Career Ladder Inspiration · Engineering
Carta's engineering career framework
Engineering career ladder from Carta covering 6 competency areas across 5 levels from Software Engineer I to Staff Software Engineer. Based on their public engineering leveling guide.
Company Carta|Year 2026|Discipline Engineering|Tracks TBD|License
Scroll horizontally to explore all 5 levels
Clone this templateL2 - Software Engineer I | L3 - Software Engineer II | L4 - Senior Software Engineer I | L5 - Senior Software Engineer II | L6 - Staff Software Engineer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Skills Technical Mastery & Knowledge | Knows the basics of software engineering cold. Can independently solve tightly scoped tasks with some supervision. Understands their part of the business well. Learning rapidly while driving business impact. | Demonstrates mastery over the fundamentals of computer science. Comfortable implementing and shipping end-to-end features. Starting to understand the deeper problems in their part of the business. | Total mastery of foundational CS and software engineering concepts is taken as a given. Starts mentoring more junior engineers and pitching in on interviewing. Creates own work by understanding team problems and proposing solutions. | Expert in their part of the business. Has acquired all the technical and leadership skills needed to land a job at any top-tier tech company. Demonstrated technical breadth and depth. | Deep technical expert. Identifies and formalizes problems, devises solutions, leads implementation, and trains the rest of the organization. Knowledge, judgment, and understanding to work cross-functionally on roadmap decisions. |
Skills Impact & Scope | Impact on tasks. Delivers small, tightly scoped pieces of code. | Impact on features. Ships end-to-end features independently. | Impact on problems. Not just completing assigned work but creating own work by understanding team problems. First inflection point where leadership starts to feature as a defining requirement. | Impact on teams. Delivered multiple projects that move the needle for the team. Job becomes as much about exercising technical judgment as implementation. | Impact on the organization. Solves problems and delivers solutions that impact the engineering organization as a whole. Force multiplier for any project deployed on. Makes the entire engineering organization better. |
Skills Leadership & Mentorship | Learning level focused on producing value and deepening understanding of fundamentals. | Still primarily focused on delivering features, starting to understand deeper business problems. | Expected to start mentoring more junior engineers. Pitching in on interviewing. Creates own work rather than just completing assigned work. | Strong communicator and trusted mentor. Role-model for more junior engineers. Driver of best practices for hiring and interviewing. | Capable of mentoring anyone, including more senior counterparts, in particular areas of expertise. Self-directed in identifying, formalizing and solving problems. |
Skills Problem-Solving & Judgment | Can independently solve tightly scoped tasks with some supervision from more senior engineers. | Comfortable implementing and shipping end-to-end features. Starts to understand deeper problems in their part of the business. | Creates own work by understanding the problems the team faces and proposing, implementing, and delivering solutions. | Technical judgment is as important as implementation. Knows everything needed to be a professional software engineer. | Everything is self-directed: identifying and formalizing the problem, devising a solution, leading its implementation, and training the organization to leverage it. |
Skills Communication & Influence | Understands their part of the business well. | Masters fundamentals and starts to see business context for their work. | Leadership starts to feature as a defining requirement. Expected to guide others to deliver value. | Strong communicator. Trusted mentor. Role model. Driver of best practices. | Works cross-functionally with business and product partners to make decisions about business unit roadmap. Influences the engineering organization as a whole. |
Skills Career Ownership | Expected to progress out of level in about a year or two. | Expected to progress out of level within two years. | Expected to progress out of level in a few years. First level where creating own work is expected. | First terminal level. No longer a default expectation of promotion. Responsible for owning own career. Must demonstrate impact, not just skill. | Self-directed. Manager might occasionally point in the general direction of a project but everything after that is you. |
Framework by Carta · Licensed
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