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.