Had a bit of a bait-and-switch hiring experience. Interviewed and received an offer for a Sr level position. Verbal offer accepted. Written offer was for lvl 2 - just below Sr. - and about 5k less salary (and 5% less bonus potential), but received signing bonus instead.
Started in the core technology group. Position wasn't exactly as I was lead to believe. Was bored within 4 months. Was able to transfer to the engineering org in a much more highly visible role, and have been significantly happier. There is definitely some variance between the different orgs.
Organization is very matrix'ed - devs report to dev leads, to dev mgrs, to dev directors. Because of this, there appears to be good career path for engineers. Not so much for PMs, which tend to report to Directors/Sr Directors. There are basically 3 levels of the various PM flavors. Level 2, Sr, and Principle. The only real differences (on paper) are the scale of project and/or products you support. As a PM, a promotion depends on getting that one highly visible project/program to run (this is in addition to your daily responsibilities). If you knock it out of the park near review time, you'll probably get the promotion.
Since the org is matrix'ed, PMs don't get direct reports. Almost never. In fact, PMs don't have as much power as I'm used to in previous jobs. If the team you manage doesn't care for a particular decision, they'll just complain up their chain of command.
Salary lags behind other local tech leaders. About 5% behind MS for same title, and appears to lag significantly compared to Google, Amazon and others. Though work-life balance can make up for some of the difference. Stock/equity is hard to come by, especially compared to the competition mentioned above. Cash and equity bonuses do happen, but not nearly at the level of AmaGoogleSoft. Merit increases barely keep pace with inflation.
