A Manager’s Guide to Designing Horizontal Career Paths

Let’s face it: not every engineer will become a Staff Engineer. Promotions are finite. Headcount is tight. But growth? That’s infinite if we’re willing to think differently. If you’ve already read When There’s Nowhere to Climb, you know the emotional and structural weight of rigid ladders. This article is the other half of the conversation. This is the practical guide for managers ready to design growth paths that don’t rely on title changes.

TL;DR

5 Ways to Build Horizontal Growth Paths:

1. Redefine growth beyond titles – Shift the narrative for yourself and your team.

2. Co-create a role identity – Help engineers shape their own internal “brand” based on strengths and interest.

3. Map the journey – Design projects, responsibilities, and collaborations that align with that identity.

4. Make growth visible – Surface their evolution across the team and org.

5. Recognize the progress – Celebrate development in ways that matter (yes, even without HR approval).

Redefine What Growth Looks Like

The first step is simple, but not always easy: challenge the assumption that “growth” means “promotion.”

If you don’t make that shift for yourself first, your team won’t buy it either. That doesn’t mean pretending titles don’t matter, it means expanding the idea of what counts as development.

Growth can mean:

• Expanding technical ownership

• Becoming a mentor or coach

• Leading cross-functional initiatives

• Becoming the go-to person for a domain or practice

Engineers want to feel like they’re leveling up, even if the company ladder isn’t moving. And that feeling can come from identity, not just job titles.

We did exercises around values, strengths, and how they want to be perceived. For example, an engineer said:

"I don’t want a title. I want to be seen as the person who makes our CI/CD fly.”

That moment shaped how we approached development conversations going forward.

Co-Create Role Identity

Once your engineer is clear on what excites them, what they’re good at, and what the team needs, it’s time to turn that into a role identity.

Think beyond job titles. Instead, you’re helping them craft a personalized focus area they can grow into. While this list is not exhaustive at all, here are a few examples I’ve seen work well:

• System Reliability Lead

• Team Mentor Coordinator

• Accessibility Implementation Lead

• Developer Tools Specialist

This identity becomes their north star. It guides what they say “yes” to. It helps others know who to go to for what. It builds internal reputation and ownership.

Map the Journey with Real Projects and Goals

Once identity is clear, it needs structure. A horizontal growth path still needs a plan.

Ask: What does “growth” look like in this role over the next 3–6 months?

That might include:

Taking charge of fixing all the documentation

Running onboarding for new engineers

Launching a new internal monitoring dashboard

Partnering with a PM on a cross-team initiative

One engineer on my team joined a neighboring team for a temporary assignment to onboard them to a system the team was not familiar with. This gave them a fresh perspective, and they came back energized, with new connections and with a new internal reputation.

That small shift created a wave of confidence, visibility, and momentum. The impact was more than any online course or checkbox could have delivered.

Make Growth Visible (Because It Doesn’t Count If No One Sees It)

Here's the brutal truth: growth that isn't visible often isn't rewarded or even recognized. Therefore, a crucial part of your job as a manager is to amplify it.

This can be achieved through various means, such as showcasing team accomplishments with demos during meetings or tech talks, fostering a culture of appreciation by encouraging peer recognition during retrospectives, ensuring contributions are acknowledged with specific mentions in performance reviews, and clearly highlighting individual initiative ownership when providing updates to stakeholders.

You’re helping them build a narrative around their growth, and making sure others hear it too.

Recognition Without Titles Still Matters

If you’ve ever tried to push for a raise, level change, or new title and hit a wall, you know the pain. But that doesn’t mean growth can’t be validated. One day I looked at it as a metaphor and it stuck with me:

“It’s like military medals. You’re the same level, but you’ve got four badges and people see it.”

It's all in the details and small acts that add up. Internal shoutouts, Slack profile titles, officiating someone as “Team lead” of a specific initiative, and creating peer-nominated “spotlight” moments.

These aren’t promotions. But they’re markers. They’re signals that say: this person has grown.

And sometimes, they’re enough to keep someone engaged for another year.

Takeaways

You can’t control your org chart. But you can control how you talk about growth, how you structure development, and how you make people feel seen.

Horizontal growth isn’t a compromise. It’s a strategic tool that more orgs need to start using with intention.

The more we normalize role identity, lateral moves, and visible expertise, the more resilient our teams will be. Because when engineers feel like they’re moving forward, they stick around. They lead. They lift others up.

Want to better understand why all this matters? Check out When There’s Nowhere to Climb for the strategic and emotional weight behind it.