job-profile-guide.md

How to Create a Job Profile

A job profile is a set of expectations for an engineer at a specific grade. We recognize that different roles may involve varying activities depending on specialization, and job profiles should be adjusted accordingly. However, we also expect that engineers at the same grade share common values and meet consistent expectations relevant to their grade.

These common expectations can be found in engineer track and manager track.

We have several sets of competencies distributed across three engineering tracks: craftsmanship, impact, and behavior. Naturally, the craftsmanship track focuses more on hard skills, while impact and behavior are more related to soft skills (though this is not a strict rule). Our primary goal is to refine our expectations for hard skills to create a job profile tailored to specific professions.

To create a job profile:

• choose a grade you're creating a job profile for.

NOTE

Try to start with the Senior grade. It would be easier later to describe levels below (middle-junior) by reducing specific expectations from the higher level downwards.

The Staff role is a new concept for our company. It can be derived from the Senior role by increasing expectations based on the Crafters model. However, this does not necessarily mean that the role requires stronger hard skills than those of a Senior. Each case needs to be considered carefully.

NOTE

The Principal position is rare and requires careful consideration. Every potential Principal candidate is subject to thorough discussions. If you believe someone qualifies as a Principal (a role even more influential and impactful than Staff), be prepared to defend your opinion and provide strong, well-founded arguments.

• choose hard skills from the list of competencies. In the career ladder, we propose using the following categories:

  • craftsmanship:
    • Software Engineering;
    • Design Process;
    • Design Adoption;
    • Delivery Process.
  • impact:
    • Pre-Delivery Process;
    • Strategy Execution;
    • Operational Excellence.
  • behavior:
    • effective communication.

  Each hard skill mentioned above already has a tailored set of expectations specific to each grade level, reflecting our shared expectations for that competence at the corresponding grade. For example, the expectations for the "Design Process" competence are higher for the Staff role than for the Middle role.

CAUTION

A description of each competence is already tailored to a specific grade. It’s not just a general description of the competence, but rather a set of expectations for that competence at a particular grade level.

• now comes the most important part (this is where the magic happens):

  • you need to add expectations that are critical for the specific profession you're developing the job profile for. For example, a Mobile Engineer should be skilled in mobile technologies, while the expectations for a Backend Engineer may be entirely different;

  • ensure that each added expectation aligns with the selected profession. Avoid including general expectations that apply to the grade rather than the profession, or those already covered by the competencies for the grade;

  • it’s perfectly fine if some competencies don’t require additional expectations. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel model

    NOTE

    For example, if you believe that your Mobile Engineers should be able to explain what they do, this is likely already included as an expectation under the 'Effective Communication' competence in the Behavior track. There’s no need to duplicate this expectation.

• based on our experience, we anticipate having more detailed content for Craftsmanship items (e.g., software engineering, design process, design adoption, delivery process), less content for impact items (e.g., pre-delivery process, strategy execution, operational excellence), and potentially no content for Behavior items (e.g., Effective Communication). This is completely fine, as our expectations for the Craftsmanship track should be more specific and tailored to the profession, whereas Behavior should reflect broader, grade-relevant expectations rather than specialization.

• there is also a list of competencies that can be considered 'soft' skills, such as:

  • craftsmanship:

    • systems thinking;
    • strategic thinking;
    • promotion.

  • impact:

    • aspiration to extend;
    • experimental spirit;
    • ownership;

  • behavior:

    • collaborative engagement;
    • talent growth;
    • influence.

    We don't expect any additions to those items, as they already express our expectations from the grade and should be common for any profession. If you have a strong desire to add any expectation for a specific role, please contact the Crafters working group in Slack channel #crafters, as it might be either a flaw of the Crafters model or a flaw in understanding the model (or our ability to explain it).

• remember to check and tune your newly created job profile by demonstrating it to someone eager to challenge your result. It would also be great if you show your job profile draft to someone from the Crafters working group to ensure that you've not over-engineered it by expecting what is already expected.