Career Development
A clearer path for career growth.
Career guidance was scattered across spreadsheets and other sources. As the sole product designer, I initiated an internal platform and led its design with HR and engineering from idea to launch. HR later used it in career workshops and year-end reviews.
Explore the design decisionsThe problem
Career expectations were hard to find.
I noticed the problem while trying to understand my own progression. HR confirmed a wider issue: requirements were spread across Excel files and other sources, leaving recurring questions and unclear guidance. I proposed a shared tool and secured approval.
HR owned the content and would maintain the platform after launch. We organised the requirements around three needs:
Employees
Find their level and next requirements.
Managers
Discuss progression using the same reference.
HR
Maintain the framework and use it in career conversations.
Find a role before reading requirements.
I grouped roles by seniority in a level selector, giving employees a direct starting point. The structure could be adapted to a company's own roles, titles and levels.
From a requirements table to a clear career path.
The same skill carried different expectations from junior to director level. I aligned requirements by level and kept the full framework visible so people could compare progression without losing detail.
HR feedback
Follow one skill across career levels.
HR wrote the requirements with managers, but found it difficult to track individual skills and expectations across multiple seniority levels. Based on their feedback, I added row highlighting so they could follow one requirement across the framework while keeping the surrounding context visible.
Early feedback described the interface as cold. I added a step-by-step timeline, glowing highlights, visual cues for following the columns and scroll animations. Reactions to the changes were positive: the experience felt more like exploring a game and less like another HR tool.
Keeping the project moving for two years.
Development happened in intervals around other team priorities. I coordinated with PMs, product owners and leads to find engineering support, and sought returning developers when possible to preserve earlier decisions and reduce repeated onboarding.
HR used it in workshops and reviews.
HR used the platform in career-development workshops and as a shared reference for year-end reviews. It remained an internal tool. We also prepared it for a potential commercial offering to other HR teams, but that plan did not reach launch.
150+ employees
Company size during the internal test.
Exploring expansion to teams in India.
Expansion to teams in India raised questions about more departments and cultural context. We began researching adaptations. I also planned areas for HR, PMs, leads and employees; those areas were not delivered in this phase.
What I learned
The strongest simplification was a clear path through HR's full framework, rather than a shorter version of it. I also learned how much continuity matters when development stops and starts.
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