Job and Role Structure

The foundation of any pay philosophy is a clear job and role structure. This hierarchy typically includes:

1. Job Function or Profession: these are broad categories such as engineering, product, or marketing.

2. Job Family or Practice: these are specific areas within a function. For the engineering function/profession, these might be software engineering, site reliability engineering, quality assurance testing and more. For the design profession these might include user research, interaction design, content design and many others.

3. Career Tracks: These are typically divided into three main categories:

a) Professional Track: here you would have the specific role occupied by an individual. For instance Software Engineer, Data Engineer, Architect, Platform Engineer. These would have the same levels across the different roles, and might include: Associate, Engineer, Senior, Staff, Principal. I wrote more on levels specifically if you want to go deeper. Some companies have an additional profession track.

b) Managerial Track: These are typically ‘manager’ and ‘director’ titled roles, with people responsibility. Levels tend to include: Associate, Manager, Senior Manager, Director, Senior Director.

c) Executive Track: These are for more functional and senior leadership roles of Vice President, President and the C-suite. Levels include: VP, Senior VP (SVP), President, Chief Technology Officer, Managing Director.

It's important to note that the structure can vary depending on organizational needs. For instance, architecture might be its own family rather than a role within engineering, or executives might be treated as a separate function entirely.

Additionally, some roles may be combined or split based on the company's requirements. For example, you might have separate front-end and back-end engineer roles, or simply use "software engineer" as a broader category.

Below is how I’ve seen these levels line up across tracks. Note that a Principal tends to be at the Director level, and Senior at the Manager level.

Benchmarking

To ensure competitive compensation, companies often use various benchmarking sources:

1. Industry Data: Providers like Rashford, Mercer, and Willis Towers Watson offer survey-based data from employers. This data can be tailored to specific sectors, locations, and comparable companies, with more detailed information typically coming at a higher cost.

2. User-Reported Data: Platforms like Glassdoor and Reed provide insights based on employee-reported salaries. This could also come from staff reporting offers they have heard about or received from competitors.

3. Emerging Platforms: Newer players like Ravio are entering the market with fresh approaches to compensation data.

Compensation Ratio (Compa Ratio)

Now with role structure and benchmarking data, we can start to build pay bands. The compa ratio is a key tool in structuring pay ranges:

• A midpoint is typically selected for each job level, with lower and upper bounds set using a percentage or ratio, say 80%-120% or 0.8-1.2

• It's advisable to have some overlap between levels. This means the upper bound of one level should be higher than the lower bound of the next level.

• This overlap provides flexibility in hiring and promotion decisions, allowing for situations where higher pay might be offered without a level change, or where a promotion doesn't require a dramatic leap in compensation.

The following is an example, showing 100 at the mid range for the mid level, and working on a 0.8-1.2 ration from there.

Regional Considerations

One of the more controversial aspects of modern pay philosophy is how to handle regional differences. The controversy comes from the question of in a remote world, if someone is doing the same job, why should where someone lives make any meaningful difference. I’ll leave the reader to that exercise but offer the thoughts of how companies structure this:

Some companies implement different pay structures based on an employee's location, whether between countries or within the same country. One approach is to apply the same benchmarking and compa ratio principles to each region separately. This is a more rigorous approach, and will take time and money (to get survey data) to accomplish.

Alternatively, some employers use a ratio system, adjusting pay up or down from a primary location based on regional factors. Say location A is a low cost country, so a ratio of 0.7 is applied to the pay ranges; location B is a higher cost country, so a ratio of 1.15 is applied.

The debate around regional pay differences continues to evolve, especially as remote work becomes more prevalent.

Conclusion

As companies scale and “professionalise”, there is often a desire to have a better handle on pay for employees. This comes from both employees and the employer. It can help create fairness and in some cases transparency. I’ve walked through how I’ve seen these bands created, and hope this is useful either for companies going through this for the first time, or for individuals to better understand this within the organisation they work within.

Before having children, my wife and I lived in New York City. We moved back to be closer to family as we were about to have our own. We wanted that experience, but without the upheaval of relocating, visas, changing jobs and schools - and we thought making the most of the kids 6 week summer break could offer some of that. This year we did just that, spending 3 weeks in Southern California, seeing friends who live that way, as well as adventures ourselves. We also had some work done to our house while we were away, which needed some “wrap around” time off making up the rest of the month. 

Could I have done this whilst in a full-time role? Maybe, I’m not sure. I likely would have found it hard to even ask for a month off, and I think I might have found it hard to disconnect in the way I could do when I work for myself.  Of course, not working means not earning; but that was my own decision, an option and a freedom which I choose to take. I wouldn’t change that. 

The trip we took meant I could catch up with friends, some of which I’ve known for over 20 years now. So great to see you and spend some quality time together JT, Steve, Shannon, Nigel and Britney. 

• Get my attention - you just want me to want to call you, not offer you the job on the spot or know your life story.

• Be concise but not so concise you omit anything that might help me understand your experience. Don’t make me have to guess.

• If your CV is more than 2 pages I’ll start to worry about your conciseness. Communication is key, especially for leadership positions.

• More content for newer positions, less for older - or remove entirely - I don’t really care what you did 20 years ago - unless it really is pertinent to the role.

• Don’t send me Word docs, I don’t use Office.

• You might not need a cover letter, but if you include one, make sure it addresses the points in the job description, don’t just repeat what I can read in the CV

Video

At CTO Craft Conference: Culture and the CTO I had the opportunity to do a “lightening talk”. In the talk, I discussed a story about how I was communicating when I started my first senior leadership role, and how my good intentions created negative consequences. I discussed Albert Mehrabian’s theory of communication and then dive into inclusive conversation tools of:

• Rules of engagement

• Think, write, share

• Everyone speaks once before anyone speaks twice

• Using anonymity to foster psychological safety

References and further reading

• The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever; Michael Bungay Stanier

• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever; Michael Bungay Stanier

• The Good Fight; Liane Davey

• Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts; Annie Duke

• The Culture Map; Erin Meyer

• What Every BODY Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People; Joe Navarro

• The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation; Henri Lipmanowicz, Keith McCandless

• Red Teaming: Transform Your Business by Thinking Like the Enemy; Bryce Hoffman

• The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People; Stephen R. Covey

• The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness; Stephen R. Covey

• Noise; Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein

• Thinking, Fast and Slow; Daniel Kahneman

• Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts; Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson

• Leadership is language; David L. Marquet

https://conference.ctocraft.com/november-2023/

Recently I’ve been having a few conversations with newer, growing companies about career development frameworks. Before diving into any ins and outs of such a framework I first want to touch on learning models. 

Over the pandemic I took up Taekwondo with my daughter and I was quite taken by the definition of progression through the grades and belts. I think there is something to learn from this and apply to industry roles. Each grade, and its associated coloured belt, has a meaning related to growing a plant. 

• White belt presents innocence, a total novice, 

• Yellow belt presents a seedling plant, growing it’s first roots

• Green belt presents sprouting, when the plant emerges from the soil and reveals its presence

• Blue belt presents the plant growing, and stretching for the sky

• Red belt presents danger. The student has knowledge but may lack experience or discipline. This may result in unintended injury to themselves or an opponent. 

• Black belt (1st Dan) presents a level of mastery, experience, and discipline

It is expected that from novice to black belt should take about 3-5 years. Once the 1st Dan is achieved, the student can be considered an assistant instructor. It takes a further 6-8 years to get to 4th Dan which is then considered an instructor and a Master - that’s 9-13 years from novice. It can then take another 20 years to achieve Grand Master status, about 30 years from novice. 

Why am I describing Taekwondo here? First, the notion of lifelong learning is baked in. It is assumed to take 30 years to achieve the Grand Master rank. The path to that includes the first 3-5 years to first gain proficiency with incremental steps for the beginner and a built-in notion about becoming dangerous - in this case, knowledge but without discipline and experience. I think these are notions that can be applied to the professional realm. While a martial art like Taekwondo can have a syllabus, and well defined grading criteria - much like in the academic setting - the professional world is less structured. 

Another martial art to take inspiration from is Aidiko with Shuhari. I’m certainly not the first person to associate Shuhari with software development but it's worthy of inclusion here. Shu (守) means to obey, to learn the foundations. In Taekwondo this manifests through poomsae, and Karate through kata - both translate as patterns. These are sequences of movements designed to teach and reinforce strikes and blocks. This has been applied to the Toyota Kata as described in his books on the subject by Mike Rother around improvement and coaching. Ha (破) means to innovate, to break with tradition, and Ri (離) means to transcend, where everything is natural, and all things are allowed. 

Let’s move away from martial arts and towards some learning models and see where some overlap might be. The “four stages of competence” proposes 

• unconscious incompetence - you don’t know what you don’t know

• conscious incompetence - you know what you don’t know

• conscious competence - you have acquired skill, but it takes effort to perform

• unconscious competence - you have mastered skill, and performance is intuitive

The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition is a popular model which describes how a person moves through learning:

1. Novice, the student is following instructions without wider knowledge or context

2. Advanced beginner, the student is still rule based but can start to apply context

3. Competent, the student has a wider grasp of the domain and can perform tasks within context

4. Proficient, the student is transcending the structure, and starting to innovate on solutions

5. Expert, the student no longer relies on rules and guidelines, much is now at an unconscious level

One more model, and one which is more aimed at career levelling as opposed to skill acquisition, the Radford:

1. Entry

2. Developing

3. Career

4. Advanced

5. Expert

6. Principal

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” – George Box, statistician

Charlie Munger, legendary investor of Berkshire Hathaway, recommends applying multiple models to a problem to solve, in the hope that one model might find weaknesses where another does not, and to seek any overlap suggesting a way forward across the models applied. None of the models above by themselves might be the right one for you, your company and situation to apply to learning and development, but perhaps a few of them overlaid might show a path forward. 

In the companies I’ve worked with, there tends to be an individual contributor, or practitioner level, and I’ve seen it tends to go from 1-6. I have seen some extend beyond that for those few exceptional individuals, I’ve seen that tend to be called “Distinguished” or “Fellow”.  There then tends to be management and then executive levels which follow similar models.

So if you are building a career development framework for the first time, what do these models reveal?

• There are three phases in a profession, the first is entry, where the individual is learning and acquiring skill and experience; the second is seniority, where the individual is applying context to skill; and the third is mastery, where the individual transcends the rules and guidelines in their work.

• Break down early career roles into a few levels. This allows both granular definition and growth plans for individuals and also gives them “high five” moments when you promote them from one to another. There is a high pace of progression at these earlier stages. 

• Career progression is expected to take longer between higher levels, in part as it’s harder to measure how an individual transcends the rules, and in part as so much of it is based on experience. Be aware that there will be some who expect the pace of progression to be linear (i.e. being promoted frequently)

Other things to be aware of also, job titles in one company will not equate to job titles in another company. This becomes pronounced the higher the level. Some companies appear to have done away with prefixes on job titles. On levels.fyi Facebook Software Engineer levels are listed as E3-9. Some have a mixture, VMware for instance has levels 1-3 and then introduces prefixes like ‘Senior’, ‘Staff’ and ‘Principal’. I could see this being a bit of a double-edged sword. The removal of the title might take some emotion out of a discussion with some people for the better, and some might desire an attachment to a title. 

Here are some examples of what I’ve seen - each column doesn’t necessarily correspond to companies 1:1 as I’ve tried to show various titles used at various levels. 

“Mastery is a journey, not a destination. True masters never believe they have attained mastery. There is always more to be learned and greater skill to be developed.” ― Timothy Ferriss, Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World

I’m going to aim to follow this up with how to look at measuring performance. What have I missed from this section and what would you like to see in the follow up? I’m keen to hear your suggestions.

In this article, I want to discuss hiring processes. I’ve come from a software engineering background, and have interviewed hundreds if not thousands of software engineers, and likely hired over a hundred. I’ve also been involved in hiring processes and in the interviews for product managers, product designers and program managers as well as people managers and senior leadership. This has a leaning towards hiring for software engineers, but I believe is generally applicable. 

Bias, and noise

There has been a lot of focus on bias over the years, and Daniel Kahneman recently introduced us to the concept of noise through his book of the same name along with co-authors Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein. This article doesn’t go into much detail about removing biases which might lead to actions like anonymising applications. This looks at the interview and decision making processes, and how to reduce noise. 

Think of a target. The bottom left of this illustration shows no bias or noise - all shots right in the centre. When there is an off-centre cluster, that can be seen as a visualisation of bias, yet lacking noise. You’re being pulled in a certain direction. When the shots are scattered with no real pattern, this is noise. This can still demonstrate bias (see top right) or unbiased noise (top left).

Kahnaman, Sibony and Sunstein describe three types of noise: level, pattern and occasion. 

Level noise can be seen in scoring charts, say where we are asked for a 1-5 rating. One person might give a 5/5 because the expectation was met, whereas another person might only give 5/5 where expectation was exceeded. Without a definition, a rubric, there will be noise. 

Pattern noise is where two individuals make differing judgements on the same input. This might be medical professionals making different diagnosis and treatment plans, judges issuing a sentence, or interviewers favouring differing ways of solving a problem. 

Occasion noise is where a different decision is made depending on the situation, such as before or after eating, or in a rush vs taking time. 

Create a level playing field

Initial impressions can unduly influence decisions. Have you been in interviews which start with an informal chat at the start? That can lead to different questions being asked, and if this happens we’re not really able to fully compare two candidates. If that conversation leads to a subconscious leaning towards that candidate, then the halo effect bias has come into play. This is where this initial (positive or negative) impression might help amplify a later decision (“that candidate is really good/bad”) or compensate for any later areas (“the answer wasn’t great, but I’m prepared to overlook it”).

Humans are pattern matching machines, and we also look for cohesion, we like to make sense of things. We can be guilty of seeing patterns in meaningless data, and assigning meaning where there is none. These can all lead to increased subjectivity in the ultimate decision to make a hire. 

We want to compare candidates on a level playing field. In order to do this, we want to ensure we are using the same process and the same questions for all candidates within a batch. Now we might run a batch, make changes and then run another batch, but changing the process within a batch will cause problems.

What I’m outlining here is more about scaling and consistency of process. If you can create a process with a good job description, not a compromised wish list trying to please everyone; a consistent interview, and well defined scorecards, training new interviewers becomes easier. Some might say they prefer to ask their own questions. but when relying on the individual interviewers, you may come to depend on the same interviewers over and over, and could be subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby those with lower experience overestimate their ability. 

The interview

When constructing the interview, we want to offer evaluators predefined questions to ensure candidates can later be compared, and we want to offer examples of great, good and average responses to those questions. This reduces the level noise from evaluators. 

We also want to consider a “work sample task”, something which is representative of work that would be undertaken as part of the job. These are often the best predictor of success in the role. Some roles and also levels are easier than others to create these exercises for. 

For software engineers, an example of a task based interview might be the take-home test. A candidate is given an exercise and asked to complete it in a given amount of time before submitting the source code for evaluation. The evaluator can never be sure how long a candidate took. Did they do it in a rush? Did they work on it full-time for a while, or outsource it to a generative AI tool? What if they solved the problem asked, but did so in a way that was unfamiliar or unliked to the evaluator? 

It might take longer, but my preference is for collaborative, pair-programming, interviews and to combine this with an approach that takes a candidate down a path that leads to the same output, or near enough, for each candidate. This helps to reduce the pattern noise of preferring one way or another. 

Scorecards

In an effort to reduce level noise, we aim to give evaluators a structured scorecard with detailed explanation of what it means to achieve a score. In this example a radio button is used so that the evaluator can select one and only one answer. 

In this example, the evaluator is offered the ability to “check all that apply”. This loses the nuance and fidelity of the radio buttons, but can be useful. 

A variation of this might be a grid format, but with an explanation of what each means. 

The benefits of offering such a structured scorecard is a reduction in interview training. The scorecard guides the evaluator through the process. The downside is that should any deviation be needed (although generally not desired), it might be difficult for the evaluator to improvise. 

By using such scorecards we can reduce level noise through well defined measurements for each area of evaluation. We can tackle pattern bias here through removing the actual hiring decision away from the evaluator and moving that up to the hiring manager - or hiring panel. 

The decision

Then through the use of decision hygiene techniques I’ve discussed before take that into a decision making meeting. I’ve assumed here there is a panel which may include the evaluators, managers, the recruiting team and the hiring manager.

For each candidate

1. Each member of the panel should review the scorecards for a candidate either before the meeting, or during silent reading time. 

2. Think about their vote (yes or no to hire)

3. Write their decision down, on paper or digitally (you may also be using “Roman voting” thumbs up / thumbs down)

4. Submit their decision which might mean showing thumbs up or down, showing a piece of card or paper with the vote or having a facilitator show from an anonymous digital submission

5. If the decision is unanimous, proceed

6. Else discuss any differences in voting and then repeat the voting process until there is consensus on a decision. 

Wrap-up

It wasn’t that long ago where there were more jobs than candidates, and people would talk about “the war for talent”. Given what great downsizing in the tech industry over the last 6 months I think it’s safe to say the war is over. I’m not convinced there was a winner. As the industry moves towards efficiency over growth, it’s a great time to review the hiring process - especially before you actually need to be hiring - to conduct a noise audit, review decision hygiene, and build more objective and repeatable hiring processes.

Further reading

Noise by Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein

Work Rules by Laszlo Bock

Karat has a great write up of building structured scorecards

Remove distractions

Like many others, I have been guilty of mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds. It didn’t feel rewarding, it was just mind candy for a few minutes between other things.  After reading “Digital Minimalism” from Cal Newport I resorted to what felt like somewhat drastic action. I removed Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook from my phone and did not feel the desire to reinstall them. I turned most of the notifications off, so no more distracting pings when I was trying to do something.  I’ve removed and reinstalled LinkedIn several times. I do find that useful for work, but also find myself sometimes scrolling mindlessly, which can result in uninstalling the app. I have removed all but “new message” notifications from LinkedIn now though.

I also removed news apps from my phone and stopped going to their web pages as a default. I opt now instead for a physical weekend edition newspaper so that I can stay informed but without the near-constant updates of the 24 hour news cycle. 

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky in “Make Time” go one further, and discuss a “distraction-free” phone, with all those apps and even the web browser and email client removed. They leave utility apps such as maps. I haven’t yet been that brave to remove the browser. 

Stolen Focus by Johaan Hari is another excellent book about how we’ve created products and services which steal our attention, and the impact this has on individuals. Hooked by Nir Eyal conversely is an eye opening read which details how to create engaging products. Reading this was like reading the playbooks of digital products, and knowledge of this supports the creation of a self-defence mechanism.

Create a plan

When I first heard of people journaling, I must admit - I didn’t think it was for me. I thought I knew how to get things done. What was wrong with my index cards, post-it notes and random thoughts in various to-do apps? 

I’d sometimes been described as stoic, and I had an assumption about what that meant. I’d often shrug off the label. In 2021 I discovered that stoicism was more than a label of someone who is not prone to showing large emotions, it was an ancient philosophy and a practical way of living. I read the excellent “How to think like a Roman Emperor” by Donald Robertson, and one of the things discussed is a daily “learning cycle”. In the morning, you prepare for the day ahead; during the day you strive to live according to your values, and in the evening you review your progress. If you’ve practised forms of agile software delivery, you’ve likely experienced this as a daily standup (let’s stick to intentions, not what people might have experienced) and weekly retrospectives. 

Whatever tool I used wasn’t working for me. My to-do list never seemed to get shorter. “Make Time” by ​​Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky gave me more of a structure. Have one and only one “highlight” for a day. Make it sizable enough that it takes at least 90 minutes, but not so big that it takes longer than 3 hours. You will have other things to do during the day. Make it something so that when you look back you can be sure you’ve had a productive day. Learn how to create “laser focus” time, monitor your energy levels through food and exercise, and reflect at the end of the day. 

My former colleague, Joe Masilotti, on the podcast, “Code and the Coding Coders who Code it” describes a system he’s using. Each day has 3 and only 3 goals on the todo list. When you’ve completed those 3, stop working. This stops him from never-ending work, and/or any mindless scrolling. Each week also has a single mid-sized goal and each quarter has a further 3 high-level goals. The dailies should roll up into the weeklies, which should roll up to the quarterlies. The podcast host also discusses his own use of the Hero’s Journal, a fun way to engage in journaling and go on “epic journeys”.

I purchased a simple week-to-week diary which offers enough space to track the “Make Time” approach, but also is a simple structure which I can adapt as I learn and iterate on what works for me.

At the end, it’s face-plam simple: plan, monitor, reflect and repeat. I’ve also found the act of physically writing things down is less distracting than an electronic version, and gives me space to plan and reflect away from the keyboard. Also having it in a structured book as opposed to a general note book with other writings, or on random post-it notes means I can observe what I've been doing over time better and how I should iterate and adapt. 

Execute the plan

Removing distractions and having a plan still isn’t quite enough. Distractions are still there, and so I’ve been looking at ways to follow the “laser focus” concept in “Make Time” in order to create and protect time to deliver against the daily highlight. One tool I’ve started using is Freedom.to, which blocks websites and apps for a given time period. I recently found myself writing a proposal for a potential client of mine. As I pondered the next sentence or paragraph, I found myself almost automatically going to check LinkedIn, email or the latest sports news. I knew I shouldn’t, but it was hard to stop myself, or pull myself back once there. With a blocking tool like Freedom.to, web pages are automatically redirected to a page with a reminder that it’s blocked, and apps will remain in a disconnected state. 

It feels like a heavy solution, but it does work. You can of course turn the blocker off, but that has to be a conscious decision. Those nudges have been enough to stay on target and achieve the daily highlight. 

Engaging my system 2 brain

So why go through all of this? For me is it trying to remove the feeling of being constantly busy and achieving little. This also allows me to exercise some of the Red Team Thinking practices I’ve been learning about over the last few months. I try to pick goals that are meaningful, and try to prevent myself from satisfying myself by picking the first reasonable thing on the todo list. I try to recall Daniel Kahneman, and engage in system 2 brain, and leverage some of the six strategic questions: 

• Is this the right goal for the day? 

• If I choose to do this, what goal am I choosing not to do?