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What is the Levels Benchmark?
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This is a guide to help you navigate the different levels of compensation and seniority within your business. It benchmarks skills that are key for everyone in the company, whether they be managers or individual contributors.
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The Individual Contributor (IC) and Manager tabs
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Individual Contributor tab
- Not everybody can be or wants to be a manager. This tab is for those who don't have direct reports (although they might be leading technical areas and big projects) regardless of experience.
- Focused on role-specific skills, autonomy, communication, efficiency and velocity, and proactivity and process improvement.

Manager tab
- Focused on skills that make great managers: mentorship, culture, company processes and inter-team collaboration, impact on company, and recruitment.
- Only relevant for levels 3 to 6 as those under level 3 aren't in management positions.

Are managers evaluated on the IC tab too?
Depending on the context, the proportion of time spent on IC work vs. Management-related work can vary greatly from one manager to another. For those still spending significant time on IC work, the IC tab will be relevant and they will also be evaluated on it. Skills like communication and autonomy are still valued and necessary in order to level up as a manager.
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How to use it
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Self-evaluation:
1- Duplicate this spreadsheet and use the copy to evaluate yourself.
2- Start by looking at the level you're currently at and document the following:
- List the mentioned skills or behaviors you're not yet proficient at (if any)
- List the ones you are already proficient at along with concrete examples showing you've that been demonstrating them consistently (eg. always communicated proactively with stakeholders when managing X, Y & Z projects)
3- Do the same thing for the next level up.
4- Send your self-evaluation to your manager so they can review it.

This process, along with the skills assessment, should help give you an understanding of what you need to work on to get to the next level.

Manager evaluation:
1- Use your team member's self-evaluation to start a conversation. You may not fully agree with the self-evaluation and will need to understand where that difference in perception comes from. Use concrete examples to illustrate where you disagree with your team member's self-evaluation.
2- Work to reach a version of the evaluation you are both satisfied with.
3- Discuss with your team member what they want/should focus on improving first and use this to craft personal OKRs or a Personal Growth Plan.
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How to interpret it
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It's a guide!
First off, remember that it is a guide, not a checklist. Nobody will fit the definitions in each cell perfectly. It is up to you to interpret in the context of each role and each team.

Consistency is key
Exhibiting a behavior once or twice isn't enough to achieve a new level. The behaviours demonstrating a certain level in the skills evaluated here must be consistent.

Levels are a spectrum
Someone who just levelled-up won’t be as advanced as someone who’s been in that level for a year, and that's ok.