Building a career progression framework for software engineers
To create an environment where people feel like they are valued, are able to contribute and most importantly, want to contribute, it’s important to create a working environment that is really motivational and makes people really enjoy coming to work.
There are multiple contributing factors to give engineers motivation. One is no more important than the others but they all need to work together in harmony to create real motivation.
First is to provide autonomy. No micro-managing, no red tape, just the ability to own what and how they work.
Secondly is purpose. This is a meaningful company mission and products that add real value where the people working on them are truly bought into the mission.
Lastly is skill. Giving engineers the ability to stretch their skills both technical and non-technical, continuously learn new things and be challenged on a daily basis.
Looking at the factors that create motivation, particularly zooming in on skills, it’s important that there is an objective way of assessing (not measuring) performance and providing a clear path for progression. This is where a career development framework comes in. The goal of the framework is to define what the roles are in your organisation and what good looks like in every role.
There are plenty of good examples of frameworks out there that are great as a starting point, but remember that a framework will be unique to your company and it should really echo the culture of your organisation and the values you want to promote. To make it personal, things you should be thinking about are:
- What are the values of your company? Your organisation’s values should be embodied in and promoted by the way you assess and reward your staff
- What are the roles in your company? There is no one-size-fits-all, so have a think about what roles are appropriate for the company you’re trying to create. Think about this across both individual contributor and managerial paths and where the two diverge. Bear in mind this is an evolution and that the structure of the company today will be different in 2 years time.
- What are the types of behaviours you want to display across all roles?
- For each role, what are the responsibilities and example behaviours that are expected at each level?
Using all of these factors, you can look to build out your career progression framework.
To make this real, it’s important that managers in the company are meeting regularly for 1:1’s with their direct reports and that concrete instances of those behaviours are being tracked for each team member. Based on what level of progression they’re going for, any gaps will then feed into the employee’s personal development plan. The most important thing is that it should be clear how they’re doing at all times. It’s not something that should only be done once or twice a year, it should be a regular conversation between the manager and the employee.
Ultimately the personal development plan is owned by the employee and it is their responsibility, it’s the managers responsibility to do everything in their power to help the employee achieve it.
The career progression framework isn’t meant to be a checklist; it should be possible to progress up a level without showing all the behaviours at that level. Nor is it an exact science, everyone is different so there will be some ambiguity. It’s important that there are different ways someone can grow based on their strengths and interests, be it deep technical contribution, technical leadership or people management. And lastly, this isn’t something you expect someone to “complete”. It’s called a career framework from a reason, it’s a careers worth of progression.
Here are some great resources to get you started building one for your organisation:
• https://www.progression.fyi/
