<aside> đź‘Ą Our career level framework is meant to help you understand the expectations of your role and provide a common vocabulary for you and your manager to discuss and plan your career development on the CS team (in addition to where you might want to take your career in the future as outlined in our career roadmap practice). Having shared and visible expectations (as well as a common vocabulary) gives us an accountability framework to reduce bias in promotions/hiring and ensures that we are equitably recognizing everyone for their impact.
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There are currently five levels for support at Sourcegraph. A level is composed of three categories, each with a summary statement and several example behaviors. These categories are:
| Impact | Scope | Execution | Teamwork |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your work directly contributes to achieving the company’s strategic goals and long term success. | You have high productivity and output. You deliver on your direct responsibilities while also looking for opportunities for improvement - individually, as a team, our product, and company. | • You seek out opportunities, rather than waiting for them to come to you. | |
| • You put our customers and prospects first, orienting yourself to their success. | |||
| • You ask for help directly, when needed. | • You do not gate-keep, but rather aim to accelerate and unblock your colleagues. | ||
| • You communicate thoughtfully, clearly, and proactively to keep stakeholders informed and identify risks. | |||
| • You seek to help your teammates around you succeed; you win together. You reflect thoughtfully on your own performance and the performance of those around you, sharing helpful feedback for continued growth. |
It’s important to understand that what is listed in the level descriptions are example behaviors, and not checkboxes for promotion. Doing everything listed there is neither necessary nor sufficient for a promotion.
The expectation is that you demonstrate a level of impact consistently over a span of months within each of the category descriptions for your level. The magnitude of your impact is ultimately the measure of your career growth.
In most cases, a level builds on the expectations from the preceding levels: someone at level 2 must also meet the level 1 expectations. In addition to what is listed there, we expect support engineers at all levels to exhibit our Sourcegraph company values.
Rather than precede each bullet point with “consistently,” we leave it as implicit and we define this as X happening consistently over a period of at least ~6 months. It’s great to do something once, but the real measure of impact is if you are able to do that again and again over a substantial enough period of time.
The level descriptions state the minimum expectations after you have completed your onboarding. For example, if you were hired at a level 2, we would expect that you are having the impact outlined for both levels 1 and 2 once your onboarding is complete. This also means that before being promoted to level 3, for example, you would be expected to be already doing what is listed in level 3 before a promotion is possible.
We expect you to understand where you are at in the framework and always have something clearly defined that is pushing you to outgrow yourself to reach the next level. The process and timeline will vary person to person and should be captured in your career roadmap.
Promotion discussions occur when your manager can make the case that you’ve had at least 12 months of consistent high performance at your current level, and at least 3 months performing consistently at the next level, in all four of the categories. Again, it takes time to demonstrate the “consistently” implicit in the expectations and we want to ensure that you are set up for success to perform at your current level.
Promotions from one level to another are considered in impact reviews conducted by SE leadership in collaboration with you individually. An in-band compensation increase (while staying at the same level) can happen at any time, in recognition of exceeding expectations in your current level without having yet met the expectations of the next level.
Team Leads are designated senior ICs that are elevated within the team to take on additional responsibilities in support of the overall success of the team and individuals. These individuals are not full-time managers but are intentionally given less IC scope than their peers so that they can contribute to higher level initiatives within the team and organization.
As a Team Lead, you will have additional responsibilities beyond those your IC level, including:
Facilitator: Ensure adherence to established processes and facilitate team meetings. Act as a leader for the Support team in the absence of the Manager.
Coordinator: Coordinate changes or requests, ensuring they are properly facilitated and communicated between teams.
Mentor: Provide technical and soft skills mentorship to engineers. Assist with resolving complex technical issues and develop the customer service skills of the team.
Liaison: Listen to feedback and concerns from team members and customers, and bring them to the appropriate parties. Conduct regular 1:1 meetings and other ad hoc communication to stay aware of potential areas for improvement.