Career Ladder

Getting Promoted: How Can KPIs Help

When considering an employee's promotion, assessing their personal motivation is key. A senior engineer approached the company to step up to the next level, and the company identified areas in which the engineer needed to improve. The engineer had difficulty with social skills, so the company proposed action items and encouraged him to think them through. The company also identified two main challenges: finding clear and precise KPIs and finding the balance between hard and soft skills. The engineer was eventually promoted after meeting the requirements of the career ladder. The company learned that personal motivation is important, the balance between hard and soft skills is challenging, and action items should be discussed and not imposed.

Building Career Ladders with the Help of a Diverse Team

New Relic needed to create a formal career ladder to align with their pay levels. To do this, they sent out an email to the entire organization asking for names of people to be part of a 20-person working group. This group then held an off-site session to brainstorm and develop criteria and behaviors for each level. The career ladder was then sent out to a wider group for feedback, and finally published. The process was successful, and the lessons learned were that it was important to have a diverse group of people work on the ladder, and to have the group also be responsible for training the managers.

Is CS Training Essential to Be a Successful Engineering Leader?

This article discusses whether or not CS training is necessary for engineering leaders to be successful. It suggests that the decision should be approached on a case by case basis, and that strength and warmth should be balanced. It also suggests that CS training may not be necessary right away, but may be beneficial for job interviews. Ultimately, success is determined by what is done outside of the 8 hours spent at work.

The Difficulty in Making Career-Defining Decisions

When faced with a difficult decision about leaving a well-established company for a startup, this individual created a framework for themselves to help make the decision. They considered their five-year goals, the possibility of promotion, day-to-day tasks, teams in collaboration, and the scope of work. Ultimately, the decision was made by focusing on their five-year goal of increasing their broader knowledge and scope. They recommend that when making large career decisions, individuals should think less about the technical aspect and more about their strengths and weaknesses, and prioritize certain values and goals.

Structuring a Career Ladder For a Scaling Team

This article discusses the process of creating a career ladder for a startup that grew from two people to 45 people. The author researched other companies' career ladders and modified Medium's growth framework to create the 'Moonfrog Growth Framework', which consists of seven levels and five buckets of competency. The author also learned that in the early days of a startup, it is important to focus on building a successful engineering culture, rather than worrying about a career ladder. Additionally, it is important to create a career ladder that is specific to the company and to reduce the value of titles.

Establishing A Career Path Is More Then Copy and Pasting

The joint director at Payfit was tasked with creating a career path for the company. After researching models from other companies, they realized that they needed to build their own career path that was tailored to the company's maturity level. They created a framework with six layers and two axes to cover individual contributions and management. They also included personality traits in the framework to make it collaborative. They also established a development discussion to separate career growth from individual skill development. Finally, they created a PowerPoint presentation to explain the career path and the steps to growth.