Over the past decade Engineering Growth Frameworks (EGFs), sometimes known as level guides or skills rubrics, have become a staple of high-performing software engineering teams. If you haven’t come across them yet, it's essentially a guide that outlines the expectations of the role at each career stage (Junior to Senior to Head of Engineering).  

We love them for a few reasons. They drive accountability and fast capability uplift or cultural shifts in our teams. They improve engagement by giving our engineers a clear pathway to promotion and growth. They allow for consistent and objective performance reviews and promotion calibrations. 

When and how they evolve inside organizations is always interesting to me. It tends to follow very similar patterns, and ultimately repeatable processes. I love to geek out over good technical practices and processes that help our teams move faster, and as such, often find myself in Engineering Operations or Tech Practice Lead roles. This means I have been at the center of creating many Engineering Growth Frameworks over my decades-long career in tech.  In this series I want to share what I have learned about creating, rolling out and maintaining good EGFs that truly help shift cultures and improve technical excellence. 

When Companies adopt Engineering Growth Frameworks

Companies go through stages of maturity in regards to their hiring, performance and promotion processes:  

‍Company stage: Startup - Incubation

Performance evaluation process: “gut feel” conversation.

Overview and challenges: 

Hiring and performance is done via vibe-based assessment. There is usually a single line-manager for the whole engineering team. They work closely with the team on the tools, so require little evidence of performance or a need to calibrate. People are just happy to be part of the culture, and are intrinsically motivated. 

Company stage: Startup - Later stage

Performance evaluation process: Tick-the-box skill-level matrix.

Overview and challenges: 

Hiring and performance is done via vibe-based assessment. A single line-manager for the whole engineering team. Works closely with the team, so requires little evidence of performance or a need to calibrate. People are just happy to be part of the culture, and are intrinsically motivated. 

Company stage: Scale-up

Performance evaluation process: EGF in spreadsheets, built in house.

Overview and challenges: 

People are becoming unhappy with the supposed random nature of promotions, and want to understand what career progression looks like for them. Engagement and retention of the engineering team are becoming a concern, as the Startup culture slowly fades away. New skills for scale are required, meaning a resetting of job performance and expectations for which the EGF is deployed. 

Company stage: Small-Medium Enterprise +

Performance evaluation process: Career Growth Experience on HR SaaS  

Overview and challenges: 

Job architectures and career ladders are clearly defined by People & Culture professionals and transparently accessible to all. Software platforms are in place to enable data collection and drive consistent and objective hiring, performance evaluation and promotion. Companies start to see the benefit of diverse teams enabled through data driven decision making. 

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This series focuses on Stage 3:

Building Engineering Growth Frameworks in house for scaleup-stage engineering teams

This generally begins with one very passionate engineer (me, at several workplaces) who is feeling the friction and frustration with the current solution and has seen it done better elsewhere. The HR-imposed performance review system is meaningless to the tech team and feels like nothing more than an admin nightmare. They know they can do better, and embark on the creation of an in-house solution. 

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Common mistakes and misconceptions 

1. This will be relatively quick and easy to write and roll-out: I’m an engineer, I know how to get sh*t done. 
2. I can just use an open sourced EGF I found online.
3. I require no more than my skills as a Senior Engineer and Engineering Manager to do this.
4. People will happily adopt this and use it consistently. 

In order to do this well, you need to cover all of the following steps:

1. Clearly define your measure of success for the EGF 
2. Engage the right stakeholders and take them along for the journey 
3. Create a structure for your EGF, and write the content collaboratively  
4. Roll out with robust change management practices 
5. BONUS: Enable data collection and feedback loops (nobody gets here!)

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Defining your Measures of Success

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To debunk one of the first misconceptions early, creating an EGF is hard! It seems easy from the outset, but when you get into the details, it can quickly become an inconsistent mess that is worse than whatever HR process you are trying to replace. Knowing what your goals are gives you something to refer back to in moments of indecision or confusion. 

Goals generally center around making performance processes fairer for Engineers and easier for their Managers. Some common goals you may have for your Engineering Growth Framework: 

1. It’s clear to engineers at all levels what it means to be meeting expectations of the role. 
2. Performance expectations are the same for every engineer. 
3. People are evaluated for promotion on an even playing field. 
4. Contributions to glue work are being recognised and rewarded. 
5. All Engineering Managers are giving consistent career advice and support to their direct reports. 
6. Women and underrepresented minorities are promoted at the same rate as men. 
7. Uplift capability in specific skills for scale we are lacking. 
8. When an engineer changes teams or gets a new manager, they don’t have to reset their path to promotion. 
9. Engineering managers have a reference and guidelines to helping people set goals for performance and growth.  

If you know why you are doing it, you can course correct when things go sideways. These are your guardrails for delivery. 

State your goals clearly, and publish them somewhere internally. Not only does it help keep you on track, it sets you up for the next step: Engage the right stakeholders and take them along for the journey.

Keep an eye out each week as we publish a blog on each of these steps:

Part 2: Engage the right stakeholders

Part 3: Create a structure for your EGF

Part 4: Write the content collaboratively

Part 5: Roll out with robust change management practices 

BONUS: Enable data collection and feedback loops 

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