{ "format": "sf-skill-matrix", "version": 1, "name": "PHP Developer Skill Matrix", "description": "Public example of a role-based matrix for backend engineers working with PHP.", "levels": [ { "name": "Junior", "description": "Works in existing services, follows team conventions, and delivers predictable changes with guidance." }, { "name": "Middle", "description": "Independently designs medium-sized changes, diagnoses incidents, and keeps delivery quality stable." }, { "name": "Senior", "description": "Defines platform practices, leads architectural decisions, and scales reliability across multiple services." }, { "name": "TechLead", "description": "Drives the team's technical direction, maintains solution quality, and helps engineers move toward predictable delivery." }, { "name": "Principal", "description": "Defines engineering strategy for a domain or platform, connecting technical decisions to business goals and company scale." } ], "groups": [ { "name": "PHP Language", "rows": [ { "name": "Fundamentals and ecosystem", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write maintainable PHP 8 code", "info": "Uses strict typing, interfaces, traits, and standard patterns without overengineering." }, { "name": "Handle exceptions correctly", "info": "Does not swallow errors, wraps them with context, and distinguishes exception hierarchies." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Apply interfaces and composition", "info": "Designs dependencies through interfaces, separates domain, transport, and infrastructure layers." }, { "name": "Refactor safely", "info": "Improves code structure while preserving behavior and backward compatibility." }, { "name": "Use Composer and ecosystem effectively", "info": "Prefers battle-tested libraries, evaluates dependencies by activity and compatibility." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set language and codebase standards", "info": "Defines PSR conventions, exception strategy, code review practices, and shared utilities." }, { "name": "Design shared abstractions", "info": "Creates reusable components that reduce cognitive load without introducing unnecessary coupling." }, { "name": "Lead review of critical changes", "info": "Identifies architectural risks, security issues, and compatibility violations in PRs." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define package layout for projects", "info": "Sets repository structure so the team moves consistently without ad-hoc decisions." }, { "name": "Resolve disputed implementation details", "info": "Settles team disagreements on technical approaches through principles rather than preference." }, { "name": "Build a code review culture", "info": "Creates an environment where reviews add value: teach rather than nitpick, reduce risk rather than slow delivery." }, { "name": "Control technical debt growth", "info": "Tracks debt accumulation and includes paydown in the roadmap alongside new features." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set language standards across teams", "info": "Builds an engineering handbook with justified decisions that work across different contexts." }, { "name": "Decide which libraries enter the platform", "info": "Evaluates dependencies on stability, support, security, and lock-in risk." }, { "name": "Build an engineering practices roadmap", "info": "Plans the evolution of standards accounting for team growth, system scale, and business direction." }, { "name": "Influence decisions through persuasion", "info": "Drives correct decisions without formal authority, through argument and trust." }, { "name": "Publicly represent the team's technical approaches", "info": "Speaks at conferences, writes articles, contributes to open-source — builds external authority." } ] } ] }, { "name": "Background processing", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Implement simple queue jobs", "info": "Understands at-least-once semantics, writes idempotent jobs, and handles execution errors." }, { "name": "Understand PHP-FPM process model", "info": "Knows the request lifecycle and the difference between web processes and CLI workers." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Build reliable worker processes", "info": "Designs handlers with bounded concurrency, controls graceful shutdown and memory limits." }, { "name": "Implement retry with backoff and timeout", "info": "Handles transient failures without overwhelming downstream services." }, { "name": "Control resource leaks in long-running processes", "info": "Identifies and eliminates memory leaks and unclosed connections during review and profiling." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Design background processing for high load", "info": "Chooses the right pattern — queue workers, cron, Fibers (8.1+), or async extension — based on requirements." }, { "name": "Analyze worker process bottlenecks", "info": "Uses profiling, memory dumps, and tracing to find performance issues." }, { "name": "Set patterns for common team scenarios", "info": "Defines which approach (Messenger, queues, cron, async) to use in each context." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set team-wide background processing rules", "info": "Chooses base worker, queue, and retry patterns so the team doesn't create unstable solutions." }, { "name": "Review high-throughput flows", "info": "Identifies risks in critical paths: memory leaks, starvation, thundering herd." }, { "name": "Manage delivery risks for background jobs", "info": "Ensures CI covers critical processing scenarios and DLQ is monitored." }, { "name": "Integrate worker monitoring into the observability stack", "info": "Ensures alerts exist on queue lag, execution time, and error rate for each worker." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define platform async processing standards", "info": "Chooses load-limiting models across multiple services and teams." }, { "name": "Design worker scaling strategies", "info": "Defines how to scale parallel processing without degrading adjacent systems." }, { "name": "Build a graceful degradation model", "info": "Sets principles for graceful degradation and circuit breaking at domain level." }, { "name": "Identify systemic background processing risks", "info": "Conducts architectural analysis for hidden race conditions and deadlock risks in integrations." } ] } ] } ] }, { "name": "Data layer", "rows": [ { "name": "SQL and databases", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write correct SQL queries", "info": "Uses JOINs, WHERE clauses, indexes, and parameterized queries; avoids SQL injection." }, { "name": "Write and apply migrations", "info": "Creates up/down migrations, understands application order and reversibility of schema changes." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Optimize slow queries", "info": "Reads EXPLAIN, adds indexes, eliminates N+1, rewrites subqueries as JOINs where needed." }, { "name": "Design schema for new features", "info": "Normalizes data sensibly, considers nullable, constraints, and deletion scenarios." }, { "name": "Manage transactions and isolation levels", "info": "Chooses the right isolation level, avoids deadlocks and long-running transactions." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set team database standards", "info": "Defines naming conventions, required indexes, nullable rules, and migration workflow." }, { "name": "Plan safe production migrations", "info": "Applies zero-downtime patterns: expand-contract, column backfill over multiple deploys, lock-free alter." }, { "name": "Evaluate read/write patterns and choose strategy", "info": "Decides when to use read replicas, caching, or event sourcing instead of classical CRUD." }, { "name": "Manage connection pool in production", "info": "Configures Doctrine/PDO connection pool settings, controls max connections and health checks." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Control database delivery risks", "info": "Ensures migrations are tested, reversible, and won't cause production degradation." }, { "name": "Synchronize migration strategy", "info": "Coordinates database changes across multiple services and teams." }, { "name": "Set indexing policy", "info": "Defines who adds indexes, how schema review works, and who owns performance regression." }, { "name": "Prevent dangerous schema changes", "info": "Restricts or approves DROP, NOT NULL without default, full-table lock changes during peak hours." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define domain data strategy", "info": "Chooses between SQL, NoSQL, and mixed storage based on load, structure, and SLOs." }, { "name": "Design multi-tenant and multi-region storage", "info": "Plans partitioning, sharding, and geo-distribution at platform level." }, { "name": "Set backup, restore, and DR requirements", "info": "Defines RPO/RTO, tests recovery, and builds runbooks for data incidents." }, { "name": "Build data capacity planning", "info": "Forecasts volume growth, storage costs, and initiates architectural changes in time." }, { "name": "Manage data compliance requirements", "info": "Ensures GDPR, retention policy, and audit trail compliance across multiple systems." } ] } ] }, { "name": "Queues and events", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write consumers with correct ack/nack", "info": "Understands at-least-once semantics, doesn't lose or duplicate messages without reason." }, { "name": "Implement a simple producer", "info": "Publishes events with the required structure and handles send errors." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Implement idempotent consumers", "info": "Handles duplicates via a deduplication key or idempotent database operations." }, { "name": "Design dead-letter flows", "info": "Configures DLQ, lag alerts, and a reprocess procedure for broken messages." }, { "name": "Monitor consumer lag", "info": "Sets up consumer lag monitoring, identifies and eliminates accumulation causes." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Design event-driven flows with delivery guarantees", "info": "Chooses outbox, saga, or choreography based on consistency requirements." }, { "name": "Define event contracts", "info": "Establishes event schemas, versioning strategy, and backward/forward compatibility." }, { "name": "Choose between sync and async integration", "info": "Justifies the choice understanding tradeoffs: latency, coupling, failure isolation, observability." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set queue standards for the team", "info": "Defines which broker and pattern to use in each scenario and documents decisions." }, { "name": "Manage queue observability", "info": "Ensures lag, DLQ growth, and partition skew alerts; sets up on-call runbooks." }, { "name": "Manage event schema evolution", "info": "Coordinates event schema changes between producer and consumer teams." }, { "name": "Synchronize event contracts between teams", "info": "Maintains an event registry, aligns on breaking changes, and organizes contract testing." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define platform messaging strategy", "info": "Chooses brokers, delivery patterns, and retention policy for the entire domain." }, { "name": "Design event sourcing at domain level", "info": "Defines where to store the event log, how to build projections, and how to ensure replay." }, { "name": "Establish delivery and consistency guarantees", "info": "Defines exactly-once or idempotency levels for critical business operations." }, { "name": "Identify systemic event-driven risks", "info": "Analyzes cascade failure, ordering issues, and distributed transaction risks." } ] } ] } ] }, { "name": "Infrastructure and delivery", "rows": [ { "name": "Docker and containers", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Build multi-stage Docker images", "info": "Separates build and runtime stages, avoids copying unnecessary artifacts into the final image." }, { "name": "Work with the local environment via Docker Compose", "info": "Runs dependencies (DB, queues, services) locally, understands volumes and network namespaces." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Optimize images by size and layers", "info": "Orders instructions correctly for layer caching, uses .dockerignore." }, { "name": "Configure healthcheck and graceful shutdown", "info": "Implements a /healthz endpoint, handles SIGTERM, and waits for active requests to complete." }, { "name": "Diagnose issues inside containers", "info": "Reads logs, checks resources, inspects the filesystem, and uses exec in prod-like environments." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set Dockerfile standards for the team", "info": "Defines base images, linting rules, and a review checklist for container artifacts." }, { "name": "Design dev/prod environment parity", "info": "Ensures local Compose and the production environment differ as little as possible." }, { "name": "Assess image security", "info": "Runs trivy/grype, tracks CVEs in base images, enforces non-root user." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set base images for the team", "info": "Selects and maintains golden images, manages their updates and team notifications." }, { "name": "Control container security policy", "info": "Defines runtime policy: non-root, read-only filesystem, resource limits, seccomp." }, { "name": "Manage the dependency update process", "info": "Ensures regular updates of base images and Composer dependencies with vulnerability checks." }, { "name": "Integrate container scanning into CI", "info": "Adds automated image scanning to the pipeline, configures severity thresholds and notifications." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define platform container strategy", "info": "Chooses runtime (Docker, containerd), orchestration, and image registry strategy." }, { "name": "Set base image policy for multiple teams", "info": "Standardizes approved base images, enforcement mechanisms, and update processes." }, { "name": "Design observability in containerized environments", "info": "Standardizes log format, metrics exposition, and tracing injection at platform level." }, { "name": "Synchronize container standards across teams", "info": "Produces RFCs and ADRs for platform decisions, obtains buy-in from team tech leads." } ] } ] }, { "name": "Build and CI/CD", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Understand and read the pipeline", "info": "Understands CI steps — lint, test, build, deploy — and knows what each does and where to find failure causes." }, { "name": "Fix flaky tests in CI", "info": "Finds the root cause of unstable tests: race conditions, ordering dependencies, or external services." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Configure a pipeline for a new service", "info": "Sets up lint, test, build, and deploy steps with the right environment variables and secrets." }, { "name": "Speed up slow CI flows", "info": "Parallelizes steps, caches Composer packages and dependencies, reduces cold start time." }, { "name": "Implement canary or blue/green deployment", "info": "Rolls out changes gradually and can roll back without downtime." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Design deployment strategy for services", "info": "Chooses rolling, canary, or blue/green based on SLO, traffic volume, and criticality." }, { "name": "Set pipeline standards for the team", "info": "Defines mandatory steps: lint, security scan, test coverage, smoke test after deploy." }, { "name": "Manage rollback procedures", "info": "Documents and tests the rollback procedure, ensures the team can roll back under pressure." }, { "name": "Implement automatic quality gates", "info": "Blocks deploys on coverage regression, CVEs above threshold, or failing smoke tests." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set deployment governance for the team", "info": "Defines what production-ready means: checklist, approvals, observability requirements." }, { "name": "Establish release gates and approval flows", "info": "Balances delivery speed with risk control: who approves, when it's automatic." }, { "name": "Control production readiness of new services", "info": "Ensures every service has a healthcheck, metrics, alerts, runbook, and documentation before deploy." }, { "name": "Synchronize delivery process with other teams", "info": "Coordinates release windows, feature flags, and dependencies in joint deliveries." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define platform delivery strategy", "info": "Chooses the deployment model and CI/CD tooling at multi-team level." }, { "name": "Design progressive delivery", "info": "Sets principles for feature flags, traffic splitting, and automated rollback at platform level." }, { "name": "Set SLO for pipeline reliability", "info": "Defines acceptable build time, flaky test ratio, and MTTR for CI infrastructure." }, { "name": "Build change management policy", "info": "Defines rules for hot fixes, emergency deploys, and change freezes balancing speed and safety." }, { "name": "Identify delivery process bottlenecks", "info": "Measures DORA metrics, finds constraints, and initiates improvements at platform level." } ] } ] } ] }, { "name": "Quality and reliability", "rows": [ { "name": "Testing", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write unit tests for business logic", "info": "Covers happy path and main error branches using PHPUnit or Pest." }, { "name": "Use data providers for parameterization", "info": "Structures test cases through data providers, avoids duplication, and keeps tests readable." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write integration tests with real dependencies", "info": "Uses Testcontainers or in-memory DB — tests real behavior, not just mocks." }, { "name": "Mock external services correctly", "info": "Chooses between interface mocks and HTTP stubs depending on the test level." }, { "name": "Write functional tests for the API", "info": "Checks HTTP contracts, authentication, and edge cases through WebTestCase or equivalent." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define test strategy for the team", "info": "Sets the balance between unit, integration, and e2e tests accounting for speed and confidence." }, { "name": "Introduce contract testing", "info": "Uses schema-based or Pact approach to verify compatibility between services." }, { "name": "Evaluate coverage meaningfully", "info": "Distinguishes useful coverage from meaningless, focuses on critical scenarios." }, { "name": "Design testable architecture", "info": "Embeds dependency injection and clear boundaries in design so testing doesn't require heroics." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set the mandatory delivery quality bar", "info": "Defines what a PR must have: minimum coverage, required scenarios, performance tests." }, { "name": "Control regression coverage", "info": "Ensures every incident results in a test that prevents recurrence." }, { "name": "Remove valueless tests", "info": "Reviews and deletes tests that only slow CI without improving confidence." }, { "name": "Manage test debt", "info": "Tracks known coverage gaps and includes remediation in the roadmap." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Build a test confidence model for multiple services", "info": "Defines how the combined test suite across levels ensures delivery confidence." }, { "name": "Set reliability testing standards", "info": "Defines load testing, chaos engineering, and failure injection requirements for critical systems." }, { "name": "Design chaos and fault injection", "info": "Implements systematic failure experiments to find weaknesses before production incidents." }, { "name": "Build acceptance criteria for critical systems", "info": "Sets technical launch conditions for services with high SLOs: tests, load, DR." } ] } ] }, { "name": "Metrics and observability", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Add structured logs", "info": "Logs enough to understand runtime behavior, without sensitive data or noise." }, { "name": "Use the team's metrics and dashboards", "info": "Reads existing Grafana dashboards and understands basic RED metrics for their service." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Diagnose incidents from traces and metrics", "info": "Reads distributed traces, correlates logs, and isolates bottlenecks or regressions." }, { "name": "Build alerting for new services", "info": "Creates alerts on error rate, p95 latency, and saturation with correct thresholds and runbooks." }, { "name": "Interpret latency distributions", "info": "Distinguishes p50 from p99, understands tail latency and the effect of PHP-FPM worker pool on graphs." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define SLIs and SLOs for services", "info": "Chooses meaningful quality indicators, aligns targets with product, and sets error budgets." }, { "name": "Set metric naming conventions", "info": "Defines naming standards, labeling, and cardinality limits for Prometheus." }, { "name": "Design distributed tracing", "info": "Instruments services with correct span context, baggage, and sampling strategy." }, { "name": "Lead incident postmortems", "info": "Writes blameless postmortems, identifies systemic causes, and defines action items." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set team observability standards", "info": "Defines the mandatory minimum: what to log, which metrics to instrument, how to trace." }, { "name": "Control alert fatigue", "info": "Regularly reviews alerts: removes noise, improves thresholds, adds runbooks." }, { "name": "Ensure team on-call readiness", "info": "Ensures every service has a runbook, alerts with descriptions, and an escalation path." }, { "name": "Build postmortem culture", "info": "Normalizes blameless review, tracks action item completion, and shares learnings with the team." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define platform reliability strategy", "info": "Builds a unified approach to SLOs, error budgets, and incident management for the entire domain." }, { "name": "Set cross-service SLOs and error budgets", "info": "Establishes dependency SLAs between teams, links budgets to delivery priorities." }, { "name": "Design centralized telemetry", "info": "Defines platform tools for collecting, storing, and visualizing observability data." }, { "name": "Build a production feedback loop", "info": "Creates a system where production signals regularly influence team priorities." }, { "name": "Set incident management standards", "info": "Defines severity levels, escalation matrix, communication protocol, and learning system for incidents." } ] } ] } ] }, { "name": "Teamwork", "rows": [ { "name": "Autonomy", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Break down tasks independently", "info": "Splits a task into clear steps and clarifies ambiguities before starting work." }, { "name": "Escalate blockers in time", "info": "Doesn't stay stuck silently for more than a day — signals the blocker and proposes options." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Drive a task from design to delivery", "info": "Defines the approach, aligns on it, and brings it to production without losing intermediate steps." }, { "name": "Find and align on a solution independently", "info": "Proposes a concrete option with tradeoffs rather than asking an open-ended 'how do I do this'." }, { "name": "Manage their own backlog", "info": "Keeps tasks up to date and prioritizes within the sprint goal independently." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Initiate improvements without being asked", "info": "Notices system problems and proposes solutions without waiting for someone to file a ticket." }, { "name": "Manage parallel tracks", "info": "Runs multiple tasks simultaneously without losing context or creating a team bottleneck." }, { "name": "Make decisions under uncertainty", "info": "Moves forward with incomplete information, records assumptions, and is ready to revise." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Drive the team's technical track independently", "info": "Manages the technical backlog, sets direction, and maintains pace without daily management." }, { "name": "Prioritize the technical backlog", "info": "Balances new features, tech debt, and reliability work in a business context." }, { "name": "Manage risks without constant escalation", "info": "Independently assesses and mitigates technical risks; escalates only significant ones." }, { "name": "Unblock others without losing their own progress", "info": "Helps the team move forward without taking over others' work entirely." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set the agenda independently", "info": "Identifies what problems matter and initiates work without external prompting." }, { "name": "Initiate cross-team improvements", "info": "Identifies systemic problems and organizes multiple teams to solve them." }, { "name": "Manage strategic technical risks", "info": "Keeps long-term risks in focus: vendor lock-in, architectural debt, skill gaps." }, { "name": "Build consensus without formal authority", "info": "Drives decisions through argument, trust, and engaging key stakeholders." }, { "name": "Work with long planning horizons", "info": "Sees and manages technical strategy 12–24 months ahead." } ] } ] }, { "name": "Artifact quality", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write PRs with change descriptions", "info": "Describes what changed, why, and how to verify — reviewers shouldn't reconstruct context." }, { "name": "Write clear commit messages", "info": "Follows the agreed format, describes the essence of the change rather than the work process." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Describe context and tradeoffs in PRs", "info": "Explains why this solution was chosen and what alternatives were considered." }, { "name": "Document non-obvious decisions in code", "info": "Adds a comment about 'why', not 'what' — where the logic isn't self-evident." }, { "name": "Keep tickets up to date", "info": "Updates status, adds discussion outcomes, doesn't leave tasks in an undefined state." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write clear design documents", "info": "Describes the problem, proposal, alternatives, and risks to get quality feedback." }, { "name": "Record decisions in ADRs", "info": "Documents significant architectural decisions with context so future engineers understand 'why'." }, { "name": "Structure artifacts for team review", "info": "Chooses the right format: RFC, design doc, spike summary — based on complexity and audience." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set PR and ticket formatting standards", "info": "Creates templates and checklists and explains the value of good artifacts to the team." }, { "name": "Control the quality bar of team artifacts", "info": "Returns context-free PRs and tickets for rework; sets expectations by example." }, { "name": "Prepare executive summaries for non-technical audiences", "info": "Translates technical decisions into business language: risks, timelines, impact." }, { "name": "Build a written communication culture", "info": "Promotes async-first, decision documentation, and process transparency in the team." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set RFC and ADR process standards", "info": "Defines when an RFC is needed, how it is reviewed, and how decisions are recorded and accessible." }, { "name": "Write strategic documents for multiple audiences", "info": "Adapts a technical document for engineers, management, and external partners." }, { "name": "Ensure transparency of technical decisions", "info": "Creates a system where important decisions are accessible, understandable, and justified for the whole organization." }, { "name": "Shape engineering culture through documents", "info": "Writes principles, manifesto, and best practices that become a reference point for teams." } ] } ] }, { "name": "Technical documentation", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Update README for their changes", "info": "Updates run instructions, env variables, and dependency information with every change." }, { "name": "Document configuration and parameters", "info": "Describes the purpose of env variables, valid values, and default behavior." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Write a runbook for a new service", "info": "Describes how to start, stop, roll back, and diagnose a service in production." }, { "name": "Keep API documentation up to date", "info": "Keeps the OpenAPI spec in sync with the code on every contract change." }, { "name": "Document operational procedures", "info": "Describes routine operations: migrations, planned restarts, secret rotation." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Keep architectural documentation current", "info": "Syncs diagrams and descriptions with the actual system state, prevents staleness." }, { "name": "Write an onboarding guide for a service", "info": "Creates a document that lets a new engineer quickly get context and become productive." }, { "name": "Build the team's knowledge base", "info": "Organizes documentation so what's needed is easy to find and stays current." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Set team documentation standards", "info": "Defines structure, required sections, and update process for different document types." }, { "name": "Control completeness of operational docs", "info": "Ensures every production service has a runbook, alert descriptions, and escalation path." }, { "name": "Build a knowledge management approach", "info": "Chooses tools and processes for accumulating and sharing knowledge within the team." }, { "name": "Prepare documentation for audits and compliance", "info": "Ensures documentation meets external requirements: security reviews, vendor audits." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Define domain technical knowledge strategy", "info": "Sets how knowledge is accumulated, structured, and transferred between teams." }, { "name": "Manage documentation of cross-system decisions", "info": "Ensures cross-team architectural decisions are recorded and accessible." }, { "name": "Set ops documentation requirements", "info": "Establishes runbook, postmortem, and incident report standards across multiple teams." }, { "name": "Publish engineering decisions externally", "info": "Shares team experience through blogs, conferences, and open-source — builds external technical authority." } ] } ] }, { "name": "Communication", "cells": [ { "level": 1, "level_name": "Junior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Clearly describe task status", "info": "Communicates what's done, what's left, and whether there are blockers — without needing prompts." }, { "name": "Ask clarifying questions instead of assuming", "info": "Clarifies requirements before starting work rather than reworking after finishing." } ] }, { "level": 2, "level_name": "Middle", "tasks": [ { "name": "Explain technical decisions to non-technical colleagues", "info": "Adapts the level of detail to the audience without diving into implementation details when results matter." }, { "name": "Conduct constructive code reviews", "info": "Gives specific, actionable feedback — identifies the problem and suggests a path to resolution." }, { "name": "Give and receive work feedback", "info": "Raises issues directly and without aggression; accepts criticism without defensiveness." } ] }, { "level": 3, "level_name": "Senior", "tasks": [ { "name": "Lead technical discussions to a decision", "info": "Structures discussions, keeps focus, and helps the group reach a concrete conclusion." }, { "name": "Build trust with product and adjacent teams", "info": "Syncs regularly, keeps partners informed, and avoids surprises." }, { "name": "Manage disagreements without escalation", "info": "Finds compromise or persuades with arguments without involving management unnecessarily." }, { "name": "Represent the team's position", "info": "Speaks for the team at cross-team meetings, communicates priorities and constraints." } ] }, { "level": 4, "level_name": "TechLead", "tasks": [ { "name": "Sync the technical agenda with management", "info": "Regularly translates technical priorities and risks into language non-technical managers understand." }, { "name": "Manage stakeholder expectations", "info": "Signals risks, schedule changes, and technical decision impacts in advance." }, { "name": "Mediate team conflicts", "info": "Helps team members resolve disagreements and creates a safe space for discussion." }, { "name": "Build psychological safety", "info": "Creates an environment where people aren't afraid to share ideas, admit mistakes, or ask questions." } ] }, { "level": 5, "level_name": "Principal", "tasks": [ { "name": "Act as the technical voice of the domain", "info": "Represents technical positions at director, partner, and external audience level." }, { "name": "Lead cross-team dialogue", "info": "Creates forums for knowledge sharing and solving common problems between teams." }, { "name": "Build alliances for systemic change", "info": "Convinces key stakeholders of the need for change and builds a coalition of support." }, { "name": "Manage communication under uncertainty", "info": "Provides clear direction to the team and partners while strategy is still forming." }, { "name": "Publicly represent engineering decisions", "info": "Speaks at conferences, runs a technical blog — builds the company's reputation in the engineering community." } ] } ] } ] } ] }