Introduction

Interview with Tim Olshansky, EVP of Product & Engineering at Zenput on creating a software engineer career ladder for your own team.

This isn't a template you can just copy and paste, then forget it ever even existed. This is a guide to creating a meaningful engineering career ladder from Tim, who has been through it more than once.

In this interview we're covering:

• Building a software engineer career ladder at Zenput
• The first steps of building a career ladder
• People to involve in the process
• Key differences between the career levels
• The importance of experience in the career ladder
• The transition to engineering management
• The role of engineering leaders and managers in the career ladder
• Updating your engineering career ladder
• Common mistakes in creating software engineer career ladders

Excerpt from the interview:

"The first four levels of the engineering career ladder are about writing code. Engineers on these levels do their part in supporting their team too, but it isn’t their focus. As they move beyond the senior engineer level, supporting the team becomes their priority.

Either they choose engineering management and do one-on-ones, feedback sessions, and everything that comes with it, or they pick technical leadership, and help people make the right technology decisions.

They end up working with people on the highest levels either way."

Click here to read the full interview!