In this Ebook by Vectorly, you will find: - Software engineer career progression EXPLAINED - Must-have toolkit for a manager - 5 stages of career planning - How to build a software engineer career ladder - FREE career path templates for 50+ tech roles The Ebook was originally posted on Vectorly's site: https://www.vectorly.team/ebooks

1. 1
Ultimate Guide
to Software
Engineer Career
Progression
+ BONUS: FREE TEMPLATES

2. 2
If you are looking for ways to become a better manager and
build a high-performing team of motivated developers, you
definitely need to know about software engineer career pro-
gression and how to build an engineering career ladder.
Successful tech companies like Etsy, Dropbox, Spotify, Buffer,
SongKick Technology, and many others, have already devel-
oped and implemented their own career path framework, in
order to retain top engineers and make better decisions.
Vectorly will help you explore the experience of these com-
panies and help managers to build their own software engi-
neer career progression framework, adapted to the company’s
needs.

3. 3
Contents
> What is a software engineer career progression?
> Must-have toolkit for a manager
> 5 stages of career planning for a tech team
> How to build a software engineer career ladder (Exam-
ple)
> BONUS! The ultimate list of career path templates for
50+ tech roles

4. 4
What is
a software
engineer
career
progression?

5. 5
Before we start talking about how to build a successful soft-
ware engineer career ladder in your company, make decisions
about promotions and help engineers skip level and raise
grade, you need to define the terms and find out — what is a
career ladder, or career progression?
An engineering career ladder is not just a list of developer
positions and responsibilities. This is a systematized career
growth roadmap, which inсludes skills, achievements, expec-
tations and a vision of a career future. To simplify, the career
ladder is a way to chart individual career progress.

6. 6
Roles and titles
Roles and titles are terms that define the place of a software
engineer in a company. However, there are differences:
Job role is the area of responsibility of an employee, which
reflects what kind of work they perform in the company. The
area of responsibility defines the scope of duties: what the
employee does at work every day, what kind of tasks they have.
Job roles examples: Developer, Designer, Product Manager.
Job title is the name of the position that a person occupies
in a company. This usually consists of a job level (Junior, Mid-
dle, Senior) and a specialization (QA Manual Engineer, Python
Developer, Go Developer). If the job role involves managing
people, this is also usually reflected in the job title (Team Lead,
Technical Officer, Project Manager), etc.

7. 7
That’s what Chuck Groom says about the importance of defin-
ing titles and roles:
New companies or teams often don’t have
well-defined titles or roles. In fact, this may be a
perverse source of pride; you may hear things like
“we’re a flat organization” and “titles don’t mat-
ter.” While people may have very different salaries,
there’s a general sense that it’s a meritocracy.
Chuck Groom
Consulting CTO/VPE,
serial entrepreneur, advisor,
engineering leader

8. 8
Free skill matrix templates and
career path templates for 50+
tech roles by Vectorly.
Get templates

9. 9
Levels (or grades)
Job levels (or job grades) denote the level of responsibility in
the company, within the job role. The higher the job level, the
more expertise, independence and initiative the company ex-
pects from an engineer.
Companies use roles to build grades, designate OKRs for
reaching the next level, and motivate an employee to reach
new heights. A simple software engineer levels system looks
like: engineer level 1, 2, 3, 4 or Junior Developer, Middle Devel-
oper, Senior Developer, Tech Lead, but as the company grows, it
can become larger or even branch out.
Such systems allow a developer to move along their career
path and develop within the company. This means that, if
a company uses this method, developers have professional
growth opportunities and have more motivation to stay with
the company.
Next, we will move on to examples of the different types of
software engineer career ladder examples and explore what
software engineer career progression frameworks exist, de-
pending on the size of the company.

10. 10
Software engineer career
ladder examples
As we said earlier, the software engineer career ladder can be
more or less complex, depending on the structure and needs
of the company.
We will give examples of different types of software engineer
career frameworks. When building your own career framework,
it is important not just to copy existing models, but to focus on
the goals and values of your company, as well as discussing its
structure with the team at the formation stage.

11. 11
Small companies (<20)
Often, small companies and startups don’t feel the need to
build a career ladder framework and are limited to job titles.
Career development implementations happen as the compa-
ny grows, are often unplanned, and the KPIs that have to be
based on the skills and traits of engineers are unclear.
In this case, developers do not have professional development
goals and may lose motivation over time. So, the best talent
will go to other companies, where they will be offered career
growth opportunities.
The basic software engineer career path looks like a change of
levels — engineers skip from one level to another within the
framework of the role approved at the start: Junior Developer,
Middle Developer, Senior Developer, Tech Lead.

12. 12
Adapt Vectorly’s engineer career ladder template
for your tech team for free.
Get template

13. 13
Medium companies (<100)
As the company grows, the career progression framework
should become more complex — intermediate positions (lev-
els) on the career path can be introduced.
But the most important point is to build a career progression
for those engineers who want to develop professionally, but
don’t have the desire to grow into managers and hone their
people skills. Here, a branched career path becomes relevant.
It often has two tracks — engineering career path, technical or
management, where a developer can become a manager and
develop in leadership, or become an IC (individual contributor)
and develop as an expert.
This division of the career path is called the dual-ladder ap-
proach.
Some successful companies have developed this approach in
building software engineer progression for their teams. Here
are some examples worth exploring.

14. 14
Adapt Vectorly’s engineer career ladder template
for your tech team for free.
Get template
Maker Manager
Level 1 -Lead/Manager 1
Level 2 -Lead/Manager 2
Level 3 -Senior Manager/
Associate Director/
Head of X
Level 4 -Director
Buffer has developed their own career progression framework
that allows employees to develop professionally and move
along the career ladder without becoming a manager. This
framework has two equal growth opportunities - the individual
contributor track and the managerial track.

15. 15
One of the variations of a dual-ladder approach
was developed at Songkick Technology.
You can adapt Songkick’s developer career path template
for your own company.
Get template
Individual
Contributor
Architect
Principal Architect
People
Management
Software Developer 1
Software Developer 2
Senior Software Developer 1
Senior Software Developer 2 / Technical Lead
Technical Lead / Engineering Manager
Engineering Manager
Developer

16. 16
Bigger Companies (>100)
Large companies, with complex structures, develop their own,
more complex career progression frameworks. There may be
several levels within a career path, depending on the needs of
the company.
Levels.fyi collected data from the world’s leading tech com-
panies about what levels are present in their frameworks and
what is the process of moving from level to level. The com-
panies in the scheme below show several typical cases in the
organization of software engineer levels.

17. 17
Senior Technical
Staff Member
Distinguished Engineer
Distinguished Engineer
Google Fellow
Distinguished Engineer
Principal Engineer
Senior Staff SWE
Staff SWE
Senior SWE
SWE III
SWE II
Senior SDE
SDE II
SDE I
Principal SDE
Senior Principal SDE
IBM Fellow
Senior Engineer
Advisory Engineer
Staff Engineer
Associate Engineer
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Staff Engineer
Senior
Staff Engineer
Principal Engineer
Senior Principal Engineer
Fellow
Senior Fellow
L 3
L 4
L 5
L 6
L 7

18. 18
You can explore the experience of top tech companies and get
more details on how their frameworks were developed and
implemented:
↘ Etsy
↘ Dropbox
↘ CircleCI
↘ Spotify

19. 19
With Vectorly, you can build
a career progression frame-
work using ready-made career
path templates for
50+ tech roles.
Get templates

20. 20
Benefits of building
career paths
for a tech team
Career ladders help to achieve the best results in self-develop-
ing both employees and companies. Let’s take a closer look at
what benefits the participants receive from the process.

21. 21
For developers
> Gain a broader skill base
A well-built career path includes a professional devel-
opment plan, within which an employee receives an
assessment of the current level of their skills and tasks
for developing the focus skills necessary for promotion.

22. 22
If your people aren’t growing, they’re leaving”.
This is a favourite expression of mine. Everyone
at Charlie has probably heard me say that over a
hundred times. When we started Charlie, we built
the business to put a high priority on the progres-
sion of each member of the team.
Ben Gateley
CEO & Co-Founder
at CharlieHR
Ben Gateley tells about CharleHR’s experience of implement-
ing a career progression framework:

23. 23
> Unlock earning potential
Together with a manager, employees can define profes-
sional development goals and career goals, including
their salary expectations. Then they build a career devel-
opment plan jointly, that will help achieve these goals
in the shortest possible time.
> Avoid stagnation
A well-defined development plan allows engineers to
constantly develop and achieve their goals in the fastest
way, while increasing job satisfaction and feeling their
contribution to common business goals.

24. 24
Along with helping managers set expectations
and hold teams accountable for their work, this re-
source [Dropbox’s Engineering Career Framework]
empowers engineers to achieve greater impact in
their role and grow in their careers.
Anirudh Todi,
Director Of Engineering at Snap,
ex-Director Of Engineering
at Dropbox
Anirudh Todi shares Dropbox’s experience on implementing a
career path framework:

25. 25
> Clear promotion requirements
It means employees understand what is required to get
promoted and get a pay raise. If the career progression
framework is organized correctly, then grade raises take
place every six months, which allows software engineer-
ing managers to plan the career path of developers.
> Opportunity to choose and plan the career path
With a career progression framework, software engi-
neers are free to choose in what direction they develop
professionally - take the managerial track and improve
soft skills, or build expertise by moving along the tech-
nical track.

26. 26
I am one of those annoying managers who asks
people where they’d like to be in five years. I call
it “annoying” because it’s a lot to think about. But
I still ask it, not because I’m not looking for a per-
fect answer, but because it gives them an opportu-
nity to consider their future and, usually, they tell
me something I should know.
Sarah Drasner
Director of Engineering,
Core Developer Web
at Google
Sarah Drasner explains why career planning talks with em-
ployees are important:

27. 27
For managers
> Building a high-performing team
Career progression allows a manager or a team lead
to create and maintain a growth mindset and continu-
ous learning in the company. So, the team is constantly
growing, developing skills and performs better, in gener-
al.
> Increase motivation
Long-term goals motivate the team and help to avoid
stagnation. Motivation directly influences performance,
while a high-performing team is one of the business
success factors.

28. 28
> Improve retention
Career growth and professional development are the
best ways to motivate employees, save top talent and
keep the best engineers. For most developers, one of
the key factors in choosing a job (or when making the
decision to get an offer from another company) is the
opportunity for career development and getting new
professional perspectives.
> Ability to make better decisions
Having clear guidelines, a manager can make transpar-
ent and reasoned decisions about pay rise, grade raise,
hiring, etc. And also to make these decisions transparent,
both for the team and for senior management and HR.

29. 29
Promotions should be based on recognition of
skill development and consistent demonstration of
specific behaviors that lead to greater and more
positive impact on the business.
Bradford Fults
Senior Engineering Leader
at SailPoint & Permanent
Austinite
Bradford Fults speaks of the importance of the professional
development of engineers:

30. 30
For HR
A hiring bar for each level makes it fairly easy for HR to decide
in favor of one or another candidate. It is better to compare
specialists with each other, using the system - this is how the
company eliminates the human factor.
> Fairness and transparency in decision-making process
One of the tasks of a recruiter is to find objective crite-
ria for understanding whether a developer is ready for
promotion or not. Clear steps towards achieving career
goals within the company make employees understand
that their growth or lack thereof is a fair decision.

31. 31
To that end, having a fair, equitable, and clear
framework for leveling and career progression
is one of our most important goals. Engineering
leaders talk about levels and promotion process-
es a lot, but they focus more on the what and not
the why. At Carta, we want everyone to understand
how the company thinks about fairness and com-
pensation, why our leveling processes exist, and
what they’re trying to achieve.
Jerry Talton,
CTO at Carta
Jerry Talton tells about Carta’s experience:

32. 32
> Optimize the hiring process
Understanding the professional level of a potential em-
ployee allows you to more confidently determine the
cost of hiring, identify the skillset and, in general, clarify
whether the developer will fit into the team and can
contribute to the company’s goals.
> Transparent decisions on pay raise
If career paths are clearly defined and pay grades are
tied to specific levels, then this greatly reduces the diffi-
culty in negotiating decisions on salary increases.

33. 33
Our Software Engineering Career Ladder is a cru-
cial element of Square’s toolkit for supporting
engineers’ growth. It helps us ensure that we eval-
uate and reward engineers consistently and fairly,
regardless of their team, discipline, or background.
Michael White
Former Head of Engineering at
Square, co-founder at Stealth
Startup
Michael White speaks of how a software engineering career
ladder helps to support engineers at Square:

34. 34
> Improve a company’s brand image
When a company cares about the professional develop-
ment and well-being of its employees and is ready to
invest in their education, this always increases its cred-
ibility among candidates, making the company a place
everyone wants to work.
Read a successful case study of motivating employees
and retaining the best technical talent with professional
development
What to Do if Your Devel-
oper Comes to Work With
an Offer From Another
Company?
Now you have an understanding of what a career progression
is and why it’s important both for an employee and the com-
pany. It’s time to find out how to organize a career progression
planning for a team and build a career ladder.

35. 35
Must-have
toolkit for
a manager
Before we move to the part on how to professionally plan a
career progression for your team, you need to get a basic tool-
kit. This is a list of tools (with useful links and templates) that
will help manage the career growth of engineers and effec-
tively form a career progression framework for them.

36. 36
Tool #1: Skill matrix
Skill matrices include a set of skills, required for a certain
role. These skills are mapped to levels on a career path, so a
manager can understand how to identify the grade of each
employee and what skills are required to help engineers skip
level.
Companies can create their own skill matrices or simply use
skill matrix template and adapt them to the needs of their
team.
Useful link:
Free skill matrix templates
for 50+ tech roles.

37. 37
Tool #2: Career path template
A career path is a roadmap that contains grades and skills and
helps developers understand what needs to be done to reach
a new career level: both in the manager line and in the expert
line.
Typically, grades represent the path from junior to senior. But
as a company grows, the engineer career path can become
more complex.
Useful link:
Free career path
templates for 50+
tech roles.

38. 38
Tool #3: Review
Reviews help assess the current skills of a team and identify
the requirements for grades. With the help of a review, you
can find weaknesses (skill gaps) and points of growth. It is
important to hold reviews regularly, to make sure the skills of
teammates meet the requirements of a certain grade, as well
as checking their professional development progress.
To get more information on how to organize an effective skills
review of a tech team - read our most detailed guide ever:
Software Engineer Performance Review Example.
Useful link:
Vectorly’s 360-degree
reviews.

39. 39
Tool #4: 1-on-1 meetings
Personal meetings help to discuss career goals, set OKRs, and
build development plans with employees. Also during these
meetings, a manager can monitor the employee’s progress and
make decisions on grade raise and pay raise.
Vectorly has one-on-one meeting templates that help save
time on prep and structure the dialogue with a ready-made
agenda to make it super effective.
Useful link:
1-on-1 meeting templates

40. 40
Tool #5: PDP
PDP is a professional development plan that helps a manager
approach the engineer career ladder organization systemati-
cally and meet both engineer’s career goals and the goals of a
company.
Good PDP should include a combination of educational activ-
ities and working tasks on developing focus skills in order to
successfully implement continuous learning in the workflow of
a tech team and meet career goals faster.
To build an effective PDP for your tech team that will really
work - read our guide: 4 Steps to Integrate Professional Devel-
opment Plan Into Your Workflow.
Useful link:
Vectorly’s growth plan

41. 41
5 stages
of career
planning for
a tech team

42. 42
If you’re wondering how to write a career progression plan and
what the stages of career progression planning are, this part
will definitely give you the answers.
A good manager should make career progression planning a
continuous process. And that’s why:
> First of all, a manager should regularly hold reviews to
check how the skills of a team meet the requirements
of their current grades (and desired levels) and monitor
the progress of their professional development.
> Secondly, the career progression framework should be
updated at least once a year, so the requirements and
skills included in it are relevant to the market.
Vectorly has come up with a 5-stage career progression plan-
ning process. This cycle also includes a meeting schedule, with
an agenda and tools necessary at each stage.

43. 43
Build a career
progression framework
Check progress
& make adjustments
to PDP
Make decisions
on level raise
Check progress
& make adjustments
to PDP
Update
a career
progression
framework
Q1
202
2
Q2 2022
Q3
2022
Q4
202
2
Q1 2023
5-Stage Career
Planning Cycle
1
2
3
4
5

44. 44
At this stage, a manager creates a career ladder and imple-
ments it in the company. This is probably the most time-con-
suming and difficult stage of the career planning process. Yet
Vectorly has prepared a step-by-step guide on how to build a
software engineer career progression framework, which you
can find in the next part of this guide.
As a result of this stage, teammates will get a clear under-
standing of their career path and what skills they should de-
velop, in order to get a grade raise.
In short, at this stage, a manager needs to:
> Create a list of skills
> Set grades
> Map skills to grades
> Hold 1-on-1 meetings to build a PDP plan
Build a career
progression framework 1

45. 45
Toolkit:
> Skill matrix templates
> Career path template
> 360-degree review
> Meeting templates
> Growth plan
For more detailed info, check out the next part of this guide -
How to build a software engineer career ladder (Example).

46. 46
After the career progression framework has been implemented
and a PDP plan has been built, a repeated skill review needs
to be held, in order to check the progress of an employee on
developing the focus skills from a professional development
plan. Also, during this 1-on-1 meeting, a manager should make
updates to the current PDP.
So, at this stage, a manager needs to:
> Hold a review to assess the current level of skills
> Make adjustments to a PDP
Toolkit:
> 360-degree review
> 1-on-1 templates
> Growth plan
This meeting should be held regularly, as you can see in the
picture - Q1 and Q4.
Check progress
& make adjustments
to PDP
2

47. 47
Six months after building a career progression framework,
it’s time to make decisions on grade raises. A manager should
hold a review, in order to see how well employees have suc-
ceeded in developing the required skills for their desired posi-
tion. On the basis of this review analysis, the manager and HR
will make decisions about who will get promoted and get a
pay raise.
By doing this, the decisions are transparent to all the parties
involved - engineers, team leads, and HR.
To sum up, at this stage, a manager needs to:
> Hold a review to assess the current level of skills
> Hold 1:1 to discuss level and pay raise
Toolkit
> 360-degree review
> 1-on-1 templates
Decisions on grade raise should be made regularly - twice a
year (Q1 and Q3 on the picture).
Make decisions
on level raise
3

48. 48
This stage repeats #2, as this is the time when a manager
checks how the current PDP is being implemented by an em-
ployee and makes necessary changes to it.
A manager needs to:
> Hold a review to assess the current level of skills
> Make adjustments to PDP
Toolkit:
> 360-degree review
> 1-on-1 templates
> Growth plan
This meeting should be held regularly, as you can see in the
picture - Q1 and Q4.
Check progress
& make adjustments
to PDP
4

49. 49
After a career ladder has been built and successfully imple-
mented into the work of a company, a manager’s goal is to
make adjustments to the framework. Skill matrices and career
paths of engineers should be updated once a year, in order to
make sure that the team’s professional development goals are
relevant to the current business goals and meet the require-
ments of the industry.
So once a year, a manager needs to:
> Update the list of skills
> Update grades
> Map the updated skills to grades
> Hold 1:1s on professional development & discuss level
raises
Toolkit:
> Skill matrix templates
> Career path template
> 360-degree review
> Meeting templates
> Growth plan
Update a career
progression framework
5

50. 50
To sum up, the key factor of successful career planning is reg-
ularity. The process of implementation of the engineer career
progression framework contains a set of regular meetings,
which are:
> Once a year: create/update a career progression frame-
work
> Once every six months: make decisions on pay and
grade raise, and create new PDP
> Once every three months: hold a review to assess the
skills and make adjustments to the current PDP
This 5-stage career planning cycle will help to make the
professional development of every member of a tech team
systematic, provide engineers with career development op-
portunities within the company, as well as make decisions on
promotions and pay raise transparent to all parties involved.

51. 51
Still have questions on
how to create a career pro-
gression and organize career
planning for your team?
Don’t worry - Vectorly expert
will help you to figure it out on
a free 25-min call.
Book demo

52. 52
How to build
a software
engineer
career
ladder
(Example)

53. 53
After reading the previous parts of this guide, you know how
the career planning cycle works and have the set of tools you
will need to create a career ladder framework for your tech
team. Let’s move on to the steps of its creation.
This picture below shows the main steps on how to build an
engineer career ladder adapted to the current skill level of the
team and with transparent requirements for each grade and
professional development plans to reach the desired position.

54. 54
Now, let’s dive into details and consider each step
mentioned above.
Build a career
progression framework
Step 1 Create a list of skills
Step 2 Set grades
Step 3 Map skills to grades
Step 4 1:1 to build PDP
3.1
Assign people
to grades
3.2
Hold skills
review
3.3
Get team
analytics
3.4
Set requirements
for job grades
4.1
Discuss and set career goals
4.2
Discuss and set OKRs

55. 55
Step 1:
Create a list of skills
At this stage, a list of skills is formed that are necessary for a
particular role. The manager can create their own list, or use
ready-made skill matrix templates and customize them to the
needs of their team.

56. 56
This is how an engineer skill set looks like in Vectorly:
Use free skill matrix templates for 50+ tech roles
on your email.
Get templates

57. 57
Step 2:
Set grades (levels)
Next, a career path is formed. It contains job levels (or job
grades) and their description - what skills are required to take
a certain position or skip to the next level. Depending on the
size of the company, the career path may look different.
You can build your own career path, using a ready-made tem-
plate and customize it to the needs of your company.

58. 58
Use Vectorly’s engineer career ladder template
for your tech team for free.
Get templates

59. 59
Step 3:
Mapping skills to grades
In order to set relevant requirements for job levels in your
team, you need to assign employees to their current grades
and run a skills review. After doing this, you’ll get an under-
standing of the real level of skills of your teammates of differ-
ent grades, and based on these analytics, set the requirements
for job levels on a career path.
3.1. Assign people to grades
When you have created a career path, distribute employees
according to their current grades - Junior, Middle, Senior, Tech
Lead (or other levels you have adopted in your company).

60. 60
3.2. Hold a skill review
Run a review to assess the skills and get the real picture of the
current state of a team.
Read: Software Engineer Performance Review Example
Hold easy & no fuss 360-degree reviews with Vectorly.
Run review

61. 61
3.3. Get team analytics
Based on the results of the skills review, get insights on the
current state of the team’s skills.

62. 62
3.4. Set requirements
for job grades
After you have performed a skills review and found the skill
gaps, set requirements for every level on a career path. This
will help you understand what skills engineers need to devel-
op, in order to get a grade raise.

63. 63
Step 4: 1:1 to build PDP
Once you have determined the current level of skills of the
team members and set the requirements for grades, it’s time to
discuss their professional development plans.
4.1. Discuss and set career goals
To do this, set up a 1-on-1 meeting, where you discuss what
career goals the developer has in mind, as well as their plans
regarding their future in the company and salary expectations.
4.2. Discuss and set OKRs.
During these 1-on-1 meetings, a manager should also inform
an employee about the business goals the company has and
set OKRs for them that will help meet these goals.
As a result of this discussion, an individual professional de-
velopment plan is created, which should include learning and
working tasks for developing focus skills.
Read: 4 Steps to Integrate Professional Development Plan
Into Your Workflow.

64. 64
To save time on prep, use Vectorly’s one-on-one meeting tem-
plates, with a ready-made agenda to have a constructive and
helpful dialogue with an engineer.
Get templates

65. 65
Hold a review and build
a carer progression framework
for your team on
a 25-min all with Vectorly.
Book demo

66. 66
BONUS! The
Ultimate List of
Career Path
Templates
For 50+ Tech
Roles
In this bonus part, Vectorly has gathered the fullest list of tech
roles and career paths examples.
Click on the role and get levels descriptions, what skills you
need on each level, as well as career goals examples.

67. 67
Backend Development
Career Paths
Front-end Development
Career Paths
Designer
Career Paths
Career Path Templates
For Management Roles
Data Science
Career Paths
Career Paths
For Software Testing (QA)
Game Development
Career Paths
Run a review with Vectorly to assess the skills of your tech team.
Book demo