The Art of CTO Engineering Ladder Builder creates career frameworks with IC and management tracks, competency matrices, and progression criteria for engineering organizations.
What does progression look like for our engineers?
A career framework with IC and management tracks and competency matrices.
About 30 min · Generator · Pro
About this toolWhy it matters, common mistakes, FAQ
Can Your Engineers See What Progression Looks Like?
Without a ladder, promotion looks arbitrary, and the engineers who leave are the ones with options. The cost lands as attrition in the band you can least afford to lose.
Ladders are written as aspirational prose that cannot be assessed against. A level that cannot be evidenced is a level that gets awarded by advocacy, which recreates the arbitrariness the ladder was meant to fix.
Questions CTOs ask
- How many engineering levels should a career ladder have?
- Most engineering organizations need 5-7 IC levels (junior through principal/distinguished) and 3-4 management levels (engineering manager through VP). Fewer than 5 levels creates too-large gaps between promotions, while more than 8 makes distinctions between adjacent levels unclear. The sweet spot for startups is 5 IC levels and 3 management levels. Ensure each level has clearly differentiated expectations across scope of impact, technical complexity, leadership, and autonomy — if you cannot articulate the difference, the levels should be merged.
- When should you create an IC track vs management track?
- Introduce a formal IC (Individual Contributor) track parallel to management when your engineering organization reaches 30-50 people. At this size, you need senior technical leaders who should not be forced into management to advance their careers. The IC track (Staff, Principal, Distinguished Engineer) should have equivalent compensation and organizational influence to the management track (EM, Director, VP). Without a credible IC track, you lose senior engineers to management roles they do not want or to companies that value technical leadership.
Related Reading
Engineering Career Ladder Builder Guide: Build an Engineering Levels Framework That Scales Past 50 Engineers
Engineering career ladder builder: how to build an engineering levels framework that scales
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