Career Framework
This newly developed career framework is designed to provide parallel career tracks for ICs, Leads & Heads. This ultimately means that any Doister can earn the same pay as a Lead or Head, while still within an IC level role, based on their individual performance and career progression.
Furthermore, this provides visibility into how career progression works at Doist, reflecting our egalitarian organizational structure and transparency of our company-wide expectations at each level. This framework reflects clear pathways available within the company and ensures fair, equitable processes for internal hiring and career transitions between functions.
This visual showcases our egalitarian environment and clearly illustrate the parallel career tracks. IC8, IC9, Lead 8 and Lead 9, are newly created levels within our framework, therefore the difference in color below.
Career Levels and Level Descriptions
These levels outline the expected level description of each IC, Lead & Head role at Doist. We believe that clear expectations around impact foster growth, guide performance conversations, performance reviews and ultimately contribute to Doist becoming a legendary company.
The descriptions below are focused on three core elements: scope of the level, expectations of the level and impact of the level.
Above and beyond the descriptions below, alignment to Doist’s company mission and core values, remains a non-negotiable requirement for all Doisters.
IC Definition:
You create direct value through your craft and expertise. Your path embodies mastery through continuous skill development and independence in approaching complex challenges. Your ambition drives you to expand your impact and technical depth, while your clear communication shares knowledge and elevates those around you. Your growth comes from excellence that inspires others.
Lead Definition:
You amplify team effectiveness while maintaining your craft expertise, typically balancing 80% individual contribution with 20% leadership work. This balance may shift temporarily as team needs arise, requiring only transparent communication rather than approval. Your path demonstrates mastery of collaboration, fosters independence in others, channels ambition toward collective impact, and builds bridges through thoughtful communication. In our egalitarian company, your dual impact—both through your direct work and by enabling others to thrive—creates a multiplier effect that makes us truly legendary.
Head Definition:
You shape our future direction by translating vision into meaningful strategy and people leadership. Your path reflects mastery of organizational systems and champions independence through thoughtful frameworks. Your ambition extends to long-term impact on both the organization and the people in your department, while your communication connects daily work to a larger purpose. Your growth comes from continuously improving our environment, your skills and your team’s skills, where mastery, independence, ambition, and communication naturally flourish.
CXO Definition:
You set Doist's direction through our company mission, shaping our future and driving global impact. You architect our organization, building systems that enable independence at scale. Your focus is on Doist's long-term success, pushing industry standards forward. Your communication aligns everyone, connecting daily work to our mission and purpose. You grow by elevating Doist as a whole, weaving our core values throughout the company.
Career Path Levels:
Level | Scope | Description | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
IC1 | Own Tasks within the Team | You're building foundational skills and learning our systems. You complete well-defined tasks with guidance, ask thoughtful questions, and show eagerness to learn. Your growth potential is tremendous to develop upwards within the IC or overall career path framework. | Your contributions primarily support the immediate needs of your team by reliably completing assigned tasks, allowing others to focus on more complex work. You directly contribute to the team's operational efficiency by effectively learning and applying new knowledge. |
IC2 | Projects within Team/Squad | You work independently on routine tasks and collaborate effectively with teammates. You're developing deeper expertise and beginning to identify improvement opportunities. | Your contributions are valuable contributions that directly enhance your team's output and quality. You proactively identify and address minor inefficiencies, making your team's work smoother and more effective. |
IC3 | Domain Expertise within Team/Squad | You tackle complex problems thoroughly and independently, and deliver consistent, high-quality work on time. You actively share knowledge with teammates and take full ownership of your projects. | Your expertise helps level-up the squad or team, your contributions matter and you work towards the goals in the squad and the team you are in. You drive the successful completion of key projects, delivering consistent, high-quality work that directly benefits your squad and team's objectives and elevates collective understanding through knowledge sharing. |
IC4 | Domain Leadership within Team/Squad | You are known for your domain expertise (amongst the team, squad or Doisters) and your solutions set best practices that your team adopts and raise the overall quality and efficiency of your squad's work. | You significantly improve specific areas within your domain, solving challenging problems that directly enhance our products or internal systems. |
IC5 | Domain Strategy & Broader Team Enablement and Acceleration | You lead through deep expertise and solve our most difficult problems. You shape the approach and execution for major initiatives and elevate the quality of the work of those around you. | Your work consistently creates significant, measurable value for the company by shaping the direction and execution of major initiatives. You directly elevate the quality of work across your immediate collaborators, fostering a higher standard of excellence. |
IC6 | Cross-Team Impact & Company-Wide Improvements | You consistently develop colleagues and systems that carry your know-how. You reliably deliver solutions and systems that are designed to create significant, measurable results for the company. | Your work consistently creates significant, measurable results for the company by driving strategic decisions within your domain. You extend your impact by empowering others and building lasting systems, ensuring your expertise scales beyond your direct involvement. You enable a customer-centric culture. |
IC7 | Company-Wide Direction & Strategic Vision | You transform how we work through innovative approaches and deep insights. You build capabilities across teams and identify breakthrough opportunities. Your work creates a lasting impact on our company trajectory. | Your innovative ideas and insights improve how teams or squads work and help shape important business decisions at Doist. You create new, measurable capabilities and identify breakthrough opportunities that have a lasting, strategic impact on the company's trajectory and success. You drive customer-centric results. |
IC8 | Company-Wide Results & Industry Innovation | You shape our industry's direction and develop structures that empower everyone to excel. Your contributions fundamentally advance our company's capabilities and measurably move us closer to our mission. You actively develop future leaders and solve problems others don't yet recognize. | Your contributions fundamentally advance our company's capabilities and measurably move us closer to our mission. You shape the organization's future by solving unseen problems and nurturing future leaders, creating deep and widespread impact. |
IC9 | Company-Wide Transformation Industry Leadership | You pioneer entirely new fields and set the technological direction for the next 3-5 years, constantly staying ahead of competitors and technology. At Level 9, you're not just solving hard problems - you're defining what problems the field and community will be working on for years to come. | Your legacy will endure well beyond your time with us, as you fundamentally redefine what's possible within our industry and at Doist. You create structures and inspire approaches that empower not just Doisters, but also influence the broader landscape of our industry. |
Lead 4 | Own Craft & Guide Team | You are a determined individual contributor who proactively shares deep technical expertise to guide and support your team. | Your tactical contributions and guidance elevate team quality and problem-solving, enabling project success and skill growth. |
Lead 5 | Master Craft, Mentor & Improve Team | You maintain hands-on mastery in complex areas, actively mentoring teammates to connect individual strengths to team goals. You foster continuous improvement and facilitate effective technical collaboration for high-quality delivery. | You continue to contribute tactically directly to meaningful work. Through your expertise and mentorship, you significantly accelerate team delivery and improve overall work quality. |
Lead 6 | Expert Craft, Set Team Standards | As a recognized expert across Doist, you shape craft standards and drive measurable team performance improvements through your technical insights and direct contributions. You foster best practices and elevate the team's technical excellence. | You measurably enhance team performance and output quality, establishing high craft standards that deliver significant business value. You enable a customer-centric culture. |
Lead 7 | Expert Craft, Cross-Company Influence | Your deep expertise elevates technical capabilities across multiple teams. You provide senior technical guidance, share best practices, and informally mentor other Leads through your exemplary work. | Your unparalleled expertise enables major cross-team initiatives, measurably advancing company objectives and elevating the collective skill level across the organization. You drive customer-centric results. |
Lead 8 | Domain Function & Organizational Capabilities | You shape how entire domains function through innovative leadership approaches and deep strategic insight, built upon a foundation of expert craft. You build resilient team structures and develop organisational capabilities. | You create lasting organizational capabilities that drive sustained competitive advantage across multiple domains. Your influence creates lasting positive change and enhanced performance across the entire company. |
Lead 9 | Organizational Transformation & Effectiveness | You transform how the organisation functions through visionary leadership and systemic thinking. You foster a thriving environment where teams evolve to meet emerging challenges. You introduce systemic changes that demonstrably enhance Doist’s overall effectiveness and adaptability. | You fundamentally transform how the organization operates, creating systemic improvements that position the company for long-term market leadership. Your leadership philosophy becomes woven into the company's cultural fabric, but also has an impact on the larger industry. |
Head 5 | Own Area: Mentorship & Enablement | You establish clear direction and foster growth within your area through active mentorship and team development. You build capability while delivering consistent results. | You accelerate team performance and capability through targeted mentorship, creating measurable improvements in both team output and individual growth within your area. You establish the foundation for sustainable team excellence. |
Head 6 | Own Area: Strategy & Enablement | You translate company vision into a meaningful direction for your area. You make difficult trade-offs with clarity, create frameworks that empower independent decision-making, and connect team efforts to a broader purpose. | You deliver clear strategic outcomes in your domain that demonstrably advance company objectives, with measurable improvements in team autonomy and decision-making speed. Your strategic input enables our customer-centric culture. |
Head 7 | Multiple Domains: Cohesive Strategy & Org Capabilities | You connect different domains into unified strategies that drive meaningful results aligned with our mission and goals. You develop organisational capabilities that anticipate future needs and foster an environment where innovation thrives. | You achieve significant cross-domain results that create measurable business value, while building organizational capabilities that prepare the company for identified future challenges. Your strategic decisions create lasting foundations for success and drive customer-centric results. |
Head 8 | Major Business Areas & Company Market Position | You deliver transformative results across major business areas that fundamentally strengthen the company's market position. Your strategic decisions generate sustained competitive advantages and measurable long-term value. The organizational capabilities you establish consistently produce breakthrough outcomes and adaptive responses to market changes. | You deliver breakthrough business results that create sustained competitive advantage, with measurable transformation in organizational performance and market positioning. |
Head 9 | Company-Defining Outcomes & Organizational Excellence | Your vision creates autonomous systems. You identify and create entirely new capabilities or business opportunities that fundamentally change the company's competitive position. Not incremental improvements to existing areas, but new leverage the company couldn't access before. You build systems and organizations that generate compounding returns without your direct involvement. Your technical and strategic judgment directly shapes company-level decisions. | You create durable competitive moats: capabilities so deeply embedded that they become inseparable from how Doist operates. What you create becomes foundational: other teams, products, and strategies depend on it, and it continues to compound without your involvement. |
CXO | Overall Company Vision, Strategy & Global External Impact | You craft and own a 3–5-year vision for Doist, cascade it into annual plans and functional roadmaps, steward capital and talent, set cross-company priorities, and hold leaders accountable while exemplifying clarity, transparency, and cultural excellence. | Your leadership widens Doist's market reach through strategic narratives and alliances, sustains performance above goal targets, and proactively mitigates company-level risks to secure long-term growth and resilience. |
FAQs
How does this relate to Industry related Levels?
We added an example below of what these IC levels are externally, within similar Tech SaaS companies, or our size and stage. Any Doister can use whatever job title they want externally, but internally, we stay egalitarian and don't pull rank on each other. Similarly, instead of hierarchy, we have a DRD method for decision-making.
Image Source = Carta.
Who is responsible for my career path?
Each Doister is responsible for their own career path, their manager and the people team are enablers. You don’t need to stay in the same career track, but you do need to take ownership of the skills required if you want to shift your role into a different path (assuming that role/level becomes available). A great way to do this, is to partner with your Lead or Head, get meaningful feedback and start working towards a plan to level up.
Which teams fall within this non-linear career path?
This is our Doist/company-wide non-linear career path blue-print, however not every single team will fit perfectly into this and might only have some of these levels, depending on the team size.
How can I develop in Doist’s Non-Linear Career Path?
Each Doister can develop and keep growing at Doist in multiple ways:
Move upwards towards more advanced leadership path
Move upwards towards more advanced IC roles
Make lateral moves between IC and leadership
Move downwards, in rare cases. We want everyone to thrive in their career, and therefore sharing a few examples of what this could look like:
Team changes, for example: A Frontend Engineer becomes a Backend Engineer. They might need to go down level temporarily after their first legacy year expires. This could be an opportunity to grow their career in a different direction/ domain.
Life changes, for example: long-lasting or permanent issues affecting people's lives (health, family, etc.) can limit the person in a way where they can't fulfill their level as effectively as they were able to before. This option can then be discussed with their manager and the people team, especially if it will serve the Doister’s situation and Doist, more holistically.
Something else? Tell us, so we can figure out if it is possible.
Am I required to pursue level progression at Doist?
Your career is yours to own. While personal growth is necessary to remain competitive in our ever-changing environment, we recognize that career paths are personal and non-linear. This is your career, which you own. Not every Doister can or will constantly grow. We recognize that. That said, longer stays in lower career levels might not be compatible with company needs. Over time, Ambition and Mastery push us to constantly learn and push the limits of our ability, leading to ongoing personal development that results in measurable growth.
When do level transitions take place?
Developing Doisters internally is a key component of our success. We therefore encourage level transitions and want to ensure non-linear pathways are available and accessible.
Level transitions will usually be recommended by a Lead, Head or CXO team member during our Q3 performance review cycle, which includes a calibration step alongside the People Team + Head and a member of the CXO team for approval.
Level and role changes can also occur during an internal hiring/role opening process via Workable.
We can't promise every level change request will be approved, and they don't happen frequently. But keep talking with your Lead or Head about where you want to go in your career. The skills development part is on you – use feedback and focus on personal growth for whatever path you choose.
How does this align with our Performance Review Process?
In alignment with this career level visual and level descriptions, we are aligning our performance method and performance review cycle, to match this change. More information about our newly developed Bi-annual Performance Review Cycle (updated Q2 2025).
Who is DRD of our Non-Linear Career Path and Level Descriptions?
The People Team is DRD of this path and to ensure short or longer term shadow programs or internal internships are developed through learning and development programs. Our ultimate goals, to ensure every Doister is able to continue to grow their skills and competencies, well beyond their current role.
What happens if I feel like there isn’t really a level I’m interested in and maybe have outgrown the team or company?
When there's no clear path for advancement and a team member feels they've outgrown their role at Doist, we encourage an open conversation about next steps. We're happy to support you in finding opportunities where you can continue growing and thrive outside of Doist. We believe great people come from Doist, and we understand that our egalitarian structure isn't the right long-term fit for everyone. If it's time to move on, we want to make that transition as positive and fluid as possible. Your career is yours to own.