For an L5 engineer, the first gate is simple: you must be seen as a consistently strong performer. That means independently executing on designs, handling missing details without constant guidance, and doing the unglamorous work without complaining. Leaders won’t promote someone who is difficult, selective about tasks, or high-maintenance.

Once you are a solid L5, leadership will look for L6 traits. This means proposing valuable new ideas, demonstrating initiative by driving large projects, and identifying problems leadership hasn’t seen yet.

Mentoring others, influencing teammates, and crisis management also stand out as L6 traits. The more you can demonstrate these traits, the clearer your L6 case becomes. Promotion typically takes 1–2 years of consistent delivery and relationship-building with your manager and their peers.

Once you are an L6, getting to L7 is a significant challenge. Staff/Principal engineers are deep technical experts who can tackle ambiguous, unsolved problems with little oversight. They deeply understand the business context and can translate business needs into technical solutions and frame technical work in terms of business impact.

Strong L7 candidates influence across teams, partner with senior leaders, communicate clearly with non-technical stakeholders, and still “lead through code” by delivering complex systems themselves.

This is the promotion arc of an individual contributor, but there is also the management path. Engineers can switch to people leadership early on at L5, after reaching L6, or even as L7s. Early switches give you more years to grow, but you will develop gaps in technical and organizational understanding.

Switching at L6 is common because you’ve mastered engineering fundamentals and can now learn people leadership. L7s who switch bring deep expertise but must avoid micromanaging due to their deep domain knowledge.

If you want to read more deeply about these levels and how to move up as ICs or managers, read my article in “The Pragmatic Engineer” by Gergely Orosz.

This newsletter is not about the technical skills you need, but rather how executives evaluate engineering talent and decide who is ready for promotion.

AI has already changed the technical skills needed in engineering, but it will have much less impact on the personal and leadership behaviors that VPs look for in their top talent. They are worth learning now.

Read here: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/care…

What do you think tech executives look for in senior talent?