It's a nice idea to things like this _in theory_. Medium has something similar they called Snowflake - <a href="https://github.com/Medium/snowflake" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Medium/snowflake</a> ... but note the disclaimer...<p>> Heads up: Medium isn’t using this tool anymore, but you’re welcome to!<p>The problem with things like this is the typical engineering mindset, when shown a graphical or numerical analysis of their performance will zoom into analyse every detail and in the end it's just backed by the managers impressions and judgement.<p>For similar reasons I have a strong opinion that engineers shouldn't be paid performance related bonuses, because no matter what happens, it's just going to upset them - the best case - maximum bonus - just equates to a "meh". Better to pay a good base salary upfront ...<p>Anyway use tools like this with caution IMO.
I really like this, the Dropbox career framework, and the Monzo career framework. I synthesized all three recently into one that I keep for our company, and the work pays such dividends. We do quarterly performance reviews and not only does having a consistent standard make these fair, but it reduced my time to write them from 1 hour per report to about 30 min.<p><a href="https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/" rel="nofollow">https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/</a>
<a href="https://github.com/monzo/progression-framework" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/monzo/progression-framework</a><p>And my nascent adaptation..
<a href="https://kevala-progression.herokuapp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://kevala-progression.herokuapp.com/</a>
This attempts to recreate <a href="https://sfia-online.org/en" rel="nofollow">https://sfia-online.org/en</a> , but it is way harder than one imagines and then is in danger of being too prescriptive and inapplicable.<p>It's better to go the other way and work out the principals behind progression... that the further in their career the more ownership, agency, and scope they have. Most things can be guided by merely understanding the principals of it.<p>This very old doc (from Sun Microsystems engineers IIRC) remains excellent <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090420152505/http://mark.kampe.googlepages.com/lancelot.txt" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20090420152505/http://mark.kampe...</a><p>It speaks to the spirit, the principals, behind progression... and that makes it extremely applicable to lots of fields, personal paths, and environments.
This is really well done, but I feel like it (and other such frameworks I've seen) all start to fall apart at high levels of seniority.<p>What makes someone D7 in this framework? The real answer is not in the charts, it's that they're very business critical. Maybe they're some ultra-niche specialist or just the only one who's been at the company since the beginning and knows where the bodies are buried.<p>Things change in very interesting ways once the power dynamics between employer/employee shifts so the company asking the employee what it will take to make them stay.
I think there is a cut off point where influence is entirely down to hierarchical position.<p>Yeah there are some people who cross cut and have personal influence (every org has celebrities) but in the main a person who has 1000 people reporting to him has more influence than someone with 2 people.<p>How they got to that position will have very little to do with the skills sets mentioned here.<p>It's kid of like the French aristocracy before the guillotine was invented writing a book on how to rise through the ranks to become an influence at court.<p>It's missing most of the important stuff<p>PS - I am getting overly cynical but I do favour democracy in organisations
These frameworks are behavioral competency frameworks. When used for assessing competencies, it is useful to define what the behavioral competency is unambiguously and include positive and negative examples of the behavior.<p>People have questions like, "What should I do to move up the next level?"<p>A competency framework helps answer that question. For eg: say one is currently a manager of people (a.k.a. First level manager) and is looking to move to a manager of managers role (eg: a department leader). A well-defined competency framework would clearly elucidate what kinds of behaviors are expected from each level so that it is clear when having a 1:1 discussion on career progression on where the behaviors are already demonstrated and where there are gaps that need to be worked on.<p>Raises, bonuses and promotion are generally a "past performance + future potential" decision. The competency framework can feed into past performance as well as future potential. Eg: a line manager who is performing poorly on certain competencies may not get his full bonus compared to a line manager who is demonstrating satisfactory levels in all required competencies.<p>Also, year-on-year trends of behavioral competency measurements can also inform on future potential/promotion decisions. Gaps can identify training / development needs.<p>It is useful when applied consistently.
Nice.<p>Like all of these types of things, I believe that an <i>heuristic</i> approach is best, and this would work well for that.<p>I could see a training curriculum being developed from it.<p>However, it’s also likely that an HR policy document would be developed, with compensation and review targets. That could have … <i>interesting</i> … ramifications.<p>BTW: the image does not do so well in GitHub’s new dark mode.
On the first glance i really like that approach, but i have the feeling that something is missing. They address the issue, that different people can be on different stages in different axes, but there is no real explanation of how to handle the differences. Someone can come in with little knowledge about the technology, hence not using it before but is very well suited to "lead" discussions about architecture or processes.
Interesting read. I’m not sure I agree that an EM defining processes is operating at a more mature level than one merely challenging them. I try to challenge processes but coach the team to find the right processes themselves. I define processes myself only as a last resort.
It’s a pretty comprehensive framework and I think it’s great. It would have been better if it also has a table of salary range for each level in different regions so that companies aren’t misinterpreting these job levels or, at worse, misuse the guide to manipulate their employees.<p>There are companies which make their employees senior or tech lead but pay $50k and use the same framework as expectation. It cannot be based entirely only on job titles because they are “free” to issue. You can easily mint new titles out of thin air. To back these job levels or titles with real value, their corresponding pays need to be relatable.<p>If we could print money without backing it with something scarce like gold, guess what will happen? Haven’t we seen some companies where there are so many senior, lead or even principal engineers but yet they getting paid lower than a mid engineer at another company? Job level/title inflation.<p>On the other hand, at companies that don’t inflate their job levels, they could still be underpaying their “seniors” and “leads” with junior or mid level pay while expecting them to operate along with the guide.
Interesting idea. Tech lead at our company is mostly a TPM role mixed with the TL responsibilities listed here. In fact every senior engineer is expected to act in the TL capacity at our company. No commentary as to whether that is good or bad just relating that is how our (fairly large, well-known) org works
Reminds me of Patreon's IC leveling doc <a href="https://levels.patreon.com/" rel="nofollow">https://levels.patreon.com/</a>?<p>Note: '?' required for link to work
Thanks, very useful. I'm just finding it hard do adapt and find a place for the role of a Software/System Architect (which is very common in my industry) in the framework since it conflicts a bit with the other roles, mainly, Tech Lead. I`m thinking of Software/System Architect to be a TL7.
Interesting.
That said, the word "risk" is missing.
Fundamental aspect of tech/project/program management - IMHO a good framework should include that!
I wonder if the author plays Football Manager[1]. The attributes screens use this same visualization.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.passion4fm.com/img/football-manager-player-attributes-categories.png" rel="nofollow">https://www.passion4fm.com/img/football-manager-player-attri...</a>