I think maybe you’re expecting your 2 years of senior at Meta to do too much work. Being head of eng at a 12 person start up is essentially being a tech lead, which is usually high end of senior. And I’d honestly hold the experience from those 2 years at the startup higher than senior at FAANG where usually the senior role can be achieved simply by tenure vs purely on merit. So what I really see is 4 years as senior eng mostly, with technical leadership experience.

I’m at 11 YOE total with 7yr of those being senior/lead/principal from small 12 person startups to bonafide unicorns, where my team almost always had an outsized impact on the company’s revenue relative to headcount. But I don’t EXPECT to get slotted into a staff or principal role at a different company, especially not a big company, even tho I know I could be and/or applied to be.

The needs a company has for a staff engineer at a scrappy start up is gonna be wildly different from at a FAANG. As senior leadership at a startup, I think you’d be hard pressed to hire out the role of staff+ vs promoting from within, as much of the needs a startup would have for a staff+ would involve a crosscutting understanding of the business and problem space, which often comes from tribal knowledge and experience, not something you can just expect an average ex-FAANG staff engineer to have, who is used to operating in a very different culture, dealing with very different challenges, and used to very different ways of measuring value/impact. Even if a company has an open role for staff, they’re almost certainly looking for someone who is truly out of distribution or is a highly regarded referral, or is at least solidly experienced at that level in the way the company expects it.

If you’re able to get high end of senior at a new company, I think that’s great and fair! Take the offer with whatever company seemed like the best fit with a good manager, and make your career goals clear and heard, and I’m sure you’ll get promoted or at least get appropriate raises if you make sure you can objectively prove your impact is worth it. I’d say focus less on the title, more on the role specifics and opportunity for growth and impact in whatever vector is most fulfilling to you.

And let’s be real, pay is all that really matters when it comes to the leveling convo. I don’t know anyone who takes senior vs staff vs principal seriously anymore really. Title inflation has made titles so fake in our industry.