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Engineering career map

Career maps are a tool we use to map out all the different levels within a team. They give clarity on what we expect at each level and help our people know how they can progress in their team. They also help us evaluate impact and pay our people consistently and fairly.

We’re sharing our Engineering team levels to give you an idea of where you might fit, what’s expected at each level and how you can progress at Wise.

While career map frameworks are a useful guideline, they should never replace one-to-one career development and coaching conversations. All our employees go through an annual 360 feedback review, where we refine our individual development plans. This framework helps our Engineering Leads have more structured conversations with their team members about progression and understand what they need to do to increase their impact on our mission.

When you’re thinking about your skills in relation to these levels, always remember it’s not a tick box exercise, but rather a guide to show the kind of impact we expect from our people as they progress in their journey at Wise. Different roles and teams have varying expectations on certain areas, but on the whole these expectations are common across all roles.

Two Engineering tracks

There are two Engineering tracks at Wise – the Individual Contributor track (IC) and the Engineering Lead track (EL).

Individual contributors are not only responsible for developing our product and platform, but as engineers with a product mindset, the more they progress in their careers, the greater impact they are expected to have. This impact is not limited to ensuring that our technology is reliable, secure and available; it also extends to having strong opinions and expertise in their respective domains (whether that be product, platform, or any other area) and actively contributing to its evolution in the right direction. It's important to note that being an individual contributor does not mean working in isolation. These individuals also play a crucial role in maintaining high standards within our team by assisting with hiring new engineers and coaching existing ones.

On the other hand, our engineering leads differ from classical engineering managers at other companies. They not only oversee the career growth, wellbeing and performance of our individual contributors (ensuring teams are aligned and delivering efficiently), but they also work with the rest of our product organisation to establish future plans for our product and platform. As they continue to develop professionally, their role expands to include taking ownership and contributing to our strategy and roadmaps, helping not only in its execution but also in its creation.

The engineering lead track is not superior or inferior to the individual contributor track. These are fundamentally distinct roles with separate expectations and expertise required. It is crucial for Wisers to make a decision on which path to take based on the type of work they enjoy, where they believe they can contribute value and make an impact, and where their skills, capabilities, and interests align. These decisions are not irreversible though. Wisers can move between the two tracks if their interests and areas where they can have impact change.

How career levels work

Our levels are not fixed points in a career and do not correlate with specific amounts of years of experience. In each level, there is an evolution of skills and competency. We hire engineers with varying levels of expertise and experience, and we expect every engineer to increase their impact and grow through the different levels during their time at Wise. 

While we expect every engineer to eventually move at least between IC1 → IC4 or EL1 → EL2, we understand that everyone moves at their own pace (inside some reasonable limits defined by Wisers with their leads). The transitions between IC4 → IC6 and between EL2 → EL4 involve more than just small improvements; they involve significant changes in roles, with wider and bigger responsibilities. As a result, we do not expect that all Wisers will be willing or able to reach these levels. Leads should offer support and coaching to help every Wiser grow.

This is the map of the different levels we have, and one possible way of moving through them:

It’s also important to mention that these levels are cumulative, so engineers must perform well in all expectations up to their current level (except for clear cases where an expectation overtakes a previous one). Therefore, if we state that EL1s should "Exemplify all Wise Values," it is unnecessary to repeat this expectation for the EL2+ levels since they are expected to do it as well. This means that, to understand your expectations, you should not only read the ones specific to your level but also the previous ones.

The image on the right shows a map of the different levels we have, and one possible way of moving through them.

Salaries in the Individual Contributor track

Heading

  • 35,000 - 48,000 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 45,000 - 60,000 GBP
  • 800,000 - 1,220,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 81,600 - 108,000 SGD
  • 115,000 - 145,000 USD
  • 48,000 - 66,000 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 60,000 - 80,000 GBP
  • 1,220,000 - 1,620,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 108,000 - 147,000 SGD
  • 145,000 - 180,000 USD
  • 66,000 - 80,400 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 80,000 - 102,000 GBP
  • 1,620,000 - 2,000,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 147,000 - 180,000 SGD
  • 180,000 - 230,000 USD
  • 80,400 - 96,000 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 102,000 - 125,000 GBP
  • 2,000,000 - 2,425,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 180,000 - 222,000 SGD
  • 230,000 - 280,000 USD
  • 96,000 - 116,400 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 125,000 - 155,000 GBP
  • 2,425,000 - 2,900,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 222,000 - 276,000 SGD
  • 280,000 - 330,000 USD
  • 116,400 - 140,400 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 155,000 - 188,000 GBP
  • 2,900,000 - 3,500,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 276,000 - 335,000 SGD
  • 330,000 - 400,000 USD

Individual Contributor track

Scope

IC1: Engineers with high potential and capacity to learn new skills and acquire technical and domain knowledge to be effective in their domain. They are able to deliver small well-defined tasks, but they may require support from the rest of the team to do so.

IC2: Engineers with high potential who are already able to execute tasks independently inside their domain. They are able to deliver reliably medium-sized tasks. They may still require support from their team in complex tasks.

IC3: Engineers with expertise in their teams’ owned technical and business domains who contribute significantly to large-sized impactful projects. They own the engineering excellence of their teams and contribute, along other functions, to their technical and product roadmap.

IC4: Engineers with expertise in their teams’ owned technical and business domains who consistently own large-sized impactful projects. They have accumulated unique experience and expertise in their domain and are contributors to the delivery of their teams, taking ownership of both their technical and product roadmaps.

IC5: Engineers with expertise in multiple technical and business domains who find and lead the solution to the biggest problems in their area of ownership, usually composed of one or multiple squads. They are highly autonomous and able to find the most impactful opportunities, driving them to their success.

IC6: Engineers with expertise in multiple technical and business domains who find and solve the biggest problems for our business. They are instrumental for Wise’s success, finding and leading the most impactful opportunities, inside and outside of the product-engineering organisation.

Product

IC1: Deliver small well-defined tasks. Participate in feature design and bug fixing with active support of the rest of their team. Maintain small projects with the help of other engineers. Effective and timely following relevant organisation processes.

IC2: Deliver reliably medium-sized projects with some level of uncertainty in their definition, managing the development, deployment and post-deployment lifecycle. Participate and actively contribute to feature design and bug fixing. Own subsets of their domain such as specific components or specific flows. Take a leading role in the resolution and post-incident process of minor incidents, with support from their team. Provide support to on-call engineers in their team or, they are part of the active on-call rotas.

IC3: Contribute significantly to large-sized impactful projects. Own the technical roadmap and deliverables of their projects. Understand and are able to give strong feedback to the product roadmap of the teams they work with. Always able to explain why something is being built, what customer problem it's solving, and what's the expected impact. Optimise for the predictability and regular cadence of deliverables. Embrace long-term ownership of projects while training other engineers to reduce any single points of failure, thereby avoiding becoming a blocker. Ensure, along with their leads, that teams are always executing impactful work. Take a leading role in the resolution and post-incident process of minor and major incidents. Confident contributors and active participants to cross-company engineering efforts and/or guilds. Provide on-call support for their area during and outside of working hours when needed.

IC4: Own large-sized impactful projects. Own the technical and product roadmap of their teams. Ensure the technical roadmap of their teams addresses important technical debt and any reliability, scalability or security concerns. Contribute within their teams to ensure there is a responsible and optimal balance between the work in our three areas of focus: risk reduction, operational scalability and growth. Take initiative to identify and solve impactful problems inside their teams, inside and outside of engineering. Contribute to existing high impact cross-team initiatives inside of their squads..

IC5: Own, along other functions, the product and technical vision and strategy of a large area of the business, with several domains. Identify the most impactful problems in their area of ownership. They contribute to solve those problems by contributing to all relevant functions (tech, product, design, etc). Own the roadmap of their technical discipline across the whole organisation. Review and mentor teams (inside and outside of their area of ownership) on their technical and product roadmaps. Ensure all teams are aligned and working effectively towards their strategy, responsible for initiating and executing corrective actions when needed. Take a leading role in the resolution and post-incident process of the most serious incidents, even when they are not in their area of ownership. Discover new impactful opportunities for the business and ensure, alongside ELs, that those opportunities are addressed.They are highly autonomous and able to find the most impactful opportunities, driving them to their success.

IC6: Own the technical and product roadmaps in areas that are critical for Wise. Consistently find and address the most impactful problems in our organisation, inside and outside of engineering. Partners with other IC6s and EL3s+ to set the company-level product and engineering strategies and ensure we execute them effectively. Ensure that our investment in R&D guarantees the technological advantage of our product.

Leadership

IC1: Exemplify all Wise values. Strong team players and work well with other members of their teams. Actively seek out direction and support on what to do next and how to do it well. Proactively build knowledge of their team’s domain, priorities, and impact. Have a growth and learning mindset and actively seek out mentorship and regular feedback from other team members. Proactively ask for help and support to improve their efficiency.

IC2: They seek feedback on their code, ideas, designs, challenges, approach, etc. Support onboarding of new engineers into their teams. Confident in challenging others' opinions and having their own opinions challenged in an egoless manner. Regularly provide timely, helpful, constructive feedback supported by examples to other team members. Proactively ask for help, advice and support on complex problems. Promote a positive culture of collaboration between all the team members.

IC3: Mentor, assist and coach other engineers in their teams and/or guilds. Own the onboarding of new engineers into their teams when agreed with their leads. Communicate and collaborate effectively across functions to achieve their teams' goals. Actively contribute to broader tribe and engineering ceremonies and forums (e.g. Tech Day, cross-team-tech facilitator, etc). Promote a culture of collaboration across teams that minimises duplicate, wasted work and move all teams involved in the right direction. Part of interview panels, follow interviewing best practices and interview engineers regularly: at least 2 interviews per week when needed.

IC4: Constantly improving the effectiveness of their area by applying insights from other teams and industry best practices. Part of interview panels, follow interviewing best practices and interview engineers and other functions (PMs, designers, etc) regularly: at least 2 interviews per week when needed..

IC5: Proactively engage with the recruitment team and other engineers to analyse and improve how we assess engineers during the hiring process. Promote excellence across their own technical discipline. Mentor the pipeline of Wisers with potential to become senior ICs (IC5+). Build strong external network and contribute to the broader tech community via public speaking, writing blogs, etc. Identify and close gaps in technical and domain knowledge within the teams they are working with.

IC6: Actively contribute to make Wise a great place to work. Set an example of culture and performance for the whole organisation. Take a direct and active interest in the way of working of our engineering organisation, guiding our forums and processes to ensure they stay effective and fit for purpose.

Expertise

IC1: Understand of the basics of their technical discipline. Understand of the basics of common software engineering concepts used in our org (e.g. distributed systems, async comms, etc).Write tests and technical documentation. Good proficiency in using our day-to-day tooling (e.g. git, DB CLI, Xcode, etc.). Strong in time management and able to time box tasks appropriately.

IC2: Good understanding and proficiency in their technical discipline. Good understanding of common software engineering concepts used in our org (e.g. distributed systems, async comms, etc). Write high quality tests. Proactively improve documentation of their team as well as propose and formulate high quality request for comments (RFC). Actively participate in code reviews on both sides to learn, improve technical skills and provide mentorship to other engineers. Regularly improve quality of existing code by applying best engineering practices. Strong ability to prioritise tasks and avoid getting caught up in unimportant details. Always keep vulnerable customers in mind, making sure all our products are accessible.

IC3: Expert in their technical discipline, keeping up-to-date knowledge at all times. Solid understanding of the technical domain covered by their team with a view on how it should move forward. Design and build systems with a longer-term approach in mind, using design patterns that allow easy iterations and scaling. Accountable within their team for the availability, reliability and security of the systems they build. Proactively address technical debt and plan work to ensure that it stays within risk appetite. Ensure their teams follow Wise’s defined engineering best practices (e.g. observability, security, DB/Kafka usage, testing, etc). Always keep Wise partners in mind, making sure all our products are designed API-first with strong and well documented endpoints that are easy for them to understand and consume.

IC4: High expertise knowledge in distributed systems: how they work and how to design them properly. Have a deep understanding of how our platform is built and how its systems interact with each other. Good understanding of the capabilities of Wise’s data analytical platform. They collect and use the data needed for decision making. Actively contribute to improving and increasing the usage of best engineering practices throughout the whole organisation. Responsible for aligning the cost of the infrastructure with our mission..

IC5: A clear expert and highly skilled in one or more technical or business domains. Lead and contribute to the development and design of systems, services and libraries with company wide impact. Acts as a multiplier by facilitating cross-squad work, by shaping broad architecture or shipping major pieces of infrastructure or tools. Keep up-to-date knowledge of technology and market trends to apply to their area of ownership.

IC6: Considered experts in their discipline, inside and outside of Wise. Recognised across the organisation for their contributions to Wise’s mission. Proactively guide the direction of Wise on key technology issues and actively raise the bar for engineering standards and practices. Define Wise’s engineering best practices and drive their adoption (e.g. observability, security, DB/Kafka usage, testing, etc). Expert in Wise’s overall technical architecture including all domains and how they interact with each other.

Salaries in the Engineering Lead track

Heading

  • 72,000 - 87,000 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 100,000 - 120,000 GBP
  • 1,850,000 - 2,240,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 168,000 - 210,000 SGD
  • 210,000 - 260,000 USD
  • 87,000 - 105,000 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 120,000 - 145,000 GBP
  • 2,240,000 - 2,750,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 210,000 - 264,000 SGD
  • 260,000 - 310,000 USD
  • 105,000 - 126,000 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 145,000 - 180,000 GBP
  • 2,750,000 - 3,250,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 264,000 - 324,000 SGD
  • 310,000 - 380,000 USD
  • 126,000 - 150,000 EUR (in Estonia)
  • 180,000 - 215,000 GBP
  • 3,250,000 - 3,860,000 HUF (monthly)
  • 324,000 - 384,000 SGD
  • 380,000 - 452,000 USD

Engineering Lead track

Scope

EL1: Engineering leaders who own a domain usually composed of one team. They are responsible for the delivery of their teams and the reliability, availability and security of their systems, as well as managing the well-being, performance, and growth of the people they lead.

EL2: Engineering leaders who own a domain, usually composed of one or multiple teams. They are reliable owners and leaders of their domain, spanning across multiple functions. They contribute to and lead the product and technical roadmaps of their domain, helping to decide not only how to build things but also what the right things to build are.

EL3: Engineering leaders who own multiple domains, usually composed of one or multiple squads. They are responsible for setting and aligning priorities and plans to contribute to Wise's mission and help push objectives across the different areas of the business. They work on both the short-term and long-term in parallel, ensuring that their teams are delivering and aligned following a clear strategy.

EL4: Engineering leaders who own an area of the business, usually composed of one or multiple tribes. They own the strategy for their business area and ensure its correct, timely and optimal execution. They are responsible for effort and budget allocation to align all areas of the company in working effectively towards Wise's mission.

Impact

EL1: Own a domain of the business. Own the technical roadmap of their team, ensuring it addresses important technical debt and any reliability, security or scalability concerns. Active contributors in the delivery of their teams. They support day-to-day execution of work. Understand and are able to give strong feedback to the product roadmap of the teams they lead. They are always able to explain why something is being built, what customer problem it's solving, and what's the expected impact. Their teams always execute impactful work, and they collaborate along other functions to make remediations if needed. Partner with other functions (product, design, etc.) to develop the product roadmap and ensure its execution. Own and maintain a high standard for the quality of the product they own. They highly care about customers' experience. Participate in and actively help resolve existing incidents (technical or not) in their area of ownership. Ensure that all incidents are owned. Ensure that all their products and systems have the appropriate support, SLAs, on-call rotas, and documentation given their criticality.

EL2: Own a domain of the business. Contribute, along other functions, to the vision and strategy of their team(s). Own the product roadmap of their team(s). Ensure along the other team(s)' functions there is a responsible and optimal balance between the work in our three areas of focus: risk reduction, operational scalability and growth. Ensure an up-to-date risk matrix exists for their area of ownership, incorporating patterns from incidents, market trends, and the technical state of our product, among other factors. Participate in internal and external audits of their area of ownership. They understand and can explain the biggest risks and findings, as well as make active efforts to address them.

EL3: Own an area with multiple domains. Own the vision and strategy of their area of ownership, ensuring it is aligned with Wise's wider strategy. Ensure that all their teams are working on the most impactful projects and responsible for initiating and executing corrective actions when needed. Identify gaps where new teams are required and establish them by re-organising existing teams or by responsibly extending our budget. Participate beyond their area of ownership, understanding the strategy of other areas as well as ensuring they link together with their own. Ensure that impactful projects with cross-squad or cross-tribe impact do exist and are progressing in the right direction and at a good pace. Ensure that regulatory compliance and fiscal and operational efficiency are built into our roadmaps.

EL4: Own an area of the business. Own, collaboratively with the other functions, the vision and strategy of the whole Wise product. Influence and structure the whole product-engineering organisation to align with Wise’s strategy and to maximise productivity, while minimising friction and unnecessary overhead. Exceptional understanding of the biggest challenges facing our organisation, as well as key contributors to solving them. Exercise fiscal responsibility in decision making, whether it's about our product or investment in our teams. Ensure that our investment in R&D guarantees the technological advantage of our product.

Leadership

EL1: Exemplify all Wise values. Confident in challenging others' opinions and having their own opinions challenged in an egoless manner. Take the reporting lines of the engineers of the teams they lead. Responsible for managing the performance and wellbeing of the engineers they lead, initiating corrective actions when needed. Responsible for the growth of the engineers they lead through feedback and both passive and active coaching. Work to build and maintain consistently high-performing teams who are able to deliver quickly and reliably. Create a culture of ownership inside their teams where every engineer is accountable for their work. Create a culture of inclusivity and open two-way feedback inside of their teams. Make sure that organisation-wide processes (e.g. compensation reviews, trainings, engagement survey results) are effectively and timely executed. Ensure their teams' composition is balanced and correctly sized with respect of their plans. They are part of the interview panel, follow interviewing best practices and interview engineers and other functions (PMs, designers, etc) regularly: at least 2 interviews per week when needed. Responsible for the successful onboarding of new hires. Keep knowledge about processes and company priorities up to date and communicate them to their teams when relevant.

EL2: Take the reporting lines of the ELs and ICs in their domain. Work to build and maintain consistently high-performing teams who are able to deliver quickly and reliably to a high standard without their day-to-day involvement. Constantly improving the effectiveness of their area of ownership by applying insights from other teams and industry best practices. Delegate work effectively, appropriately, and responsibly to the engineers in their team(s) to enable their growth. Responsible for making sure that hiring decisions constantly raise the bar for our engineering teams. Plan the growth and scaling of their team(s) using a clear roadmap, impact, and near-term executable milestones. Regularly evaluate and address the skill and knowledge gaps within their teams, taking appropriate action to correct any issues. Ensure redundancy is taken into consideration when staffing and organising their area of ownership, making sure teams are complete and self-sufficient. Ensure the team(s) are part of cross-functional forums and that they contribute to both engineering and product efforts.

EL3: Take the reporting lines of the ELs and some of the senior engineers in their area of ownership. Ensure we have a strong pipeline of Wisers with potential to become ELs and senior ICs (IC5+). Ensure that most critical projects in their area of ownership are effectively and timely executed. Ensure that hiring plans in their area of ownership are strong, balanced, take in consideration their budget, and are prioritised across all disciplines (engineering, product, design, etc.). Proactively engage with the recruitment team and other ELs to analyse and improve the hiring process. Build a strong external network and contribute to the broader tech community via public speaking, writing blogs and other engagements helping attract engineering talent and raising Wise profile as an employer.

EL4: Take the reporting lines of the senior ELs and some of the senior engineers in their area of ownership. Set an example of culture and performance for their teams, Engineering, and the whole of Wise. Play a crucial role in representing our organisation to the public. They are be able to explain their area of ownership as well as Wise’s strategy, effectively communicating with both internal and external stakeholders, such as investors, board members and auditors. Actively contribute to make Wise a great place to work. Ensure that the appropriate processes and ceremonies are established for the entire organisation to operate efficiently (e.g. TechDays, cross-tech team, etc).

Expertise

EL1: Meet, at least, the expertise level of an IC3 (check their expectations in the IC career track). Have sufficient experience in their product domain and actively work on expanding it.

EL2: Meet, at least, the expertise level of an IC4 (check their expectations in the IC career track). Possess deep knowledge on their product domain and teach others about it. Possess a deep technical and product understanding - being able to advocate for both while interacting with any other function.

EL3: Keep up to date knowledge of technology and market trends to apply to their area of ownership.

EL4: Possess good understanding of how product financials work and how their area of ownership affect them.

List #1

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