How many levels should we have?

5-7 IC levels is typical for a company at $10M-$500M ARR. Below 5, the ladder is too coarse to differentiate meaningful growth. Above 7, the fine-grained levels become confusing and promotion cycles feel like death by 1000 papercuts.

When should we build a formal ladder?

Once you have 15-25 employees in a function — before that, informal leveling by the founding team is fine. Waiting past 50 people creates painful retrofitting where existing employees have to be re-leveled against a new framework.

Do we need different ladders per function?

Yes — engineering, product, design, sales, marketing, and CS each have distinct behavioral descriptors. Cross-function level alignment (Senior Engineer = Senior Designer = Senior PM) enables fair cross-function comp and mobility.

Career Ladder: Levels, Behavioral Descriptors

A career ladder documents what each role level means — scope, impact, and behaviors expected.

Career Ladder: The Framework That Turns 'When Do I Get Promoted?' Into a Real Answer

A career ladder is a documented framework describing what each level of each role means at your company — scope of work, expected impact, behaviors demonstrated, autonomy, and influence. It's the foundation on which offers, promotions, comp, and performance conversations rest. Without a ladder, promotions happen by advocacy (who your manager is), leveling drifts (this Senior would be Staff elsewhere), and career conversations become vibes-based negotiations rather than fact-based decisions.

The dual-track structure

Modern career ladders have two parallel tracks: (a) Individual Contributor (IC1-IC7 or similar) for people who deepen technical/functional expertise without managing. (b) Manager (M1-M4) for people who lead teams. Levels are aligned so that Staff IC = Manager, Principal = Senior Manager/Director, etc. Dual-track means senior ICs can grow in scope and comp without being forced into people management. Without it, every ambitious IC eventually becomes a bad manager or leaves.

Behavioral descriptors per level

Each level needs specific behavioral descriptors across 4-6 dimensions: scope, complexity, autonomy, impact, communication, mentorship. Not 'better engineering' but 'leads architecture for a system spanning 3+ teams' or 'ships features requiring cross-team coordination without escalation.' Descriptors should be observable — you should be able to point to specific evidence when placing someone at a level.

The promotion process

Standard cadence: promotions happen 1-2x per year in a calibration cycle where managers present cases for their people to a cross-functional panel (peer managers, functional leaders). The panel checks each case against the ladder to ensure consistency across teams. Panels reject cases where evidence doesn't clearly meet the next level — 'we think they will get there' is not enough. Promotions handled 1:1 between an employee and their manager without calibration produce inconsistent leveling within 6-12 months.

The 'operating at level' concept

Promotion typically requires demonstrating you already operate at the next level for a sustained period (often 6+ months) — not that you might grow into it. This prevents promotion-by-potential (which correlates with demographics in ways that harm underrepresented groups) and grounds promotion decisions in evidence. It also means growth conversations happen well before the calibration cycle, so employees know what to work on.

Publishing the ladder

The ladder should be internally public — every employee sees every level's descriptors. Some companies publish externally as a recruiting artifact (Buffer, GitLab, CircleCI, Fabric all have public ladders that are worth studying). Private ladders create suspicion; public ladders create clarity. External publishing has recruiting benefits (candidates self-select) at some cost of easier competitive poaching.

Frequently asked questions

How many levels should we have?: 5-7 IC levels is typical for a company at $10M-$500M ARR. Below 5, the ladder is too coarse to differentiate meaningful growth. Above 7, the fine-grained levels become confusing and promotion cycles feel like death by 1000 papercuts.
When should we build a formal ladder?: Once you have 15-25 employees in a function — before that, informal leveling by the founding team is fine. Waiting past 50 people creates painful retrofitting where existing employees have to be re-leveled against a new framework.
Do we need different ladders per function?: Yes — engineering, product, design, sales, marketing, and CS each have distinct behavioral descriptors. Cross-function level alignment (Senior Engineer = Senior Designer = Senior PM) enables fair cross-function comp and mobility.