A framework per department, one shape for all
Each department owns its framework — drafted, edited by the people you assign, then published — but every framework uses the same building blocks: tracks, levels, roles and skills.
For tech companies
A career framework for growing tech companies
Keep levels, promotion criteria and salary ranges consistent across engineering, product, design and every other department — and use them in the check-ins people actually have.
Free plan · No credit card required
Sounds familiar?
What breaks between 50 and 200 people
Every department invented its own levels
Engineering has five levels, sales has three, and design has titles nobody can compare. Two people doing similar work get different outcomes depending on which manager writes the promotion case.
The only way up is management
Strong engineers and designers become reluctant managers because there is no individual-contributor track, or it stops too early.
Salary bands live apart from the levels
Pay is set at the offer and drifts from there. Nobody can say which range belongs to which role, so every pay review starts from scratch.
Check-ins don't reference any expectations
Managers run reviews from memory and a blank document, so feedback is hard to compare and hard to act on.
How LadderKit helps
One career structure across every department
Shared building blocks, owned by each department, and used in the conversations that matter.
Individual-contributor and manager tracks side by side
Build parallel tracks inside a department, so growing doesn't require managing people. See who holds each role on each level.
Promotion criteria written down once
Set the level each role expects for every skill in a skills matrix. The same grid is the bar in every team and every promotion case.
Salary ranges attached to roles
Add one or more salary ranges to each role, per currency and location, and export any role as a PDF with its required skills and pay.
Check-ins that start from the expectations
Every check-in is pre-filled with the skills the person's role requires and the level expected, so both sides rate against the framework, not against memory.
In practice
How tech companies roll it out
Bringing three departments onto one structure
- Month 1The CTO publishes the engineering framework first and makes the heads of product and design editors of their own departments' frameworks.
- Month 2Product and design draft their tracks and skills in the same shape. The leadership team compares levels across departments before anything is published.
- Month 3Salary ranges are attached to each role, so hiring offers and pay reviews start from the role rather than from the last offer someone remembers.
A promotion round that holds up across teams
- Before the roundEvery candidate has a completed check-in against their role's expected skill levels, with a PDF summary.
- ProposalsManagers propose promotions with a written rationale, and each proposal goes to someone above the person who raised it.
- DecisionsDeciders open each person's talent profile: ratings over time, skill-by-skill movement between check-ins, growth actions and feedback.
- Effective dateApproved promotions change the person's role on the agreed date, and the reasoning stays with the decision.
Templates
Templates for a company with several departments
Start each department from its own ladder, then keep the structure consistent across all of them.
Engineering
Software Engineer
Five levels from Junior to Principal, across six competencies from shipping code to growing the team.
- 5 levels
- 6 competencies
Engineering
Engineering Manager
Four levels from Engineering Manager to VP of Engineering, across six management competencies.
- 4 levels
- 6 competencies
Engineering
DevOps Engineer
Four levels from Junior to Staff DevOps Engineer, across six competencies from infrastructure to developer enablement.
- 4 levels
- 6 competencies
Engineering
QA Engineer
Four levels from Junior QA to Lead QA Engineer, across six competencies from test design to quality practices.
- 4 levels
- 6 competencies
Product
Product Manager
Five levels from Associate PM to Head of Product, across six competencies from discovery to product strategy.
- 5 levels
- 6 competencies
Data and analytics
Data Analyst
Five levels from Junior to Principal Analyst, across seven competencies from framing questions to changing decisions.
- 5 levels
- 7 competencies
Pricing
Pricing for a company with several departments
Plans are priced per organisation, not per seat. Growth is €299 a month for up to 80 people and up to 10 career frameworks; Scale is €499 a month for any number of people and unlimited career frameworks.
Every core feature is on every plan. Paid plans add two things: on Starter, Growth and Scale, notifications can reach people in Slack instead of by email, and on Starter, Growth and Scale, an admin can require Google or Microsoft sign-in for the whole organisation.
Free
€0/month
For small teams putting career levels in writing for the first time.
- Up to 10 people
- 1 career framework
- Every core feature
Starter
€149/month
For growing teams ready to formalise their career paths.
- Up to 35 people
- Up to 5 career frameworks
- Every core feature
- Slack notifications
- Option to require Google or Microsoft sign-in
Most popular
Growth
€299/month
For scaling companies with several teams and departments.
- Up to 80 people
- Up to 10 career frameworks
- Every core feature
- Slack notifications
- Option to require Google or Microsoft sign-in
Scale
€499/month
For larger organisations that need room to grow.
- Unlimited people
- Unlimited career frameworks
- Every core feature
- Slack notifications
- Option to require Google or Microsoft sign-in
Every core feature is on every plan. Paid plans add Slack notifications and the option to require Google or Microsoft sign-in; otherwise you pay for plan size — people and career frameworks.
FAQ
Common questions
Can each department have its own career ladder?
Yes. Every department gets its own career framework with its own tracks, levels, roles and skills, edited by the people you assign and published when it is ready. The building blocks are the same everywhere, so every department describes its levels in the same terms, and leadership can line them up side by side.
Can we run individual-contributor and manager tracks in parallel?
Yes. A department can hold several tracks side by side — for example an individual-contributor track and a management track — each with its own roles and levels.
How do salary ranges connect to levels?
Ranges are attached to roles, and roles sit on levels within a track. A role can carry several ranges, per currency and location, and its PDF shows them next to the required skills.
Who can see salary ranges?
Everyone in your organisation — if you add them, since ranges are optional. In the app they appear on each role beside the people in it; the role's PDF carries the ranges but not the people. Changing them is up to admins and the department's editors. Not ready for pay transparency? Leave them out for now.
How do we keep promotion decisions consistent across teams?
Use one skills matrix per framework as the reference for both check-ins and promotion cases. Promotions are proposed with a written rationale and decided by someone above the person who proposed them, so cases can be compared side by side.
We already keep our levels in spreadsheets. Can we bring them in?
There is no automatic import: you rebuild each framework in LadderKit by hand. Most teams use that as the moment to drop the levels and skills nobody actually uses.
Further reading
- Career ladders
Dual career ladder: individual contributor vs management track
How to run an individual-contributor track next to a management track: where the two diverge, how to line up their levels, and how people move between them without losing ground.
Updated 1 October 2026
- Career ladders
Career ladder vs career framework vs competency matrix: what is the difference?
Five terms that get used interchangeably — career ladder, career framework, competency matrix, job level and grade — untangled, with one department worked through end to end.
Updated 1 October 2026
Put every department on one career structure
Start free: build your first department's framework and pilot it with one team, then choose Growth or Scale for the rollout.
Free plan · No credit card required