Former Employee Director, Level 65 at Microsoft Aug 11, 2009 - Director in Redmond, WA Recommend CEO Approval Business Outlook Pros Microsoft has all the resources necessary to win in the market, and you're surrounded by some of the brightest people in the world. I've been at the same level for 3.5 years (since I joined MSFT), and while I spent three of those in a group where almost noone at all got promoted (a group which has since essentially dissolved), I'm concerned that my level stagnation reflects poorly on me, even though I've been the major contributor on products that have earned 10x my total compensation package for MSFT. Don't be afraid to ask your manager some very direct questions.Don't force the issue. Promotion budgets of 65 and above has been kept intact.Can somebody from HR confirm this?If true then this post is quite untimely. 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. Success breeds Success: I remember reading an article about an extensive study to determine the best predictor of a stocks price tomorrow. Microsoft employees make an average base salary of $208k & a total compensation of $280k. (1) Oh, please. -- Business Transformation Executive with demonstrated experience in managing and implementing large transformation programs through all levels of the organization in order to build growth, grab new market opportunities or reduce costs.<br><br>- Building on Solid experience in Functional roles (Sales, Marketing, Delivery Operations) to drive those programs <br>- Sales Oriented Business . How do you ensure there is no conflict of interest. ceo/vp/director/manager/lead etc. L68 would not be referred to as Director. The estimated base pay is $243,438 per year. You will never get your promotion on a silver platter. Expect my salary to go up after the cleanup. You want to be more efficient, smarter than him. They know that if the team does well, they will do fine.5. This past year I had what I thought was an outstanding year, was given a 20%, but not promoted to L63. Did you triangulate the feedback? Founded in 1969 by Dr. Bish Agrawal, ABC Consultants is the pioneer of organized recruitment services in India. Don't be afraid to talk to your skip level manager regularly in such a situation, not to get promoted but because he can better help you grow.4. I would love to be above 60much less 63. Both job switches came from conversations I had with former co-workers or former directors. Paradigm Shift: In order to achieve the next level of competence to some extent you need to temporarily let go of some of your hard gained skills in order to make the leap and try some new things. You can be a genius of blinding brilliance, but if you come from a boring product team, you "don't have much potential". 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. I used to work in the OneCare team. Expertise in the following areas: Product Marketing Consistently created groundbreaking, customer-focused value . Some are good at all. If I ever do decide to come back to MSFT, I will do so as a level 68+ and nothing less. . Seriously - if you wave a competitor's offer in my face what have you told me? Ability to solve problems independently is bad because if you don;t ask for help it reduces your visibility. I have seen people turn it around. So I cultivate relationships with my manager's peers; their support helps tremendously. Do a search for people in those groups in NYC area and check their status to see who is hiring. I think talking about level just confuses people as beyond US there is a different level system!L63 in the US is Senior (Level 60 in most of the other countries), well, moving to Senior is not such a big thing if you have experience, with more than 10 years in the industry I was hired at this level, now Senior II is just a matter of continuing contributing but the different comes to Principal (or lead), here is where you need to shine in order to succeed.Recommendation: Work not only towards your commitments but your managers as well As a former L65 (left MSFT about two months ago) I can say you are right on when it comes to understanding where your boss stands. I'd like to see a transition plan from you in 2 days". Because, IMO, that is the jist of jcr's post. What is the average promotion velocity for non-technical fields? clinical research associate entry level jobs near me; new laws for first time violent offenders in louisiana. First let's set the expectations right for this quarter and possibly the next: The budgets for promos are shrunk almost everywhere. It's a lot better than folks being ambivalent about your success or failure, right? In this testing times what will motivate the mgr to put you ahead of him/hers? Also, the way you achieve your commitments does affect the perception and recognition of your efforts. HTH. Chairman of the Board, Microsoft Corporation. It's a very rare thing that you'll find a manager who gives you the kind of actionable feedback you need to succeed without doing a whole lot of sleuthing and groundwork of your own to fill in the blanks. Learn how this feature works. Should I trust my manager or is this just one more of his demonstrations of poor management skills? At Microsoft, the levels start at 59 and go beyond 80. Please help. 5. If you are not at the top of your stack rank for your level, you will not get the promo. Tips for getting them on your side:1) Ask for Exceeded. Promotion budgets of 65 and above has been kept intact.Where did you hear this? 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. With this article at OpenGenus, you must have the complete idea of various job levels at Microsoft. If you are within striking distance of level 63 in the next few years, then consider yourself VERY fortunate. What an achievement! Seek out local critique before you approach people above you. Chief Executive Officer and Director. At that time, I understood those questions as being just an excuse that the manager used because he or she didnt like something in my skills or personality. Given that quite a few Microsofties are going to find themselves locked into their current group for a while, the ability to succeed by swinging on the vines to a new group is going to be rare. They are 100% star material. Executing on what you have now at a high rate/quality level.2. 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. Great post. Help make it more accurate by, Get started with your Free Employer Profile, average salary for a Senior Director is $170,707 per year in United States, The Ultimate Job Interview Preparation Guide. They didn't want to plateau, but that is just where they were given MS talent pool. L62 is supposed is own the room of L60s, L65 own the room of L63s, and so on. Of course, it goes without saying that if you dont have any substance you will likely hurt yourself badly and get ignored with vengeance next time. But that's kind of the point -- simplify your approach. Oh, please. 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 can bet that if I went back today I would be a _very_ different person.The only thing I would add is that at any level, you need to not only know that your manager believes you should be promoted and will fight for you, you need to believe that your manager _can make it happen_. At the beginning of each FY, I always asked, "I want to get Exceeded this year. 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? But it's no guarantee that all your peers will match. This is a discussion to foster debate and by no means an enactment of policy-violation. 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. What worked well and what really horked things up for you? Just ensure that you do the absolute best in whatever is thrown at you and promotion will take care of itself. Leadership: pro-active leadership that convinces team members of the future direction and even helps to . It is true you can always do that, go to Google, go to ABC, or whatever. 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. Be the Rosh Gadol Microsoftie. Stop fighting which is where mapped. 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. They literally lived in GM's office for half a year to get the promo from L64 to L65.3. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did in some ways. Be nice, and clear in your communications. Results-focused: they are focused on getting great results and don't entwine their ego to particular solutions. Last August (different group), I received a dreaded "Limited II", in spite of my manager telling me that he didn't actually think I was in the "bottom 10" at Microsoft, but that the devil made him do it (so to speak) and that it was a "no-brainer" for him. Find the right team and manager.2. I dont know why this is the case. I've achieved level 65 in a field technical role and it wasn't that hard. Apple should in no way be throwing stones at Microsoft in this regard. Think about why they're able to do that.-jcr. "I'm in the 61 bucket and currently struggling with my team for many months. Additionally, a Level 62 doesn't really have the tools to evaluate and sell a promotion to a 63. Sometimes leaving MS is good. I wasn't sure I was going to get out of a couple of those situations but after everyone of them, I was stronger and smarter.Take the challenge and go after tough problems. Additional pay could include bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing or tips. Seems like "director" in Microsoft is not really a level like it is in google or fb (not sure what it means). 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. a Data Scientist 1. How many has Live hired this year and OneCare gets cut? If you have an itching to talk about something else, please go here: But Mini, I Want To Talk About Posted by Got lucky on that one!!!! Aren't those the things you are best at? :). Over the years, we have acted as a preferred talent acquisition partner to. I am a [sic] HR manager. Will some new person to the team who shows high growth potential push you aside even though you've been doing really solid work for years?Sometimes I wish it worked like an experience bar in a video game where you can clearly see when you will "ding". and 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. No matter how good you are, you will peak at some point and Microsoft will get rid of you. This means there are 24 distinct job levels at Microsoft. The scope imcreases, the risk increases and the visbility increases. This is the multiplier effect, or scope of influence that is often mentioned. It takes a little time to get on your skip-level manager's radar. He won't answer your questions on what is going on or you get vague answers.All of this in most cases is probably directives from HR. A past co-worker of mine had the same thing done to him and now there are two devs doing what he did by himself.I guess Microsoft has its reasons. an ex-manager used to tell me, if the org needs him to sweep the floor, he would ensure that he would be the best sweeper in the world (no offense to my janitor friends, just an expression). Absolutely not Definitely yes 3 1 David Lean Worked at Microsoft (company) (1990-2009) Upvoted by Jack Schofield , Computer journalist who has covered Microsoft for 35 years. It's because you were playing catch-up to Apple, and playing Machiavellian games with the media companies instead of working on the issues that your customers were complaining about.When will MS learn this lesson? Amazon What are the levels for non eng roles? Are all management titles and the name used to call then in different orgs can change. Finally I got involved and had a one/one with the employee during which I asked him why do you continually insist on doing Y when your mgr asks you to do X? I nearly fell of my chair when he said because I want to get promoted and I know that to get promoted I need to do Y. The true professional with loads of potential is left to Sulk. Or you wait until you get escorted out.I dont know what the final outcome of my situation will be but I expect in the end, I will think it was for the better.Good luck to all in your Microsoft careers, but pay attention to the levels, CSPs and how stack rankings work. Specifically, what did they accomplish, and what contributions do you see them doing to justify their promotion? Averages based on self-reported salaries. Then perhaps you're stuck at L62. Also, its important to keep in mind that it is impossible to provide a perfect definition of any level. 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. 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. Secondly, finding a suitable mentor to help them overcome that weakness. The average entry-level engineer or program manager will have a total compensation of $125,665. How about a thread on the current hiring/moving freeze, or on surviving the New Ice Age? Don't give up.I'd appreciate it if you'd do a similar post on the 65 to 65 transition. at You have to be extremely faithful to your management while at the same time carefuly growing your broad influence to your manager's piers. Highly effective Finance leadership; ability to deliver results by leading through example while setting high personal standards; Partnering with the business and influencing . And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm 99.9% sure what needs to change is you. Levels are all about perception.I know devs who are underlevelled and devs who are over-levelled. You forgot "never ask for a promotion".Forgive my cluelessness, but: Why not?MSS.