Career ladders

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A ladder you can see

A career ladder lists the levels of a job, from junior to senior and beyond, and what each level does. Everyone can see what the next step asks for.

Two tracks

GitLab: "Most important is the fork between purely technical work and managing teams." At senior level, people choose "whether they want to remain purely technical or pursue managing technical teams."

Quick check

At GitLab, how do staff engineers compare with engineering managers?

  1. Equal in base pay and standing
  2. Always lower
  3. Always higher
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Equal in base pay and standing

GitLab: they "are equivalent in terms of base compensation and prestige."

Levels describe impact

Each level says what the person changes, not how many hours they work. Junior: finishes tasks with help. Senior: leads a feature. Staff: improves how many teams work.

Place Priya

Priya designed the logging that all three game teams now use. Which level does that sound like?

  1. Staff: it changed how many teams work
  2. Junior
  3. Intern
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Staff: it changed how many teams work

Her work reached beyond her own team, which is what the staff level describes.

Try before you switch

GitLab says people interested in managing should "have opportunities to try it out prior to committing themselves." Remy lets a senior lead a small project for three months first.

Quick check

The only way to grow in a studio is to become a manager.

Show the answer

False

A technical track goes as high as the management one.

Fair promotions

Shard Garden reviews promotions twice a year, from a written case read by a panel, so a quiet person's work counts as much as a loud one's.

A share of what they build

The people building Shard Garden's games could also own a small part of the studio they are building.

Bolt says: Next: options for the team.

Fact-checked 12 October 2026