Mid Level

Mid level is the typical first step in career progression for software engineers working in a tech company. Getting to mid level signifying transition from a fresh graduate to a real software engineer with real working experience.

Why Mid Level

Why do we have a mid level, instead of directly going from junior to senior? Promotion to senior software engineer typically requires 5 years of experience, or more. That’s a long time. The mid level serves as a “buffer level” to fill that gap in the early career progression.

How Long to Become a Mid Level Software Engineer

Mid level promotion usually requires 1 to 2 years of working experience.

In smaller companies, you might be able to jump directly from junior to senior role. However, it is likely that you will be down-levelled back to junior or mid level when you apply to bigger tech companies.

Levels

Companies have different names for the level that grants the title of mid level software engineer.

Industry standards from FAANG are typically used as benchmark for comparison. Top Chinese tech companies such as Alibaba, and ByteDance follow FAANG standards closely.

• Google: L4
• Facebook: E4
• Alibaba: P6
• ByteDance: 2-1

Mid Level Software Engineer level mapping of Google, Facebook, Alibaba and ByteDance (levels.fyi)

Singapore local tech companies such as Shopee and Grab actually do not have a mid level. Their title of Senior Software Engineer corresponds to the industry standard of Mid Level Software Engineer.

Grab:

• Grab level G4 (Senior Software Engineer) is closer to the industry standard of Mid Level Software Engineer.

Shopee:

• Shopee Senior Software Engineer (both the level and the title) is closer to the industry standard of Mid Level Software Engineer.

Senior Software Engineer level mapping of Google, Facebook, Grab and Shopee (levels.fyi)

Open Government Products (OGP):

• OGP uses Software Engineer for both the level and title, but Senior Software Engineer is used for the seniority level and title that is equivalent to the industry standard of Mid Level Software Engineer.

Mid Level Expectations

As a mid level software engineer, you should be productive in your work and comfortable in writing code for new features and bugfixes. Here are some common expectations for a mid level software engineer:

Area	Expectations
Impact	- Produce high-quality production-level code - Complete development tasks on time
Ownership	- Ability to deliver small features end-to-end
Influence	- Work independently with minimum supervision or guidance
Ad hoc duties	- Troubleshoot bugs found during development and testing - Assist in investigating production issues

Delivering a feature end-to-end means you need to capable of:

• Translating business requirements into system design
• Writing code to develop the feature
• Fixing bugs discovered during testing
• Deploying the feature to production

Mid Level Promotion

Different companies have different approaches for mid level promotions. Some companies might not have a process in place. So it is entirely up to the manager’s decision to promote someone. Other companies might have a more formal structure, with some criteria that you need to fulfill. You might also need to do a presentation.

Mid level promotion is usually not difficult to pass. You are are expected to get it after 1 or 2 years as long as you can meet the mid level expectations.

However, in some tech companies there might be consequences if you are not promoted to mid level within a certain period of time.

For example, in Meta, you are expected to be promoted from E3 (fresh grad) to E4 (mid level) within 24 months. If you are not promoted within 24 months, you will be put on a performance improvement plan (PIP), which can lead to termination if you are not able to meet the PIP goals.

Beyond Mid Level

After reaching mid level, you can progress towards senior software engineer.