Career ladders provide clarity and transparency to organizations. It’s clear that transparency is key to promote equality and inclusion. Everybody, not just women and minorities, benefits from clear evaluation and promotion procedures.
Creating a culture of equality is everyone’s responsibility. A career ladder will pave the way in that direction and will help reduce ambiguity, anxiety, and frustration in your team.
I found myself contributing to that effort recently, and it’s clear this is a challenging task. For this reason, I’m sharing a list of publicly available ladders that might be a good starting point for your organization. Keep in mind that although these might be a good source of inspiration, they might not be the best fit. Instead, you might want to work with your team to articulate what you both expect.
- progression.fyi: A collection of open source frameworks for helping designers and engineers.
- Medium
- CodeAcademy
- Etsy
- Kickstarter
I also recommend to read Camille Fournier’s The Manager’s Path. There is not only a section about writing a career ladder, but it’s also an illuminating collection of thoughts on managing teams.