I came from .NET (no longer there), and there were plenty of Senior IC PMs and Devs.Are you in Test, Marketing or Documentation? When I gave notice, my PUM was in my office within an hour showing me stock levels at 65 and 66, willing to restructure my position pretty much to my liking. You don't deliver products on your own -- you're usually building one system, one set of components that together make one successful (or unsuccessful) product.You can always, always find ways that make yourself, your manager, and your immediate team much more successful. Because, except on the rare occasion, Microsoft and your team isn't going to change. Kathleen Hogan. The estimated additional pay is $257,304 per year. I heard that promotion budgets are significantly reduced at below 65 level. That figures. Feedback is not detailed or actionable. You forgot "never ask for a promotion".The one other thing that helped me go from L59 through >L64 was an absolute dedication to the strongest leaders, one level at a time. I am happy to be an L63, trying to get to L64 so I can relate.How I got here (I started as an industry hire 61 about 5 years ago):1. Senior->principal->partner are the level bands, 63/64->65/66/67, 68/69/70. * Stability at Microsoft is a two-edged sword. Don't just take a L63+ role because of the level. It can be a really discouraging time in your career, but if you can get past it youre headed for another amazing growth curve like the one that got you to level 62! But it should definitely keep me up in the top of the class, and getting a nice review score + kudos + a job well done with results is a reward in itself (that I crave for more than the actual promotion).I have given this suggestion to Lisa, but I have not seen any action so far. jcr said >Apple's about to ship Snow Leopard with no new features. I made it to L63 in a year (I was probably under leveled when I arrived). I suggest understanding why it is "No" first, truthfully accepting the point-of-view as pissed off as it may make you, and then having a self-directed action-plan to get on track. I've been struggling with the elusive 59 -> 60 move for quite some time. Mini himself is quite high level and knowledgable. Oldest and (still) best advice I've gotten is move around a lot; no two teams' cultures or needs are the same, so you have something to offer wherever you look. The CSPs are a good attempt to define each level, but anyone who is looking at the CSPs and saying I do that, and that, , but Im not getting promoted is almost certainly missing the point. You have to be extremely faithful to your management while at the same time carefuly growing your broad influence to your manager's piers. Leadership: pro-active leadership that convinces team members of the future direction and even helps to . However good your manager is, she or he is still a human with insecurities and ego. This is so that they can convert those positions to other discipline.i've seen this happening to at least 2 teams so far. Is that a req. My rent contract was renewed in September and I have to find another person or risk loosing a 1000 bucks, Mini,Asshole managers aren't unknown at Apple, but when they appear, it doesn't take long before the rest of the organization figures them out and isolates them. Mini: Great topic! I moved around 3 teams before I found one where I really enjoyed the technology and the people, and here I've flourished.So forget all the whining about politics and crap. Do a great job and you are likely to revise their expectations for the following cycle. So honestly, what is your boss's answer about if you'll reach L63? They will have thought this out. I know there is always new hope that comes with new leadership, but there is also a restart too. take the time to find a mentor that is a great fit for you and the issue you're working on. That didnt happen by chance alone. Is this confirmed? Microsoft Salary. Just ensure that you do the absolute best in whatever is thrown at you and promotion will take care of itself. Maybe everybody's aware of being "in lockdown" and keeping their heads down? We all know how many architects there are but isn't Senior the same thing nowadays ? YES, there are people who are awful at all three and still succeed. At a intl sub level a 63 is two ic to the GM. Chief Executive Officer and Director. If he thought you were trouble already, though, telling him you are thinking about leaving is like asking for a ticket out of there.7. Now a VP at a small cap (and growing, yes in this economy) company. IBM got their position by focusing on the customer. Maybe one boss likes to see a lot of code written, and another settles for less code, but fewer bugs. A mentor helps tremendously. The reason: there are a number of factors of success that are common at all levels (see #6 and #7 below). I don't yet have any insight into what it might take to become a Partner, so I won't comment on that. Being constantly re-orged is bad. No manager can bail you out of "bad brand jail" past L625. Sign up on LinkedIn and join the Microsoft Employees or ex-MSFT employees groups and then you'll see them posted. You can switch jobs internally and get leveled up (typically 6-12 months after) - but make sure you have the conversation with the manager as to what is the expected level and what is the cap. Typically if you can accomplish only 5 such improvements, it would be hard for your manager not to consider you for next step. Ask your VP, give the benefits on transparency from your perspective, and ask their opinion. Therefore, you are an HR manager. Folks, Im really encouraged by this post and the focus on trying to help make others great. All of my peers are SDE II's, so L61-L62.The advice is simple:First, NAIL the fundamentals. I call B.S. I spend a long time a 61 about 4.5 years mostly because I changed groups alot. Senior level executive excelling at increasing operational efficiencies, improving . And how do you represent yourself as a leader and influencer when you are in a room with 6 other people vying for the exact same thing? My queries on any specific guidance would get no response or the response that youre a 62 and you should be able to figure it out. You will never get your promotion on a silver platter. I dont know why this is the case. The important thing though is, can you hold things in a room full of other Senior team members. Stop thinking of your Mgr as your adversary and listen to what they are telling you. Great post. and is willing to take a chance on someone whose interview indicates they are ready for next level. Don't do this point blank and for no apparent reason, but your manager has to be aware that at all times you're working towards your next promo, be aware of your results, be aware of the things you need to do to get there, and make YOU and HIS MANAGER aware of those things. The Senior Director provides leadership, establishes operational objectives, policies, procedures and works plans and oversee the program to ensure maximum profitability through efficient service delivery, effective client management, and strategic allocation of resources. +1 on the level balancing difference in subs.As someone who has transferred employees to/from corp/sub both directions and has promoted a bunch of folk, the corp level for a role is 2 numbers higher than the equivalent sub one. Sometimes the answer is, "well, we'll see" and other times the answer is, "if they'd only stop doing X and start doing Y on a sustained basis, I could see it". What worked for me was to go to my manager and say: "I would like to stay here, at Microsoft, working for you. That is one aspect where they are forced to build fake relationships with directors and GMs to get promoted and unfortunately those who maintain good relatiship with them get promoted. You havent seen nothing yet. I used to work in the OneCare team. You want to be more efficient, smarter than him. But the opportunities I see doing X seem to be compelling from a financial and growth standpoint. This number represents the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. They came from "hot" product teams. What is the average promotion velocity for non-technical fields? Grammar nitpicking is fine when it's accurate. We need to grow out of this bad legacy syndrome that we still have. It sounds trite, but it's true. Both job switches came from conversations I had with former co-workers or former directors. You have to enjoy it, or else it'll come across as insincere, and you'll do a half assed job. Losing focus of your target next career level will leave you with nothing but regret and wasted time, sometimes years. SAP, Go to company page Do not accept promises, or you will be already disappointed with your new team as soon as some promises dont materialize (and believe me: you will lose your patience long before some promises materialize). And don't beleive your boss if they say otherwise. Of course everyone wants to be promoted every review, so don't bother asking right after your last promotion.What matters most is that you are doing what your manager thinks deserves to get you promoted. If it isn't, well don't waste everyone's time building the wrong thing.When you think of it this way, you'll anticipate what your manager needs, you'll anticipate what your skip-level needs, and you'll be doing what they need even before they know they need it. (Senior Project Manager), with 63 (Senior Project Manager) level earning average salary of $247k along with $38k worth of stock options. What an achievement! Thanks for starting this. That is, its hard to define, but I know it when I see it. Step outside of your comfort zone, own PM, own QA, become great at what you do, and do what you love - and the promo will come. Obviously, this is advice that you may not apply during the current hiring freeze, but keep it on your mind for the future.- At times the focus on the level may not be the most important strategy in the long term. Getting constant feedback throughout is valuable as you can re-align and re-adjust in an agile way so that you are not shocked at review time that you have completely missed that promotion. Vendors are also having it bad. The team that gave me the Dev Lead title made a bet on me, and they were not disappointed, since I worked hard to prove myself at that title (despite having to wait a little longer for a level promotion). if they'd only stop doing X and start doing Y on a sustained basis, I could see it Microsoft: Citi Cuts Ests, Target On PC Slowdown. Technical excellence alone will not generate success.Authority. I'm just going to try and emphasize a few points here:* As mentioned by many folks, it is important to own your career and hence plan you promotion, discuss it with your manager, and most importantly follow up on it. Its nice to see constructive advice and stories from everyone.I'm in the 61 bucket and currently struggling with my team for many months. You forgot "never ask for a promotion".Forgive my cluelessness, but: Why not?MSS. you need to hit the pause button for one big time-out regarding where you are, where you're going, and what needs to change. They took credit for work done by others (#2 helps).Seriously, they only way to separate the wheat from the chaff in this company is to allow to interview without notifying the manager. Then, he told those have been canceled. I'm not even thinking about level 63 at this point. It's a struggle even to get a solid Level 59 promoted to 60 because of budget and under-levelling of devs in 60-61 range. Why cannot we have our address title reflect our level as everybody else in the company?Not giving quite as snide a response as the previous posterAsk your management. You're cursed for life.2. I spent 5 years on level 61. There is only one item in this list: visibility. Go and restart in another org and dig through their historical biz and people stability during your informationals. You don't get your money by snatching it out of Google or Apple's hands, you get it by convincing your customers to hand it to you.Do you want to know why Vista is such an unmitigated disaster? If you are considering leaving your team (or Microsoft) but think you could be persuaded to stay, be careful about how you present this to your manager. Maybe." Don't discount the power of a mgmt chain that believes in you. Your lead. If you find a boss who likes the kind of work you can do, follow him/her wherever they go. Asshole managers aren't unknown at Apple [] The fact that you praise someone for "junk yard dog mode" shows me that Microsoft has a fundamentally broken corporate cultureThanks for a nice belly laugh to re-energize my morning. Why cannot we have our address title reflect our level as everybody else in the company? Highly effective Finance leadership; ability to deliver results by leading through example while setting high personal standards; Partnering with the business and influencing . There are so many reasons why things didn't happen in a given review cycle. If they see flaws you have flaws. Don't try to counter with stock levels argument as that is more convoluted, and given the current economic debacle's effect on our stock price..I understand that folks want to be Senior this, and Principal that but the truth is that it is mostly a fetish for some big sounding titles. Got two promotions - still level 60. Things get thrown your way and you knock each and everyone of the challenges out of the park. Being irreplaceble is bad because you spend more times on coding/fixing bugs and there is less time to work on your visibility. Chairman of the Board, Microsoft Corporation. I know devs who got there without doing anything substantial but their manager was nice and there was no competition.In short, Level 63 to me is not important and I really dont respect 63s unless they I've interacted with them.Level 65+ is another story and are devs who have the stuff almost always.- Someone at Level 62. MS is a carrot and stick culture with some heavy emphasis on stick. for 63 promo within a more clear timeline. >Apple's about to ship Snow Leopard with no new features. At a basic level, in a company the size of Microsoft, the higher you go, the less you contribute individually and the more you contribute by your impact on an organization - hiring the right people, setting clear and correct goals, driving alignment and execution. Revise if needed. By contrast, most directors don't have their own budgets, but need approvals from their VP to do just about anything. We have to reduce billions of dollars of cost. I am a [sic] HR manager. By doing this they are short circuiting the feedback loop and thereby preventing themselves from improving. On the subject of switching teams: It's completely possible to move up by being really good exactly where you are, in most cases. How long do people usually sit at L62 in MCS? Good luck with that. L63 takes a bit longer but is also fast. As HR Director, Claire helps drive the outstanding business impact, cultural transformation, and growth of Microsoft in the UK. And, ironically, some titles make your manager automatically have to adjust your level after a certain time, in order to comply with certainly HR guidelines.- Buy your principal a coffee, hear everything, and dont follow everything. The news is in. You'd do well to read it again:Success in business comes from serving your customers, not about beating your competition. Staff Software Engineer, Google Cloud Platforms, Senior Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure, Principal Engineer, Developer Platform Systems, Senior Software Engineer, Mobile (Android), AR. Senior->principal->partner are the level bands, 63/64->65/66/67, 68/69/70. If you want to succeed at Microsoft (or anywhere else where you have a boss), the most important thing you can do is figure out exactly what your management wants from you and then make sure you deliver it in spades.Junior people often make the mistake of thinking this means "I will do my job to the best of my ability" and then they go off and work really REALLY hard at things their management doesn't find nearly as important as they do and so come review time these folks are *shocked* to hear that all of their blood, sweat and tears did not make the impression they'd hoped. Chris Capossela. Promotion to 63 happened to me 2 years ago when I helped ship Office 2007. PROFESSIONAL SKILLS & HIGHLIGHTS OF QUALIFICATIONS Over 20+ years of experience working in large-scale real-time corporate environments Able to communicate concepts and details to clients, development team and testing team Excellent organization and communication skills, both written and verbal: clear and concise Knowledge of computer development software across multiple platforms . I am currently going to school which should help the moves to a better position. We in general hire very smart people who can figure it out. Mini, as good as your writeup is, there is too much emphasis on this level promo business in MS, and I have seen my fair share of people that have been burnt by it. Ultimately humans make decisions either by heart or brain. Don't let HR lie to you, this is a stack rank exercise. Write it down in a team-culture career section you keep in OneNote (start that section now if you don't have it). I was probably at risk of topping out at level 62 or 63 at one point but worked hard to change my brand and good things happened as a result. If you think of it as "How can I do better than my manager?" 5. I got involved in features up front, by spending time getting to know the PM team. If you do not market yourself well, even if you are a superstar here at MSFT, your achievements might just go unrecognized (or they might be selectively recognized). If you have an itching to talk about something else, please go here: But Mini, I Want To Talk About Posted by Senior-level employees have the most decision-making power at a company and are meant to provide leadership and guidance to employees with less seniority. When someone gives you the hard advice to succeed, it's quite the gift. Remember the "how".All the things Mini mentions do translate further up in levels. I am soliciting ideas to reduce cost in this blog. Great post! Microsoft Software Engineering Manager salary levels ranges from 63 (SDE Lead) upto 80 (Corporate VP), with 80 (Corporate VP) level earning average salary of $4851k along with $3675k worth of stock options. Experienced Operations & Project Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. So all you're telling me is I can't count on you so why should I? I'm now off the meds, not seeing the psychiatrist, and living happily.Working at MS was both the best time in my life and the worst time. Who cut and paste buggy shit all over the codebase and don't know some of the things that a good L62 should know. Amazon When she finally left the company four years ago things improved greatly. Strategy and Product Leader for an omni-channel team encompassing blended physical-digital experiences that combine personalized services with customer relationship strengthening across 400- centers. But power plays are at work and I get smacked when I try and take on extra work. And I'm hiring, yes, in this economy. It's what you can offer, not what you want out of it that most teams are looking for. Contributed and exceeded in two roles - getting G-Star, then moved to another team with clear headroom and again, exceeded all commits and moved to L64. Same applies if you started your career in Test. This is usually how teams start to rot from the inside. Director can be applied to L65 or L66. Sometimes i laugh when i read the armchair CEO's on this thread - there is a lot of criticism of Steve, but 99% of our brains would absolutely pop if we had to confront the complexity of decisions he makes in one day. Staff Software Engineer, Google Cloud Platforms, Senior Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure, Principal Engineer, Developer Platform Systems, Senior Software Engineer, Mobile (Android), AR. The first levels came quickly with some sticking around 64 and 65 (half my career).I have always taken on and fixed problem areas that no one else wants to take on. I've been a 62 for too long by Microsoft standards. I have staff that are lvl 60 and get paid as much as folks that are lvl 62. This is a large part of his job - getting his reports to excel and getting them (and by extension, himself) some recognition.All of the above assumes you don't suck, though. You're in competition with everyone else in your org in your CSP. Will there be budget? You know you want to get to that other bar, but that chasm in between is fraught with risk. That's awesome. 1. Take responsibility for defining the component in front of you -- is it really the right thing for the product/team? Any idea on when is this going to change? Own your brand. One of my reports and I had that conversation not that long ago, and I explained to him that at 62, he can take on any task I'm asking him to do. This means there are 24 distinct job levels at Microsoft. I could make changes quickly and with quality. It doesn't matter what you want - you aren't the one deciding when you get promoted. The education qualifications required for various roles for Technical track are: The highest job title in management track in Microsoft is "Vice President (VP)". There are 12 Directors in my sub and over 1000 people all scoping to one day be a Lvl 63reality, most people will leave before they get that far. Maybe Steve Jobs' psychotic approach to managing by terror is not properly described in English as "junk yard dog mode" (standing up for what needs to be done vs. mind-numbing consensus wallowing). Their self criticism spurs them to improve. Woow. If youre not displaying them at the current level why would your manager expect that youll suddenly start to display them at the next level?2. Could somebody please confirm or deny this. I have seen people turn it around. "I'm in the 61 bucket and currently struggling with my team for many months. You've made 3 mistakes. It's a matter of human nature for most people not to want someone else to pass them up. * Leaving the company - oh, the all too easy escape: I have seen that mentioned in quite a few comments. That is, an S-shaped curve that is relatively flat at the bottom (slow start), then becomes very steep (steep acceleration), then becomes relatively flat again (plateau). Senior Director Levels at Microsoft 63 (Senior Manager) 64 Principal EM (Principal Director of Engineering) 66 Senior Director (67) GM, Partner (SDE Group Manager) 69 VP (70) Corporate VP (80) Executive VP (81) View 7 More Levels United States No region found, search all locations Greater Seattle Area San Francisco Bay Area View All Data "There is no greater de-motivator than a reward system that is perceived to be unfair. You may be one of those who diligently turn over every single rock to look at problems within the org. I'm a level 64 lead in Windows and this post is spot on. Add your salary anonymously in less than 60 seconds and continue exploring all the data. It varies greatly from manager to skip.The hardest point for me to bear is that I am young, capable of doing so much more, and absolutely dying to do more. But if you can collaborate with others you can help accomplish much more than youll ever be able to accomplish individually. I sympathize with folks who feel they have been shafted however to quote a cliched saying: the common factor between you and all your problems is you. And to your skip level. Shock and awe awaits [sic].Four errors in grammar and punctuation in a post of just 14 words? I heard that promotion budgets are significantly reduced at below 65 level. (Summarized: Don't ever let your boss be frightened that you'll make him/her look bad. That's the wall you need to talk about, but the discussion would be very different than the L63 bump.And after 5+ years at L64, I finally just left. Aspects of an L63 Contributor: some random aspects that come to my mind beyond our CSPs: When I write all of this, I think back to an older piece by Joel Spolsky talking about Rosh Gadol contributors. What's worse is the noise this creates. Yet, when you have 2 or 3 offers at the end of very hard interview loops, which one are you going to choose: the team that listens to HR or the team that listens to the market? Not only do I have a much more interesting job with much less BS, I make more money as well.