Implementing a career progression framework for software engineers

People are motivated to work by a range of factors, but one of the most important is career progression.

In fact, one-third (33%) of UK employees told a recent Investors In People employee sentiment poll they wanted to leave their job due to a lack of opportunity for progress.

For me, it is essential to provide my team with opportunities to grow, develop and take on more responsibility if they want it. I read this quote from Richard Branson years ago, and it sums it up perfectly for me.

“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to” — Sir Richard Branson

Other factors which influence retention are recognition, pay and the content of work. It’s not hard to see how a well-structured career progression framework can help with all of these.

I introduced a new framework at AppLearn, and would like to explain the journey, and where we ended up.

So I need to create a framework, right?

When considering a career progression framework, one approach would be to create your own.

There are downsides to this, not least the fact that creating a good progression framework is hard. It takes a lot of…