Forward Impact Engineering

Core Model

Overview

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

The Core Formula

Job Definition = Discipline x Track x Level

Agent Profile = Discipline x Track

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

Both jobs and agents use the same skill and behaviour derivation. They differ in one way. Jobs include all skills capped by level. Agents filter out human-only skills.

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 group for modifiers and responsibilities What capability area?
Behaviour Approach to work and mindset How do you approach work?
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 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

Human-Only Skills

Some skills require physical presence, emotional intelligence, or the ability to build relationships. AI cannot replicate these. The YAML definition marks them with isHumanOnly: true. Agent profile derivation excludes them.

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

Per-skill checklists (readChecklist and confirmChecklist) live on each skill's agent section. They do not live on the capability. See Lifecycle.

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 a prompt
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

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:

The starter agent-aligned engineering standard ships with two levels. Your agent-aligned engineering standard may define more.

Level Core Supporting Broad Base Behaviour
J040 foundational awareness awareness emerging
J060 working foundational awareness developing

Job Derivation

Skill Derivation Steps

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

  2. Get base proficiency -- Look up the level's base proficiency for that skill tier. For example, J060 maps core skills to working, supporting to foundational, and broad to awareness.

  3. Apply track modifier -- Add the track's modifier for the skill's capability. Track modifiers apply at the capability level. They affect 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 -- Make sure the result falls between awareness (0) and expert (4).

Complete Derivation Example

Input Value
Discipline Software Engineering
Level J060 (core=working, supporting=foundational, broad=awareness)
Track Forward Deployed (delivery: +1, reliability: -1)
Skill Planning (capability: delivery, tier: supportingSkills)
  1. Skill tier: supporting
  2. Base proficiency: foundational (index 1)
  3. Modifier: +1 (delivery capability)
  4. Cap check: working (index 2) <= max base working (index 2) -- OK
  5. Result: working

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)

Behaviour derivation clamps maturities 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

The derived skill proficiency for each capability selects the responsibilities. Higher skill proficiencies unlock additional responsibilities.

Driver Coverage

Drivers represent organizational outcomes. The coverage calculation checks which skills and behaviours meet specific thresholds:

Threshold Value
Skill proficiency working or above
Behaviour maturity practicing or above

Each driver lists contributingSkills and contributingBehaviours. For every derived job, the thresholds above sort each contributing skill and behaviour into covered or missing. The driver reports coverage ratios for both. The coverage calculation runs at every level. There is no level gate. The driver reports full coverage when every contributing skill and behaviour clears its threshold.

Modifier Policies

Positive Modifier Capping

When a track modifier is positive, the result cannot exceed the level's maximum base skill proficiency. Lower levels then cannot gain 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. They affect all skills in that capability equally. This avoids per-skill configuration. It still allows meaningful differentiation between tracks.

Key Capabilities

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

What's next

Lifecycle

Engineering lifecycle phases, with workflow guidance for handoffs, constraints, and checklists.

YAML Schema Reference

File format reference for every entity type, with examples and links to published JSON Schema and RDF/SHACL definitions.