Career Growth

How Growth Works

At Arillus, growth is not about time served. It’s about expanding your impact — and demonstrating that you’re already operating at the next level before a promotion makes it official.

Read the Career Philosophy first if you haven’t. It explains the concepts of Impact and Leverage that underpin everything here, and the two tracks available from L3 onwards.

Levels exist to be clear: what’s expected of you now, what the next step looks like, and what “senior” actually means here. Your Group Lead is your growth partner — they own your development, run your reviews, and will tell you directly where you are and what needs to change.

The Expected Ceiling: L5

We expect most Arillusians to grow to L5 over the course of their career here. That’s the target, and everything in our development support is aimed at getting people there.

L6 is a different story. Principal-level roles are rare, exceptional, and need-driven. We will only ever have a small number of L6s — one per function at most, and only when the firm is large enough that someone needs to own the practice at that scale. L6 is not the next step after L5; it’s a distinct role that the firm will create when the time is right. Performing at L5 exceptionally well is the right goal; L6 is a conversation for later.

Performance Reviews

In your first year

Your first year has three structured reviews:

3-month review — early signal check. Are you settling in? Are the basics clicking? Any early concerns are surfaced here, not saved for later.
6-month review — deeper look. How are you tracking against your level’s expectations? What’s going well, what needs work? A growth plan is agreed here.
1-year review — full review. Comprehensive assessment against your level; the first time a promotion is formally on the table.

After your first year

Annual reviews from year two onwards. Shorter, focused, evidence-based: what did you deliver, how did you work, where are you against the next level’s expectations?

How reviews work

Your group lead or function lead runs your review. They collect written feedback from your seniors and Product Leads across every project you touched in the period — not just one recent project — and calibrate that against your level’s expectations.

You’ll receive a written summary after every review: what went well, what needs to change, and a clear growth plan for the next period. No surprises. If something is a concern, you’ll hear it at the review — not for the first time in a later conversation.

Growth Timelines

We have a clear sense of how fast we expect people to move:

Intern → Associate (L0 → L1): at end of internship, if joining full-time
Associate → Mid-level (L1 → L2): within 2 years
Mid-level → Senior (L2 → L3): within another 2-3 years

These aren’t hard deadlines — someone growing slightly faster or slightly slower is normal. But if someone hasn’t levelled up within these windows, we don’t assume they need more time. We ask a harder question: is this the right place for your growth?

Arillus is a fast-moving, project-driven environment. The expectation is that you’re learning constantly and expanding your scope over time. If that isn’t happening, it may mean the work isn’t the right fit, the development support isn’t landing, or the person’s strengths lie somewhere else.

In those situations, we’ll be direct: we may not be the right environment for your growth, and it may be better for both of us to part ways. That’s not a failure — it’s an honest conversation, and we’d rather have it early than let someone stay stuck.