&gt; This is so doable within five years that at large companies like Google and Microsoft you are expected to hit senior level, and if you don&#x27;t it begins to reflect badly on your record. More explicitly, &quot;senior&quot; is the last level that everyone is expected to hit<p>Not at Amazon. They are fine if people cap out at SDE 2. It&#x27;s a bit of an odd thing IMO, and it&#x27;s resulted in a comparatively low number of senior and above level SDE.