Look, the tech industry's relationship with employee tenure is… weird. A year here, a year there. It's often treated like collecting stamps. We think that's a missed opportunity. At Dwarves, the average tenure is around three years (as of late 2018), and frankly, we want it to be longer. The goal? Make it completely feasible for you to build a life-long career here, mastering your craft without being forced into "management" just to feel like you're progressing.
Mastery over management
Advancing here doesn't mean you have to stop doing the work you love. Whether you're slinging code, crafting designs, managing ops, or supporting users, you level up by getting better at that specific thing.
We're a small company, pretty flat hierarchy-wise (just executives and team heads, who mostly do hands-on work too). So, we needed a clear way to recognize skill progression. We landed on six mastery levels. The titles are consistent across departments, but what it takes to reach each level obviously differs. Here's the structure for programming, just as an example:
- Fresh Programmer
- Junior Programmer
- Programmer
- Senior Programmer
- Lead Programmer
- Principal Programmer
Important: This isn't some corporate ladder everyone must climb from bottom to top. We need great people at all levels. And reaching Principal? That could be a decade-long journey, easily. It's about recognizing deep expertise.
Also, these titles are about your role at Dwarves. You might have been a "Senior Wizard" somewhere else, but titles here reflect the mastery you demonstrate doing work with us. Day-to-day, titles aren't a huge deal, but they help everyone understand where people are in their journey here.
The ladder
Especially in engineering, career paths can feel vague. "Just keep coding"? That's not helpful. We saw people leave good jobs elsewhere simply because they felt stuck, unsure of how to grow. And honestly, you can't scale a company or build great things if your best people don't see a future.
That "flat structure" thing many startups boast about? Often just means nobody talks about levels until someone quits. We prefer transparency.
So, we built this engineering ladder. It's not about adding bureaucracy; it's about creating a map. It helps you see potential paths and helps managers have meaningful conversations about your growth, not just hand-wavy ones. It also keeps us consistent when hiring.
How the ladder works
It breaks down into a few key parts:
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Engineering aspects: What we value. These aren't just buzzwords; they tie into our core values.
- Technical: Your craft. Mastery, best practices, quality, design, debugging, performance, etc. Can you build solid stuff?
- Execution: Getting things done. Planning, scoping, estimating, problem-solving, ownership, understanding the 'why' behind the work.
- Influence: Your impact on others. Leadership (at any level!), sharing knowledge, mentoring, helping hire and onboard.
- Collaboration & communication: Teamwork. Clear communication (written and verbal), giving/receiving feedback, working well with others.
We think of Technical & Execution as value-adders (your direct output). Influence & Collaboration are value-multipliers (lifting the whole team). As you progress, those multiplier aspects become way more important.
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Career paths: There's more than one way forward.
- Individual contributor (IC) track: Deepen your craft. Early levels focus on solid execution; senior levels involve more mentoring and guiding others.
- Manager track: For those who want to lead teams. This is a technical management role – you need to understand the work, not just manage spreadsheets. You're a multiplier, focused on unlocking your team's potential.
The ladder doc has the nitty-gritty details for each level and track. The goal is clarity – know what's expected, see how to grow.
Salary & promotions
No secrets here. It's simple:
- Everyone in the same role at the same level gets paid the same. Period.
- Promotions mean moving up a level. When that happens, you get a corresponding pay raise, effective March 1st following the January review cycle.
- We aim high. Our payroll fund is tied to 50% of revenue, and we target the top 20% of salary ranges for our industry in Vietnam (using data from market research firms).
- Annual review: We check the market data every January. If rates have gone up, we increase salaries across the board on March 1st to match.
- We don't cut pay: If market rates dip (unlikely, but hey), we hold salaries steady. We don't play games with your compensation.
Performance reviews
We do formal reviews twice a year, in July and January. Anyone who's been here 90+ days and finished their initial training gets one.
The point isn't some corporate check-box exercise or ritual judgment. It's about feedback, recognizing accomplishments, and discussing your career path.
The January review wraps up in time for any promotion-related pay adjustments to kick in February 1st (though the standardized market adjustments happen March 1st).
The process is straightforward:
- You write: A 1-2 page summary of your work, accomplishments, challenges, and thoughts on your growth. Send it to your team lead.
- They review: Your lead reads your summary, gathers their thoughts (likely chatting with others you work closely with).
- You chat: You both sit down for an hour to discuss everything.
Your team lead will ping you when it's time. We generally look at things through the lens of MMA. But remember, feedback isn't a twice-a-year event. Ask for it whenever you need it!
Next: MMA
