A practice prompt we wrote. No company or candidate report names it, so it carries no company tag.
How to answer
Where an employer posts pay by level, the level you are hired at sets your band and your scope, so treat this as a technical question with evidence, not a modesty test. Scale AI’s Senior and Staff Frontier Agents Engineer (Forward Deployed Engineering) postings, as of September 2026, ask for 5+ and 8+ years and list base ranges of $216,000 to $270,000 and $252,000 to $315,000. Source 1Senior Frontier Agents Engineer (Forward Deployed Engineering)PublisherScale AI (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 2Staff Frontier Agents Engineer (Forward Deployed Engineering)PublisherScale AI (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting At that employer the staff band starts inside the senior one, so the bands overlap and the level decides which band you negotiate inside.
The loop can move the answer. One candidate in India with 10 years of experience reported, in May 2026, that the coding-round feedback in their Google GenAI loop was hire for L4, not L5. Source 3Google Rejected for FDE. Need immediate referralPublisherBlind (teamblind.com)Source typecandidate report on Blind Candidates on Blind report Google FDE offers made a level below the one they were aiming for: one poster reported, in July 2026, an L4 offer after targeting L5, and another, in May 2026, a Google Cloud Applied AI FDE offer at L3 after being down-leveled. Source 4Google FDE AdvicePublisherBlind (teamblind.com)Source typecandidate report on BlindSource 5Google Cloud FDE or Adobe Applied AI SWEPublisherBlind (teamblind.com)Source typecandidate report on Blind The evidence map lesson shows how level shows up in reported loops, and how to weigh a report by who wrote it, when and for which role.
The level can also be the main lever you have. Two posters on Blind wrote that an Anthropic recruiter said offers are not negotiated; neither report is specific to an FDE role. Source 6Does Anthropic negotiate?PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on BlindSource 7Does Anthropic really not negotiate?PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on BlindSource 8OpenAI/Anthropic/Stripe: Is "no negotiating" a lie?PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on Blind One poster, in March 2024, added that the recruiter said “each level is pretty set”; the other, in July 2025 and with a research offer outside the US, wondered whether the refusal was itself a negotiation tactic. Source 6Does Anthropic negotiate?PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on BlindSource 7Does Anthropic really not negotiate?PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on BlindSource 8OpenAI/Anthropic/Stripe: Is "no negotiating" a lie?PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on Blind Where a recruiter says offers aren’t negotiated, argue the level now, before the loop, because it may be the only lever left once the offer arrives.
Say it in this order.
- Ask which levels the req is open at before you name one: “Is this role open at senior, staff or both?” If the posting shows one title and no level, ask what level range the req is budgeted for.
- Name the level in their words. Read the posting and the company’s titles first, then say “I’d put myself at senior, the level your posting calls Senior FDE.”
- Give two pieces of scope evidence that match that level’s description: the size and ambiguity of a problem you owned end to end, and who depended on your decisions. Name the system and the outcome.
- Say what the next level would take. One honest sentence on the gap shows you know the ladder: “Staff would mean setting direction across teams for a year; I’ve done it for a quarter.”
- Invite their read. “How does your ladder separate senior from staff? I’d like the loop to test me against that.”
What not to do. Don’t argue from years of experience or a title; a senior title at a small company and at a large one describe different scope, and the Google report above came from someone with a decade behind them. Don’t pick the lower level to seem safe; you would be giving the recruiter a lower anchor before anyone has interviewed you. If you sit between two levels, ask to be interviewed at the higher one and say you’d accept a lower result. The recruiter then hears a claim you are willing to have tested, not a demand.
The trap is claiming the higher level with adjectives instead of scope. Hear the difference:
- Weak: “I operate at a staff level.”
- Strong: “I set the integration standard every partner team now follows. I’ve done that for a quarter, not a year.”
An adjective gives the recruiter nothing to check, and if the loop comes back lower, you have no evidence left to argue from.
Follow-ups
What the interviewer may ask next, once your first answer is on the table.
- Your current title is senior. Why should we consider you for staff?
- What would you need to have done to be at the next level up?
- If the loop comes back a level lower than you asked for, what would you do?
Where answers go wrong
- Arguing from years of experience or a title, when the ladder asks about the scope of the problems you owned.
- Answering “whatever you think” and handing over the anchor before a single interviewer has seen you.
Answer this in two minutes
Write the answer you would say out loud. The clock starts with your first word.
Compare with the model answer
Illustrative answer about a fictional project
Written in the first person to show the structure. Tell yours from your own work.
“Before I answer, is this role open at senior, staff or both?”
The recruiter says both.
“Then I’d put myself at senior, the level your posting calls Senior , with some staff scope. Two things I’d point to.
“First, at a payments software firm I designed and led the reconciliation service for our three largest partner banks. I chose to match on the bank’s own reference before amount and date, and it took the first partner from about 1,100 manual breaks a week to under 90.
“Second, I’m the engineer our account team brings on-site when a partner escalates. When our largest partner’s settlement file broke in March, I was the one there; I decided to roll back the matcher rather than hot-fix it, and they settled the same day.
“Staff, as your posting describes it, means setting technical direction across several teams for a year or more. I’ve done that for one quarter, with the integration standard every partner team now follows.
“So I’m between the two. I’d like to be interviewed against staff, and I’d accept a senior result if that’s where the loop lands. How does your ladder separate them?”
Why this works: the speaker finds out which levels are open before naming one, states the level in the posting’s own title, and backs it with scope: a named system, a design call and a result, then an escalation where the call was the speaker’s. The gap is named before the recruiter has to find it, and the close asks to be tested at the higher level while accepting the lower one, rather than arguing for a title.
If the loop comes back at senior, don’t argue with the result; ask what the panel saw: “Thanks. Before I accept the level, what did the panel see as the gap to staff? If it’s something one more conversation could test, I’d like that chance. If not, I’d like the offer to reflect where I sit in the senior band.” That answers the third follow-up: it asks for evidence and one more chance, and it doesn’t relitigate the interviews.
Next, in Pro
If the offer comes back a level down, that conversation is in Pro: what to ask the recruiter, what evidence to offer, and what to ask for if the level holds.