I think differentiating roles between “effort” vs “results” is an interesting concept. I don’t have first-hand experience with a formal role ladder. I work in a

I think differentiating roles between “effort” vs “results” is an interesting concept. I don’t have first-hand experience with a formal role ladder. I work in a small firm where I created my own role building a software platform internal to an org where no one else has any software engineering expertise. However, I’ve always ascribed to the notion that seniority is proportional to “social credit”. Where social credit is some combination of your perceived expertise at your craft, your ability to achieve results (on an arbitrary project/task) i.e. your professional competence, and the trust others put into you that you can/would help them if they ever needed. Social credit is built, and also spent. Failure is tolerated if you have social credit to spare, but is ultimately finite. People want to follow you if you have amassed more social credit than most.