Career Asymtotes
10 comments
·October 13, 2025Ethee
This kind of self meta-analysis can be amusing to think about sometimes, but I think more often than not it's actually harmful to your own sense of progress or worth. In my opinion the two sides of this coin that are hard to reconcile are: "You shouldn't limit your own ability" and "It's important to be realistic". Comparing yourself to those around you is human nature, but here you're asking us to compare ourselves to what we imagine is the peak of ourselves in order to stay realistic. I guarantee you that the people around you who are actually making forward progress haven't given a single thought to whether or not they've "peaked".
ZephyrBlu
The thing I'm most curious about from this article is how/why the author was demoted from E9 to E7. A demotion in itself is pretty unusual, but being bumped down 2 levels seems super weird.
E: ok watched an interview the author gave and the answer was very boring. He requested a demotion because he moved from management back to IC.
jebarker
I think about this plateauing question quite a bit. I'm 44 and around the E6 level. I think it is very challenging for me to progress much further up the ladder. I'm not confident I have the skillset required and trying to develop those (leadership and strategic) skills feels very hard to me. But I don't find that at all disappointing since I'm fairly confident I can continue to progress sideways. Maybe it's naive or arrogant but I think I could probably get close to a similar level again in a different field and eventually that'll be what I try to do.
gundmc
Do more than 20% of engineers really believe they'll be E6 at a FAANG by the time they're 37? I think most folks are more grounded than that.
roncesvalles
I think it's relatively straightforward to get to E5 even if just by being hired as one. A good number, I want to say a majority but don't have the data, of externally hired E5 at FAANG were E4 in their previous role.
Getting E5 to E6 seems to be the great filter. But if you know what it takes to go from E5 to E6, I think going from E6 to E9 is smooth sailing (provided you find wind in your sails).
But by then the marginal utility of a promotion starts dropping sharply. If you're already earning upwards of $450k as an E5, $550k or even $800k isn't that attractive.
sokoloff
> But by then the marginal utility of a promotion starts dropping sharply. If you're already earning upwards of $450k as an E5, $550k or even $800k isn't that attractive.
Going from $450K/yr to $800K/yr probably triples or quadruples the amount you can save per year without feeling like you’re constantly scrimping.
That drives down the time to F-you money, which is appealing and gives substantial psychological safety/power.
actionfromafar
Asymptote though
iamnotarobotman
> The point is this: you will be very dissatisfied with your career if you expect a promotion every 2 years. Very simple math would say you’re setting yourself up for decades of disappointment.
Recommended Reading: [0]
[0] https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2025/10/15/pathe...
null
Don't confuse arbitrary career ranking (which varies org to org) with earning potential. I have a relatively low effort remote job with fantastic compensation in a very large company. The responsibility is low, the opportunities to move about are many and often appear. I get job offers all the time and think: Yeah, it's more money, but will it be better conditions? This is the longest I've ever worked at a company (over half decade) and I am always waiting until just after getting my cost of living increase and bonus, before reconsidering.