Verification aligns with a specification. E.g. verify if what was implemented matches what was specified.

Validation aligns with a requirement. E.g. verify if what was implemented solves the actual problem.

L7 is Senior Staff Engineering Manager (M2)

L6 is Staff Engineering Manager (M1)

they are of equal level to the SWE ladder L6 and L7 titles

The prior poster is missing the L7 tier, which is Senior Staff Engineering Manager for the Engineering Manager Ladder.

L8 is a Director on the Engineering Manager Ladder L8 is a Principal on the Software Engineer (SWE) Ladder.

Tech-Lead Managers (TL/M or TLMs) were on the SWE Ladder.

For reference:

Software Engineer Ladder

L8 - Principal Software Engineer

L7 - Senior Staff Software Engineer

L6 - Staff Software Engineer

L5 - Senior Software Engineer

L4 - Software Engineer II

L3 - Software Engineer (new graduates would start here)

----------------------

L2 and below exists in rare occasions.

Engineering Manager Ladder

L8 - Director

L7 - Staff Engineering Manager

L6 - Engineering Manager (M1)

L5 - Engineering Manager (M0 - normally this level does not exist for external hires and is for the rare situation when a SWE is converting to the Engineering Manager ladder)

Yes, as commissioned US military officers they become subject to UCMJ.

USDS and DDS employees are/were civilian federal employees with capacity for legal authority to act on behalf of the US Government.

DoD and its branches have uniformed service members subject to UCMJ, but they also have many civilian employees with decision making authority and ultimately the services report to civilian secretaries; the ratio of uniformed service members (e.g. enlisted, and commissioned officers) to civilians can vary greatly by service. Another main difference to consider beyond UCMJ would be eligibility to be considered a combatant versus not; not all uniformed personnel should be considered combatants. "Authority" is not exclusive to uniformed personnel.

Many DoD programs can be led or managed by civilians, typically a GS-15 which is roughly equivalent to O-6 (e.g. Army/Air Force/Space Force Colonel, Navy Captain)

If I recall correctly, Palantir's main starting point beyond some of its fraud-tracking origins at Paypal were through its attempts to compete in the DCGS-A / replacement acquisition in DoD.

Crowdstrike had Dmitry, but its main US Government ties were through Shawn Henry, a former director of investigative operations at the FBI; Crowdstrike had a few business lines in its early days, which included its intel/research/analysis services, breach investigation/remediation services, while it was developing its endpoint protection products/platform.

---

And to the upstream parent comment:

> The key difference is the DDS folks were not uniformed military. That can make all the difference when trying to sell your product or service to a military decision maker.

A lot of DoD acquisitions, developments, operations decisions end up being materially informed by civilian personnel that are direct employees of the US Government, contractors supporting the US Government via Federally Funded Research and Development Corporations (FFRDCS, labs, etc.), other contractors, etc. In some cases, it seems like the DoD programs are entirely reliant (i.e. dependent) on their contractor support (via FFRDCs, labs, etc).

Some of this comes from the fact that the typical active duty officer's assignment duration in a particular role (e.g. acquisition program manager, chief engineer, etc) ends up being two years or less before a permanent change of assignment (PCA). Having organic civilian staff in these roles can be essential for maintaining continuity and can be a key part of a program/mission's success.

(Also worth noting that in a lot of cases where the head of a program is a civilian employee, it's not uncommon to find that are military retired, prior service but separated, and/or also a reserve officer in the same or very adjacent field)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_Suite_A_Cryptography

Most instances of a cloud ___ created in a region are allocated and exist at the zonal level (i.e. a specific zone of a region).

A physical "region" usually consists of three or more availability zones, and each zone is physically separated from other zones, limiting the potential for foreseeable disaster events from affecting multiple zones simultaneously. Zones are close enough networking-wise to have high throughput and low latency interconnection, but not as fast as same-rack, same-cluster communications.

Systems requiring high availability (or replication) generally attain this by placing instances (or replicas) in multiple availability zones.

Systems requiring high-availability generally start with multi-zone replication, and Systems with even higher availability requirements may use multi-region replication, which comes at greater cost.

Samsung the company started as something resembling a dry goods market.

2) The examples given may have been produced by AI/ML-based technologies developed at Apple, but may not have been the work of Apple's AI/ML Organization. Many "groups" (divisions) within Apple have their own teams using AI/Machine Learning (e.g. AI/ML Org coexisting with AI/machine-learning work and teams in TDG/VPG, SPG (special projects group: the one previously working on a car), etc.

Apple had teams involved with AI/ML in several divisions also, from AI/ML (including Siri), TDG/VPG, SPG...