Developing the skills of our engineers is a key element of achieving our vision. A high-quality software development practice requires highly skilled engineers. We also know the experience of our customers correlates to the abilities of our team (higher quality work, smoother process) and our company culture is built around learning (“aspire to greatness” is one of our values).
To be recognised as North America’s leader in high-quality software development, customer experience, and company culture.
The Nolte Vision
In summary great engineers = great work = happy team + happy clients.
The Matrix
The below table shows the skills required by Nolte engineers, these are very focussed on the technologies we use.
The last 4 columns show which skills are required for each of the product types we work on. This does not mean one single engineer needs to have all these skills to work on the project, but the project team as a whole will most likely need to be able to cover them all.
Usage
We run the company on a quarterly OKR cycle, which includes setting training objectives. Each engineer meets with their manager to identify the skills they need for their job. For each skill they evaluate their current level based on the matrix and assign a priority based on the need to improve the skill (high priority means it is urgent to improve). For example:
| Skill | Current Level | Required Level | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | None [little or no experience] | Intermediate | High [About to start a WordPress project] |
| PHP | Beginner | Intermediate | Medium |
| Animations | Not required | N/A | N/A |
Seniority
In the near future we plan to integrate this matrix into promotion and compensation discussions. A possible option is to set minimum requirements for each seniority level along these lines:
- Senior: must be expert in at least 4 key competencies*.
- Mid-level: must be expert in at least 1 key competency* and intermediate in at least 2 others.
- Junior: does not yet meet the requirements of Mid-level or Senior.
* Todo: define key competencies.
Further Reading & Thanks
This matrix was inspired by the following articles:
- https://medium.com/@TuckerConnelly/javascript-competency-matrix-6831817885d9
- https://pragmatic.agency/wordpress-developer-skills-matrix/
- https://flowchainsensei.wordpress.com/about/developer-competency-matrix/
- https://www.dquip.com/resources/download/capability-matrix-php-programmers.pdf
Also a big shout out to all in the Nolte team who provided feedback along the way ♥
