As a people manager at a software development company, I spend a lot of time getting to know my team members and figuring out how to support their unique needs—whether it's improving their work environment or helping them chase their career dreams. My mission is to create a space where personal and company goals can grow together.

Now, it might seem like I have career development all figured out, but it wasn't always this way. When we started Yeti, my background in computer science didn't exactly prepare me for managing the career growth of a team. But I knew it was important, so I dove in and started having career development meetings with everyone on the team.

In those early days, I focused on what I thought mattered: monitoring growth in relevant areas, understanding their feelings about current projects, and setting goals for the future. But I quickly realized that my approach had some gaps. It wasn't consistent, and I wasn't doing a great job of actually guiding folks towards meeting their goals. Plus, it made things tricky when it came to raises and promotions. Without clear expectations and a solid plan for advancement, it was tough for team members to link their career goals with their job responsibilities.

Crafting Your Career Development Matrix

It became clear that the career development issues I was facing were not unique to me or my company—others were surely struggling with the same problems. I began researching how other companies managed their teams' career development plans and quickly found Progression, a collection of open-source frameworks that provided examples of career development plans that immediately resonated with me.

Using some of these examples as an initial structure, I started outlining a career development matrix for each of our  software development roles, from Junior Developer up to Senior Developer.

I began my setting up an empty Google Spreadsheet and, across the top, outlined each job title and the salary bands each position is paid, with a $10k -> $15k range inside of each band.

Creating your Competencies

Once the structure was outlined, my next step involved establishing the role competencies, which I then detailed for each job level in the matrix. To brainstorm these competencies, I drew inspiration from current job descriptions and postings, example frameworks from progression.fyi, and ChatGPT.

After creating a comprehensive list of potential competencies, I grouped them into similar categories and began refining them. This process involved prioritizing what was most important and ensuring there was no overlap. While there’s no correct number of competencies, it’s crucial to consider the most critical areas your team should focus on for their roles.

Generating & Refining your Expectations

Next comes the most demanding part of the task: outlining the expectations for each competency at each level in your matrix. My strategy for this has evolved over time as I've continued creating matrices for multiple roles in the company. This is my current process:

1. For each competency I created a brief bulleted list that summarizes what the competency entails. I then fed this to ChatGPT, and prompted it to outline appropriate expectations for fulfilling this competency at every level of the job.  I’ll share an example of a recent prompt I used below.
   
   
2. I take the output from ChatGPT and put it into my matrix. This initial output isn’t perfect, but it is a starting point that helps alleviate the overwhelming feeling of having too much to write.
   
   
3. I then review each competency across the roles, identifying what is redundant, non-critical, or missing, especially for the higher levels of the role. If I make major changes, I might run the individual competency through ChatGPT again with the newly rewritten expectations for the higher level, allowing ChatGPT to backfill the lower levels for me.
   
   
4. I repeat this process until all competencies are filled out with clear and concise expectations. Remember, you are incentivizing your team to meet these expectations in order to achieve raises or promotions, so ensure they are meaningful to you.

My ChatGPT Example Prompt

“ You are helping to create a career development plan for the development team at a small software development agency that creates web and mobile applications for clients. I am going to give you information about a specific competency for the development team and you will give me bullet points describing the expectations, responsibilities, and activities for each of the following seniority levels: Senior Developer 1, Senior Developer 2, Technical Director. 

Each bullet point should be no longer than 25 words and should be tailored to the seniority level of each position. Please give me 6 bullet points per seniority level. Please do this for each competency and description I give you after this message. Please make the bullet points unique per seniority level and they must be related to the competency description. Please give me this without the title in each line item and as bullets in an unordered list instead of an ordered list.“

Get Feedback on your Career Development Matrix

Now that you have the first draft of your plan, it's crucial to get feedback from others to help polish it. After working on it for a while, you might have missed some expectations, included redundant competencies, or placed some expectations incorrectly.

Consider asking one of the most senior team members to review the matrix, especially the junior bands, to get their involvement and buy-in. It can also be beneficial to seek feedback from individuals outside the role you created the matrix for, asking them to consider their expectations for people in this role at different levels. This can provide valuable insights and feedback.

Consolidate all the feedback in a final pass at editing the matrix. Feel free to ignore, add verbatim, or draw inspiration from the feedback you received. Ultimately, you need to feel comfortable holding your team accountable to the expectations outlined in this document.

Rolling it Out

Next, announce the existence (or completion) of the matrix to your team and provide individual copies for each person to read through and conduct a self-review. Simultaneously, create a version for yourself to review as their manager. The process involves going row by row through each competency and highlighting the appropriate level that the person is currently at, based on the expectations described in each box. You can also highlight or make notes on specific bullet points in each row where you or the team member want to emphasize something they are or are not doing well.

You’ll then meet with each of your direct reports to discuss the outcomes of their self-review and your review, addressing any discrepancies and areas of agreement. Part of this process involves assessing where the majority of their competencies align and making a judgment call on whether they deserve a raise or a promotion from their current position.

After the review portion, work with team members to decide on 2-3 “boxes” they’d like to focus on over the next three months. The goal is to help them level up in specific competencies where they may be weaker. I personally like to have team members provide their input and ultimately choose their focus areas

Ongoing Upkeep

Now that you have your plan in place, have established your team’s position on the matrix, and have set goals for each member, it's time to follow through on helping them reach those goals. This involves discussing their progress in 1:1s, finding opportunities for them to gain relevant experience, and periodically re-reviewing the matrix with them to determine if they qualify for a raise or promotion.

Additionally, the matrix may eventually feel outdated or some of the expectations might not seem entirely accurate. As your company and team evolve, you will need to revisit and update your career development plan. However, I recommend doing this no more frequently than once a year because, firstly, it requires considerable effort, and secondly, your team needs stability in the goals they’re striving to achieve.

Optional: Integrate Lattice HR Software

As part of our operations software stack, we use Lattice, which fits really well with managing this career development matrix process. We use Lattice for 1:1s, weekly updates, 360 reviews, and monitoring performance and promotions. Lattice specifically calls this feature “Grow”.  While you can manage this process with spreadsheets and documents, Lattice makes it seamlessly integrated into all aspects of your people management if you use the software.

By following this step-by-step guide to creating career development matrices, you now have a clear framework to enhance professional growth within your software development team. Ultimately, this proactive approach empowers your team to achieve higher levels of performance and satisfaction, driving sustained success for your organization.

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