> L5 or Senior is usually considered a “terminal” role. That means all engineers should be able to get to this role.

Doesn't it mean more like it's an acceptable end, a destination - obviously not everyone's career track is to take over the company as CEO one day, but nor is it necessarily to progress to Staff and beyond.

The idea being that it's a bit of a role change, to a greater extent than the levels before it which could be seen as advancement. Or, we've long had the idea of 'technical' and 'management' tracks, the more recent (I think?) idea here being that actually maybe they're both specialist tracks you switch onto, and you don't necessarily have to do either.

But I think, outside FAANG et al., whether companies subscribe to that sort of thinking is vastly more varied (or it's more niche) than titles and 'track' splits (or lack of them) already are.