Engineering Promotion Process

The purpose of the Engineering Promotion Process is to ensure consistent evaluation of individuals against published roles and responsibilities for the purpose of promotions. The process is centered around a writeup in narrative form from the person’s manager to justify the person’s promotion. This process gives everyone in the organization the confidence to know that someone on one team with a title is performing at the same level as someone on a different team with the same title. We should strive to remove opinions and emotions from the process and use facts when evaluating someone for a new title that matches the role they are performing.

1. Determine someone is ready to be promoted based on our definitions of roles and responsibilities.
   1. A person should be performing near 100% of their current role and at least 25% of the next role.
2. Write up a promotion evaluation, using the template below. The writeup should include:
   1. An explanation that outlines how this person is performing their current role and part of the next role.
   2. What the person still needs to work on in their current role and/or what are the things this person is not doing well.
3. An example writeup can be found here.
4. Although not required, this writeup could be shown to peers of the person being promoted.
   1. These do not need to be only folks with the same title as the one being proposed. It should be a mix of folks pulled from various roles.
   2. This could absolutely include folks performing at the same level as the proposed new role.
   3. The goal of this feedback is to gather any further information to justify the promotion.
5. The writeup should be reviewed by several of the manager’s peers.
   1. This step is designed to ensure we have not just agreement but also alignment and correct leveling across the group.
   2. Managers outside of the immediate group should be consulted as well to ensure broad alignment.
6. Each person along the org chart should read and review the writeup, up to Mac Kizer.

Promotion Evalution Template

Promotion Evaluation

Name: [Name]
Current Title: [Current title]
Proposed Title: [Proposed title]

Summary

• State the case for this person being promoted.
• Subsequent sections are used to back this statement up.

Current Role

• Outline of their performance against the current role
• What are the things they do well. Examples
• What are they currently working on. Examples
• What do they still need to work on.

Proposed Role

• Outline of their performance against the next role
• What are the things they do well. Examples
• What are they currently working on. Examples
• What do they still need to work on.