Where's The Scope?

**Stagnation from Lack of Scope**

- **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.

- **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.

Stagnation from Lack of Scope

Too Many Smart Engineers, Too Few Big Problems Left**\
  Decades of optimization have lef