cx-career-pathinglisted

# Career pathing for support In many support orgs, **the only promotion is off the queue** — team lead, QA, WFM, or "special projects". Strong agents who want to stay customer-facing hit a ceiling; weak managers get promoted because they were available. Tenure becomes the proxy for merit because nobody wrote down what merit means at each level. A usable progression framework answers: **what changes at each level**, **how you know someone is there**, and **why both IC and lead tracks exist**. ## Step 1: name the tracks At minimum, split: | Track | Purpose | | --- | --- | | **IC (individual contributor)** | Deep customer work, complexity, coaching-by-example, subject-matter depth | | **Lead / management** | People development, scheduling, performance process, queue health | Optional specialist lanes (QA analyst, WFM analyst, KM, training) should **lateral from IC**, not be the only escape from the phone. If every senior agent must become a lead to earn more, you will lose your best ICs or promote reluctant managers. State whether **pay bands** align to levels (structure only — do not invent salary percentiles without HR data). ## Step 2: define levels by scope of impact Typical IC ladder (rename to your titles): | Level | Scope | Differentiator | | --- | --- | --- | | **Foundation** | Owns own tickets | Meets quality and reliability bar on primary work | | **Proficient** | Owns complex strata | Independent on hard drivers; consistent QA | | **Senior IC** | Owns outcom