SailPoint Career Growth & Development

What makes promotion criteria feel fair and clear — and what evidence supports it?

Best-in-class promotion criteria is fair and clear when everyone can understand what is required to be promoted, and in turn, that criteria is then reliably used to evaluate and make promotion decisions about employees across teams, demographics and managers. 

Data from the Great Place to Work Institute found that when criteria for promotions is unclear, the workforce does not believe that promotions are fairly awarded. At SailPoint, we intentionally provide multiple streams of information and support materials to ensure our promotion criteria is front and center for our crew and is consistently utilized by leaders across the company when making promotion decisions. 

Which program most improved your capability in your role — and what changed after?

The most impactful capability enhancement for me was doing continuous self-assessment against the competencies defined as most imperative for my role and having conversations about that assessment with my manager. He provided feedback and a viewpoint on my competencies, and we discussed how I could work to build a particular competency with the help of an individual development plan. Working through the structure of a development plan — having a guide in place with projects I proposed that should lead to a particular growth outcome — kept me engaged and focused on continuously looking for opportunities to build those key competencies. After working through a development plan in that way, I felt more confident to propose new ideas or untested hypotheses to solve bigger, more strategic problems.

What manager or mentor behavior consistently accelerates growth?

When managers provide immediate feedback with clear and specific examples about what was impactful, that can drive motivation and heighten engagement for crew to continue making similar strides when timely, positive feedback is shared, or course correct quickly when adjustments need to be made. These regular touchpoints with managers and mentors offer real-life opportunities to grow in a meaningful way. 

We talk a lot about radical candor at SailPoint. The concept, coined by Kim Scott, is designed to help people build stronger relationships by caring personally while also challenging directly. When a manager can consistently be intentional about an employee’s growth by saying the hard thing and making sure that person knows it comes from a place of care, individuals are much more able to take on that feedback and grow from it.

SailPoint does a really good job with autonomy and responsibility — owning the product that you’re working on and then being accountable for the results. Tackling interesting challenges but also having the structure to mentor you and teach you as you go through has been really beneficial for career growth. 

How does your team cultivate a culture of learning, whether that’s through hackathons, lunch and learns, access to online courses or other resources?

SailPoint’s core values, known internally as the “Four I’s” — Innovation, Impact, Integrity and Individuals — define our culture and clearly articulate the environment where our employees thrive. Technological advancements and the cybersecurity threat landscape are changing at a rapid pace. Upskilling on technology and identifying innovative ways to control threats is a continuous process. Our team continues to learn about new technology, tools, process improvements and more via online learning platforms like Udemy or other newsletter/blog subscriptions. They come up with innovative ways to design solutions or solve complex problems. Our crew also consistently engages in innovation workshops and hackathons held at regular intervals. Additionally, we attend lunch-and-learn sessions to stay informed about new initiatives, tool adoption and process change.

How does this culture positively impact the work your team produces?

The continuous learning culture helps the team grow, remain competitive and provide a profound sense of accomplishment, whether it’s delivering new product capabilities or solving real-world customer problems. Team members share knowledge among each other and actively participate in brainstorming ideas before finalizing a specific approach. All of this helps create great bonding among team members and improves employee retention. Psychological safety is key to innovation, and the SailPoint crew does an excellent job fostering this by staying deeply committed to and rooted in our core values.

What advice would you give to other engineers or engineering leaders interested in creating a culture of learning on their own team?

Learning and adapting to change are crucial for survival, along with maintaining the “edge” in the future. Engineers should always strive to learn new things, much like sharpening an axe at a regular interval to have a better impact, which will help deliverables and drive innovation. Engineering leaders should budget time for learning/upskilling and think about how the team is getting ready for the future.