I would say* under these definitions L3 is junior; what the industry calls senior is somewhere between L4 and L5. L5s at Google are expected to mentor L3s and L4s but also to design systems, break down into tasks, and coordinate tasks between teams and engineers.
If you were a senior engineer at a 50-person startup you would commonly get hired at L4.
* I left Google 18 months ago; also, Google is a large company, and while they strive for uniformity across teams, the levels aren't really quite the same company-wide.
If you were a senior engineer at a 50-person startup you would commonly get hired at L4.
* I left Google 18 months ago; also, Google is a large company, and while they strive for uniformity across teams, the levels aren't really quite the same company-wide.