Engineering Levels

Engineering titles vary wildly between organisations. Rather than relying solely on job ladders, I encourage engineers and managers to anchor growth conversations in observable skills and outcomes. Over the years I’ve coached dozens of people through promotions and transitions. The patterns below summarise what tends to distinguish four broad stages: Junior, Mid, Senior, and Beyond.

Think of these stages as a coaching framework rather than a rigid hierarchy. Each is shaped by a dominant force - what tends to occupy most of the engineer’s attention - and a primary goal that should help unlock the next phase.

Junior

Dominant force: learning
Primary goal: independence

Junior engineers are building foundations. They’re mastering tools, understanding development processes, and translating theory into practice. They benefit from close support on topics such as release procedures, testing, observability, and safe deployment.

Typical expectations:

• Work on small, well-defined tasks with clear boundaries.
• Receive guidance on debugging, logging, and troubleshooting production issues.
• Learn the fundamentals of communication and collaboration, even if those skills come later.

With consistent feedback and opportunities to practise, most engineers grow out of this stage within a year or two. When they consistently pick up work, deliver it safely, and no longer require day-to-day supervision, they’re ready for the next step.

Mid

Dominant force: competence
Primary goal: temperance

Mid-level engineers have enough skill to work independently, even on projects lasting a few months. Their growth challenge is learning when not to exercise every capability they possess. Temperance balances their competence with context.

Common growth patterns:

• The confident builder. These engineers enjoy ambitious solutions. They may over-engineer or struggle to finish because they’re chasing the “perfect” implementation. Pair them with real customers, give them clear ownership of a bounded system, and encourage them to feel the impact of their choices. Responsibility often sharpens focus on value.
• The diligent grinder. Others cope with uncertainty by working longer hours or picking up more tasks. They excel at getting things done but hesitate to take on ambiguous or strategic challenges. Support them with projects that require design thinking, stakeholder collaboration, or technical planning so they can experience success beyond sheer effort.
• The under committer. Some engineers, satisfied with their competence will happily remain at the mid-level forever, only delivering what is necessary, on time and complete. If someone really doesn’t want to grow you can’t force them, but I think it’s a good idea to push and challenge these individuals - they won’t know how rewarding further growth can be until they try it.

Regardless of the archetype, the goal is to connect their technical competence to user outcomes. When mid-level engineers can scope work, make trade-offs, and deliver value without supervision, they’re approaching senior territory.

Senior

Dominant force: experience
Primary goal: breadth or depth

Senior engineers have mastered both the “how” and the “why.” They navigate risk thoughtfully, break down large initiatives, and influence the behaviour of the teams around them. They are often the people you trust with six-month plus projects or ownership of critical systems.

Coaching at this stage becomes more tailored. Common areas of focus include:

• Expanding perspective. Encourage seniors to explore either breadth (new domains, different business contexts, cross-functional collaboration) or depth (specialised expertise in a technology or problem space). If they don’t know where to specialise then breadth is the way to go.
• Staying outcome-oriented. Even experienced engineers can slip into solving interesting problems that don’t move the needle. Help them stay connected to users, data, and business goals. Help them understand and teach them how to keep track of results.
• Challenging assumptions. Titles sometimes arrive before mindset. If someone seems as if they were promoted too soon, revisit foundational ideas: collaboration with design and product, the value of incremental change, and humility to learn from every discipline.

Seniors often act as multipliers - mentoring others, shaping architecture, and setting cultural norms. They still benefit from coaching, but typically need a partner to think with, not detailed direction.

For managers it’s very important to pay attention to problems with your seniors, for example things like: overworking; harsh code reviews; negativity and burnout; inflexibility. If you aren’t keeping an eye on these things and dealing with them one-on-one as they are happening, these attitudes and behaviours can very quickly spread across the team and bring everyone down.

Beyond Senior

Dominant force: creating value
Primary goal: creating value

Beyond senior is less about title and more about scope. Staff engineers, principal engineers, managers, architects, founders, and coaches all live here. They’ve internalised the craft and motivation of engineering and now define success by the value they create for customers, teammates, and the organisation.

Work at this level is largely self-directed. Individuals choose whether to specialise deeply, lead teams, start companies, or focus on strategy. What they universally need most is context, trust, a sounding board, and often a debate partner. What else they specifically need will greatly depend on your organisation.

Putting it into practice

Understanding these stages helps managers align expectations and helps engineers take ownership of their growth. If you find yourself or someone you coach feeling stuck, identify the dominant force at play and ask what goal would make the next step possible. From there you can craft experiences, feedback, and opportunities that encourage progress.

Careers rarely progress in straight lines, and that’s okay. With clear intent, supportive coaching, and a focus on delivering value to users, most engineers should be able to reach senior within a decade pretty comfortably.

Going beyond often requires an intentional decision to sometimes prioritise career over other parts of life, which many engineers will have no interest in doing. And that’s okay. To each their own!