Engineering LeadershipMay 10, 2026 8 min read
The dual-ladder lie: why most 'Staff Engineer' tracks cap at Senior with extra steps.
Companies love to advertise an IC ladder that goes all the way up. The promotion data tells a different story. Here's what to look at before you accept that Staff title.
Almost every engineering org I've audited claims to have a 'dual ladder' — IC and management paths that go equally high. Pull the last 24 months of promotion data and you'll usually find the same pattern: 80% of Director-equivalent promotions went through EM, and the published IC levels above Staff exist mostly as recruiting decoration.
3.2×
more EM than IC promotions at Director level across 60 surveyed orgs
Pragmatic Engineer, 2025
12%
of companies have promoted anyone to Distinguished IC in the last 3 years
Pragmatic Engineer, 2025
−$22K
median comp gap for Staff IC vs same-level EM, post-equity
Levels.fyi, 2025
58%
of Staff engineers say the next IC level is 'theoretical' at their company
RedMonk survey, 2024
Three questions to ask before accepting a Staff offer
- How many people were promoted to Principal or above on the IC track in the last 24 months? (If the answer is zero, the level above Staff doesn't really exist.)
- What's the comp band overlap between Staff IC and EM at the next level? (If EM comp starts where Staff IC tops out, the ladder isn't dual — it's a funnel.)
- Who chairs the IC promotion committee? (If it's the same VP of Engineering who runs EM promos and the committee meets once a year, IC promotions will lose every tie-breaker.)
Real
- Published comp bands that match EM at every level.
- Promotion committee with senior ICs voting.
- At least 1 Principal+ promotion per 50 engineers per year.
- Staff+ ICs have scope across multiple teams, not just deep in one.
Decorative
- IC levels exist on the wiki, not in the comp spreadsheet.
- EM-only promotion committee.
- The Distinguished IC role has been 'open' for 18 months.
- Staff ICs do the work of an EM without the title or scope.
Written by
Pawan Joshi
HR & Operations leader scaling global remote teams across Nepal, the Philippines, Australia, and the US. Tech-leaning writing lives on Medium.