career-ladder-author
Build-an-X workflow that designs a QA career ladder - parallel individual-contributor and management tracks, per-level criteria across consistent axes, and observable promotion evidence per level - modeled on public engineering career frameworks (the Dropbox Engineering Career Framework, which includes Quality Engineer and SDET roles) and the career-development guidance in Camille Fournier's The Manager's Path (ISBN 978-1491973899). Distinct from `skill-matrix-author` (a sibling that maps the team's capability today; the ladder defines what each level looks like over a career), from `hiring-rubric-author` in qa-hiring (scores external candidates against one role, not progression across levels), and from `performance-feedback-author` (a sibling producing feedback on one person's recent work; the ladder is the structure that feedback points at). Use when a QA org needs leveling criteria - before promotion season, during compensation banding, or when senior testers ask what comes next besides management.
career-ladder-author
Overview
Without a written ladder, promotions ride on tenure and advocacy, and the answer to "what do I need to do to get promoted?" changes per manager. A career ladder fixes that by defining, per level, the expected scope and the observable evidence that someone already operates at it.
The reference shape comes from public engineering frameworks. The Dropbox Engineering Career Framework (fetched 2026-06-10) defines an IC track (IC1 - IC7) and a management track (M3 - M7), explicitly includes Quality Engineer and SDET among its IC roles, evaluates each level on the pillars Results, Direction, Talent, Culture, Craft, and states that "Level Expectations define the scope, collaborative reach, and levers for impact at every level." Dozens of other public frameworks (GitLab, Spotify, Square, Etsy) are indexed at progression.fyi (fetched 2026-06-10), which collects 75 public and open-source career frameworks; study 2 - 3 before drafting, then adapt to QA-specific craft.
For the management track and the dual-ladder split, the canonical practitioner reference is Camille Fournier, The Manager's Path (O'Reilly, 2017, ISBN 978-1491973899), whose "Managing People" chapter treats career cultivation ("Cultivating Careers") as a distinct management duty rather than a side effect of reviews.
When to use
Do not use this skill to:
Step 1 - Capture the inputs
| Input | Notes |
|---|---|
| Org size and shape | Number of QA ICs, existing titles, whether QA reports into engineering or stands alone |
| Role families | Which QA roles the ladder must cover: manual/exploratory QA, automation engineer, SDET, and whether they share one ladder or get role-specific craft criteria |
| Adjacent ladders | The engineering ladder, if one exists; QA levels should be calibration-equivalent to engineering levels, or transfer and compensation break |
| 2 - 3 reference frameworks | Fetched from progression.fyi or directly (e.g., Dropbox); note what you adopt and what you reject |
Step 2 - Fix the track structure
Decide three structural facts before writing any criteria:
Step 3 - Write per-level criteria with observable promotion evidence
Each level gets: a scope sentence, per-axis criteria, and an evidence list stating what an existing-at-this-level person has already done. Promotion is recognition of demonstrated scope, not potential. Worked example for one mid-ladder level:
## QA-IC3 - Senior QA Engineer
**Scope:** Owns quality for a product area end to end; trusted to make test-approach
decisions inside that area without review.
| Axis | Expectation |
|---|---|
| Results | Ships the test approach for area-sized features; escapes in the owned area trend down or stay at the team floor |
| Direction | Writes the test-strategy section for their area; flags risk trade-offs to the lead before they become escapes |
| Talent | Onboards new testers onto the area; gives review feedback that changes what others ship |
| Culture | Raises quality concerns outside their lane through the right channel, with evidence |
| Craft | Designs tests across at least two test levels; automation contributions reviewed without rework loops |
**Observable promotion evidence (from work already done at IC2):**
- Authored the test approach for >=2 area-sized deliveries, including one with a
documented risk trade-off the team followed.
- A defect-escape or incident retro where their analysis changed team practice.
- Review comments on others' test code that produced concrete changes (linkable PRs).
- Onboarded >=1 tester onto the area, with the onboardee shipping independently after.
**Explicitly not evidence:** time in level; volume of test cases executed;
certifications alone; being the only person who knows a system (that is a
bus-factor problem, not seniority).The "not evidence" block per level is what keeps the ladder honest at promotion time.
Step 4 - Write the management track as a role change
Management levels (QA-M1 lead, QA-M2 manager, QA-M3 head/director or per the org's grid) get the same axis treatment, with Craft partially replaced by people and process responsibilities: hiring (hand off to the qa-hiring chain), 1:1s and growth (tester-one-on-one-planner), feedback and reviews (performance-feedback-author), capability planning (skill-matrix-author). The Manager's Path (ISBN 978-1491973899) sequences these duties chapter by chapter (mentoring, then tech lead, then managing people, then managing a team) and is the calibration reference for what each management level actually does day to day.
State the transfer rule explicitly: moving IC->M or M->IC at equivalent level is a lateral move, not a promotion or demotion. Frameworks that omit this quietly re-create the management-only ceiling.
Step 5 - Document the anti-patterns the ladder forbids
Ship the ladder with its failure modes named, so calibration meetings can cite them:
| Anti-pattern | Why it fails | Ladder counter-rule |
|---|---|---|
| Tenure-based promotion | Years in seat measure exposure, not scope; it levels the patient, not the capable | Evidence lists contain artifacts only; time-in-level appears in every "not evidence" block |
| Promotion as retention counter-offer | Levels the loudest resignation threat; corrodes every honest case | Promotions only in calibration cycles, against the written evidence list |
| Management as the only senior path | Loses the best ICs to other orgs or converts them into reluctant managers | Dual track with stated IC ceiling >= management ceiling (Dropbox runs IC to IC7 vs M to M7 - dbx-career-framework) |
| Hero-based leveling | Rewards being the single point of failure | "Not evidence" blocks exclude sole-keeper-of-knowledge; Talent axis rewards spreading it |
| Criteria written as adjectives ("strong", "excellent") | Unfalsifiable; calibration becomes adjective arbitration | Every criterion phrased as an observable with a linkable artifact |
| Copying a big-tech ladder verbatim | A 7-level framework in a 10-person org creates empty levels and inflation | Step 2 sizes the level count to the org |