Career paths
Clear career paths for every role
Show every employee the roles they could move into, the skills each one requires, and a development plan to get there.
Current role
Customer Success Specialist
IC 2 · 2 years in role
Next roles · skill match
Customer Success Manager82%
Promotion · 3 skills to build
Account Manager74%
Lateral move · 4 skills to build
Implementation Consultant61%
Lateral move · 5 skills to build
The problem
Employees don't see a clear, fair path forward or know what to learn next.
When the next step is unclear, good people look for it somewhere else. Most companies have the roles to offer; employees just cannot see them.
“The accountant one is asking, well, what do I need to do to become an accountant two?”
HR leader, global agriculture company
01
Invisible next step
Employees leave for a promotion they could not see here.
02
Hard conversations
Managers are unsure what to say in career conversations.
03
Criteria by person
Promotion criteria change depending on who you ask.
04
Who you know
Internal moves depend on who you know.
What changes
Every career move, and the skills it takes
Without one system
With Career Bird
Career paths live in a slide deck that few employees see and nobody updates.
Career Explorer shows every lateral and promotional move from each role, built on the current job architecture.
Promotion criteria vary by manager, so employees in the same role get different answers.
Promotion criteria are written into every level, so the same standard applies to everyone.
Development plans go stale because they aren't tied to the role an employee wants next.
Development plans connect to the skills the next role requires, so each plan has a clear goal.
Internal moves happen by word of mouth, so many employees never see the roles they could move into.
Employees can compare any two roles skill by skill and see what it takes to move.
How it works
Give every employee a visible path in weeks, not months
Career Bird suggests. Your team customizes.
Step 1
Organize roles
By department, job family, track and level.
Step 2
Explore paths
Employees see lateral and promotional moves across departments.
Step 3
Compare skills
Each move shows the skills to build and the gap today.
Step 4
Plan the move
A development plan connected to the target role.
Career frameworks built with Career Bird
“
What stands out most is how Career Bird makes skills the common language across job design, learning, and mobility.
Don CarterEVP of People & Culture, KivaCareer Explorer
Every move an employee could make
- Employees see lateral and promotional opportunities across departments, tracks and levels.
- Each role shows a skill match against the employee’s current proficiency.
- Managers use the same view in career conversations.
Career Explorer · role tracks with skill match per role
Promotion criteria
The same criteria for everyone
- Every level lists the skills and proficiency it requires.
- Leveling dimensions describe how scope and impact grow at each level.
- Employees and managers see the same criteria.
Skill matrix · required proficiency per skill at each level
Development plans
A plan to close the gap
- Plans are connected to the job and skills architecture, the skills the target role requires and a learning resource library.
- Career Bird identifies work projects that help employees build each skill.
- Managers and HR see every plan and its progress.
Development plan · cards with status and progress
Who this helps
How each team across HR benefits
Solved with
“I’ve followed Career Bird’s evolution from the start, and it’s clear this platform was built by people who truly understand how organizations and talent grow. What stands out most is how Career Bird makes skills the common language across job design, learning, and mobility.”
Don CarterEVP of People & Culture, Kiva“What impressed me most is the depth. It’s not just a checklist of features — there’s a real understanding of how organizations evolve, how skills shift, and how people learn and grow in their careers.”
Heather VeldmanVP of Total Rewards, Go Health“You can tell Career Bird wasn’t just thrown together by software engineers. It’s clear that IO psychologists and HR leaders played a significant role in developing it — the frameworks are thoughtful, practical, and grounded in science.”
Kira MeinzerChief People Officer, Envoy Global“Career Bird connects the dots between job design, skills, learning, and mobility. Instead of separate systems and spreadsheets, we now have a single platform that ties everything together.”
Gail RodmanVP Talent Strategy & People Experience, Unite Us“So many platforms claim to be skills-focused, but Career Bird is actually built that way. It treats skills as the foundation for job design, learning, and career paths. That matters right now because AI is rewriting roles faster than most companies can respond.”
Ted EmersonVP, Head of People“Career Bird is one of the few HR platforms that feels like it was built for the end-user. Teams won’t need a lengthy rollout or training — it’s intuitive, clear, and something managers and employees actually want to use.”
Maureen CalabreseFormer Chief People Officer, Sprout Social and Modern Health“Career Bird helps companies prepare for the future by turning skills data into human growth, organizational agility, and real impact.”
Rishad TobaccowalaFormer Chief Strategist and Growth Officer, Publicis Groupe“Career Bird was selected to participate in the competitive PeopleTech Partners Growth Program as they are building meaningful solutions for Talent and People Leaders aligned with what’s next in work.”
Cara Brennan AllamanoFounding Partner, PeopleTech PartnersIntegrations
Fits the HR stack you already run
Career Bird pulls employee data from your HRIS and sends job descriptions to your ATS. Your HRIS stays the system of record for people; Career Bird for roles and skills.
+150 moreSecurity
Built for employee data
SOC 2 Type II audited, with a GDPR-aligned data processing agreement and role-based access for every user. Your data is never used to train AI models.
SOC 2 Type IIGDPR-aligned
Read about securityFAQ
Questions buyers ask
What is the difference between a career path and a career framework?
A career framework defines the roles, levels and skills in your organization. Career paths are the moves an employee can make within it, such as a promotion or a lateral move.
Can employees see lateral moves?
Yes. Career Explorer shows lateral and promotional opportunities across departments, job families, tracks and levels.
Do managers see development plans?
Yes. Managers and HR see every development plan and its progress.
How do we get started?
Career Bird is free for up to 10 roles and 10 users. Most teams start with one job family.
Show your people where they can go next.
Start with one job family. Career Bird suggests the paths and skills, and your team customizes them.