Career Ladder

A Founder’s Dilemma: Choosing Between Technology and Customers

This article discusses the importance of understanding customer needs and not getting too caught up in the technical details of building a product. It emphasizes the need for founders to become emotionally detached from their products and to talk to other founders and get an advisor to help them prioritize their priorities. Ultimately, the goal is to build something that customers are looking for and to focus on customer needs rather than the latest technology.

Becoming a manager is not a promotion

A direct report asked for a promotion to a managerial position, but the manager had doubts about whether the employee would be happy in that role. Through one-on-one conversations, the manager discovered that the employee was not interested in company politics and would not be satisfied in a managerial role. This experience taught the manager that it is important to provide engineers with growth opportunities beyond a linear path leading to management.

Conscious Career Growth

This article discusses the journey of a software engineer who found themselves in a flat hierarchy and had to forge their own path for growth. Through self-awareness and introspection, they identified areas to improve, such as engineering processes, tech debt, and testing. They also took on advocacy roles, leading cross-functional projects and teams, and increasing their interpersonal skills. The article emphasizes the importance of understanding what matters to you and setting goals to achieve it.

Three Goals To Consider When Building a Career Ladder

The CTO of a company with forty people in the R&D department introduced a formal career ladder to provide engineers with a vision for their future, justify salary increases, and provide a clear sense of understanding of their mission. The process strengthened employees' engagement with the company, and the key challenge was to encompass the diversity of roles and responsibilities with one title. Assessing core skills and competencies was included in monthly one-on-ones to help employees progress on their career path.

What to Do When Candidates Turn Down Your Job Offer

Candidates are increasingly turning down job offers, even from top multinational technology companies. This could be due to employers not doing enough to pitch their company to candidates during the interview process. To resolve this, employers should create a framework of training for interviewers to ensure they spend time talking about the company's mission and vision, and how the role fits into the candidate's career goals. Additionally, employers should advocate for their brand, speak up about their Glassdoor job ratings, and instill a high amount of confidence in potential employees.

Setting Up Clear Career Paths

In the Fall of 2017, a career ladder was designed to provide two distinct paths for both managers and technical employees that were equivalent in terms of respect, authority, and compensation. The process of writing the descriptions, getting feedback, and addressing individual feedback took some time, but the feedback was positive and the introduction of a career path took about three months to roll out.