Areas Of Contribution

This public repo contains the set of skills, organized by "area" and "P-level", that CF Engineering management in SF and LA use when gathering feedback and evaluating engineers.

It is a complement to the CF Engineering Skills Chart.

Have questions about how to interpret all of this? Ask your manager, or open an issue on this repo!

Motivation

We intend for the skills listed in this repo to describe the impact that a Pivot has. We're trying to not focus too much on specific activities.

This is because we want to avoid adverse incentives or "gamifiying" the performance of activities to the detriment of outcomes. Also, there is often more than one activity, or way of doing an activity, that can lead to a particular outcome. So we want to align our standards with positive outcomes for our teams, our customers, and our company.

For more background on the thinking behind our current feedback process, watch this video.

How to interpret "frequency" & "impact"

All checkboxes are optional. Only check boxes for what's been observed and is applicable. Frequency and impact should be treated as radio buttons. Please do not check multiple options within impact or frequency. For example, do not check both "High" and "Low" boxes for Impact.

FREQUENCY

• Have you observed a pivot do this?
  • Don't check anything unless you have
  • When you observed this:
    • Did it require prompting? Check "Only when asked"
    • Is it consistent & unprompted? Check "Appropriately"
    • Have they sometimes needed prompting? Check "Occassionaly"

IMPACT

• What difference have they made?
  • Leave impact blank and use frequency only if it isn't clear or if they haven't yet made a difference.
  • Did it improve something? Then check "High".
  • Is this something where they are not contributing, and the lack of contribution is having a negative impact? Or did something get worse? Then check "Low".
  • Is it somewhere in between? Is there room to make more impact? Then leave impact blank, and check a frequency box.
  • Have they started making a difference, but it isn't entirely visible or clear yet? Leave impact blank and check a frequency box.
  • Please ensure managers have enough context; via the space in the form or shared directly with them.

Frequency & impact are similar to outputs & outcomes. Frequency is important, it describes the consistency of a pivot's efforts. Impact is related and perhaps more important, it speaks to whether these efforts were effective.

Want to contribute?

This repo is under active construction and we welcome your help in improving it.

Please see our Contribution guide.