Wise: Engineering Individual Contributor

Scope

• Consistently seeks out, delivers and maintains small projects or surface-specific tasks with the help of more experienced Engineers

Impact

• Participates in feature design and bug fixes under direct supervision
• Writes, tests and documents code as per Wise guidelines
• Consistently delivers small features and improvements that have an impact on customers
• Takes ownership of small projects or smaller parts of large projects

Behaviour

• Collaborates with team to solve problems
• Keen to learn and actively reaches out to people for mentorship and learning
• Seeks out regular feedback from peers (other Engineers and Product Managers) and incorporates them in their day-to-day work
• Escalates matters when appropriate without getting into rabbit holes or blocked for long time periods. Has a good sense of timeboxing tasks.

Expertise

• Good understanding of discipline basics.
• Competently executes on small Engineering tasks or product improvements with the guidance of other senior members (Engineers, Designers, Product Managers, etc) of the team

Scope

• Self-directed and helps the team to prioritise work that maximises team impact
• Participates in the definition and delivery of work or projects within the team

Impact

• Writes and reviews technical design documentation
• Improves code and architecture by regularly planning technical work with the team
• Regularly leads and delivers medium-sized features that improve business outcomes at product surface level
• Confident contributor to cross-company engineering efforts or guilds
• Provides on-call support for their area including systems they’re not familiar with
• Takes initiative to plan and prioritise issues with the team and proactively fixes them
• Unblocks others by reviewing their code
• Prioritises tasks effectively and avoids getting caught up in unimportant details

Behaviour

• Works well with other members of the team. Is able to challenge other people’s opinions and open to have their own opinions challenged too
• Gives timely and helpful feedback to peers and leads
• Mentors, assists and teaches juniors members of their own and other teams to help them upskill and have more impact
• Helps onboard new Engineers into the team

Expertise

• High level of skill in their discipline. Independently leads medium sized (4-8 engineering weeks) project through the entire life-cycle from design to development and deployment
• Provides constructive feedback on others’ work through code or technical design document reviews

Scope

• Consistently seeks out and delivers on product level vision, tasks and problems
• Actively assists in scoping and executing most impactful work for the team

Impact

• Prioritises and values undesirable/unowned work that enables the team to move faster
• Regularly delivers large features and product improvements that have a meaningful impact on Wise product and customers
• Takes initiative to identify and solve important problems. Coordinates with others on cross-cutting technical issues
• Optimises for the predictability and regular cadence of deliverables
• Keeps reliability, maintainability and scalability of our systems top of mind
• Embraces long-term ownership of projects while training others to reduce the bus factor or becoming a blocker
• Architects and designs services/systems using design patterns that allow for iterative delivery and future scaling
• Autonomous in approach and may direct or coach other less experienced Engineers
• Communicates and collaborates across functions like product, analytics and design as required
• Competent interviewer at all levels

Behaviour

• Drives product improvement that impacts the Wise customer experience or empowers internal stakeholders (teams like Operations, Customer Support, Finance, etc.) to do their job effectively
• Promotes a positive culture of collaboration within and across different teams
• Regularly engages with other teams to make the tribe / organisation more effective
• Proactively identifies and tackles technical debt becoming too big through planning work and aligning team. Does this with careful evaluation of additional cost on development
• Actively mentors other Engineers in the team on individual basis or in group settings
• Helps others grow through technical guidance, code reviews, documentation, etc.

Expertise

• A clear expert in one or more technical or business domains
• Leads or significantly contributes to medium to large (8-16 engineering weeks) sized projects

Scope

• Influences the tribe level product and engineering goals
• Leads in scoping and executing most impactful work for team(s) in the tribe
• Proactively works to align work across multiple teams to maximise the impact for Wise

Impact

• Leads projects that have a direct impact on company-level goals and tribe-wide productivity and quality
• Recognised for high quality and quantity of hands-on technical contribution
• Consistently influences and helps set tribe-wide vision and direction. Has strong influence on tribe-level product improvement goals. Acts to align work across multiple teams to maximise the impact for the company.
• Promotes collaboration and communication between teams while reducing the coordination cost between teams and their dependencies
• Acts as a multiplier by facilitating cross-team/tribe work, by shaping broad architecture or shipping major pieces / infrastructure / tools
• Proactively identifies tribe-level opportunities and issues, proposes and executes on appropriate solutions to resolve them
• Sets medium-term technical direction for the tribe / team in collaboration with their peers and Engineering Leads to focus on areas that need attention or improvement
• Actively helps Engineers to make design decisions that minimise the cost of future changes and reduces dependencies between teams and services. Trains them in the technical interviewing process and evaluation of candidates.

Behaviour

• Highly sought after and well-regarded mentor/coach for all levels
• Actively sought out by others for advice, and actively seeks out others who would most benefit from help
• Listens and guides debates to help reach a decision then clearly communicates it widely
• Actively contributes to and takes initiatives to make Wise a great place to work
• Builds a culture where product reliability, observability and scalability are part of building any new and contributing to existing systems
• Regularly thinks about their team practices / processes and works with the team to improve them. Also collaborates with others to improve organisational practices and processes.
• Represents Wise in local meet-ups, national and international conferences by speaking or other arrangements

Expertise

• A clear expert and most highly skilled in one or more technical or business domains at Wise
• Leads, works on and executes inter-disciplinary and cross-team projects

Scope

• Consistently seeks out opportunities that shape and deliver on company level, cross-tribe engineering/product vision and direction
• Helps with shaping the direction of Wise on key engineering matters and actively raises the bar for engineering practices

Impact

• Leads and contributes to the development and design of systems, services and libraries with company-wide impact
• Works on strategic product / engineering projects that have company-wide impact and occasionally also impact outside the company
• Regularly delivers on large-scale efforts that make the entire Wise more successful and valuable
• Leads the teams in identifying strategic technical areas for the company to invest in future growth
• Acts to align work across multiple tribes to maximise the impact for the company
• Actively works on the organisation-wide engineering practices and processes to continuously improve them
• Works across the organisation to architect and design services/systems using design patterns that allow for iterative delivery and future scaling
• Actively works with multiple tribes to increase communication/collaboration while minimising coordination between them
• Contributes to the company level product / engineering strategy and makes sure that we execute against that effectively
• Takes long-term approach in building Wise and hiring for the Engineering organisation
• Collaborates at all levels, horizontally and vertically, within the company to set long-term technical vision for the company
• Active interviewer and works to continuously to improve the interview process by partnering with other Engineers, Engineering Leads and Recruiters

Behaviour

• Mentors across the organisation. Seeks out mentoring opportunities for themselves and others. Supports other Engineers in their growth as mentors.
• Deliberate in upskilling others, takes responsibility in their development and growth across the company
• Seen as a source of expertise, wisdom and guidance
• Leads and undertakes work to make Wise a great Engineering organisation to work
• A calming force and influence who sets the example of resolving difficult challenges by bringing people together
• Demonstrates and promotes a culture of technical documentation through design docs and knowledge sharing across the company
• Represents Wise in local meet-ups, national and international conferences by speaking or other arrangements
• Actively networks with Engineers outside the company and helps Wise to attract great Engineers to work here

Expertise

• Most highly skilled in multiple technical and business domains at Wise
• Helps with setting strategic technical direction of the company