See What's Expected at Your Level

You have started a new role, and the review form says "meets expectations" -- but nobody can point to a definition of what that means. Pathway makes those expectations visible: the skills your level requires, the behaviours the organization values, and the scope and autonomy your role implies. By the end of this guide you will have a concrete picture of what your level expects, grounded in your organization's own engineering standard. For the other half of this job, configuring agents against the same standard, see Configure Agents to Meet Your Engineering Standard.

Prerequisites

Install Pathway and initialize your standard data before continuing. If you have not done that yet, follow the Getting Started: Pathway for Engineers guide, then return here.

Find your role coordinates

Every role in Pathway is defined by three coordinates: a discipline, a level, and an optional track. Before you can see your expectations, you need to identify which values describe your current role.

List the disciplines defined in your standard:

npx fit-pathway discipline --list

Expected output (your organization's values will differ):

clinical_informatics
data_engineering
engineering_management
quality_engineering
software_engineering

Each line is a discipline ID. Note the one that matches your current role; you will use it in later commands.

List the levels:

npx fit-pathway level --list

J040
J060
J070
J080
J090
J100

Each line is a level code. Find the one that matches your current role.

If your discipline supports track specializations, list them:

npx fit-pathway track --list

ml_ops
platform
security
sre

Note down your discipline ID, level code, and track ID (if applicable). These three values are all you need for the remaining steps.

View your full role definition

Generate the complete expectation profile for your role:

npx fit-pathway job software_engineering J060

The output has four sections:

1. Expectations -- your level's impact scope, autonomy, influence scope, and the complexity you are expected to handle.
2. Behaviour Profile -- each behaviour the organization values and the maturity level expected at your role.
3. Skill Matrix -- every skill relevant to your discipline, with the proficiency level expected.
4. Driver Coverage -- how your skill and behaviour profile maps to engineering effectiveness drivers.

Here is what the Expectations section looks like for an Engineer (J060) in Software Engineering:

## Expectations

- **Impact Scope**: Features and small projects
- **Autonomy Expectation**: Work independently on familiar problems
- **Influence Scope**: Mentor junior team members
- **Complexity Handled**: Moderate complexity with some ambiguity

If your role has a track specialization, add the --track flag to see how the profile shifts:

npx fit-pathway job software_engineering J060 --track=platform

Track specializations add track-specific skills and may adjust behaviour maturity expectations. For example, a Platform Engineering track adds skills like Change Management, Incident Management, Observability, and Performance Optimization -- and raises the Think in Systems behaviour maturity from Practicing to Role Modeling.

Understand your skill expectations

The Skill Matrix in your role definition shows what proficiency level each skill requires. Skills fall into three tiers:

Tier	Depth	Purpose
core	deepest	the skills that define your discipline
supporting	moderate	skills that enable your core work
broad	lightest	cross-cutting skills for organizational impact

To understand what a specific proficiency level means in practice, inspect any skill:

npx fit-pathway skill architecture_design

# Architecture Design

Scale

Designs system structures that meet functional, scalability, and regulatory
requirements. Balances modularity, integration, and validated computer system
constraints typical of pharmaceutical environments.

## Level Descriptions

| Level | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Awareness | You recognize common architectural styles... |
| Foundational | You implement components inside a defined architecture... |
| Working | You design services and module boundaries for a bounded domain... |
| Practitioner | You lead architecture for a product or platform area... |
| Expert | You define architectural strategy and reference patterns... |

Each proficiency level describes concrete, observable actions -- not vague aspirations. Compare the level description for your expected proficiency against your current practice to identify where you are strong and where you have room to grow.

The five proficiency levels follow a consistent progression:

Proficiency	Autonomy	Scope
awareness	with guidance	team
foundational	with minimal guidance	team
working	independently	team
practitioner	lead, mentor	area (2--5 teams)
expert	define, shape	business unit / function

Understand your behaviour expectations

Behaviours describe how engineers approach their work -- not what they know, but how they operate. Your role definition's Behaviour Profile shows each behaviour and the maturity level expected.

Inspect a specific behaviour to see what each maturity level looks like:

npx fit-pathway behaviour systems_thinking

# Think in Systems

Systems thinking is the practice of understanding how components, processes,
and people interact across a wider whole rather than viewing problems in
isolation...

## Maturity Levels

| Maturity | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Emerging | You recognise that your work connects to broader processes... |
| Developing | You actively trace dependencies beyond your immediate scope... |
| Practicing | You consistently reason about systems end-to-end... |
| Role Modeling | You shape how teams approach problems... |
| Exemplifying | You set the standard for systems thinking... |

Like skill proficiencies, behaviour maturities describe observable patterns. Read the description for your expected maturity level and ask yourself: does this describe how I work today? That self-assessment is the starting point for identifying growth areas.

The five maturity levels:

Maturity	What it looks like
emerging	Shows interest, needs prompting
developing	Regularly applies with some guidance
practicing	Consistently demonstrates in daily work
role_modeling	Influences the team's approach, others seek them out
exemplifying	Shapes organizational culture in this area

See what changes at the next level

Once you know what your current level expects, the natural next question is: what would need to change to reach the next level?

Run the progress command for your current role to see the progression to the next level:

npx fit-pathway progress software_engineering J060

# Career Progression

**From**: Engineer Software Engineer
**To**: Senior Engineer Software Engineer

## Summary

- Skills to improve: 7
- Behaviours to improve: 5
- New skills: 0
- Total changes: 12

## Skill Changes

| Skill | Type | From |  | To | Change |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Architecture Design | Core | Working | -> | Practitioner | +1 |
| Code Review | Core | Working | -> | Practitioner | +1 |
| Full Stack Development | Core | Working | -> | Practitioner | +1 |
| Cloud Platforms | Supporting | Foundational | -> | Working | +1 |
| SRE Practices | Supporting | Foundational | -> | Working | +1 |
| Data Modeling | Broad | Awareness | -> | Foundational | +1 |
| Stakeholder Management | Broad | Awareness | -> | Foundational | +1 |

## Behaviour Changes

| Behaviour | From |  | To | Change |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Build Polymathic Knowledge | Practicing | -> | Role Modeling | +1 |
| Communicate with Precision | Developing | -> | Practicing | +1 |
| Own the Outcome | Developing | -> | Practicing | +1 |
| Stay Relentlessly Curious | Developing | -> | Practicing | +1 |
| Think in Systems | Practicing | -> | Role Modeling | +1 |

The output makes promotion criteria concrete. Instead of a vague "you need to be more senior," you can see that moving from J060 to J070 in Software Engineering means growing Architecture Design from Working to Practitioner, moving Think in Systems from Practicing to Role Modeling, and eleven other specific changes.

Add a track to see progression within a specialization:

npx fit-pathway progress software_engineering J060 --track=platform

Track specializations often add more skill changes -- in this case, the Platform Engineering track shows 16 total changes instead of 12, because track-specific skills like Change Management, Incident Management, Observability, and Performance Optimization all need to grow as well.

To compare any two specific levels (not just adjacent ones), use --compare:

npx fit-pathway progress software_engineering J040 --compare=J060

# Career Progression

**From**: Associate Engineer Software Engineer
**To**: Engineer Software Engineer

## Summary

- Skills to improve: 10
- Behaviours to improve: 4
- New skills: 0
- Total changes: 14

This shows every skill and behaviour change between Associate Engineer (J040) and Engineer (J060), regardless of the number of levels between them.

Verify

You have reached the outcome of this guide when you can answer these questions from your Pathway output:

• What is my role formula? You can name your discipline, level, and track (e.g., Software Engineering x J060 x Platform Engineering).
• What skills does my role expect, and at what proficiency? You have reviewed the Skill Matrix and understand the difference between core, supporting, and broad skill tiers.
• What behaviours does my role expect, and at what maturity? You have reviewed the Behaviour Profile and can describe what your expected maturity level looks like in practice.
• What does my level imply about scope and autonomy? You have read the Expectations section and can describe your level's impact scope, autonomy expectation, and influence scope.
• What changes at the next level? You have run the progress command and can name the specific skills and behaviours that would need to grow.

If any of these are unclear, re-run the relevant command and inspect the detail for any skill or behaviour using npx fit-pathway skill <id> or npx fit-pathway behaviour <id>.

What's next