Where's The Scope?

Here are the core points from the lesson:

• Too Many Smart Engineers, Too Few Big Problems Left - Decades of optimization have left many core products (like Facebook Home Feed) nearly maxed out, making impactful changes rare and promotions harder to earn.
• Engineers Flee Mature Teams in Search of Scope - Engineers often transfer to newer initiatives (e.g., Meta’s Portal) to find unclaimed problems they can own—especially critical in systems with forced promotion deadlines.
• Forced Promotion Policies Increase Pressure - At Meta for instance, engineers must be promoted from mid-level (E4) to senior (E5) within five years or face termination, driving a scramble for high-impact work. This is awkward when there's a profound lack of scope.
• Promotion Bottlenecks Are Common - Transitions like Amazon SD2 → SD3 or Google L4 → L5 are notorious for being highly competitive, political, and frustrating due to overlapping ambitions.
• Scarcity of Senior/Staff-Level Scope - Teams without senior-level problems to solve—or ones where existing staff already own them—make it nearly impossible for newer engineers to grow beyond a certain level.