<aside> đź’ˇ Last edited on: January 18, 2024
Contributors: @Jessica Zwaan, @Luck, @Moran Williams
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Levelling in the startup space is something we get wrong all the time (with sometimes disasterous effects). You want great players, you want to be seen as attractive, so you cast a wide net.
Who you start with as your founding team will likely not be your IPO team. People who are crucial at a Series A won’t be as effective as a Series C. Levelling helps people see where they fit in, know if this is right for me, what’s not right for them, and what to expect of their peers at this stage in your journey.
Levelling has a connected relationship with compensation, and that means if you are making decisions around levelling, you are effectively making decisions around compensation, progression, and performance.
If you don’t foundationally understand or consider levelling in the early days, you may build a lot of organisational debt to clean up later down the road.
It’s crucial our team have clear understanding of what it means to be in their current role, get to their next role, and what to expect of others.
Levelling is the structure by which we use to understand someone’s:
It helps support other systems in the People team like performance reviews, career progression, and compensation decisions.
Do levels and titles have to be connected?
Technically, no - but practically, Morgan advises yes:
There are so many titles out there, it is best practice to stick with mainstream titles because they make things easier to understand, and people to more reasonably understand what to expect of you now and into the future (if you were to leave the team and look for your next role).