> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://engineering.umh.app/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://engineering.umh.app/career/levels.md).

# Levels

What each level asks of you, and its salary band.

Every engineer at UMH is a [Product Engineer](/engineering/product-engineer.md).

We think the term "senior" is deteriorating in the industry, with some people being called senior after five years of development experience. We think it is closer to 10–15 years. To avoid weird discussions about this, we don't have senior titles. A title suggests that seniority decides who makes a decision. At UMH, the people who own the work decide, whatever their level.

| Level | Salary band (EUR gross per year) | What the level asks of you                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| ----- | -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| L3    | 70,000–79,900                    | You are, or within your first six months become, [Code Owner](/engineering/product-engineer/code-owner.md) of a part of the codebase **or** [Product Owner](/engineering/product-engineer/product-owner.md) of a user journey. |
| L4    | 80,000–89,900                    | You are Code Owner **and** Product Owner.                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| L5    | 90,000–100,000                   | You lead work across several parts of the codebase or user journeys and set its technical direction. You represent UMH outside the company.                                                                                    |

Every engineer gets equity in the form of a virtual stock option plan (VSOP).

Levels start at L3. We used to have L1 and L2 for engineers at the start of their career, and we no longer hire at those levels. To write code productively at UMH, you need either a theoretical background in computer science or experience in professional software development. With LLMs, someone who brings neither produces more pull requests than the rest of the team can review.

In your first six months you finish onboarding and become Code Owner or Product Owner. If you already know at least one of the languages in our tech stack well (Go, or TypeScript with Svelte), you can start as Code Owner. Otherwise you start as Product Owner.

## Your 1:1 with the CTO

In your [weekly 1:1 with the CTO](/culture/our-week.md#id-1-1-with-the-cto), you set personal learning goals for the next one or two quarters. The goals lead to your next milestone, for example becoming Code Owner. In each 1:1 you check your progress against these goals.

## From L3 to L4

When you are both Code Owner and Product Owner, you move up to L4. Your salary then goes up to 80,000.

## Moving within a level

Your salary goes up inside your band when you do something well that you could not do before. Reaching a learning goal from your 1:1 is the usual way. Time passing and a larger workload do not count. Once a year we review your salary against the learning goals you reached.

We compare the bands with the market at the same time, and we may adjust them.

## L5

You can stay at L4 for your whole time at UMH. L5 is a different job. At larger companies, only a few percent of engineers reach it ([staff level at Uber](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/uber-engineering-levels/)). [The Staff Engineer's Path](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-staff-engineers-path) describes the role.

At UMH, L5 requires something exceptional, for example organising conferences, having founded a company, or maintaining an open-source project with many GitHub stars.


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