Forward Impact Team

Core Model

Overview

The core model defines how your engineering terrain is traversed. Every combination of discipline, track, and level produces a unique, consistent role profile -- with skill proficiencies, behaviour expectations, and responsibilities all derived from the same source data.

The Core Formula

Job Definition = Discipline x Track x Level

Agent Profile = Discipline x Track x Stage

Input Question
Discipline What kind of engineer?
Track Where and how do you work?
Level What career level?
Stage What part of the lifecycle?

Both jobs and agents use the same skill and behaviour derivation. The difference: jobs include all skills capped by level, while agents filter out human-only skills and constrain by lifecycle stage.

Entity Overview

erDiagram
    DISCIPLINE ||--o{ JOB : "defines identity"
    TRACK ||--o{ JOB : "provides context"
    LEVEL ||--o{ JOB : "sets level"
    DISCIPLINE ||--o{ SKILL : "references"
    SKILL ||--|| CAPABILITY : "belongs to"
    CAPABILITY ||--o{ RESPONSIBILITY : "defines per level"
    TRACK ||--o{ CAPABILITY : "modifies via skillModifiers"
    DISCIPLINE ||--o{ BEHAVIOUR : "modifies"
    TRACK ||--o{ BEHAVIOUR : "modifies"
    DRIVER ||--o{ SKILL : "links to"
    DRIVER ||--o{ BEHAVIOUR : "links to"
Entity Purpose Key Question
Discipline Engineering specialty and T-shaped profile What kind of engineer?
Track Work context and capability-based modifiers Where/how do you work?
Level Career level with base skill/behaviour levels What career level?
Skill Technical or professional capability What can you do?
Capability Skill grouping for modifiers and responsibilities What capability area?
Behaviour Approach to work and mindset How do you approach work?
Stage Lifecycle phase with constraints and handoffs What part of the process?
Driver Organizational outcome What outcomes matter?

Skills

Skills represent technical and professional capabilities. Each skill belongs to exactly one capability.

Skill Proficiencies (5 Levels) 

flowchart LR
    awareness --> foundational --> working --> practitioner --> expert
Proficiency Typical Levels Description
awareness L1 Learning fundamentals, needs guidance
foundational L1--L2 Applies basics independently
working L2--L3 Solid competence, handles ambiguity
practitioner L3--L4 Deep expertise, leads and mentors
expert L5+ Authority, shapes direction across org

Human-Only Skills

Some skills require physical presence, emotional intelligence, or relationship building that AI cannot replicate. These are marked isHumanOnly: true in the YAML definition and are excluded from agent profile derivation.

Capabilities

Capabilities group skills and define level-based responsibilities. Track modifiers apply to all skills in a capability at once.

Capabilities also define:

  • professionalResponsibilities -- IC role expectations per skill proficiency
  • managementResponsibilities -- Manager role expectations per skill proficiency
  • checklists -- Stage handoff items per skill proficiency

Behaviours

Behaviours represent mindsets and approaches to work.

Behaviour Maturities (5 Levels) 

flowchart LR
    emerging --> developing --> practicing --> role_modeling --> exemplifying
Maturity Description
emerging Shows interest, needs prompting
developing Regular practice with guidance
practicing Consistent application, proactive
role_modeling Influences team culture
exemplifying Shapes organizational culture

Disciplines

Disciplines define engineering specialties with T-shaped skill profiles. Each discipline classifies every referenced skill into one of three tiers:

Tier Expected Level Purpose
coreSkills Highest for level Core expertise
supportingSkills Mid-level Supporting capabilities
broadSkills Lower level General awareness

Discipline Properties

Property Type Purpose
isProfessional boolean Uses professionalResponsibilities (IC roles)
isManagement boolean Uses managementResponsibilities (manager roles)
validTracks (string|null)[] Valid track configurations
minLevel string Minimum level required for this discipline

Tracks

Tracks define work context and modify the base profile through capability-based skill adjustments. Tracks are pure modifiers -- they do not define role types.

Tracks define two kinds of modifiers:

  • skillModifiers -- Shift skill proficiencies for all skills in a capability (e.g. delivery: +1)
  • behaviourModifiers -- Shift behaviour maturity expectations for specific behaviours (e.g. systems_thinking: +1)

Levels

Levels define career levels with base expectations for skill proficiency and behaviour maturity:

Level Primary Secondary Broad Base Behaviour
L1 foundational awareness awareness emerging
L2 foundational foundational awareness emerging
L3 practitioner working foundational developing
L4 expert practitioner working practicing
L5 expert expert practitioner role_modeling

Job Derivation

Skill Derivation Steps

  1. Determine skill type -- Is this skill primary, secondary, or broad for the discipline? Each discipline classifies every skill into one of three tiers: core (primary), supporting (secondary), or broad.

  2. Get base proficiency -- Look up the level's base proficiency for that skill type. For example, L3 maps primary skills to practitioner, secondary to working, and broad to foundational.

  3. Apply track modifier -- Add the track's modifier for the skill's capability. Track modifiers apply at the capability level, affecting all skills in a capability equally.

  4. Cap positive modifiers -- Positive modifiers cannot push the result above the level's maximum base proficiency. If a level peaks at practitioner, a +1 modifier cannot produce expert.

  5. Clamp to valid range -- Ensure the result falls between awareness (0) and expert (4).

Complete Derivation Example

Input Value
Discipline Software Engineering
Level L3 (primary=practitioner, secondary=working, broad=foundational)
Track Platform (delivery: +1, scale: -1)
Skill CI/CD (capability: delivery, tier: supportingSkills)
  1. Skill type: secondary (supporting skill)
  2. Base proficiency: working (index 2)
  3. Modifier: +1 (delivery capability)
  4. Cap check: practitioner (index 3) <= max base practitioner (index 3) -- OK
  5. Result: practitioner

Behaviour Derivation

Final Maturity = Level Base + Discipline Modifier + Track Modifier
Step Source Example
Level base baseBehaviourMaturity developing (1)
Discipline modifier behaviourModifiers.{id} +1
Track modifier behaviourModifiers.{id} 0
Result Clamped to valid range practicing (2)

Maturities are clamped between emerging (0) and exemplifying (4).

Responsibility Derivation

Responsibilities come from capabilities and vary by role type:

Role Type Source
Professional (IC) capability.professionalResponsibilities
Management capability.managementResponsibilities

Responsibilities are selected by the derived skill proficiency for each capability. Higher skill proficiencies unlock additional responsibilities.

Driver Coverage

Drivers represent organizational outcomes. Coverage is calculated by checking which skills and behaviours meet specific thresholds:

Threshold Value
Skill proficiency working or above
Behaviour maturity practicing or above
Level Senior threshold and above

Each driver specifies related skills and behaviours. If the derived job meets the thresholds for a driver's dependencies, that driver is considered covered.

Modifier Policies

Positive Modifier Capping

When a track modifier is positive, the resulting level cannot exceed the level's maximum base skill proficiency. This prevents lower levels from gaining unrealistically high expertise just because a track emphasizes a particular area.

Negative Modifiers

Negative modifiers are not capped -- they can freely reduce a level down to awareness. This models the reduced expectations in de-emphasized areas.

Capability-Level Modifiers

Track modifiers apply at the capability level, affecting all skills in that capability equally. This avoids per-skill configuration while still allowing meaningful differentiation between tracks.

Key Capabilities

Capability What it does
Job derivation Complete role definitions with skills and behaviours
Agent profiles Stage-specific agent instructions for AI assistants
Skill matrices Derived skill proficiencies with track modifiers applied
Checklists Stage transition criteria from capability definitions
Progression Career path analysis and gap identification
Interviews Role-specific question selection
Job matching Gap analysis between current and target roles