On an individual level, this feels like a box-ticking exercise at the company I work at. Project goals are hard to set out a year in advance as a developer as there's a good chance that within 6 months the direction is changed yet again from product. Personal career development goals are not really considered.
When it gets tied into career progression, you end up with not very productive goals (but easily measurable!) like "Reduce eslint warnings in legacy project X by 50%", because business value are either not easily measurable (how do you quantify better knowledge of the overall system architecture? Bugs not caused? But how do you know the developer didn't just stay in their comfort area/have easy projects this quarter/year? I saved Joe 4 hours on Friday since he didn't have to investigate what the system does with foobars as I had the answer? That just sounds petty. ), or not directly under the developers control (revenue).
I've come to the conclusion it's folly to pursue any one companies career progression maze. Because you get corralled into all sorts of sillyness like this; vying for projects with your peers, acrimonious code reviews, chasing silly metrics, etc. I find it's much more effective in time, money and title (and work life balance, and mental health) to simply switch jobs for the higher title.
In other words don't fall for the "work your ass off for a possible future bump in pay and title" game many companies play.
Or find a good company. I've worked hard and gone from mid level (actually slightly lower) to principal over several years at the same, growing company. My responsibilities have drastically changed over time towards greater impact and my pay is nearly 3x from where I started.
When it gets tied into career progression, you end up with not very productive goals (but easily measurable!) like "Reduce eslint warnings in legacy project X by 50%", because business value are either not easily measurable (how do you quantify better knowledge of the overall system architecture? Bugs not caused? But how do you know the developer didn't just stay in their comfort area/have easy projects this quarter/year? I saved Joe 4 hours on Friday since he didn't have to investigate what the system does with foobars as I had the answer? That just sounds petty. ), or not directly under the developers control (revenue).