Your Startup Probably Doesn't Need a Career Framework
This is a topic I’ve changed my mind on. I used to believe that having a defined career ladder at an early stage startup demonstrated a people-first culture and a focus on growth and development. While that may be the intention, it is rarely the outcome. I’ve also come to believe that not having a career development framework can, as an employee, often be more desirable and advantageous.
Below I dig into:
Why career frameworks don’t work at early stage startups
Why people want them
Why not having a framework can be advantageous
What is important
How to think about your career progression in the context of frameworks
Note: I’m defining early stage here as pre-early PMF, no-low revenue and <100 employees.
Why career frameworks don’t work at early stage startups
Some startups are founded by early 20-somethings with limited work experience. Others are founded by those who have never worked in tech. Others by people whose background is exclusively corporate. Others by people who have no interest in figuring out the people side of the business. You get the gist. Many startups are founded by people who have no idea what good looks like for each role they will be hiring for. Many don’t even know which roles they should be considering filling at this stage and the next phase of growth. This is often the case for people managers within early stage startups also. This in itself isn’t a red flag. Many great companies have been founded by people who fit these profiles. However, it does mean that any career framework developed at an early stage is likely not reflective of what is required for the company to succeed. This is because 1) the people drafting the framework don’t yet know the roles (and sometimes the strategy) required to get to the next phase of growth and 2) startups are by their nature ambiguous entities where the work that needs to be done at any given time doesn’t always neatly map to a predefined role/level. That latter point is part of the fun and benefit of working at an early stage company.
Why people want frameworks
If we’re all agreed that startups in the early stage of product market fit are inherently ambiguous, and should ideally be focussed on finding repeatable growth before they focus too deeply on other matters, then why do people want career frameworks to be created?
For employees, having a career framework in an early stage company in a certain way offers a sense of comfort. It provides a sense that there is a known path ahead. That the people at the helm of the ship know what they are doing and what they need from the people doing the doing. It can fuel a belief that the startup is a utopic meritocracy, where performance is evaluated objectively.
As an employee, it can offer the illusion of control in an otherwise chaotic environment (X is what good looks like and if I do it I will surely be promoted!). It also resonates with an internalised view that many of us developed in school. We spent years being conditioned to believe that success is a good grade (rating) and access to the next year (level). Nick deWilde writes about this in his excellent article, Don’t let HR determine your career ambition:
The people who are most susceptible to these reward systems tend to be those who excelled in school. These star students enter the messy world of adulthood and yearn for a clear rubric they can follow to achieve some socially acceptable form of success. When HR comes up with a fancy compensation framework, they’re all too easily seduced to compete for the valedictorian spot.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to have a defined career path. However, if this factor is important to you then joining an early stage startup is likely not a good fit.
Why not having a framework can be advantageous
If you’re a less motivated employee then not having a framework to be benchmarked against can definitely work to your advantage. As long as you aren’t doing anything too detrimental to the company’s wellbeing then you may be able to get by with coasting for years before anyone notices that you’re not performing optimally in your role.
If you’re an ambitious employee not having a framework can also work in your favour. You won’t be locked into set promotion cycles. You can try to accelerate uplevelling (assuming this is something your company is open too). Equally, as there are no defined lanes for you to operate it, you can expand the scope of your role to suit your interests, ideally aligning with what the company needs, without need to go through a formal review process.
What is important
Generally speaking I think career development frameworks are a good thing when introduced at the right stage in the business i.e. when the organisation has established initial PMF, is on a scaling growth trajectory and is hiring many people into similar roles at a regular cadence. Before then, creating a rubric often results in pointless bureaucracy. As an organisation, it’s difficult to know what roles to hire for, and the right levelling for each of these, when you’re still trying to figure out what problem you're solving. Additionally, it’s rare (although not impossible) for people’s careers to grow in a business that isn’t growing. These are the fundamentals that need to be in place before a career framework can be meaningful.
That said, I strongly believe if you are an organisation that is hiring people, you have a responsibility to treat those people fairly, and to have given some degree of thought to how the environment you’re creating will impact their careers. When hiring, there are are 5 key points which even the most nascent of startups should consider:
What does success look like in this role? i.e. why are we hiring them and what do we expect them to tangibly deliver
What level of seniority do we need? i.e. what level of autonomy do we expect, and what is the ratio of strategy (thinking) vs operations (doing) required?
What should their job title be given their level of seniority? i.e. ensure there is consistently across similar seniority levels (associate, lead, VP, etc) in teams across the company
Where does this role fit, relative to other roles/teams in the current organisation? i.e. are they structurally set up for success?
What is the market rate for this role and how does it compare with what we’re paying others in the company? i.e. establish compensation benchmarking and guidelines for hiring managers to reduce risks of bias, even if you can’t pay market rates yet.
These questions can effectively act as an MVP framework, without the prescriptive overlay that frequently doesn’t make sense at such an early stage.
How to think about your career progression in the context of frameworks
Firstly, if you work in an organisation that has a career framework start by 1) deciding if you agree with the contents of the framework i.e are the expectations valid and in line with industry norms given your role and 2) figuring out to what degree it is used to make promotion decisions in the company i.e. is it actively referenced or is it a doc you and your manager only look at during performance reviews. This is what I refer to as bullsh*t baselining. Once you’ve figured out the degree to which the framework you’ve been assigned is nonsensical (and hey maybe it’s not!) then you can decide how you want to shape your career around it.
If you come to find that the framework is lacking, or if you work in a company that doesn’t offer one, then I highly recommend not wasting your emotional energy complaining about this or expecting HR/your hiring manager to improve it. They might or they might not. If they do, it will likely take some time (it’s a mammoth task) and the answers may not be what you were hoping for. Either way, don’t let that affect you. Nobody will care about your career as much as you do. Figure out what direction you want your career to progress into. Then, figure out the skills, experiences and advocates you’ll need to help you get to the next phase of your career. There are a lot of great open-sourced career frameworks available (e.g. progression.fyi) that will provide an overview of the skills you need. Speak to people in your desired roles too. Build your network. Ultimately, you need people to be bought into you being the right person for the promotion / new role that you’re aiming towards. That decision will rarely be made due to fulfilling all the criteria of a rubric. Showcase the work you’ve been doing both within the company and externally. Let people know, especially your manager, what role you want to work towards. Build the relationships that will help you secure your next position. Unfortunately, merit alone will rarely get you the role. You need people who will advocate for you when you’re not in the room.
In the meantime, by all means tick the boxes that need ticking on your existing framework to help build your case to get promoted to the next level, assuming that is something you care about. Just remember, the aim should be to build a career and a life that is aligned with your personal definition of success, not to complete the steps of someone else’s framework/ladder.