Job level
Also called seniority level, career level, job grade.
An employer's internal grade for a role, which sets the salary band, the scope expected, and often the interview bar — and which doesn't transfer between companies.
Levels are internal ladders: L4, IC3, Senior II, Grade 7. They determine the band you'll be paid within, the scope you're accountable for, and how the panel calibrates. Two companies using the same word can mean quite different things — a Senior at a hundred-person company and at a large tech firm may be two rungs apart in scope.
This matters most when you're being down-leveled or up-leveled during a process. Being told the offer will come in at one level below the posting is a compensation event, not a formality, and it's more negotiable before the loop than after. Asking early what level the req is opened at costs nothing.
Titles are the unreliable surface of all this. Chasing a title into a role with narrower scope is a common trap, because the next employer will evaluate what you did, not what you were called.
Salary range
The published minimum and maximum for a role — increasingly required by law, and usually wider than the band the employer will actually use.
Hiring manager
The person the role reports to — who owns the requisition, makes the decision, and is the only interviewer whose "yes" is close to sufficient.
Compensation band
The internal minimum-to-maximum salary an employer has approved for a given level and location, from which every offer at that level is drawn.