Junior Developer → Senior Developer → Lead Developer → Engineering Manager → Director of Engineering → VP of Engineering.
Clean. Linear. Predictable.
Also completely disconnected from how people actually grow in their careers today.
The traditional career path assumes everyone wants the same thing: upward movement through increasingly senior versions of the same role. It assumes skills develop in neat progressions. It assumes the company’s organizational chart matches individual growth trajectories.
None of these assumptions hold true anymore. Especially not in growing companies where the landscape changes faster than the org chart can keep up.
The Path Paradox
Career paths were designed for stable, hierarchical organizations where roles stayed consistent and advancement meant moving up clearly defined ladders. They worked when companies grew slowly and job functions remained relatively static.
But in today’s growing companies, the “next level” role might not exist yet. The skills you need to develop might span multiple departments. The impact you want to make might require building something entirely new.
The marketing coordinator who becomes fascinated by data analysis. The customer success manager who develops product intuition. The developer who discovers a talent for customer communication. Traditional career paths don’t know what to do with these people.
So they leave. Not because they’re unhappy with the company, but because the company can’t envision a future that matches their evolving interests and capabilities.
From Ladders to Webs
Career webs recognize that professional development is multidimensional. Instead of climbing a single ladder, people navigate interconnected opportunities that build on their strengths while expanding their capabilities.
Your sales engineer doesn’t just advance to senior sales engineer. They might develop deep technical expertise that makes them invaluable for enterprise deals. Or communication skills that position them for customer education roles. Or strategic thinking that opens up business development opportunities.
Each skill development creates new connection points across the organization. Each project experience opens up different future possibilities. Each relationship built expands the web of where they could contribute next.
Skills as Currency
In career web thinking, advancement isn’t just about time served or title progression. It’s about capability development and impact creation. People grow by accumulating valuable skills, not just accumulating years in role.
This changes how development conversations work. Instead of “what’s your next role?” the question becomes “what capabilities do you want to build?” Instead of “how do we get you promoted?” it’s “how do we expand your impact?”
The customer success manager who wants to understand product development doesn’t need to leave customer success. They can build product knowledge while maintaining their customer expertise, becoming uniquely valuable at the intersection of both areas.
The Growth Multiplier Effect
Career webs create value for both individuals and companies. People feel more ownership over their development because they’re building unique combinations of capabilities rather than following predetermined tracks. Companies benefit from employees who understand multiple aspects of the business and can contribute in flexible ways.
Your marketing person who understands engineering can bridge communication gaps that traditional career paths never address. Your developer who’s learned about customer needs can make better technical decisions. Your operations person who’s developed leadership skills can scale processes as the company grows.
These cross-functional capabilities become increasingly valuable as companies scale and need people who can work effectively across traditional departmental boundaries.
Building Capability Maps
Instead of career ladders, forward-thinking companies are building capability maps that show how different skills connect across the organization. These maps highlight development opportunities that might not be obvious from traditional role descriptions.
Someone in finance might discover that project management skills could position them for operations roles. A content creator might realize that understanding data analysis could open up growth marketing opportunities. A customer support specialist might see how technical writing capabilities could lead to product documentation roles.
The map doesn’t dictate specific paths. It reveals possible connections and helps people envision development directions that align with their interests and the company’s needs.
The Manager’s New Job
In a career web environment, managers become development facilitators rather than promotion gatekeepers. Their job isn’t to shepherd people up predefined ladders, but to help them explore growth opportunities across the organization.
This requires a different approach to development conversations. Managers need to understand not just their department’s advancement opportunities, but how their team members’ interests and capabilities might create value in other areas of the company.
The best managers in career web organizations actively look for projects, partnerships, and learning opportunities that help their people develop multi-dimensional capabilities, even if those opportunities exist outside their immediate team.
Internal Mobility as Strategy
Career webs make internal mobility a competitive advantage. Instead of losing good people to external opportunities that offer different types of growth, companies can create those growth opportunities internally.
This doesn’t mean everyone gets to do whatever they want. It means creating development opportunities that match people’s evolving interests with the company’s evolving needs. As the business grows and changes, so do the opportunities for people to grow and change with it.
The engineering company that’s expanding into new markets needs people who understand both technical and business development challenges. The service company that’s building its first product needs people who understand both customer needs and product development. Career webs help identify and develop these hybrid capabilities internally.
The Connection Economy
The future belongs to people who can connect ideas, departments, and capabilities in novel ways. Career webs develop these connectors by giving people exposure to multiple aspects of the business and multiple types of challenges.
Your most valuable employees won’t be the ones who climbed the highest on traditional ladders. They’ll be the ones who built the richest webs of capability and connection across your organization.
Designing for Growth
Career webs require different systems than career paths. Development planning becomes more collaborative and exploratory. Performance evaluation focuses on capability building and impact creation, not just role execution. Promotion processes consider contribution potential, not just current performance.
This isn’t about abandoning structure. It’s about building structure that supports dynamic growth rather than constraining it.
The companies that embrace career web thinking will attract and retain people who want to grow in interesting, multidimensional ways. The companies that stick with linear career paths will watch their best people leave for opportunities that better match how modern professionals actually want to develop.
The path is dead. The web is the future.