Engineering Career Framework¶
Welcome to the Engineering Career Framework.
This documentation is designed to make career growth in the engineering organization:
- clear
- transparent
- fair
- growth-oriented
- practical for day-to-day development
It serves three audiences at the same time:
- Leadership team — to guide consistent promotion and role-definition decisions
- Managers — to support coaching, growth conversations, and evidence-based assessments
- Employees — to understand what qualities to build and how to intentionally grow toward the next level
Objectives¶
This framework exists to:
- reduce ambiguity around career progression
- help employees build the right skills intentionally
- make promotion decisions more consistent
- define multiple valid career paths after senior engineering level
- align company role definitions with SFIA principles
Career Path Summary¶
Common engineering path¶
- Intern
- Associate Software Engineer (ASE)
- Software Engineer (SE)
- Senior Software Engineer (SSE)
Leadership / delivery track¶
- Associate Team Lead (ATL)
- Team Lead (TL)
- Senior Team Lead
Architecture / technical track¶
- Associate Architect
- Architect
Why the framework splits after SSE¶
After Senior Software Engineer, career growth splits into two valid directions:
- Leadership / Delivery Track for people who want to grow in team leadership, planning, coordination, mentoring, and delivery accountability
- Architecture / Technical Track for people who want to grow in system design, technical direction, architecture quality, and cross-team technical guidance
This ensures that strong engineers are not forced into people management in order to progress.
Core principle¶
Promotion is based on demonstrated readiness for the next level — not tenure alone, and not current-role performance alone.
Documentation structure¶
- Career Framework Overview — role definitions and promotion logic
- SFIA Comparison — how the framework aligns with SFIA and where it is company-specific
- Promotion Framework — guidance for leadership and managers
- Growth Handbook — practical guidance for employees building toward their target role