Engineering

Learns the systems, tools, and practices of the team while delivering well-defined work.

Technical craft

Learns the languages, frameworks, and systems in use. Writes code that works and follows team conventions with guidance. Reads existing code to understand how the pieces fit together.

Scope & ownership

Completes clearly defined tasks, typically a single ticket or bug. Work is specified and reviewed by more senior engineers. Communicates promptly when something is blocking.

Delivery & quality

Ships small changes through the normal pull-request process. Writes tests for their changes where a pattern exists. Helps debug technical problems and submits issues so that problems are documented and the service improves.

Collaboration & communication

Communicates internally and externally in a respectful manner. Asks questions early. Engages in code reviews with assistance from engineers and senior engineers, and acts on the feedback received.

Leadership & mentorship

Receives formal and ad hoc training from senior engineers and architects. Not yet expected to mentor others.

Business & product impact

Makes an impact by delivering features, refactoring existing code, or updating systems that enable other developers to be successful. Understands what each ticket is for and who it helps.

Delivers well-scoped features independently and starts to take care of the health of the codebase.

Technical craft

Proficient in the team's primary stack. Writes clear, tested, maintainable code with little rework. Understands the main components of the system they work in and how data flows between them.

Scope & ownership

Owns small features or well-scoped pieces of larger initiatives from ticket through release. Works from a plan set by others and needs only occasional guidance on approach.

Delivery & quality

Breaks work into pull requests that are easy to review. Estimates their own tasks and actively participates in sprint planning. Avoids creating technical debt while delivering, and calls it out when a shortcut is taken.

Collaboration & communication

Gives useful, respectful code reviews: thorough, thoughtful, flexible, and not pedantic. Listens to the priorities and concerns of others, acknowledges differing perspectives, and anticipates their reactions.

Leadership & mentorship

Supports teammates by answering questions and pairing when asked. Helps onboard Developers to team practices.

Business & product impact

Preemptively scans the issue backlog: learns the pain points in the system, applies labels, triages, and closes issues by pull request or other means. Understands how their feature fits the release.

Delivers significant features with minor guidance and is trusted with production.

Technical craft

Strong command of the stack and deep knowledge of at least one area of the system. Designs solutions to medium-sized problems that are simple, tested, and fit existing patterns. Reviews of their work surface few structural problems.

Scope & ownership

Owns significant features or a whole component end to end with minor guidance. Handles ambiguity within a defined problem and recognizes when a task is larger than it first appears.

Delivery & quality

Plans multi-week work, gives reliable estimates, and delivers on them. Engages in production-level fixes and remediation: investigates incidents, resolves them, and follows up so they do not recur. Reduces technical debt in the areas they touch.

Collaboration & communication

Their reviews are a reliable quality gate for the team. Explains technical trade-offs clearly to engineers and to Product. Raises disagreement constructively and commits once a decision is made.

Leadership & mentorship

Mentors Developers and Software Engineer I teammates informally. Shares what they learn through documentation and demos.

Business & product impact

Understands the customer problem behind each feature and proposes a better solution when the ticket does not fit it. Triages backlog items with an eye to customer and business value.

Defines and executes plans for features and system work; the team's technical anchor for an area.

At this point, a person is mastering how effective they can be as an individual contributor.

Technical craft

Expert in the team's domain and the go-to person for at least one system. Structures code in a manner that anticipates the scale and maintenance required for the scope of the work. Considers legibility both when authoring and when reviewing pull requests.

Scope & ownership

Defines and executes an execution plan for specific features or internal system maintenance and upgrades. When tasks are large, scopes the work down into smaller, actionable parts for themselves and for others.

Delivery & quality

Owns releases: prepares for and assists directly in release and configuration management. Strives to reduce technical debt while communicating with teammates about any larger refactor. Adjusts well to shifting priorities when necessary.

Collaboration & communication

Works to understand the purpose of the features the team is building and communicates that purpose to team members. Asks clarifying questions when expectations are unclear. Adapts their communication style to the audience and accurately shares credit for ideas and collaborative efforts.

Leadership & mentorship

Supports the work of peers by pair programming, reviewing, and mentoring. Demonstrates openness to others' ideas and models the team's engineering standards.

Business & product impact

Actively participates in engineering efforts that streamline the experience of the product. Connects each execution plan to the product outcome it serves.

Leads large technical efforts across the team and makes other engineers more effective.

At this point, the majority of one's time is spent scaling their own skills to help others.

Technical craft

Sets the technical direction for their area and manages larger refactors and system upgrades. Creates and maintains internal documentation for the purpose and structure of the systems they work on, and carefully documents processes that are not clear.

Scope & ownership

Owns multi-quarter initiatives that span several engineers, coordinating efforts across the team rather than working in a silo. Estimates scope of work and, when estimates are off, coordinates with stakeholders such as Product Management to address risk and takes ownership of the outcome.

Delivery & quality

Keeps the team moving quickly by taking on engineering efforts that are not glamorous. Proactively communicates issues, addresses necessary trade-offs, and owns issues through to resolution.

Collaboration & communication

Actively participates in meetings and creates cross-team collaboration where necessary to address business goals. Makes sure people feel included in projects and that their voices are heard.

Leadership & mentorship

Teaches peers how to set up systems and drive execution plans for features and system improvements. Helps others lead refactors and upgrades, or participate in them. Regularly mentors engineers at every earlier level.

Business & product impact

Aligns the team’s technical work with business goals and surfaces where the two diverge. Represents engineering in planning conversations for their area.

Sets technical strategy across teams, develops proven systems, and grows the engineering organization.

At this point, one is helping others be the best that they can be, removing roadblocks and helping to provide solutions to large problems.

Technical craft

Develops proven systems and replicates those systems and approaches across teams so that others may learn from and improve on them. Maintains deep industry knowledge and awareness of the technical landscape, and incorporates that analysis into strategy.

Scope & ownership

Sets clear and challenging goals for a portfolio of work and pursues them with enthusiasm. Not only leads, but ideates new engineering efforts. Provides guidance and vision across teams.

Delivery & quality

Critically reviews multiple plans and adjusts as needed. Drives measurable growth by managing key metrics, affecting engineering roadmaps positively, and creating research or programs. Partners with other teams to improve the effectiveness of internal tooling.

Collaboration & communication

Removes barriers by working with others around a shared need or customer benefit. Beyond participating in meetings, thoughtfully creates and leads meetings where helpful. Anticipates the needs of those around them and is respectful in async hygiene: teammates can reach them or know their status during working hours. Fills out process docs without being asked.

Leadership & mentorship

Mentors and actively drives the technical skills of the immediate or extended team, with consideration of each person's career stage and personal trajectory. Scales teams through mentoring and by developing other leaders.

Business & product impact

Understands business objectives and incorporates them into the body of work. Creates strategies that cross organizational boundaries to achieve broad business goals or influence. Anticipates the implications their ideas have on others and pursues mutually beneficial strategies.

Owns system architecture and the long-term technical direction of the company.

Technical craft

Works on system architecture, thinking through problems and anticipating usage into the future. Builds systems that scale to the appropriate amount, no more and no less. Final authority on architectural standards.

Scope & ownership

Owns technical direction across the whole platform. Chooses precisely what to work on in terms of strategic impact, without being asked.

Delivery & quality

Effectively communicates when there are problems, understanding the risks and impact of any proposed change. Establishes the architectural review and governance the organization uses to ship safely.

Collaboration & communication

Carefully considers communication modality when collaborating, especially in tricky circumstances. Listens well when others express trade-offs next to other priorities.

Leadership & mentorship

Actively advocates for others internally and externally, making sure that their work is seen. Extends their social capital to aid other people. Develops the next generation of Principal Engineers.

Business & product impact

Understands the impact of their activity on company OKRs. Identifies industry-wide pieces of functionality that are missing and could unlock customer growth at scale, and delivers them through engineering work, open-source contributions, or advocating with Product for features.