Every company publishes a job ladder. Almost none of them tell you what the job actually is. The ladder is a comp-band document first, a career-development document second, and a description of actual work a distant third.
The five questions that cut through it
- What does the person at L+1 do that L doesn't? (If the answer is 'more of the same,' the levels aren't real.)
- How many people have been promoted from this level in the last 12 months?
- What's the median tenure at this level before promotion?
- Who makes the promotion decision, and when was the last time they promoted someone?
- What happened to the last person who left this level voluntarily?
Ask these in the final-round interview, framed as 'I want to understand the growth trajectory.' The quality of the answer tells you more than the answer itself.