What is the process like if you transition from one team to another within the same company in a larger or mid size co?

Question

I'm employed as a UX designer in a gov agency. If I wanted a promotion to grow, it's more set to my tenure and company budget. The design team is consisted of myself, a lead ux designer and another ux designer who is mostly a web content coordinator. Essentially there's no strong design culture here and the products we work on is our web and app. Occasionally we have input of 3rd party software that we can or cannot handle at the presentation of higher ups.

I was wondering (aside the insane competition and demand from interviewers) that if I were were able to land any position in a tech company, how easy would it be to transfer to a new role or a new team? How long would that take and is another intensive interview expected for this process too?

For example... if I get a role in marketing for Meta, how easy is it to become a product designer as an internal candidate? Or if I am a product designer at Meta for a team for something like.. Messenger, how easy is it to transfer to an AR team?

I certainly need to work on my interview and presentation skills and portfolio before applyinf but if anyone has insight that would help. I'd like just to get my foot in the door first.

(Also sry I couldnt decide if this should be under Tech or Product Designer topics, but put Tech as I felt the industry is important)

An edit: I don't intend to leave my current role anytime soon, because I want to at least own a project I can contribute towards before leaving. It will certainly take more time for me to stay here. I am interested in Tech but also FinTech or something like rideshare.

L337 · Accepted Answer

At least at Google, if you stay in the same role (say UX Designer) it’s relatively seamless to move to another team once you’ve been on that team for a reasonable amount of time (1 year I think). But if you were switching roles (eg marketing to UX design) it would require a new set of interviews.

lilFish · Answer

For companies undergoing a hiring freeze it may be possible to transfer internally but the opportunities available will likely be slim. Under the same situation rn with nearly two years at my current company but since there aren't many opportunities available with the freeze I prioritized my search to outside of my company.  I'd say definitely focus on finding a role you can at least bear until the next opportunity for you to transfer (basically can you ride out an economic downturn or until you've built enough experience that it will help you apply for your next job).

Ligma · Answer

You’re going to be stuck waiting at least 2 years, probably 3 realistically speaking because of the current company landscape for them. They’re still in a hiring freeze and no one can move around internally either for the foreseeable future. There’s also another round of layoffs that will be completed next week, so that adds to the chaos and pre-layoffs there was a year minimum that FTEs had to be at in their current role before they were eligible to apply to new internal roles, but there was always a lot of office politics involved. I would imagine the juice isn’t worth the squeeze at this point in time as the work environment there is extremely tense.

bcneco · Answer

It's possible for sure, but office politics, especially at the bigger companies, can be a pain in the ass. If you join a team and then try to jump to another one too quickly, you could be burning bridges and other managers wouldn't necessarily want to open that can of worms either.

Depending on your level, I'd say around a year or two is when it's reasonable to think about moving to another team without raising too many eyebrows.

From a process standpoint though, I can't speak to many other companies but I did move teams and roles within Amazon so I can tell you about that. It definitely wasn't an entirely new interview process, but I did definitely have to have official interviews with my to-be-manager and a few members of the team.

My compensation also did not change during the move because my comp for the previous role and team was within the same range as the new role and team, so it was policy that they don't change it (I tried like hell though lol).

Am interested to hear if anyone else has insight into other companies

What is the process like if you transition from one team to another within the same company in a larger or mid size co?

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