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November 2, 2017 18:34
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Medium Engineering growth: tracks.
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Mobile | |
Works effectively within established iOS or Android architectures, following current best practices | |
signals: | |
Delivers features requiring simple local modifications | |
Adds simple actions that call server endpoints | |
Reuses existing components appropriately | |
examples: | |
Added existing button to a different iOS surface | |
Add follow button for publications on Android | |
Fetched and displayed a new stream, using existing stream item styles | |
Develops new instances of existing architecture, or minor improvements to existing architecture | |
signals: | |
Defines new useful and appropriate proto-generated objects | |
Creates simple new activities on Android | |
Migrates code from old patterns to new patterns | |
examples: | |
Upgraded SDWebImage to a new major version | |
Added support for rendering a new type of stream item | |
Prototyped a simple new feature quickly | |
Designs major new features and demonstrates a nuanced understanding of mobile platform constraints | |
signals: | |
Implements complex features with a large product surface area | |
Works effectively with Android reactive programming framework | |
Adds support for new iOS features after a major iOS version upgrade | |
examples: | |
Designed iOS caching strategy for offline reading | |
Built series reader on Android | |
Informed the team about recent best practice changes and deprecations | |
Builds complex, reusable architectures that pioneer best practices and enable engineers to work more effectively | |
signals: | |
Pioneers architecture migration strategies that reduce programmer burden | |
Fixes subtle memory management issues | |
Implements interactive dismissals that bring delight | |
examples: | |
Upgraded CocoaPods to a new major version | |
Designed architecture for fetching and rendering stream items | |
Migrated Android persistance layer to reactive programming | |
Is an industry-leading expert in mobile engineering or sets strategic mobile direction for an eng team | |
signals: | |
Defines long-term goals and ensures active projects are in service of them | |
Designs and builds innovative, industry-leading UI interactions | |
Invents new techniques to responsibly stretch limits of the Android platform | |
examples: | |
Defined and drove complete migration plan to Swift or Kotlin | |
Implemented Android recycler views before platform support existed | |
Pioneered application-level abstractions for multi-app environment | |
Servers | |
Works effectively within established server side frameworks, following current best practices | |
signals: | |
Adds NodeJS endpoints using layers architecture | |
Adds golang endpoints using Gotham architecture | |
Makes minor server changes to support client needs | |
examples: | |
Added IFTTT trigger for new bookmark to medium2 | |
Added delete audio route to Buggle | |
Queried a Dynamo LSI appropriately | |
Develops new instances of existing architecture, or minor improvements to existing architecture | |
signals: | |
Assesses correctness and utility of existing code and avoids blind copy-pasting | |
Generalizes code when appropriate | |
Determines data needs from product requirements | |
examples: | |
Identified need for new index on Dynamo | |
Acted as caretaker for routes protos | |
Updated Facebook API version and codebase dependencies | |
Designs standalone systems of moderate complexity, or major new features in existing systems | |
signals: | |
Acts as primary maintainer for existing critical systems | |
Integrates third party services effectively | |
Writes playbooks for new service maintenance | |
examples: | |
Implemented Google Auth login to Medium | |
Implemented payments integration with Stripe | |
Built Textshots server | |
Builds complex, reusable architectures that pioneer best practices for other engineers, or multi-system services | |
signals: | |
Delivers complex systems that achieve their goals | |
Avoids subtle architectural mistakes when considering new systems | |
Makes appropriate buy vs build choices | |
examples: | |
Designed Medium's ranked feed architecture | |
Designed custom domains architecture | |
Created Gotham framework for creating Go services | |
Is an industry-leading expert in server side engineering or sets strategic server side direction for an eng team | |
signals: | |
Designs transformational projects of significant complexity and scope | |
Makes decisions that have positive, long term, wide ranging consequences | |
Identifies and solves systemic problems with current architecture | |
examples: | |
Researched, vetted, and selected Go as Medium's statically typed language | |
Defined microservices architecture and medium2 migration plan | |
Defined and implemented proprietary IP core to the company's success | |
Foundations | |
Works effectively within established structures, following current best practices | |
signals: | |
Writes thorough postmortems for service outages | |
Makes simple configuration changes to services | |
Performs backfills safely and effectively, without causing pages | |
examples: | |
Made safe and effective Ansible changes | |
Implemented new ETL pipelines based on existing ones | |
Resolved out of disk errors independently | |
Develops new instances of existing architecture, or minor improvements to existing architecture | |
signals: | |
Made minor version upgrades to technologies | |
Builds machine learning jobs within the ML framework | |
Triages service issues correctly and independently | |
examples: | |
Upgraded NodeJS from 8.0 to 8.1.1 | |
Built custom packages for RPMs | |
Improved ETL efficiency by improving Dynamo to S3 loading | |
Designs standalone systems of moderate complexity, or major new features in existing systems | |
signals: | |
Acts as primary maintainer for existing critical systems | |
Designs moderately complex systems | |
Makes major version upgrades to libraries | |
examples: | |
Designed Ansible configuration management | |
Built Medium's realtime stats pipeline | |
Designed flexible framework for writing machine learning jobs | |
Builds complex, reusable architectures that pioneer best practices for other engineers, or multi-system services | |
signals: | |
Designs complex projects that encompass multiple systems and technologies | |
Demonstrates deep knowledge of foundational systems | |
Introduces new databases and technologies to meet underserved needs | |
examples: | |
Designed and built BBFD | |
Designed AWS configuration management | |
Introduced Kinesis and pioneered streaming events pipeline | |
Is an industry-leading expert in foundational engineering or sets strategic foundational direction for an eng team | |
signals: | |
Designs transformational projects in service of long-term goals | |
Defines the strategic vision for foundational work and supporting technologies | |
Invents industry-leading techniques to solve complex problems | |
examples: | |
Invented a novel ML technique that advanced the state of the art | |
Defined and developed Medium's continuous delivery strategy | |
Developed and implemented HA strategy | |
Web client | |
Works effectively within established web client architectures, following current best practices | |
signals: | |
Makes minor modifications to existing screens | |
Fixes simple design quality issues | |
Uses CSS appropriately, following style guide | |
examples: | |
Implemented sticky footer on the post page | |
Hooked up the action to dismiss a post from a stream | |
Built PaymentHistory screen using ResponseScreen | |
Develops new instances of existing architecture, or minor improvements to existing architecture | |
signals: | |
Makes sensible abstractions based on template and code patterns | |
Specs and builds interactive components independently | |
Prototypes simple new features quickly | |
examples: | |
Built credit card input component | |
Created shared buttons template | |
Built modal system | |
Designs major new features and demonstrates a nuanced understanding of browser constraints | |
signals: | |
Provides useful design feedback and suggests feasible alternatives | |
Performs systemic tasks to significantly minimise bundle size | |
Acts a caretaker for all of web client code | |
examples: | |
Designed font loading strategy for Medium | |
Researched utility of service workers for Medium | |
Designed and implemented ResponseScreen | |
Builds complex, reusable architectures that pioneer best practices and enable engineers to work more effectively | |
signals: | |
Pioneers architecture migrations that reduce programmer burden | |
Implements complex UI transitions that bring delight | |
Makes architectural decisions that eliminate entire classes of bugs | |
examples: | |
Designed Medium's post morpher and delta system | |
Implemented Medium's scrolling text over image blur | |
Designed and pioneered proto-based model storage | |
Is an industry-leading expert in web client or sets strategic web client direction for an eng team | |
signals: | |
Invents new techniques to innovate and overcome browser constraints | |
Identifies and solved systemic problems with current architecture | |
Defines a long-term vision for web client and ensures projects are in service of it | |
examples: | |
Invented CSS in JS | |
Defined and drove migration strategy to Lite | |
Implemented unidirectional data flow to completion | |
Project management | |
Effectively delivers individual tasks | |
signals: | |
Estimates small tasks accurately | |
Delivers tightly-scoped projects efficiently | |
Writes effective technical specs outlining approach | |
examples: | |
Wrote the technical spec for featured post images | |
Delivered stream item support for email digests | |
Delivered payment history dashboard | |
Effectively delivers small personal projects | |
signals: | |
Performs research and considers alternative approaches | |
Balances pragmatism and polish appropriately | |
Defines and hits interim milestones | |
examples: | |
Delivered promo editor | |
Delivered audio uploading for web client | |
Executed the recommends to claps backfill | |
Effectively delivers projects through a small team | |
signals: | |
Delegates tasks to others appropriately | |
Integrates business needs into project planning | |
Chooses appropriate project management strategy based on context | |
examples: | |
Ran project retro to assess improvement opportunities | |
Completed launch checklist unprompted for well controlled rollout | |
Facilitated project kickoff meeting to get buy-in | |
Effectively delivers projects through a large team, or with a significant amount of stakeholders or complexity | |
signals: | |
Finds ways to deliver requested scope faster, and prioritizes backlog | |
Manages dependencies on other projects and teams | |
Leverages recognition of repeated project patterns | |
examples: | |
Oversaw technical delivery of Hightower | |
Managed infrastructure migration to VPC | |
Involved marketing, legal, and appropriate functions at project start | |
Manages major company pushes delivered by multiple teams | |
signals: | |
Considers external constraints and business objectives when planning | |
Leads teams of teams, and coordinates effective cross-functional collaboration | |
Owns a key company metric | |
examples: | |
Managed technical migration to SOA | |
Lead technical delivery of 10/7 | |
Delivered multi-month engineering project on time | |
Communication | |
Communicates effectively to close stakeholders when called upon, and incorporates constructive feedback | |
signals: | |
Communicates project status clearly and effectively | |
Collaborates with others with empathy | |
Asks for help at the appropriate juncture | |
examples: | |
Updated The Watch before running a backfill | |
Updated project status changes in Asana promptly | |
Gave thoughtful check-in and check-out comments | |
Communicates with the wider team appropriately, focusing on timeliness and good quality conversations | |
signals: | |
Practises active listening and suspension of attention | |
Ensures stakeholders are aware of current blockers | |
Chooses the appropriate tools for accurate and timely communication | |
examples: | |
Received and integrated critical feedback positively | |
Created cross-team Slack channel for payments work | |
Spoke to domain experts before writing spec | |
Proactively shares information, actively solicits feedback, and facilitates communication for multiple stakeholders | |
signals: | |
Resolves communication difficulties between others | |
Anticipates and shares schedule deviations in plenty of time | |
Manages project stakeholder expectations effectively | |
examples: | |
Directed team response effectively during outages | |
Gave a substantial Eng All Hands presentation on React | |
Gave notice of upcoming related work in Eng Briefing | |
Communicates complex ideas skillfully and with nuance, and establishes alignment within the wider organization | |
signals: | |
Communicates project risk and tradeoffs skillfully and with nuance | |
Contextualizes and clarifies ambiguous direction and strategy for others | |
Negotiates resourcing compromises with other teams | |
examples: | |
Lead off-site workshop on interviewing | |
Wrote Medium's growth framework and rationale | |
Aligned the entire organization around claps | |
Influences outcomes at the highest level, moves beyond mere broadcasting, and sets best practices for others | |
signals: | |
Defines processes for clear communication for the entire team | |
Shares the right amount of information with the right people, at the right time | |
Develops and delivers plans to execs, the board, and outside investors | |
examples: | |
Organized half year check-in company offsite | |
Created the communication plan for a large organizational change | |
Presented to the board about key company metrics and projects | |
Craft | |
Delivers consistently good quality work | |
signals: | |
Tests new code thoroughly, both locally, and in production once shipped | |
Writes tests for every new feature and bug fix | |
Writes clear comments and documentation | |
examples: | |
Caught a bug on Hatch before it went live | |
Landed non-trivial PR with no caretaker comments | |
Wrote hermetic tests for the happy and sad cases | |
Increases the robustness and reliability of codebases, and devotes time to polishing products and systems | |
signals: | |
Refactors existing code to make it more testable | |
Adds tests for uncovered areas | |
Deletes unnecessary code and deprecates proactively when safe to do so | |
examples: | |
Requested tests for a PR when acting as reviewer | |
Reduced the number of zelda fitzgerald exceptions | |
Fixed a TODO for someone else in the codebase | |
Improves others' ability to deliver great quality work | |
signals: | |
Implements systems that enable better testing | |
Gives thoughtful code reviews as a domain expert | |
Adds tooling to improve code quality | |
examples: | |
Improved PRB to run the same volume of tests faster | |
Simplified hermetic test data modification | |
Created fixture system for visual quality | |
Advocates for and models great quality with proactive actions, and tackles difficult and subtle system issues | |
signals: | |
Builds systems so as to eliminate entire classes of programmer error | |
Focuses the team on quality with regular reminders | |
Coordinates Watch priorities and projects | |
examples: | |
Added code coverage reporting to iOS CI pipeline | |
Iterated repeatedly to develop Medium's underlines solution | |
Defined and oversaw plan for closing Heartbleed vulnerability | |
Enables and encourages the entire organization to make quality a central part of the development process | |
signals: | |
Defines policies for the engineering org that encourage quality work | |
Identifies and eliminates single points of failure throughout the organization | |
Secures time and resources from execs to support great quality | |
examples: | |
Negotiated resources for Fix-It week with exec team | |
Instituted and ensured success of a 20% time policy | |
Started The Watch | |
Initiative | |
Identifies opportunities for organizational change or product improvements | |
signals: | |
Writes Hatch posts about improvement opportunities | |
Raises meaningful tensions in tactical meetings | |
Asks leadership team probing questions at FAM | |
examples: | |
Wrote about problems with TTR on Hatch | |
Wrote about content policy problems on Hatch | |
Reported a site issue in Github | |
Causes change to positively impact a few individuals or minor improvement to an existing product or service | |
signals: | |
Picks bugs off the backlog proactively when blocked elsewhere | |
Makes design quality improvements unprompted | |
Takes on trust and safety tasks proactively when blocked elsewhere | |
examples: | |
Advocated on own behalf for a change in role | |
Implemented flow typing for promises | |
Audited web client performance in Chrome and proposed fixes | |
Causes change to positively impact an entire team or instigates a minor feature or service | |
signals: | |
Demonstrates concepts proactively with prototypes | |
Fixes complicated bugs outside of regular domain | |
Takes ownership of systems that nobody owns or wants | |
examples: | |
Defined style guide to resolve style arguments | |
Proposed and implemented at-mentions prototype | |
Implemented video for Android independently, unprompted | |
Effects change that has a substantial positive impact on the engineering organization or a major product impact | |
signals: | |
Champions and pioneers new technologies to solve new classes of problem | |
Exemplifies grit and determination in the face of persistent obstacles | |
Instigates major new features, services, or architectures | |
examples: | |
Created the interviewing rubric and booklet | |
Implemented and secured support for native login | |
Migrated medium2 to mono repo and bazel | |
Effects change that has a substantial positive impact on the whole company | |
signals: | |
Creates a new function to solve systemic issues | |
Galvanizes the entire company and garners buy in for a new strategy | |
Changes complex organizational processes | |
examples: | |
Migrated the organization from Holacracy | |
Built Medium Android prototype and convinced execs to fund it | |
Convinced leadership and engineering org to move to Medium Lite architecture | |
Org design | |
Respects and participates in processes, giving meaningful feedback to help the organization improve | |
signals: | |
Reflects on meetings that leave them inspired or frustrated | |
Teaches others about existing processes | |
Actively participates and makes contributions within organizational processes | |
examples: | |
Facilitated effective tactical meeting with empathy | |
Explained tactical meeting format to a new hire | |
Provided feedback on sprint planning meeting | |
Identifies opportunities to improve existing processes and makes changes that positively affect the local team | |
signals: | |
Defines meeting structure and cadence that meets team needs | |
Engages in organizational systems thinking | |
Advocates for improved diversity and inclusion, and proposes ideas to help | |
examples: | |
Defined Frankenmeeting structure for small team | |
Improved Watch on-call rotation scheduling | |
Defined standard channels for inter-team communication | |
Develops processes to solve ongoing organizational problems | |
signals: | |
Creates programs that meaningfully improve organizational diversity | |
Solves long-standing organizational problems | |
Reallocates resources to meet organizational needs | |
examples: | |
Developed baseline team templates for consistency | |
Created bug-rotation program to address ongoing quality issues | |
Defined Guilds manifesto and charter | |
Thinks deeply about organizational issues and identifies hidden dynamics that contribute to them | |
signals: | |
Evaluates incentive structures and their effect on execution | |
Analyzes existing processes for bias and shortfall | |
Ties abstract concerns to concrete organizational actions or norms | |
examples: | |
Connected mobile recruiting difficulties to focus on excellence | |
Raised leadership level change discrepancies | |
Analyzed the hiring rubric for false negative potential | |
Leads initiatives to address issues stemming from hidden dynamics and company norms | |
signals: | |
Builds programs to train leadership in desired skills | |
Creates new structures that provide unique growth opportunities | |
Leads planning and communication for reorgs | |
examples: | |
Lead efforts to increase number of mobile engineers | |
Directed resources to meaningfully improve diversity at all levels | |
Built the growth framework rubric | |
Accomplishment | |
Helps individuals identify blockers and helps them identify next steps for resolution | |
signals: | |
Notices when someone is stuck and reaches out | |
Helps others break down problems into feasible, tangible next steps | |
Talks through problems non-judgmentally | |
examples: | |
Completed training on diagnosing problems | |
Unblocked a group member | |
Reinforces and affirms positive feedback for good work | |
Helps individuals resolve difficult performance issues, with insight, compassion, and skill | |
signals: | |
Gathers context outside the immediate problem | |
Recognizes issues within local environment and suggests change | |
Works to encourage ownership of actions and responsibilities | |
examples: | |
Completed training on decision making | |
Convinced a group member to solve a problem directly, rather than doing it for them | |
Gave honest feedback about poor performance, with compassion | |
Intervenes in long-standing performance issues with targeted behavior change or performance plans | |
signals: | |
Aggregates signals of poor performance and creates process for improvement | |
Investigates motivation and externalities for consistent poor performance | |
Puts together comprehensive, achievable performance plans | |
examples: | |
Worked with group member to address persistent communication failures | |
Arranged a transfer to another team, resulting in improved performance | |
Managed group member closely to maximise chances of PIP success | |
Mediates escalated situations, empowers underperforming teams, and resolves conflict | |
signals: | |
Recognizes heightened situations and toxic or aggressive interactions | |
Inserts themself into conflict where appropriate to calm and mediate | |
Encourages open dialog and builds trust between parties in conflict | |
examples: | |
Empowered a team to drive forward amidst uncertainty | |
Protected team from externalities so they could focus on goals | |
Mediated sit-down between team members to address tension | |
Resolves complex organizational dysfunction, or persistent conflict at senior levels | |
signals: | |
Takes control of dysfunctional teams to organise chaos | |
Repairs broken team dynamics and builds harmony | |
Presides over a well-oiled team of teams | |
examples: | |
Turned around the performance of a problematic team | |
De-escalated serious tensions between teams | |
Rebuilt trust between senior team leads | |
Wellbeing | |
Uses tools and processes to help ensure colleagues are healthy and happy | |
signals: | |
Keeps confidences unless legally or morally obliged to do otherwise | |
Applies the reasonable person principle to others | |
Avoids blame and focuses on positive change | |
examples: | |
Ensured group members were taking enough vacation | |
Put themself in another's shoes to understand their perspective | |
Checked in with colleague showing signs of burnout | |
Creates a positive, supportive, engaging team environment for group members | |
signals: | |
Sheds light on other experiences to build empathy and compassion | |
Validates ongoing work and sustains motivation | |
Proposes solutions when teams get bogged down or lose momentum | |
examples: | |
Coordinated a small celebration for a project launch | |
Connected tedious A|B testing project with overall company goals | |
Noted a team without a recent win and suggested some easy quick wins | |
Manages expectations across peers, leads in the org, promotes calm, and prevents consensus building | |
signals: | |
Trains group members to separate stimulus from response | |
Maintains a pulse on individual and team morale | |
Helps group members approach problems with curiosity | |
examples: | |
Completed training on transference and counter transference | |
Completed training on compromise and negotiation techniques | |
Reframed a problem as a challenge, instead of a barrier, when appropriate | |
Advocates for the needs of teams and group members, and proactively works to calm the organization | |
signals: | |
Ensures team environments are safe and inclusive, proactively | |
Grounds group member anxieties in reality | |
Tracks team retention actively and proposes solutions to strengthen it | |
examples: | |
Relieved org tension around product direction by providing extra context | |
Encouraged group members to focus on what they can control | |
Guided people through complex organizational change | |
Manages narratives, channels negativity into inspiration and motivation, and protects the entire team | |
signals: | |
Recognizes and points out narratives when appropriate | |
Works to reshape narratives from victimization to ownership | |
Increases the psychological safety of the entire team | |
examples: | |
Converted group member from a problem haver to a problem solver | |
Challenged false narrative and redirected to compassion and empathy | |
Cultivated and championed a culture of empathy within the entire team | |
Career development | |
Gives insight into opportunities and helps identify individuals' strengths and weaknesses | |
signals: | |
Advocates on behalf and in defense of a group member | |
Shares opportunities for improvements and recognises achievements | |
Explains appropriate available industry paths | |
examples: | |
Collected and delivered feedback | |
Discussed career options and areas of interest informally | |
Hosted a Floodgate Academy intern | |
Formally supports and advocates for one person and provides tools to help them solve career problems | |
signals: | |
Ensure a group member has an appropriate role on their team | |
Offers effective career advice to group members, without being prescriptive | |
Creates space for people to talk through challenges | |
examples: | |
Set up and attended regular, constructive 1:1s | |
Provided coaching on how to have difficult conversations | |
Taught group members the GROW model | |
Inspires and retains a small group of people and actively pushes them to stretch themselves | |
signals: | |
Discusses paths, and creates plans for personal and professional growth | |
Advocates to align people with appropriate roles within organization | |
Works with team leads to elevate emerging leaders | |
examples: | |
Reviewed individual group member progression every 6 weeks | |
Suggested appropriate group member for Tech Lead position | |
Arranged a requested switch of discipline for a group member | |
Manages interactions and processes between groups, promoting best practices and setting a positive example | |
signals: | |
Manages team transitions smoothly, respecting team and individual needs | |
Develops best practices for conflict resolution | |
Ensures all group members' roles are meeting their career needs | |
examples: | |
Completed training on situational leadership | |
Built a resourcing plan based on company, team, and individual goals | |
Prevented regretted attrition with intentional, targeted intervention | |
Supports the development of a signficant part of the engineering org, and widely viewed as a trusted advisor | |
signals: | |
Supports and develops senior leaders | |
Identified leadership training opportunities for senior leadership | |
Pushes everyone to be as good as they can be, with empathy | |
examples: | |
Provided coaching to group leads | |
Devised Pathwise curriculum for group leads | |
Advocated to execs for engineer development resources and programs | |
Evangelism | |
Represents Medium well externally, and influences individuals positively | |
signals: | |
Shares personal and organizational successes with their network | |
Attends Medium-hosted events and talks with guests | |
Communicates genuine and honest excitement about their work externally | |
examples: | |
Shared a Medium product launch post on Facebook | |
Acted as a guide for a non-friend visitor to the office | |
Supported PR efforts by giving a quote or having a photo taken | |
Participates more centrally in small events, and takes simple actions that positively influence groups of people | |
signals: | |
Takes meaningful action to introduce people to Medium | |
Joined public Slack group and represented Medium appropriately, and well | |
Organizes positive small- or medium-sized events that bring people to Medium | |
examples: | |
Volunteered as a helper for CODE2040 writing workshop | |
Organized a short tour of the office by college students | |
Talked at a Women Who Code event hosted at Medium | |
Works hard to positively influence large groups of people on their views of Medium | |
signals: | |
Mentors or participates in a high visibility way in an external organization | |
Builds fruitful partnerships with external organizations | |
Writes blog posts about Medium that receive moderate traffic | |
examples: | |
Represented Medium on a panel at a conference of industry experts | |
Established close ties with Creative Commons | |
Built a durable, long-standing relationship with Code2040 | |
Establishes Medium as an great, innovative company and workplace to the whole industry | |
signals: | |
Establishes themself as an industry thought leader who attracts talent | |
Publishes material about Medium's organizational or technical innovations | |
Leverages significant following to evangelise Medium | |
examples: | |
Published a paper on Medium technology in a peer-reviewed journal | |
Authored joint-press release with EFF on DNT | |
Published “Why Content Editable Is Terrible” on the Medium engineering blog | |
Introduces Medium in a positive light to a wider audience outside the industry | |
signals: | |
Delivers key messages to broad, mainstream audiences | |
Influences people with large audiences to talk about Medium positively | |
Drives recognition and adoption of Medium in significant numbers | |
examples: | |
Published or interviewed in a mainstream newspaper or website outside tech | |
Keynoted a conference with international attention | |
Represented Medium in national televised media | |
Community | |
Is available and present on current teams, and works to contribute positively to company culture | |
signals: | |
Participates in team activities and offsites | |
Treats colleagues and clients with respect | |
Joins groups or committees outside regular duties | |
examples: | |
Joined and actively participated in the web client guild | |
Brought a small gift back from vacation for the team | |
Wrote entertaining and informative Prod Ops writeups on Hatch | |
Steps up, builds connectedness, and takes concrete actions to promote an inclusive culture | |
signals: | |
Makes space for others to participate | |
Collaborates with other engineers outside direct responsibilities | |
Finds ways to ramp up and engage new hires quickly | |
examples: | |
Created onboarding bingo | |
Brought shy and introverted people into a dominant conversation | |
Volunteered as secretary for a team | |
Contributes to improving team relatedness, and helps build a culture of lending support | |
signals: | |
Takes on additional Watch shifts at short notice | |
Pitches in to help other teams hit deadlines, without missing own deadlines | |
Uses position to raise difficult issues on someone's behalf | |
examples: | |
Lead Watch cycles with little support while still contributing to projects | |
Started and drove the LGBTQIA ERG | |
Stayed positive and improved team morale during period after layoffs | |
Exemplifies selflessness for the team without compromising responsibilities, and lifts everyone up | |
signals: | |
Goes above and beyond on the Watch, serving the team without complaint | |
Implements concrete programs to signficantly improve team inclusivity | |
Takes on large amounts of tedious grunt work for the team without being asked | |
examples: | |
Devoted large amount of time to helping outside direct responsibilities | |
Refactored hundreds of legacy Shepherd nodes | |
Acted as sole maintainer of Boxen for years | |
Lives the company values, guards positive culture, and defines policies that support relatedness between teams | |
signals: | |
Brings separate teams together to build relatedness | |
Holds individuals, teams, and leadership accountable to Medium's values | |
Sets the tone, policy, and goals around maintaining an inclusive company | |
examples: | |
Organized wine and olive tasting offsite to Napa for the whole engineering org | |
Devised, delivered and acted on findings from an engineer happiness survey | |
Challenged and corrected exclusionary behaviour or policies | |
Recruiting | |
Brings new candidates into the pipeline and understands how to evaluate candidates at Medium | |
signals: | |
Reviews existing network for hiring leads regularly | |
Shadows interviews to gain familiarity with process | |
Reviews current job postings regularly | |
examples: | |
Completed interview calibration | |
Set up casual sessions to practice asking questions | |
Referred appropriate individuals for open positions | |
Interviews regularly, helps the team make meaningful hiring decisions, and helps build a diverse pipeline | |
signals: | |
Uses interview rubric to provide clear, objective feedback on candidates | |
Interviews candidates with empathy and treats them all with equal respect | |
Researches approaches for sourcing candidates and diversifying hiring | |
examples: | |
Added observable evidence for every rating | |
Started a monthly brunch for candidates to meet Medium employees | |
Tested a new service for quality and diversity of candidates | |
Maintains and strengthens the integrity of the current process, and regularly brings in great candidates | |
signals: | |
Teaches new interviewers how to interview with empathy | |
Models great interview technique and feedback when shadowed | |
Reverse shadows trainees and helps calibrate their feedback | |
examples: | |
Wrote new interview question which meets our question quality criteria | |
Brought candidates into our pipeline proactively, with a high conversion rate | |
Proposed useful, tangible improvements to the interview process | |
Actively contributes to and leads hiring decisions, and goes to great lengths to source great candidates | |
signals: | |
Documents subtle cues in interviews that indicate values alignment | |
Makes hiring decisions, resolving discrepancies between conflicting reports | |
Top-grades candidates and teases out character traits | |
examples: | |
Planned engineering summit on interview process and training | |
Organized and lead Medium's presence at a recruitment fair | |
Started CODE2040 internship program | |
Sets recruitment strategy, invests in long-term relationships for critical roles, and recruits at scale | |
signals: | |
Sets the tone, policy and goals around building a diverse, high-quality team | |
Identifies and brings in promising acquisitions | |
Tracks industry activity, identifying opportunities for critical roles | |
examples: | |
Talked with a senior candidate over many months to fill a critical role | |
Organized efforts around convincing acquired engineers to join and stay | |
Set goals, then tracked and reported metrics on team demographics over time | |
Mentorship | |
Informally mentors individuals in an ad-hoc way, supports new hires, and conveys institutional knowledge | |
signals: | |
Makes themself available for informal support and advice | |
Acts as sounding board for peers and more junior members | |
Provides sound advice when asked | |
examples: | |
Acted as an onboarding buddy | |
Paired with an engineer to help them with an unfamiliar area | |
Helped a colleague understand their feelings | |
Mentors people proactively, and guides people to realizations rather than providing the answer | |
signals: | |
Takes time to explain concepts and best practices | |
Asks questions to illuminate concepts, rather than stating them | |
Allows others to lead efforts when it will help their development | |
examples: | |
Shared interesting article with a team member to help with their growth | |
Offered unprompted feedback to help growth, with empathy | |
Lead from behind to support someone new to a leadership role | |
Teaches small groups of engineers and contributes to Medium's shared knowledge base | |
signals: | |
Avoids siloing information when it can be usefully shared with others | |
Works to increase the bus factor of systems | |
Finds tools that work best for a team member's personality | |
examples: | |
Gave a brown bag presentation on payments | |
Wrote Hatch post on avoiding RDS backfill issues | |
Wrote Medium-U content module | |
Encourages people to mentor each other, and creates ways for them to do so | |
signals: | |
Defines an entire curriculum for a discipline | |
Draws positive attention to well-modeled mentor and teaching behaviours | |
Creates brown bag series and lines up speakers | |
examples: | |
Created and lead Medium's Women in Eng group | |
Organized an Eng All Hands with an outside speaker | |
Designed and taught web client guild curriculum | |
Instills and promotes a culture of learning and development within the team | |
signals: | |
Sets incentive structures to recognise and reward mentorship | |
Empowers team members to develop themselves | |
Role models productive and healthy mentor relationships | |
examples: | |
Instituted the professional education budget for engineers | |
Mentored mentors | |
Started the eng advisor program and lined up external mentors |
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