The Evolution of a Software Engineer

engineer.md

This gist outlines the change in the depth and breadth of the tasks and responsibilities of a software engineer as she continuously improves herself.

I created this to supplement a discussion in an internal slack group; then I though the rest of the world might benefit from this too.

Contributions are always welcome.

Junior Engineer

• Knowledge
  • Demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of technical specialty.
  • Writes code, completes programming and assists with the debugging of applications.
• Productivity
  • Demonstrates the ability to learn quickly.
  • Initiates self tasks.
  • Is proactive.
  • Exhibits good prioritization of self tasks.
  • Exhibits good critical thinking.
  • Good-enough planning and estimating self work.
  • Can handle medium level problem solving on his/her own.
• Quality of Work
  • Applies a test-driven approach.
  • Applies the concepts of CI/CD.
  • Mindful of making minimal cross-cutting concerns.
• Collaboration
  • Is responsive.
  • Communicates effectively with peers.
  • Has willingness to learn from others.
  • Demonstrates curiosity to understand what other teams are doing.
• Leadership
  • Demonstrates eagerness to proactively develop skills.
  • Contributes to team morale.
  • Manages self successfully.

Engineer

• Knowledge
  • Maintains, modifies and enhances existing software, and participates in development and testing of new software application programs.
• Productivity
  • Demonstrates the ability to work independently.
  • Understands self as well as team’s tasks, prioritization, and is able to maintain focus on key deliverables.
  • Accurate in planning and estimating work.
  • Proactively shares ideas on a team level.
  • Starts dealing with high level of complex problems without help.
• Quality of Work
  • Achieves completeness in implementation.
  • Understands the notion of clean code and refactors and augments tasks along the way.
  • Very mindful of self work in terms of the impact on quality concerns.
  • Understands customer’s needs in terms of quality.
• Collaboration
  • Promotes collaboration within the team.
  • Able to improve performance through feedback helpful to others.
  • Understands what other teams are engaging in.
• Leadership
  • Owns tasks till delivery.
  • Add passion and excitement to team’s spirit.
  • Holds himself or herself accountable for his/her work.
  • Adds innovative ideas to the team’s goals.

Senior Engineer

• Knowledge
  • Works within general practices to identify the product’s needs and potential enhancements; designs, develops, tests, and implements end-to-end solutions.
• Productivity
  • Proactively shares ideas and collaborates on group level.
  • Familiar with a broad set of tools and technologies.
  • Leverages code-reuse as best as she can (including “open source”).
  • Handles complex problems and starts helping others.
• Quality of Work
  • Highly focused on the customer’s success.
  • Designs for testability in mind.
• Collaboration
  • Open and expressive.
  • Reviews her work and others’ work, and able to give effective feedback.
  • Willing to tackle any work necessary to get stuff done.
  • Has solid presentation skills.
  • Has a good understanding of cross-team activity.
• Leadership
  • Has clout within the team.
  • Contributes effectively to a positive team morale.
  • Aligns personal efforts with business goals.
  • Provides feedback on product’s design and usability.
  • Proactively seeks opportunities to make the product better.

Staff Engineer

• Knowledge
  • Plans design, develops, and implements new ideas and products.
  • Leads multiple projects or a major critical project.
  • Involved in cross-team groups, reviewing software’s impact on them.
• Productivity
  • Adapts to changing priorities and situations.
  • Can rapidly prototype.
  • Influences goals beyond his/her group.
• Quality of Work
  • Builds for interoperability.
  • Works proactively with the support teams, understanding their needs and wants.
  • Promotes an environment of security and quality in the product.
• Collaboration
  • Communicates effectively across engineering teams and guides discussions with product people and other teams to make the product better.
  • Provides visibility into the team’s activities.
  • Proactively facilitates cross-functional groups to solve issues and problems.
  • Demonstrates a high tolerance to constructive feedback.
• Leadership
  • Helps recruit top talent.
  • Holds on to a vision, while not being afraid to disrupt the status quo.
  • Has clout within the entire engineering org.
  • Responsible to provide effective feedback on the product’s strategy.
  • Thinks systematically.
  • Hold himself/herself responsible for the team’s work.
  • Gracefully handles pressure.
  • Mentors others inside the engineering group.

Principal Engineer

• Knowledge
  • Advises and performs highly-complex research, designs and develops complex software architectures even with insufficient/unclear specifications.
  • Generally serves as an expert, providing management with technical guidance.
• Productivity
  • Proactively builds and influences the company goals beyond his/her own organization.
  • Is the “go to” person to resolve complex cross-team problems.
• Quality of Work
  • Drives discussions on building quality into specific products and integrated systems.
  • Promotes a quality environment outside his group, and evangelizes best practices.
• Collaboration
  • Communicates effectively within engineering and across other departments and with customers when necessary.
  • A broader knowledge and familiarity with the products, teams, enabling him/her to articulate the product’s needs and technical challenges on a company level.
  • Demonstrates high self-awareness of impact on the product.
• Leadership
  • Has clout across the company.
  • Aligns the team efforts with the business goals.
  • Looked at as the “content leader” inside the company.
  • Helps drive community involvement within the company.
  • Leads relevant feedback on the company’s roadmap.
  • Mentors and educates others in the company.

Distinguished Engineer

• Knowledge
  • Industrially recognized as a guru and a thought leader.
  • Advises the senior management and provides a broad technical direction.
• Productivity
  • Prolific with innovation, ideas.
  • Is disruptive.
  • Has extremely visible external communications.
  • Influences goals beyond the company, on an industry level.
• Quality of Work
  • Makes significant long-term investments towards quality, informed by other departments outside the engineering group.
  • Promotes a quality approach and thinking on a company level not only within the current product, but also across a wide spectrum of products that the company produces.
• Collaboration
  • Communicates effectively with executives.
  • Cooperates with partners and other stake holders to make sure the product value is maximized.
  • Has vast understanding of the Company’s products enables him/her to influence trends and strategically impact the business as well as represents the company at outside events.
• Leadership
  • Establishes differentiators through innovation.
  • Has clout within the external technical communities.
  • Holds himself/herself accountable for major architectural decisions.
  • Looked at as the content leader both inside and outside the company.
  • Drives community involvement, speaking at events, organizing events and tech-talks.
  • Educates others in the community.