For years your company had loose job titles. Developer, senior developer, and a few people called lead for reasons nobody remembered. Now HR has published a career framework with six levels, each with a list of expectations, and everyone has been mapped onto it. You open your letter and find you have been placed one level below where you thought you were.
Your pay has not changed, and the email says nothing else has either. It still stings. Take a day, and then treat it like any other piece of information you need to understand before you react.
Start by reading the framework properly, not just the line with your name on it. Frameworks usually describe levels by scope and influence, not by years or skill. A senior engineer might be expected to lead work across a team. The next level might expect influence across several teams. You may be a very strong engineer whose work has simply never been visible outside your own team.
Then ask how the mapping was done. Who decided, using what evidence, and is there a review or appeal process? Most companies expect some people to disagree in the first round, and many build in a window to raise it. Find out the deadline before it passes.
If you think you have been placed wrongly, build your case against the written criteria, not against your colleagues. Do not say Sam got level four and I do more than Sam. Take each expectation for the level you believe you are at and write one or two concrete examples of work that meets it. A calm document like that is much harder to dismiss than a sense of unfairness.
If, after reading it honestly, the level is about right, use that too. A framework is the first time many people can see exactly what the next step requires. Ask your manager which two expectations you should work on in the next six months, and agree how you will both know when you have met them.
Either way, keep a copy of the framework as it stands today. They tend to change, and you will want to know what you were promised.
– Asael Shinder
