How can multiple senior engineers be on a team?

So if a E5 is expected to lead the whole project is it like they assign the work to the E4 and E3 engineers? Isn’t this like the equivalent of trying to get promoted to being a manager or staff at a less cutting edge company to qualify?

Yep, you more or less nailed it. E5 at Meta is generally regarded as a tech lead (especially now with the higher bar), so they need to show that they can delegate to E4s/E3s. This is what is expected of EM/Staff at less prestigious companies, which is why Meta down-levels 80%+ of the time for folks from these companies.

There is nuance here though as sometimes a project is so technically complex that the E5 actually shouldn't delegate to E4s/E3s and simply doing it is worthy of E5 scope. You will see this a lot in infra teams.

basically I turned down a meta loop for E5+ cuz I didn’t think I was close to ready for this. I asked to go through a E4 loop but hiring is closed. Did I make the right call?

I actually think you should have just gone through the E5 loop anyways and see what happens. If you do really well fundamentally but aren't showing enough E5 behaviors, there's a decent chance they try to place you as an E4 (even if hiring is closed, there's always random backfills that pop up).

So yes you should focus on true growth, but if u need to keep going without trying to play the faang or bust card, the logical option for pushing for the true E4 to E5 top tier performance bar without the faang brand is to get into these title inflated senior roles that might actually be a high end E4 and push manager.

Do you recommend trying to secure those roles?

I am probably trending towards this type of promotion in my company and the bar is be technical strong own complex code and be proactive independently and reactively help others. But this is not the true meta E5 bar.

If I get this promotion or intervirw for a similar position I am led to believe that don’t expect to get into faang at E5 expect a downlevel.

all I am trying to say is I truly believe in this market being able to follow the e4-5 course might need that intermediate step of that title inflated role.

How does this sound?

In general, you always want to be pushing for promotions as much as possible (even at non-FAANG level companies), both for the genuine growth and the buffer to protect yourself against the likely downlevel when you do make the jump.