Product Engineering Career Framework

Introduction

Each level builds upon the expectations of previous levels
Engineers should demonstrate consistent performance at their level before promotion
The framework allows for individual growth paths (individual contributor vs people management tracks)
Impact and scope increase with each level

What is important to Safety?

Technical Excellence
Ownership & Impact
Leadership & Communication
Innovation & Problem Solving
Product & Customer Focus

Individual Contributor Track

Level	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6	Level 7
	Junior Software Engineer	Mid Software Engineer	Senior Software Engineer	Senior Software Engineer II	Staff Software Engineer	Principal Software Engineer	Distinguished Engineer
Technical Excellence	- Learns fundamental programming concepts and best practices

Writes clean, documented code following team standards | - Applies established patterns and practices effectively
Implements maintainable solutions and meaningful tests | - Demonstrates strong technical judgment and system design capabilities
Establishes best practices and improves code quality standards | - Architects complex systems and makes sound technical trade-offs
Drives engineering excellence initiatives across multiple teams | - Provides technical vision and influences architectural decisions across teams
Defines and evolves engineering standards at organization level | - Drives technical strategy and innovation at company level
Shapes technical excellence culture company-wide | - Shapes technical direction of the industry through pioneering innovations and thought leadership | | Ownership & Impact | - Owns small, well-defined tasks
Delivers assigned tasks that contribute to team goals | - Owns features end-to-end
Understands and considers business impact in technical decisions | - Owns medium-sized projects and their outcomes
Proactively identifies and delivers high-impact work | - Owns major initiatives across multiple teams
Drives initiatives that significantly impact business metrics | - Owns critical company-wide technical initiatives
Influences product strategy through technical leadership | - Owns strategic technical direction of the company
Shapes company strategy and creates new business opportunities | - Creates new technical paradigms that open unprecedented business opportunities | | Leadership & Communication | - Seeks and acts on feedback effectively
Clearly communicates status and asks for help when needed | - Begins mentoring new team members
Effectively collaborates within immediate team | - Actively mentors engineers and leads by example
Facilitates technical discussions and cross-team collaboration | - Develops senior engineers and improves team processes
Drives alignment across multiple teams and stakeholders- | - Grows technical leaders and shapes team culture
Influences organization-wide technical decisions | - Develops next generation of technical leadership
Represents company technically to external audience | - Builds and influences the next generation of technical leaders across the industry | | Innovation & Problem Solving | - Learns and applies existing solutions
Solves well-scoped problems with guidance | - Suggests improvements to existing systems
Independently solves moderate technical challenges | - Designs innovative solutions to complex problems
Resolves complex technical issues with minimal guidance | - Drives adoption of new technologies and approaches
Makes high-quality decisions with broad impact | - Pioneers new technical directions and architectures
Tackles ambiguous problems with organization-wide impact | - Sets technical vision and drives industry-leading innovation
Makes strategic decisions affecting company's future | - Makes decisions that influence the long-term technical trajectory of both company and industry | | Product & Customer Focus | - Learns basic product context and user needs
Understands basic user requirements | - Understands product goals and user impact
Considers user experience in technical decisions | - Influences product decisions through technical insight
Advocates for customer needs in technical solutions | - Shapes product strategy through technical leadership
Drives technical decisions based on customer impact | - Drives product vision through technical innovation
Shapes technical strategy around customer needs | - Defines technical strategy aligned with product vision
Influences company direction based on market needs | - Envisions and enables transformative solutions to customer problems at an industry scale |

People Management Track

Level	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6	Level 7
				Engineering Team Lead	Engineering Manager	Senior Engineering Manager	Engineering Director
Technical Excellence				- Maintains sufficient technical depth to provide meaningful code reviews and guide architectural decisions

Enables team's technical growth by identifying risks and quality issues | TBD | TBD | TBD | | Ownership & Impact | | | | - Owns team-level delivery
Drives team effectiveness through process improvements and balanced priority management | | | | | Leadership & Communication | | | | - Acts as the team's technical leader by facilitating technical discussions, partnering with Product on planning
Drives team growth through mentoring, feedback | | | | | Innovation & Problem Solving | | | | - Guides team decision-making and conflict resolution while enabling autonomous problem-solving
Balances process improvements and innovation with team stability and effectiveness | | | | | Product & Customer Focus | | | | - Partners with Product to translate business goals into technical direction
Ensures team maintains focus on product quality and customer needs | | | |