The engineering career mobility report: Who gets promoted?

In the last ten years, the career paths of engineers have evolved in remarkable ways. With the rise of new dev tools, the proliferation of AI, the shifting of company structures, and an ever-growing demand for specialized skills, engineers are navigating more dynamic career landscapes than ever. From startups to established tech giants, the opportunities for engineers to move, grow, and take on new challenges have never been greater.

Who should read this and why?

This report aims to shed light on the concept of career mobility for engineers, providing a comprehensive analysis of key transitions, trends, and insights drawn from SignalFire’s vast dataset. Whether you’re an early-career engineer planning your next move or an industry leader managing a team of developers, understanding these mobility patterns can be crucial for making informed career and business decisions.

The insights in this report are crafted for engineering professionals of all levels—from junior developers to seasoned leaders. We believe that understanding the patterns of career mobility will not only empower individual engineers to make more strategic decisions but also help engineering leaders optimize talent management, mentorship, and team structures.

Takeaways

Before we dive into the report, here are some insights to keep in mind:

• In their last job transition, only 2.7% of big tech engineers moved to a smaller startup, where they would be promoted 22% faster and can earn potentially life-changing equity.
• Engineers from top-tier universities reach senior positions 22% faster than those from other schools, but prestigious schooling matters very little over the long run, with only 3% more top-tier engineers reaching a senior position by year eight of their career.
• Data engineering roles see the fastest progression to leadership.
• AI isn’t yet shrinking the engineering workforce. Instead, the number of engineers continues to grow, and "ML/AI engineer" is the fastest-growing engineering role, growing more than 2,770% in the last 10 years. 

Let’s explore these findings in more detail.

Understanding career mobility for engineers and how we get our data

Defining career mobility

Career mobility encompasses the transitions that engineers make throughout their professional journeys. At its core, career mobility can be broken down into:

• Company transitions: Moving between startups, midsized companies, and large organizations
• Role changes: Advancing in seniority or changing specialties (e.g., from DevOps to data engineering)
• Lateral moves: Shifting within the same level of responsibility but exploring new technologies, products, or teams

These transitions, when tracked over time, offer valuable insights into how engineers navigate their careers and how different factors—like company size, education, and role specialization—impact their growth.

How we use data to track mobility

Our analysis leverages SignalFire’s Beacon AI data platform, which SignalFire has been refining since the firm's launch in 2013. Beacon tracks more than 600 million employees and 80 million companies. To power it, we rely on 40 different datasets to help us paint a holistic picture of each company, person, and project. It’s why we, a VC, have an engineering team and a CTO. We then rely on proprietary machine learning algorithms developed by our team over the past decade to analyze and enrich the data to keep it relevant. 

We use Beacon to track a range of metrics, including:

• Job changes: The number of transitions engineers make, including promotions, lateral moves, and shifts between company sizes
• Duration in roles: How long engineers stay in specific positions before advancing or transitioning
• Seniority progression: How quickly engineers move from junior to senior roles and into leadership positions

We also track company data that, combined with engineering data, gives us insight into the meta engineering market and where resources are coalescing.

The breadth and depth of this dataset allow us to dive deeply into specific trends, such as the rise of "Corporate Escapees"—engineers leaving large corporations for startups—or "Loyalists" who remain within company size categories (e.g., Startup → Startup). It also helps us explore how educational background affects career progression and whether there is a “ceiling” for engineers looking to move into leadership roles​​​.

Keep in mind that these records represent billions of job changes across 10–20 years of engineering data—which means even the smallest differences represent a statistically significant difference. Now for the results.

Engineers are not moving enough!

The data shows that engineers tend to stay put, whether in large companies or startups, with far fewer transitions between the two. This stability could be due to a preference for the structured growth of large organizations or the innovative flexibility of startups. However, there's an argument to be made that mobility can unlock new career growth opportunities for engineers, including unlocking higher earning potential. Here are some potential reasons and data points suggesting engineers should consider more movement between company sizes:

Faster promotions in startups

Data suggests that engineers in startups can often experience quicker promotions, especially in the early stages of their careers, getting promoted 22% faster than those at larger companies. Startups, with their flat hierarchies and immediate need for problem solvers, offer more opportunities to take on leadership roles earlier than in large corporations. The fast pace and flexibility of these companies mean engineers can wear many hats, rapidly gaining diverse experiences that might take years to accumulate in larger organizations.

Startups have an average of 2.1 years between promotions​, significantly shorter than more traditional companies like IBM, which averages 3.18 years​. This reflects a broader trend: smaller companies or teams often provide faster pathways to senior roles.

Impact of educational pedigree

Top-tier engineering schools vs. other universities

When examining career mobility, specifically as a path to leadership, the impact of educational background often comes into question. Our analysis compares the career trajectories of engineers from three educational backgrounds: Ivy League or universities with top-tier engineering programs, other universities, and those without formal education. 

Once someone has held an engineering role, there are only small differences between degree holders and those without degrees in likelihood of reaching a leadership position. While top-university graduates ascend to leadership at higher rates, over time the difference in percentages remains small.

Key findings

• Faster promotions for top-tier graduates: Of the engineers who reach senior roles, those who graduated from top-tier programs tend to get there more quickly. On average, these engineers take about 22% less time to reach seniority than their peers from other schools​​. This early-career advantage is largely due to access to prestigious companies, strong networks, and advanced educational opportunities.
• Small differences over time: As careers progress, the gap between engineers from top-tier schools and those from other universities widens slightly but remains very small. Experience and adaptability become more important factors in career mobility, with many engineers from non-top-tier schools reaching senior positions just a few years later than their top-tier counterparts​.

‎No college? No problem

One of the most striking findings from our data is the significant upward mobility for engineers without formal degrees. While it takes them longer to reach senior positions (an average of 5.37 years compared with 3.07 years for top-tier graduates), engineers without formal education have consistently demonstrated the ability to rise through the ranks​​.

Fields such as DevOps and cloud engineering in particular place a stronger emphasis on practical skills and experience than on formal education​. This supports a sort of “certification model,” where certain job types are less about formal education than they are about formal training. 

Takeaways

• Educational background matters early on: Engineers from Ivy League and top-tier schools tend to reach senior roles 42% faster than those with no formal education​.
• Engineers from top-tier universities make up a relatively small portion of the total engineering workforce. Of the total engineers tracked, only 6% of engineers at top tech companies come from top-tier engineering programs.
• Worried AI is taking engineering jobs? Worry not! AI engineering and data engineering are where the most jobs are right now, so new college graduates should work on their Python to have the best chance of getting hired quickly.
• Engineers from top-tiers get promoted on average 3% more than others after 8 years: Non-top-tier and no-degree engineers often make up the gap through practical experience, skill development, and lateral moves.
• Alternative pathways are viable: Engineers without formal degrees demonstrate considerable upward mobility, especially in fields that value hands-on experience. DevOps, for example, sees a high percentage of engineers (47.23%) with no listed degree thriving​.

Hiring trends by education level

The largest sectors hiring right now are Consumer, Enterprise SaaS, and FinTech, in terms of pure numbers of engineering roles, with the majority of engineers coming from college. While engineers without degrees make up a smaller portion of the workforce, they still hold significant representation, especially in sectors like Cybersecurity and Dev Tools / Infra / AI/ML, where practical skills are highly valued. The data also suggests that lateral mobility between sectors is possible due to overlapping skill sets, particularly in areas like Enterprise SaaS and Dev Tools / Infra / AI/ML.

• College graduates dominate most sectors, highlighting the reduced emphasis on pedigree.
• Cybersecurity and Dev Tools / Infra / AI/ML show a higher concentration of engineers who hold no college degree.
• Lateral mobility is prominent between sectors like Enterprise SaaS and Dev Tools / Infra / AI/ML, indicating overlapping skills.

Moving to leadership requires mobility and specialization

The role of specialization in career mobility

For engineers interested in upward mobility, one of the most important factors driving career mobility is their field of specialization. Different engineering disciplines lend themselves better to rapid upward movement. While the deltas may seem small, remember this is across hundreds of millions of job transitions over the last ten years—which means the differences are statistically significant.

Specialization is a solid way to hack upward mobility

Data reveals that engineers in specialized fields such as DevOps, cloud engineering, and data engineering often have faster career mobility compared to more traditional fields like front-end or back-end development. These roles are not only in high demand but also require a highly technical skill set, which positions engineers to take on leadership roles more quickly.

For instance:

• DevOps engineers: This field has seen tremendous growth in demand. Engineers with DevOps skills often transition into leadership roles such as site reliability engineers (SREs) or heads of infrastructure more quickly because of the critical nature of their work in maintaining systems and ensuring operational efficiency​​.
• Data engineers: With the rise of data-driven decision-making, data engineers are increasingly moving into leadership roles, particularly in areas of data strategy and architecture​. Their expertise in managing and structuring data infrastructures positions them for upward mobility in leadership positions overseeing data operations.

Job changes accelerate career growth

By comparing this data with time-at-company, it seems that promotions come faster when paired with movement between jobs or companies. Strategic lateral moves, particularly into specialized or high-growth areas, can accelerate the path to leadership. For example, an engineer moving into a startup to gain experience in fast-paced environments can leverage this experience to transition into leadership roles in larger organizations.

Key Takeaways

• Specialized fields see faster leadership transitions: Engineers in high-demand areas, such as DevOps and data engineering, typically move into leadership roles within 2–3 years. 
• Lateral mobility expands leadership opportunities: Engineers who make strategic lateral moves can accelerate their career growth by diversifying their experience.

Wrapping it up: Specialization breeds seniority, and movement can accelerate leveling up

The career mobility landscape for engineers has evolved dramatically over the past two decades, with trends in specialization, company size transitions, and educational backgrounds playing key roles in shaping career trajectories. By analyzing these patterns, we gain valuable insights into how engineers can strategically navigate their careers to achieve faster growth, reach leadership positions, and make informed decisions about their next moves.

Key Takeaways

• Company size transitions: Engineers moving between large companies and startups experience different growth dynamics. Those who transition from large corporations to startups often stay longer in these environments, taking on more diverse responsibilities, which accelerates their path to leadership.
• Educational impact: While engineers from top-tier schools tend to reach senior roles more quickly, our data shows that engineers from other schools and even those without formal education also experience significant upward mobility over time. Practical experience and adaptability can level the playing field as engineers gain more experience.
• Specialization and mobility: Engineers in high-demand fields like DevOps, data engineering, and AI engineering tend to move into leadership roles faster. Strategic lateral moves within these fields allow engineers to diversify their skill sets, which further accelerates their career growth and positions them for leadership. DevOps is still a field that favors nontraditional backgrounds to computer science, which means this is an interesting area to explore if you’re transitioning careers. 

What’s next

As engineering careers continue to evolve, understanding these mobility patterns becomes increasingly important for both engineers and engineering leaders. Whether you're planning your next career move or looking to nurture talent within your organization, the insights from this report can help guide those decisions.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll dive deeper into the engineering leader report, exploring the signals that indicate a strong engineering culture and how leaders can foster environments that promote growth, innovation, and retention.

We encourage you to engage with our community, share your own career mobility stories, and explore the opportunities and challenges that come with navigating the ever-changing engineering landscape. Feel free to email us with thoughts or sign up for our developer newsletter to get more content like this and updates about events, workshops, and more.