Context
Engineers had no formal career progression structure. Promotions were inconsistent, performance conversations lacked a common language, and senior engineers had no clarity on what distinguished them from staff or principal level. Managers were making levelling decisions without shared criteria.
Challenge
Designing a framework that felt fair and meaningful, not bureaucratic, across a range of specialisations, experience levels, and working styles. Getting buy-in from engineers who were sceptical of top-down processes.
Approach
I ran workshops with engineers at different levels to understand what good looked like at each stage. I cross-referenced several public frameworks, adapted them to our context, and ran draft reviews with tech leads and managers before any formal rollout. The first version was explicitly called v1, signalling that it would evolve.
Outcome
The framework gave engineers a concrete development path and gave managers consistent language for performance and promotion conversations. Calibration sessions became more structured and less contentious. Engineers reported feeling more agency over their growth.