Technical levels at Sudolabs

We are rewarding employees for their performance and willingness to improve their skills. We highly value ambitious people who are eager to learn new skills, and we are doing our best to support them during their career journey.

Pavol Madar

⚠️ This article is outdated ⚠️

We are working on a new one that will explain our current Technical levels at Sudolabs as well as the process and reasons behind the changes.

Stay tuned!

Professional growth is essential for all of us. You put a lot of effort into improving your skills daily, and you are trying your best to move up to the next level of your career.

But then you may face some questions along the way:

How do I know, I am not a junior anymore?
What are the steps I need to take to become a mid/senior developer or tech lead?
When is the right time to ask for a raise in salary?

In Sudolabs, we are rewarding employees for their performance and willingness to improve their skills. We highly value ambitious people who are eager to learn new skills, and we are doing our best to support them during their career journey.

To keep the whole process transparent and fair, we have decided to set clear guidelines for all tech levels and the output we expect from each of them.

Here are the technical levels we have:

Interns

have a huge desire to learn new things
have an understanding of computer science and the basics of programming
responsible for shipping smaller tasks on client/internal projects
working within a team with more senior engineers

Junior engineers

have a sense of clean code
responsible for shipping tasks
have knowledge and experience with at least one technology (web/mobile, backend, infrastructure)
comfortable with working in a standard dev. process
have a basic understanding of domain/project
working within a team with more senior engineers

Mid engineers

have an ability to estimate and ship features/epics
sometimes help teammates and share knowledge with them
have knowledge and experience with at least two technologies (web/mobile, backend, infrastructure)
sometimes communicate technical stuff with the project manager
have an understanding of domain/project
working within a team with more senior engineers
sometimes contribute to knowledge-base

Senior engineers

responsible for shipping epics and smaller projects
often help teammates and share knowledge with them
have an ability to estimate and ship projects
have very deep knowledge and experience with some technology OR have big picture knowledge and experience across the full-stack (web/mobile, backend, infrastructure)
have an understanding of domain/project and always make a decision based on business needs
sometimes communicate technical stuff with the project manager
sometimes research new trends and technologies
often contribute to knowledge-base

Team leaders

responsible for shipping projects
always support and help teammates
responsible for creating a roadmap, architecture, and estimates for a project
have big picture knowledge and experience across the full-stack (web/mobile, backend, infrastructure)
have a deep understanding of domain/project and are able to prioritize product roadmap based on the project’s needs
often communicate technical stuff and product with the project manager
often research new trends and technologies
often directly contribute and manage team contribution to knowledge-base

Principal Engineers

often create tooling and support colleagues across the whole company
have responsibility for technical decisions across the whole company
often work on improving dev. processes
always decide based on business needs
often help team leaders with creating roadmaps, architecture, and estimates
have a big picture knowledge and experience across the full-stack (web/mobile, backend, infrastructure)
often promote the company in public by publishing/public speaking/contributing to open source
always research new trends and technologies
always improve and manage contributions to knowledge-base

This way, everyone in the company knows what we expect from them on each tech level and what they should focus on to move to the next level.

During regular one-on-one meetings, we provide feedback and reviews on their output and the current state of experience, and we recommend the next steps to move forward in their expertise.

Compensation for the levels is regularly updated, always reflects current industry and economical standards and is shared during the interviews and across the company.