For the folks on the path to L63, I want you to first understand your boss's opinion of you, your opinion of yourself, what it takes to succeed in your team, and then ways you can step up and be on the right path. No managers seems to want to talk to the previous managers for promo stuff and each wants at least 12 mos of time to think to observer. 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. How long do people usually sit at L62 in MCS? When I finally figured out how to play well with others and was able to show some major cross-group gains in addition to my own leet prod dev skills, that's when I became a 63.63 to 64 was a bit of a slog -- I'd say more like a full-frontal assault on lazy management, actually :). Lots of terrible mid level managers at MS. To the person from MCS who said it was easy to get to 64 in MCS - MCSinTheFieldI agree with you there, you can get to a L64 in MCS but try to ever transfer to another org as a L64. This is where I agree with Mini regarding taking MSFT back to the good ol' lean, mean, and efficient company we enjoyed. They can be wrong about exactly what these flaws are, but they aren't wrong that you are flawed. I am going through some finanical hardships and is getting the level changed is the only way for a salary increase? how to check hall sensor on samsung washer; marriott grande vista grande cove menu; what happened to josh's partner bill on moonshiners; are goldfish crackers good for an upset stomach Otherwise, you start getting limited reviews and your compensation goes down.Obviously there was no advice in this post, but I thought it was an interesting observation, and perhaps the company can learn something from this viewpoint. 4. Or - are they going to take the easy path and sack people in Europe and Asia? Experienced Digital Transformation & creative leader with a strong executive presence, experienced in creating value, building relationships & consensus across board-level client executives that . 63's and 64's own a huge piece of getting the RIGHT work done CORRECTLY. After that, I was given a team that was in trouble quality wise 6 months before shipping. You'd do well to read it again:Success in business comes from serving your customers, not about beating your competition. That is a great post Mini. 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. Thank you for reviewing my profile. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This will only lead us to a healthy and balanced distribution of levels across genders. I've seen some extremely senior developers propose solutions to problems, but be totally unconvincing. 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 way I can be in a better position to show that I am a "absolutely!" This topic didn't elicit nearly as many comments as I would have expected. 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? The education qualifications required for various roles for Technical track are: The highest job title in management track in Microsoft is "Vice President (VP)". New shiny brain up and working now. Your Recently Promoted L63 Peers: let's say you have at least one peer that in the past year or so has been promoted to L63. weeks to find another position within the company, otherwise they are laid off.Think that's known as a "RIF" not a "layoff" butwhat do I know? If they can, pay attention: They don't even know the area as well as your superiors, and you need to spend more time covering your bases. I've seen L65's who can't own a cardboard box, let alone a room. An Australian graduate with over 23 years of experience in the IT industry covering various business natures and sizes across startups and large corporations taking on roles from full-stack development in both open source and Microsoft technology stack to architecture design and strategic roles such as Technical Director/CTO. If you have potential and luck then you can achieve promotion velocity of one level every 18 months.Finally, heres my advice for who aspire for L62->L63 jump: Look around. I'm a level 62 dev trying to get to 63. Find a way to make or save them money. Benefits can add thousands of dollars to your offer. My experience, I joined MSFT at 63 and in 3.5 years I am at 65. Great and timely post - thank you Mini! Same here. What to do?The remaining is either a) absorb into other org (say A)b) if A doesn't need testers, then VP will instruct them to find another position in 6 weeks. Let's slim down Microsoft into a lean, mean, efficient customer pleasing profit making machine! Is there any way to get to 63 w/o leaving and coming back? It doesnt matter if the system is fair or not. But on balance mgrs at MS get things right a lot more often than they get them wrong or we wouldnt be one of the most highly capitalized companies in the history of biz. The scope imcreases, the risk increases and the visbility increases. Hi,Now that the Annual review is approaching, I wanted to seek tips on justification putforth to the manager to move from L60-L61. > What if you and your manager are at the same level L62. 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. senior director - $446k . Its difficult to transfer to a new position because at a high level, what group is going to take you on to a new position you have no experience in. Our entire unit was let go but we were moved to different groups in the org. Promotion budgets of 65 and above has been kept intact.Where did you hear this? 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. I have known some that do what is barely enough for "achieve" just because it is safe. It's a knife fight to 63. Bowl Leader. Joined MCS at level 60 and was immediately told that L61 would be years away. I'm not even thinking about level 63 at this point. My biggest struggle has been getting good feedback on where I need to grow. You have to be extremely faithful to your management while at the same time carefuly growing your broad influence to your manager's piers. I also don't know if this is the first step towards a lay-off, but for now, it seems we'll have jobs for a few more months.Ugh, not good, not good at all. Incompetent People Really Have No Clue: If youre one of the people complaing about how youre not getting promoted because your mgr is incompetent and youre just as good as all those others who got promoted you could be right. You dont have the same experience or abilities to perform in a core STB senior level role. No matter how good you are, you will peak at some point and Microsoft will get rid of you. I think it's important to be very up-front andto use a clichetransparents with your manager regarding your next steps and prospects for promotion. You will not know the difference.Steve Steve Steve given the state of the company, are you sure you don't have anything else more urgent to do? My experience is a constant melee of *every* single person trying to influence cross-group. And in your answer, there's a kicker follow-up: not only what you need to do to justify being promoted to L63, but to succeed in comparison to your L63 + L64 peers. Specifically, that is a tendency to try and do everything themselves, taking too much individual accountability as opposed to building a v-team across orgs etc etc.Most managers in Microsoft - in my personal experieince - are competent managers. I think it's safe to say that I "own" the group of people under L63 in my group, but I usually take that as an opportunity for mentorship as opposed to an opportunity to poach someone else's cool project. I made it to L63 in a year (I was probably under leveled when I arrived). YES, life is unfair.At the end, mastering 'soft skills' will help anyone: even someone at 59. My old boss was a 65 but his title was "principal director of engineering", new boss is the exact same level and job and his title is "principal engineering manager". Senior Director, Industry Advisor Life Sciences Salesforce Aug. 2020-Heute2 Jahre 8 Monate Zrich, Switzerland Building Go To Market Strategies; growing and driving industry thought leadership. Until you can be honest with yourself (and it's not fun, trust me) you will be stuck doing what you're doing and your complaining will be the glue keeping you there. Like any organization MS has its own unique culture and cannot possibly be all things for all people. 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.---I used to work in Devdiv, and I respect Kelly a lot. Take responsibility for defining the component in front of you -- is it really the right thing for the product/team? i asked him if he knew the absolute most important thing for him to do to get promoted. )Those are only 3 of many 'soft skills' that will hold most people, even brilliant people, back.Has every level X mastered these skills? Secondly, finding a suitable mentor to help them overcome that weakness. I left eight years after that when I realized that L66 wasn't going to happen for me.The bottom line: If your boss isn't pushing for you, get them on your side or leave the group. Bottom line is this: It's very easy to find imperfections. Second, the perspective of a different team helps you generalize about best practices and what works and doesn't work. ALWAYS ask for a promotion. Pop quiz: who is it? It doesn't matter what you want - you aren't the one deciding when you get promoted. (2): Wow, thanks for the early + great feedback. Any idea on when is this going to change? That is, its hard to define, but I know it when I see it. I have only required two strategies. If you're not there yet and your boss was asked that question by your skip-level-boss, what is your boss's answer? I will mis-direct and confuse you with hearsay. The way to succeed here is to find out how you make you, and your manager, and his/her leads, succeed as a team. (Senior Project Manager), with 63 (Senior Project Manager) level earning average salary of $247k along with $38k worth of stock options. When your manager finally ask you to do X, you'll be nodding your head and saying, "yeah, totally, and here's my progress on X." I got involved in features up front, by spending time getting to know the PM team. Think Locally: remember three years back when we talked about the book Corporate Confidential? I'm an SDE, so a large part of my time in the product cycle is spent fixing bugs. These turtles gets promoted eventually just based on time spent at MS and because they werent doing anything wrong even though they dont really meet CSP criteria. But it is also clear that there are places at Microsoft where these skills are not required until higher.I have a 62 test somehow make it to dev with mediocre dev skills, social skills limited to indifference or hostility, who managed to delegate most of the hard work to a smart kid hired to work with him and he made it to 63. 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. Microsoft Corp. engages in the development and support of software, services, devices, and solutions. Don't be afraid to ask your manager some very direct questions.Don't force the issue. Thats what I call implicit :). Then, he told those have been canceled. Not so at L63. Experienced sales manager with skills in strategy, lead of direct reports, developing sales forecasts, products pricing and launching new products to the marketplace.<br>Proven abilities to manage key account relationships and large-scale projects.<br>Experienced in presenting to executive senior management, meeting with customers at CxO level and coordinating salesmen's Activities.<br><br . VPs may well number in the hundreds at a huge place . See next bullet. The only thing you learn is your bucket, and roughly where in the bucket you fit based on your numbers. Think about why they're able to do that.These two lines really serve to summarize the incoherent blithering that was jcr's post. .css-1uhsr4o{margin-right:8px;}Get Paid, Not Played. 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. When it comes to where you actually rank and what you get paid that part is all that matters. That clarity may not always result in a promotion on the exact timeline you envision but if you're honest with yourself and have a good manager it really helps.I'm a 13 year Microsoft employee who lived through the bad old days of crappy managers. 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). Years ago we had a dev on my team who was very high IQ and very driven, but was driving his lead nuts. 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. Grammar nitpicking is fine when it's accurate. If you were in the running your manager would have told you / asked for ammunition by now. So he is looking to become partner this year on the team's work. You're selling it in no less than eight different SKUs, (including the upgrades) and your marketing message is deliberately obfuscated to convince the customers to go for the most expensive one. It makes a difference in your relationship. So here's my 2 cents:Read this now and have a game plan for your 1:1s to tee up a deeper discussion at MYCD. I joined Microsoft at L63 in Office and found it to be a freakshow of people NOT working together but understanding that no team work was better for getting a promotion FAR better than I did having come from the Valley. This is a discussion to foster debate and by no means an enactment of policy-violation. You try that in subs (who actually generate the revenue, HQ typically dont) - but the question is - do they dare push such a thing in the US? Senior Director Global Supply Chain Management transformation Supply Chain Operations SA Juli 2022-Heute9 Monate Lausanne Metropolitan Area Principal Consultant for an international. Microsoft employees make an average base salary of $208k & a total compensation of $280k. . The soft skills definitely matter. I can vouch for the efficacy of this mantra.MS definitely does a good enough job on career progression and offering diverse options. Sad but true Mini et al addressed this with the descriptions of the distinguishing traits you need to develop and demonstrate. Is it easier to level up in smaller groups (v1 product)? I was an asshole, but I was better than my peers at getting shit done -- I was a PM in DevDiv at the time. You havent seen nothing yet. It sounds fishyMy manager was also saying me something along the same lines. And when the time comes, putting you up for a promotion to L63 is the first time your boss will be challenged by your skip-level and by your Aunt and Uncles (your boss's peers) about one of your promotions. Understand that promos aren't an exact formula. And I appreciate you screening out the non-productive whining posts. Normally this is acceptable but right now i smell lawsuit. Learn everything I can about the technology (I'm a PM and don't have a CS background so I work extra hard at this and ask lots of questions.)2. I've been hearing some stealth layoffs around the SQL and BOSG groups, around 70+ people were given 6(?) They didn't want to plateau, but that is just where they were given MS talent pool. The hardest work item on his place was an expression parser that the team's architect wrote for him. I was always righteously indignant when I encountered asshats and incompetence and I would rail against the losers to anyone who would listen, and then I would do whatever it took to drive my agenda through to completion.I focused 100% on producing vast quantities of superior quality work -- which endeared me to my management chain and opened up a crap-ton of doors at those early levels. And as my experience shows, many teams do not even staff a senior. It's a matter of human nature for most people not to want someone else to pass them up. The Goldstars have already been canceled for this quarter.Next, I believe this post will most likely be useful for those who entered MS as intern/college hires. There is no better investment at Microsoft for tuning your career. Satya Nadella. There are the clear execptions and I think you can see this more on the engineering side than sales and marketing.One other piece of advice - be mindful of the impression you make on your bosses peers and others in senior levels of the organizations. That's the easy way out. Microsoft is a Technology Giant and has been the biggest Technology Company in recent years. It's just that the scope is different. So far, I haven't been successful. Therefore, you are an HR manager. You know you want to get to that other bar, but that chasm in between is fraught with risk. 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. 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. Establish SD/VSTF branching steering committee and send out monthly report. Learn How to State Your Case and Earn Your Raise, Climb the Ladder With These Proven Promotion Tips, A Guide to Negotiating the Salary You Deserve, How to Prepare for Your Interview and Land the Job. L62 is supposed is own the room of L60s, L65 own the room of L63s, and so on. What are the levels for non eng roles? This is a problem, at least up to level 65. We are all flawed, and you are lucky if people are telling you something that you can do something about. Here are the key facts about senior director resumes to help you get the job: The average senior director resume is 776 words long The average senior director resume is 1.7 pages long based on 450 words per page. Mini -- you left out the most important option, which I took. Senior Director Levels at Microsoft 63 Senior Manager SDE Lead 64 Principal EM Principal Director of Engineering 65 Show 7 More Levels United States Average Total Compensation $515,638 Base Salary $243,377 Stock Grant (/yr) $194,043 Bonus $78,217 Get Paid, Not Played >Apple's about to ship Snow Leopard with no new features. Why cannot we have our address title reflect our level as everybody else in the company? I agree with some comments that level make no difference. I heard that promotion budgets are significantly reduced at below 65 level. Let's apply that stick to cronyism and punishment based management practicies. It's a knife fight to 63. I'm not looking for any off-topic comments let alone woe-be-me comments - remember that slap thing? It's a question your boss gets asked so it's not a surprise to them. Pull the ripcord. I also agree with the requests to have a discussion related to 65+.Anyway, I have seen a very healthy discussion going on here, and most of the thoughts I wanted to share have been mentioned.