One of the key things that motivate me every day to work at Ebury is the company’s passion to invest in its people. This comes directly from Juan and Salva (our founders) and it is lived by all of us in management positions.
But what does it mean for our Tech teams? Originally, when we were 10-20 people in Tech, this happened organically, but over time and with growth, it is important that career development also scales up and it is consistent across teams.
During the last year and a half, I have been working with the team to define a framework that allows people to plan their development and have meaningful conversations with their leads.
At Ebury Tech, your career can take several paths, but it all starts with mapping what are 6 competencies that we really care about.
6 Competencies and 4 Levels
We have summarised our cultural values into 6 competencies, each of them with 4 levels. Levels 1 & 2 tend to focus on you, as an individual, while the others focus on your impact in your team(3) and the wider tech organisation(4):
- Domain Mastery: How good are you in your domain and do others agree?
- Team Work: Do you help to achieve others’ objectives?
- Continuously Improves: Do you improve and help others improve?
- Problem Solving: Can you resolve real-life issues with a simple solution?
- Business Impact: Deliver value, not just code
- Leadership: Do you set an example to others and take responsibility?
Not everyone follows the same path
Although it might sound like something that you get from a fortune cookie, it really applies to personal development. At Ebury, we have define 3 loose paths to guide your development in Technology:
People Leadership – This is the path I chose, while still technical, my passion is to help others develop and work with team to achieve high performance
Technical Leadership (Architecture) – Another available path is to focus on your ability to design systems that deliver customer value and to work with others across the organisation to hone the best solutions for our clients.
Technical Leadership (Hands on) – Finally, there is also a path to lead by example, to bring change and best practices from within a squad.
Putting it all together
Each step in a development path is defined by a set of behavioural and observable expectations. These are a level within each of the 6 competencies.
Note, that I have said observable. This is important because, in order to move from one step to another, your team lead will put you forward a case with examples to a panel of peers that will support your change based on observable facts. Not everyone will move to the next step at the first try, but you will receive tangible feedback on how to achieve it next time.
Dig deep, let me know what you think
There is no secret sauce to what we do to invest in our people, hence I am sharing with you and I look forward to your feedback. Hit me up in Linkedin