I watched a talented engineer spend 6 months gaming our career ladder.
They took on "visible" projects that checked promotion boxes. They avoided risky work that might not pan out. They lobbied stakeholders to say nice things in calibration meetings.
They got promoted to Senior Engineer.
But the work they did during that 6 months? Mediocre. Safe. Optimized for optics, not impact.
Our career ladder had turned into a game — and the winners were the best players, not the best engineers.
We threw it out. Here's what we built instead.
Section 1: The Career Ladder Problem
Career ladders were invented with good intentions.
The Original Intent:
Create clarity. "Here's what growth looks like. Here are the expectations at each level. Here's how to advance."
Reduce arbitrariness. "Promotions aren't about who your manager likes. They're about meeting objective criteria."
Enable self-direction. "You know what's expected. You can drive your own development."
These are noble goals. The problem is what happens when you operationalize them.
The Reality:
When you create a rubric, people optimize for the rubric.
The rubric becomes the goal. "What do I need to do to check these boxes?" replaces "What would be most impactful for the company?"
Impact becomes secondary. The engineer who does quiet, crucial work that doesn't fit the rubric gets passed over. The engineer who does visible, rubric-matching work gets promoted.
What We Selected For:
We thought we were promoting great engineers. We were actually promoting great rubric-matchers.
People who could:
- Identify what calibration committees valued
- Shape their work to match those expectations
- Narrate their contributions in rubric-friendly language
- Build relationships with the right stakeholders
These are political skills. They're not engineering skills. We were promoting politicians.
Section 2: Symptoms of a Gaming Culture
Once gaming starts, the symptoms are predictable.
Safe Projects Over Risky Impact:
Ambitious projects carry risk. They might fail. If they fail, there's nothing to put on your promotion packet.
Safe projects have guaranteed outcomes. They might not move the needle, but they ship. They're demonstrable. They check boxes.
When careers depend on rubric-matching, engineers choose safe over impactful. Innovation suffers.
Lobbying for Feedback:
Calibration decisions often rely on peer feedback. So engineers lobby for positive feedback.
"Hey, would you mind putting in a good word for me in calibrations?"
Feedback becomes currency. People hoard supporters. Honest feedback becomes risky — why give critical feedback and make an enemy?
The feedback loop that's supposed to drive growth becomes corrupted.
Title Obsession:
When we had 10 levels, every 1:1 included: "What do I need to do to get to the next level?"
Not: "How can I be more impactful?" Not: "What should I learn?" But: "How do I advance?"
The career conversation consumed what should have been growth conversations. Engineers thought about ladders, not learning.
Zero-Sum Collaboration:
In calibration meetings, promotions are often constrained. "We can promote 3 people this cycle."
This makes promotions zero-sum. If you get promoted, someone else doesn't.
Collaboration suffers. Why help a peer succeed when their success might come at your expense?
We saw teams that should have been collaborating become internally competitive. The ladder created adversaries.
Section 3: Alternatives That Work
If traditional career ladders create gaming, what's the alternative?
Impact-Based Compensation:
Instead of paying for titles, pay for demonstrated value.
What did this person accomplish in the last 6-12 months? What was the business impact? Compensate them accordingly, regardless of level.
This requires trusting managers to assess impact fairly. But you have to trust someone. The rubric doesn't eliminate judgment — it just hides it.
Fewer Levels:
10-level engineering ladders create 10 reasons to game the system.
3-4 levels create clarity: Junior, Mid, Senior, Principal/Staff. That's enough granularity. Each transition is meaningful. The time between promotions is longer, reducing the constant focus on advancement.
Fewer levels = less climbing = more building.
Transparent Comp Bands:
Make compensation bands public (at least internally). Remove the mystery.
When people know what they can earn at each level, they stop playing guessing games. Negotiation theater decreases. Perceived unfairness decreases.
Transparency reduces gaming because there's less hidden information to exploit.
Project-Based Recognition:
Celebrate outcomes, not promotions.
When someone ships something meaningful, recognize it publicly. Don't wait for the annual promotion cycle. Immediate recognition for immediate impact.
This shifts the social reward from "I got promoted" to "I shipped something important." Different behavior follows.
Section 4: Our New System
Here's what we built after throwing out the ladder.
Collapsed Levels:
We went from 10 levels to 4:
- Early Career (1-3 years experience)
- Career (3-7 years)
- Senior (7+ years or demonstrated senior-level impact)
- Principal (technical leadership across teams/org)
No more haggling over the difference between "Software Engineer II" and "Software Engineer III." Those distinctions were never meaningful anyway.
Quarterly Impact Reviews:
Every quarter, managers assess: "What did this person accomplish? What was the business impact?"
Compensation adjustments can happen quarterly, not annually. If someone has a blowout quarter, they see it in their paycheck.
This tightens the feedback loop between impact and reward.
No Calibration Horse-Trading:
We eliminated the calibration meeting where managers argue about whose people deserve promotions.
Instead, decisions are made by those closest to the work: the direct manager, with input from peers who actually collaborated.
This removes the "promotion as a limited resource" dynamic. If three people on a team all had massive impact, all three can be recognized. It's not zero-sum.
Results:
- Time spent on career conversations: Dropped 50%. People stopped obsessing about advancement.
- Risky project uptake: Increased 40%. Engineers were willing to try ambitious things.
- Tenure: Increased 25%. People stayed longer when they weren't frustrated by ladder-gaming.
- Manager burden: Decreased. Less time on promotion packets, more time on actual management.
Conclusion
Career ladders, like many corporate frameworks, solve one problem while creating others.
They create clarity but enable gaming. They reduce arbitrariness but create new forms of politics. They promise fairness but reward the politically savvy over the quietly impactful.
The alternative isn't chaos. It's simplicity: fewer levels, impact-based rewards, trust in managers, and celebrating outcomes over titles.
Your best engineers don't want to climb ladders. They want to build things that matter.
Make building more rewarding than climbing.
Written by XQA Team
Our team of experts delivers insights on technology, business, and design. We are dedicated to helping you build better products and scale your business.