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🪜 Individual Contributors Steps

Tracking incremental growth within each level

Each of the 6 levels contains 4 steps that measure your ownership of current work and initiative toward future impact.

📊 Understanding Steps

The Individual Contributor grid consists of 6 Levels, and each Level contains 4 Steps. While moving from one level to the next is a major milestone, steps provide granular markers of progress as you build ownership and initiative within your current level.

🎯 The Two Dimensions of Steps

🛡️ Ownership

Your current contribution and accountability

An ownership mindset means thinking big, delivering value, and taking accountability—not just for your own work, but for the success of the entire team and operating system. Ownership enables everyone to win.

What it measures: Your current level of responsibility, quality of execution, and impact on team outcomes.

🚀 Initiative

Your intentions, goals, and proactive growth

Initiative is the ability to be resourceful, act independently, and think ahead. It requires resilience, determination, and the drive to achieve. People with initiative don't wait to be told what to do—they identify opportunities and take action.

What it measures: Your proactive contributions, forward-thinking behavior, and ambition to grow beyond your current role.

📋 How Steps Work

💡 Key Insight

Steps allow us to recognize meaningful progress without requiring a full level jump. For example, you might excel at ownership (delivering consistently strong work) but still be building initiative (learning to identify and drive new opportunities). Steps capture this nuance.

As you progress through steps:

  1. Step 1: You're executing the basics of your level with guidance
  2. Step 2: You're consistently delivering at your level with minimal oversight
  3. Step 3: You're exceeding expectations and starting to demonstrate next-level behaviors
  4. Step 4: You're ready to transition to the next level

🔎 Interactive Steps Framework

Use the interactive framework below to explore ownership and initiative expectations across all 6 levels and 4 steps. This will help you understand where you are today and what's required to advance.

🌟 Why Steps Matter

Career growth isn't just about big promotions—it's about steady, visible progress. Steps give you a clear roadmap for development, help managers provide targeted feedback, and ensure recognition for the incremental wins that build toward major milestones. Every step forward matters.

Questions about steps and progression? Talk to your manager or reach out to People Operations.