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Originally Posted by Mihkel05
Europe. AI. Same function as every other L8, wtf?
Europe is only slightly more specific than Earth. AI is a field, not a product. L8 is not a job function - is it engineering, SRE, test engineering, product, sales and is it a management or IC role?
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wrt what I want to know:
1) Work enviroment/hours/crunch/etc
2) Upwards mobility
3) Career options assuming #2 doesn't pan out
4) Any relevant anecdotal information someone may have
1) At that level, you set your own work environment and hours
2) It depends on how you compare to the others and how the product or the team you're associated with it does. But generally speaking, if they are hiring at that level externally, it's likely for something that Google is not corporately very good at (which biases the project towards failure) or it's something Googlers don't want to do (same)
3) This depends on who you are and what you bring to the table
4) My understanding is that within core engineering, Google doesn't frequently hire at this level from outside - if I look at my acquaintances or other people I've come across at this level (just L7-L10, including Facebook and Microsoft for a larger sample), the only unifying theme is that they've been around for a long time. The only exceptions I've seen are people moving between similar companies. This may be less true outside of engineering and also less true outside of the US, where there's less established talent at these levels.
But man these are junior engineer questions - at L5 or above as a manager, it's literally your job to answer these questions and help develop the careers of your direct and indirect reports. If your friend is genuinely wondering about these things, I hope they are a genius individual contributor, not a manager.