Developing your Developers: Constructing Career Paths for your Technologists - Hive Conference 2019

Kevin Goldsmith 
Chief Technology Officer
Developing your
Developers:
Constructing Career
Paths for your
Technologists

@KevinGoldsmith #developingdevs#HiveConf19
Why do we need
career pathing?

In a 2015 study by global staffing firm
Randstad, 26 percent of employees
who have left their jobs in the past
12 months cite lack of career growth
opportunities as the primary reason
for leaving a company

A 2012 Deloitte survey, Talent 2020, found
that when employees were asked to
indicate the top factors that would cause
them to look for new employment over the
next 12 months, lack of career progress
topped the list, whereas lack of challenge
in the job came in at No. 5, suggesting the
need for career development plans.

● Employee retention
● Consistency in performance management
● Consistency in compensation
● Consistency in hiring
● Reinforce/Support company values
● Employer Branding
Why do we need career pathing?

What makes a
good career
pathing
framework?

A framework isn't a GPS that tells
people exactly what they need to
do to progress. But it's a compass
that they can use to guide them
through their career
- Monzo Career Framework

● Aligned to company values
● Inclusive
● Realistic
What makes for a good framework?

When do you
create your
framework?

A bit after moving from building a
business to operating a business.

Building a career
pathing
framework

I’m not going to tell you how to
build it. You need to do something
that makes sense for your
company.

But, I am going to tell you some of
the things you need to consider
which may not be obvious at first.

Study other companies’
frameworks, don’t copy them.

● A wonderful opportunity for the people team and technology
leadership team to work together
● An excellent leadership development opportunity for a growing leader
● Should be an inclusive process
Building the career path

Objective vs
Subjective
• Objectivity is the ultimate goal
• A truly objective framework is nearly
impossible
• Need to find the balance between
reducing bias in the process and
supporting the needs of the people and
roles in the organization
• Focus more on making the process fair

A fair
promotion
process
• Add reviews of decisions and consistency
checks into the framework, some
options:
• A promotions board
• Review promotions across each level of
the organization
• Promotions to the higher levels require
sign off from senior leadership

A fair
promotion
process
• Add an option for employees to appeal
the decisions. The appeals group should
include different people that the
promotions-approval group and at least
one person from outside the organization

Floor or
Average?
Should you promote when you have most of
the skills/behaviors for the next level or when
you have them all?

The Peter Principle
People in a hierarchy tend to rise to their
level of incompetence.

The Peter Principle Consequence
Others perceive the requirements of a
career level by looking at the amalgam of
the worst examples for each of the
requirements.

Building an
inclusive
framework
• Manager versus individual contributor
• Introvert versus extrovert
• Generalist versus specialist

How many
levels to have?
• A career path should be able to support a
lifetime of growth
• People want to feel the sense of
achievement of reaching a new milestone

Levels are milestones not destinations
Personal growth is a continuum, not a series
of discrete jumps. A level-change should be a
milestone glimpsed from the rearview mirror.
It lets you know how far you’ve come, but it
is not the destination.

The numbers vs title conundrum

Complexity • The more complex the pathing system is
the more likely it is to be misunderstood.
• Complex frameworks lead to lack of
fairness or perceived lack of fairness
• Make it consistent

Ties to
compensation
Poor compensation considerations can
undermine the entire framework.
• Do the salary bands overlap?
• Do the levels map to external salary
benchmarking data?

Test it out before
you roll it out

What is the correct distribution for your company?

Do a simulation to test the
distribution

Iterate

Track Metrics
● How many promotions/year? distributed as expected?
● What levels are people being hired at?
● Employee satisfaction (eNPS)

Resist the temptation to make too many big
changes unless things are really broken. Once
people are on the path, you don’t want to mess
with their progress.

Make it fair

Make it inclusive

Make it simple

Include the compensation mapping

Test with a simulation

Be gentle with changes

Dankeschön!

resources
● https://www.progression.fyi/
● https://www.notion.so/Engineering-Growth-Frameworks-
Research-63caaa58edcb41c0ba28a0cf929f24db

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