one. Every session draws the level you pick plus the one below it, so the lower level stays covered.
Should I pick my current level or the level I'm interviewing for?
The level you're interviewing for. Rubrics, session pools, and your plan all follow it, and an interview loop grades you against the target level.
Build My PlanPractice by Round