30+ Engineering Career Ladders
Before jumping into the list, let's quickly discuss software engineering career ladders. We can extract common traits from those career ladders; understanding those characteristics allows us to connect the dots more easily and compare different career ladders efficiently.
What Is a Career Ladder?
A career ladder, or career path, is a progression framework. It allows an organization to describe the different job levels and the expectations for a given position.
It enables the assessment of a software engineer's skills and to work on her career progression. It provides a shared framework to identify the different aspects to improve to reach the next job level.
The ladder can also be mapped with employee's compensation, increasing salaries transparency, and fairness.
Expertise Path and Manager Path (Dual-Track)
Most of the software engineering career ladders are dual tracks ladders.
They have a joint base for the first positions, and at some point, two paths are possible the expertise path and the people management path. The expertise path is often named the individual contributor track, the people management path is often called the manager track.
The career path depends on the stage of the company and the size of the team. New positions will usually appear while the engineering group is growing.
Example for a tiny team (up to 10 engineers)
You'll rarely find ladders at that scale; it's still very early stage, the team is a handful of engineers working with a CTO or a Tech Lead. In startups, the engineering lead is often the technical Co-founder and CTO.
Single Track Notes Engineer Creating solutions to business problems Senior Engineer Handling most complex parts and mentoring Engineering Lead She may handle people management aspects
At this stage, it's pretty common to have one lead developer or engineering lead who owns technical guidance and organizes the team's delivery. She is often more focused on delivery and does not handle people management which a founder still handles.
Example for a small team (~20 engineers)
At that point, the company will introduce middle management positions, usually an Engineering Manager (EM) position. The EM supports a group of 5 to 10 engineers, especially on human resources and project management aspects (ex: hiring, onboarding, organizing, coaching, delivery plan, reporting).
In some companies, EM can be very hands-on on the system part and provide technical and architecture guidance, playing both technical leader and people/team leader. Usually, the company starts to split tech guidance and people management; both require significant and specific expertise.
Individual Contributor (IC) Track People Manager Track Engineer - Senior Engineer - Tech Lead Engineering Manager
Example for a medium team (50+ engineers)
You'll start to have more levels and more expert positions at that stage. The company has usually introduced the role of Head of Engineering, Engineering Director, or VP Engineering. This role is about leading the whole engineering department; the engineering managers will report the person having this role.
Leadership has usually introduced another new role to support the technical guidance at a broader scale, for the whole system or a large part of the system. This role can be named Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, etc.
Individual Contributor (IC) Track People Manager Track Engineer - Senior Engineer - Tech Lead Engineering Manager Staff Engineer VP Engineering
Example for a large team (100 to 1000+ engineers)
At this stage, the engineering department will create a lot of new intermediary positions to capture the level of expertise and area of ownership and impact. Welcome to Senior Engineer I and II, Engineering Director, etc.
Individual Contributor (IC) Track People Manager Track Engineer I - Engineer II - Senior Engineer I - Senior Engineer II - Tech Lead Engineering Manager Senior Tech Lead Senior Engineering Manager Staff Engineer Engineering Director Senior Staff Engineer Senior Engineering Director Principal Engineer VP Engineering Senior Principal Engineer Senior VP Engineering
Public Engineering Career Ladders
Here is a curated list of 30+ public software engineering career ladders; in those resources, you can also find some explanations about why and how those ladders have been introduced.
Akeneo
Artsy
Basecamp
Blendle
Brandwatch
Buffer
Capgemini
Charlie HR
Chartbeat
CircleCI
Duo
Envoy
Financial Time
Flatiron Health
Fog Creek
Gitlab
Glossier
Gov.uk
Intent Media
Inviqa
Khan Academy
Koho
Kickstarter
Medium
Meetup
Monzo
Noteworthy
Patreon
Rent the Runway
Square
Spotify
Songkick
Sound Cloud
Think Through Math
Under Armour
Urban Airship
VTS
tip
I formerly gathered and reviewed this extensive list of engineering career ladders to get inspiration to craft the first version of our career framework at Akeneo. I hope this list will help you design your own or better understand your existing career ladder. Do you know a great career ladder not present on this list? DM me on Twitter, and let's keep completing this list!
I wrote a free guide to help engineering managers to overcome challenges you may face when stepping up into this position. This guide explores the critical aspects to tackle to succeed in this transition, such as changing your focus, managing your time, and leading and growing a talented team of software engineers.
What Is a Career Ladder?
Expertise Path and Manager Path (Dual-Track)
Example for a tiny team (up to 10 engineers)
Example for a small team (~20 engineers)
Example for a medium team (50+ engineers)
Example for a large team (100 to 1000+ engineers)
Public Engineering Career Ladders
