Ultimately humans make decisions either by heart or brain. >Real HR managers from Microsoft would have just three [sic]s in a post of that length.I hope HR gets cut. 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? It sounds trite, but it's true. Senior directors are tenured members of an organization who are considered part of the leadership or executive team, in which they represent their department or division. What do you do when your manager is an absolute b***h, a disgrace in meetings with other teams and an embarrassment on her good days? About 1/2 the team is staying, the other half is going to a number of different teams within the larger org. VPs may well number in the hundreds at a huge place . 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 . 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. I am working towards it would say am there 75% of the way. Next, advertise your new branching strategy in your peer groups. But they don't have the same visibility that your manager has in your specific org. So no time like the present to practice where you can. Say B.In a perfect case, B will have 10 devs to transfer to A but when that happen B will be left with 5 testers and 2 PMs. Look closely, and you'll probably find that this person is working symbiotically with someone else who masters those skills while lacking others.YES, there are people who've been promoted because they've simply "been there" for a long time. 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. I think you should play some games while searching for you L63 promotions. 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 "I'm in the 61 bucket and currently struggling with my team for many months. * One final important thought that hasn't been mentioned here and that is very dear to my heart is one that is not only specific to 63 but also to 65+, 66+, and 67+, and it is about moving up when you are a female at MSFT. 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 dont know why this is the case. Here are some things from my perspective.1. That is, its hard to define, but I know it when I see it. It appears on 6.3% of resumes. Join the Levels.fyi community to chat with employees at Microsoft and other tech companies. If youve capped out at Level 62 then MS is probably not a great fit for you. I suspect the former because there's no point in a manager telling you that you got promoted when you didn't. It is my observation that the most common place we see disillusioned learners in the product groups at MS is at level 62. The estimated total pay for a Senior Director at Microsoft is $500,742 per year. All you have to do is look at the level distribution, there is a large dropoff in positions at 65. Senior Director, Data & AI South East Asia lead i.a Aug 2021 - Jan 20226 months Singapore 33NFT Admin & Ops 33NFT Sep 2021 - Present1 year 7 months Netherlands 33NFT is one of the top anonymous. I got to point where I resented my manager so much I could barely talk to him. In my org the cut is 70% on promos. It sounds fishy. Its performance is compromised by your pandering to the RIAA and MPAA. Will there be room on your team? In this testing times what will motivate the mgr to put you ahead of him/hers? Could be principal engineer, principal engineering manager, could even be director depending on the org. I've seen L65's who can't own a cardboard box, let alone a room. Just pick one Job id, prepare for it and then go for internal. Stop thinking of your Mgr as your adversary and listen to what they are telling you. The level of scrutiny by my management chain creasedup to the point where leader of our group4 levels above me in the management chain had to approve the promotion. Entry level (428) Associate (378) Mid-Senior level (3,385) Director (2,581) Done . great post mini. Joined MCS at level 60 and was immediately told that L61 would be years away. What if you and your manager are at the same level L62. Keep my word. Director can be just principal in sales or marketing. Senior Director of Sales NEXT50 2022 - 6 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates I am thrilled to announce that I started a new position as a Senior Director Of sales at Next50.. How you perform in interview is going to matter on whether you get proper mapping or not. Will they reach L63? Shock and awe awaits. I actually find the content of this post to be superficial, fairly naive and not reflective of my experience having moved through the ranks from 59 to >65.Well please don't just tease us and leave it there. In spite of it, I've been promoted 8 times in 12 years. Averages based on self-reported salaries. Technical excellence alone will not generate success.Authority. At the beginning of each FY, I always asked, "I want to get Exceeded this year. What are the levels for non eng roles? In this scenario, the senior director might have more responsibilities and be in charge of a larger part of the organization than a typical director. By persist, I do not mean being happy to be at the same <63 level for 3+ years for exmaple. Then I would get emails rating my abilities in these areas that I had no input into it and any replies rebutting it would go unanswered. Needless to say that not many will admit this fact. That manager was (in my and many others' opinions) an incompetent, non-technical "manager" who was incapable of recognizing people's talent and contributions. Discussion: First off, I'm going to be hard-core about comments here. But people who move often grow faster because of two things (in my opinion.) VP has to find the 10 devs from some other less attractive project. One question a manager will think about before promoting you is how many times he had to clean up after you pissed off someone else - especially if it's someone on another team. Be very careful, because some people may tell you about this or that great thing they did, and only mention that they are (or were) married to this General Manager, or that they have been in the team since it was only 2 people, and the other person today is a VP. After all, if you think you are already ready, and your manager doesn't, there is probably some way you can improve that you don't understand -- this is something you want to figure out.6. However L64 takes some time and L65 is very difficult. There are so many reasons why things didn't happen in a given review cycle. You should be able to show the path to a goal, especially to collections of people who do not report to you. Levels are all about perception.I know devs who are underlevelled and devs who are over-levelled. L62 is supposed is own the room of L60s, L65 own the room of L63s, and so on. Will there be budget? If I ever do decide to come back to MSFT, I will do so as a level 68+ and nothing less. 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. Great post! And having a friend gain less than 3000/yr with a promo to Pricincipal cemented that. I used to work in the OneCare team. BG for a big PG in a medium/large sub)L63 = director, then onwards to GM etc62->63 is a tough jump where you need to take ownership for a business segmentYou can go up to L60 pretty easily by nailing commitments year on year and showing you can thrive on increased responsibility, after that it gets harder and you need to proactively lead and drive results that impact the wider business significantly.If you're in sales, it's pretty much all about the total quota you influenceIn my experience, my advice is:- network and help make other groups successful (ideally in a win/win context)- be proactive, propose and grab new challenges and be successful with them- deliver against the CSP's/commitments for the next level up, when you have mastered the current level- make your boss look good, and make his/her boss look good. I thought what I did was valuable but in the end, it wasn't.The Microsoft up or out policy is the prime directive. L8=Partner/GM. 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. It's a question your boss gets asked so it's not a surprise to them. Understand not just what needs to happen, but WHY. You will not know the difference. When you take on the toughest problems that risk the product and make that problem go away, they are happy. They didn't want to plateau, but that is just where they were given MS talent pool. Healthcare is the most common skill found on a senior director resume. And a knife-fight for L65 (some other day). for L63? Microsoft senior leadership team under Satya Nadella Tech Here are the most important execs at Microsoft under Satya Nadella Jordan Novet @jordannovet Key Points Microsoft's executive team. I joined The Company 2 weeks ago, far from 63, but all you said it's very valuable for defining a career path. I know many that purposely work for Microsoft as contractors just for this reason. Yes, we have tons of info on the HR websites and yes, there are steps you should take. Specifically, what did they accomplish, and what contributions do you see them doing to justify their promotion? For others, the picture will not be so clear and they may place more weight on perceptions or a set of isolated incidents. Typically if you can accomplish only 5 such improvements, it would be hard for your manager not to consider you for next step. Starting to reach out and grab some of what you would be doing with a bigger scope/higher level.An earlier poster said it. Let's Hear it for the Girl! Promotion budgets of 65 and above has been kept intact.Where did you hear this? For technical and management track, the job level start from 57 and continues till 80. Sorry for going dark for so long. From my perspective (L67) here's what you need to nail:1. I am a troll. High energy, result oriented senior executive with 20yrs+ of comprehensive Sales, Marketing & Operations management experience in IT (Solutions & Services) in GCC region, with a record of. Being a TS can work the same way. In my co-workers case, they overloaded him with work and then documented anything that fell through the cracks until they had enough to get rid of him.I'm sure HR throttles managers when this is going on. And as my experience shows, many teams do not even staff a senior. If youve been at Level 62 longer than about 3 years MS may not be the best fit for you and you should probably be considering other options.kc. I made it to L63 in a year (I was probably under leveled when I arrived). Not so at L63. I think that a compentent dev not a superstar, who follows your advice should make it to 63. 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. But good leadership at the top can make visibility a positive thing for the person getting it and for the org who sees the person getting it. The current distribution is simply pathetic.. In general, these designations are based on rank, with the highest director position being the executive director or director of operations. It's not enough that you do a good job for your own assignments beyond L62 but what matters is how many others you enable to do as good job as you can do and achieve similar outcomes by influencing them. given that the resource is static. I /like/ OneCare. It takes a little time to get on your skip-level manager's radar. The average salary for a Senior Director is $170,707 per year in United States, which is 65% lower than the average Microsoft salary of $500,742 per year for this job. If you can learn to do this you become incredibly valuable.5. It's probably true that there's more to the story and that they actually have important skills that matter. I was let go from Microsoft recently. They are 100% star material. L66 is Principal band. All the money making groups cut 10% of the work force. Buy a Principal a coffee. Especially since the days of job title/level transparency.People should not forget that many times, higher levels do not equal higher pay. Hired at L58 in 2000 - Currently L62 and the last 2 promos were at 18mo intervals. Some related job titles areMarketing Director salaries with median pay of $163,348,Senior Consultant salaries with median pay of $123,519,Senior Product Manager salaries with median pay of $193,845,Managing Director salaries with median pay of $333,006. The funding for our project stopped and our vendor team of 28 people have been asked to leave immediately. Wonderful. It's a knife fight to 63. Results-focused: they are focused on getting great results and don't entwine their ego to particular solutions. 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." Weirder sh*t has happened before. Ill answer first question later in this comment. It's a knife fight to 63. Thanx for it. Leverage your professional network, and get hired. Answer to second question is never ever explicitly try to make yourself known to hierarchy above your manager. You must emphasize the goal of understanding how to improve, not just tagging a higher paycheck. Promotion budgets of 65 and above has been kept intact.Promotion and raise budgets are going to be quite tight everywhere, not just at MS. Success breeds Success: I remember reading an article about an extensive study to determine the best predictor of a stocks price tomorrow. Then they start pinging the manager on why and putting pressure on them to do something, move them up or out. Then do it.Yeah yeah, that's an oversimplification. Email@ elliereinker@gmail.com | Call@ 330-554-0249. And we have the budget for it. Microsoft Director level role - Level 66 - what should I expect from COMP sideYOE-15Current TC- 235k, Go to company page I say this because I have seen really smart people shunned because of 'house-on-fire' attitudes even when they were dead right. So if you want a promotion and don't get it: drop everything you are doing now and start working on your promotion, i.e. Wish I this post and comments laminated about 10 years ago after I wasn't going to get rich off stock.My comment to add is to those who are put into situations of continual reorgs and want to achieve the 'Senior'. It's not easy. You're in competition with everyone else in your org in your CSP. 4. Folks, Im really encouraged by this post and the focus on trying to help make others great. Oh, please. This way I can be in a better position to show that I am a "absolutely!" I haven't seen one single person getting hired below L63 in my group during last year. That's why Microsoft is pissing away the monopoly that you inherited from IBM. Your response is private Was this worth your time? SoI'll repeat it again. Even with all good intentions, they can even be ineffective mentors (although I still highly recommend the mentoring program, as long as you change your mentor every year). 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. Are you ok with what you hear? Hi,Now that the Annual review is approaching, I wanted to seek tips on justification putforth to the manager to move from L60-L61. Somebody help me out here. A broad perspective matters.3) This is all about stack rank. Great post Mini. Amazon 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. Ultimately, I decided to leave the company. 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. Facebook, Go to company page If youre working individually there is an upper limit on how much you can accomplish since there are only 24 hours in a day some of which must be devoted to eating, sleeping, and other bodily functions. "You might be too smart or have ideas that come from somewhere outside of Redmond which makes you very dangerous and not Microsoft material. As someone who left MS @ L63 - and supposedly tracking strongly to L64 - and who has seen a lot of questionable promos occur, I think it's fair to say that the rise to "Senior" follows a slighly skewed distribution curve in that in the largest bucket case, you can probably see that L63 was warranted.However, on either end of the distribution, by which I mean people who easily obtained it and people who seriously struggled to obtain it, there are some disturbing anomalies that are difficult to explain away.You might say, "I can live with the corner cases" and I would agree that optimizing for those isn't worthwhile.BUT! Reading all this makes me so happy I don't work at MS anymore. By contrast, most directors don't have their own budgets, but need approvals from their VP to do just about anything. I have seen people turn it around. We have to reduce billions of dollars of cost. 3. (this is never a bad idea anyway) Then, if you are doing as good a job as he, he will want you as a peer in level, if not, then he can help you grow. You forgot "never ask for a promotion".Forgive my cluelessness, but: Why not?MSS. So either keep slapping yourself or choose to wake up. Are all management titles and the name used to call then in different orgs can change. 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. Anyone moved from Office to some other part of company? These posts are provided "as-is" with no warranties and confer no rights. However, I think this is the first point where we see a non-trivial number of folks plateau. but I have to disagree with this statement.While it is true that it is difficult for managers to say what *exactly* an employee should do to get to the next level, it *should not* be impossible to list what experiences/qualities/results will qualify him to be a *strong* candidate for promotion to the next level.And this should not be that difficult - it is just a matter of syncing up with the peer leads, and dev manager, and discussing what their perception of an L63 is vs l62. Do a search for people in those groups in NYC area and check their status to see who is hiring. I would lay some level of accountability with management as well, though. It can help you identify blind spots which may be holding you back.7. 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. Leadership, for instance. Also, go mine some of Dr. Brechner's Hard Code columns. I'm not talking about "managing up" (though that helps a little if done properly) but it's all about understanding your manager and skip manager's priorities and proactively succeeding in those areas. 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. I like such themes and everything that is connected to them. I take some of the blame for not managing my career more directly, but no one should be offered a promotion when they leave--if they are valuable, let them know before hand! 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. SQL is one of the groups that has consistently delivered quality and growth. The L64 guys should be able to influence their skip level orgs plus one or two groups outside of the skip org. I made sure I was the guy you wanted to call when the server crashed in the lab with a crazy callstack and no repro.Second, OWN the features. It's an excellent product. But if your manager is undervaluing your work, and *that* is the factor that is making you unhappy, you can fix that. Then perhaps you're stuck at L62. But above L62 the talent is intense and that is good. Two years ago I realized that the MS treadmill (trying to become what my dysfunctional manager wanted) was making me nuts. I know devs who got in at the wrong level and paying the price because they didnt negotiate their level correctly when they joined. Mini -- you left out the most important option, which I took. What I think may be worthwhile is understanding the circumstances of those anomalies and figuring out why they occur and how to "incent" management to ensure that they don't occur. One of the interesting things about the level structure that I find interesting is that you are always expected to perform higher than your level. Got two promotions - still level 60If you really got promoted twice then you would have advanced 2 levels.Either you didn't actually get promoted, or someone told you lies. The education qualifications required for various roles for Technical track are: The highest job title in management track in Microsoft is "Vice President (VP)". You should NOT be looking to get more money to stay in a job you don't like. On the subject of switching teams: It's completely possible to move up by being really good exactly where you are, in most cases. Your analysis is very true, specially the part about owning the room and be regarded as the domain expert. 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). SAP, Go to company page The job level for Technical Fellow starts at 80 and goes beyond. I breezed to L63 and shortly after to L64 within a year. Add your salary anonymously in less than 60 seconds and continue exploring all the data. 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. Maybe." You have to strive to get the KEY to the boss's heart and brain. Don't discount the power of a mgmt chain that believes in you. But more likely youre displaying the hallmark of a weak performer described in the article of the same name (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/01/18/MN73840.DTL). By doing this they are short circuiting the feedback loop and thereby preventing themselves from improving. "Shock and awe awaits" is correct. @No! Let's compare answers answer is: your boss. Senior Account Executive | Director | Sales & Marketing. 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? Taking the easy escape out like that, you are more likely to get into the same situation at other companies. These are sole individual personal points-of-view and the posts and comments by the participants in no way represent the official point-of-view of Microsoft or any other organization. So I cultivate relationships with my manager's peers; their support helps tremendously. Your commitments should already provide you with milestones to set as your goals. Managers plan out promotion timeframes far in advance. .css-1uhsr4o{margin-right:8px;}Get Paid, Not Played. I've achieved level 65 in a field technical role and it wasn't that hard. A great internal tool to help you sync your self perception with those around you is available internally at http://hrweb/US/CareerDev/folder/ms360process.htm. Wow. This is the multiplier effect, or scope of influence that is often mentioned.