Individual Contributors

Individual Contributors Path

It literally means someone who contributes individually. Their main purpose is not management. The idea behind this is to recognize that there is a career path and opportunity for growth for people who have strong technical skills that don't go through the path of becoming a manager, and instead, work on developing these skills and contribute equally to a manager to deliver the goals and mission of Secure Group.

In order to progress in the ICs Path, each employee needs to meet the criteria of the Level & Step Chart shown below and also score at least a grade 4 in the KAI of their position in order to reach Level 3.

Individual Contributors Levels

Each Level and Step for Individual Contributors are evaluated based on well-defined criteria as shown below:

Levels Chart
IC Path	Description	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6
Knowledge (application of the KAI)	Application	Understands how to use professional concepts.	Continually develops professional expertise and skills. Applies relevant knowledge to find resolutions for a variety of issues on a daily basis.	Possess a full understanding of tasks/projects; resolves a wide range of issues in creative ways.	Has a wide-ranging experience, is capable of using professional concepts and objectives correctly in order to accomplish tasks.	Has broad expertise or unique knowledge, uses a variety of skills to contribute to the development of Secure Group's business model, objectives, and principles and to achieve goals in creative and effective ways. Capable of transmitting knowledge to the other departments/employees (tech-sessions).	Expert in the field uses professional concepts in developing a resolution to critical issues and broad business matters. It's recognized in the industry.
	Focus	Your focus is on learning with guidance from others.	Your focus is on continuous self-learning.	Your focus is on developing through on-the-job experience.	Your focus is on applying and enhancing knowledge or skill.	Your focus is on broad organizational/professional issues.	Your focus is strategic.
Job Complexity (defined in the RACI)	Process thinking	Understands their team's practices and processes. Follows the standard practices, procedures, and processes defined in the RACI.	Sometimes thinks about team practices and processes and discusses improvements with team. Exercises judgment within defined procedures and practices described in the RACI to determine appropriate action.	Frequently thinks about team practices and processes and discusses improvements with team. Demonstrates good judgment in selecting methods and techniques that act as effective solutions driving tangible results.	Always thinks about team practices and processes and regularly discusses improvements with their team. Sometimes collaborates with others to improve organizational practices and processes. It is capable of exercising judgment to select and define methods, techniques, and evaluation criteria that act as effective solutions driving tangible results.	Always thinks about practices and processes that affect several teams, discusses improvements with appropriate parties, and drives implementation. Usually collaborates with others to improve organizational practices and processes. Exercises independent judgment in defining methods, techniques and evaluation criteria that act as effective solutions driving tangible results.	Takes ownership and responsibility for organizational practices and processes and their continuous improvement. Acts as a spokesperson for Secure Group.
	Work Breakdown	Works on limited scope issues. Understands value of rightsizing tasks.	Works on problems of moderate scope where analysis of situations or data requires reviews from a manager, a tech lead or a senior employee. Before beginning work, ensures that tasks are appropriately sized with help from teammates and manager.	Works on problems of diverse scope specified in the RACI where analysis of data requires evaluation of already identified factors. Reviews tasks critically and ensures they’re appropriately sized.	Works on complex issues determined in the RACI where analysis of situations or data requires an in-depth evaluation of a variety of factors. Reviews tasks and projects critically and ensures they’re appropriately broken down and prioritised, and well understood by the team.	Works on important and unique tasks where analysis of situations or data requires an evaluation of intangible factors. Reviews cross-team work critically and ensures it’s appropriately broken down and prioritised, and well understood by all involved teams.	Works on issues that impact business success or addresses future concepts, products, and technologies. Reviews organization-wide work critically and ensures it’s appropriately broken down and prioritised across the organization.
	Prioritisation, dependencies	Acts according to task prioritisation.	Understands and acts according to task prioritisation. Notes dependencies.	Ensures tasks are prioritised correctly, and that dependencies are noted.	Ensures dependencies are noted at tasks and projects and well understood by the team. Works within their team to foster a culture of priority setting and urgency in alignment with organizational strategy.	Ensures cross-team dependencies are noted and well understood by all teams involved and other relevant stakeholders. Works across teams to foster a culture of priority setting and urgency in alignment with organizational strategy.	Identifies dependencies across the organization and works with other ICs to resolve them before they become an issue, and installs preventative measures to mitigate repeat occurrences. Works across the organization to foster a culture of priority setting and urgency in alignment with organizational strategy.
	Dealing with ambiguity	Understands risks and chaos are part of the organization.	Usually handles risk, chaos and uncertainty within their personal scope of work effectively. Usually decides and acts responsibly without having the total picture during routine business, and when in high-pressure situations.	Handles risk, chaos and uncertainty within their personal scope of work effectively. Decides and acts responsibly without having the total picture during routine business and when in high-pressure situations.	Effectively handles risk, chaos, and uncertainty within their team. Decides and acts responsibly in their work with their team without having the total picture during routine business, as well as when in high-pressure situations.	Effectively handles risk, chaos, and uncertainty across several teams. Decides and acts responsibly in their work across teams without having the total picture during routine business, as well as when in high pressure situations.	Effectively handles risk, chaos and uncertainty across the organization. Decides and acts responsibly in their work across the organization without having the total picture during routine business, as well as when in high pressure situations.
	Reliability, delivery, accountability	Has daily conversation with the team about the progress of their work. Delivers on commitments with a sense of urgency.	Commits to a realistic amount of work, and works with their teammates both to ensure they understand priority and urgency, and to deliver upon them accordingly. Escalates any blockers and delays to their team daily. Clarifies expectations with their teammates.	Ensures their commitments are realistic, understands their priority and urgency, and delivers upon them accordingly. Anticipates and communicates blockers and delays for their work before they require escalation. Ensures expectations within their team are clarified between all parties involved.	Anticipates and communicates blockers and delays within their team’s projects, before they require escalation. Ensures expectations with their team and external stakeholders are clarified between all parties involved.	Successfully manages cross-team commitments, their progress, and deliverables. Anticipates and communicates blockers and delays across teams, before they require escalation. Ensures expectations across teams and stakeholders are clarified between all parties involved.	Successfully manages organization-wide commitments, their progress, and deliverables. Ensures expectations across the organization and external stakeholders are clarified between all parties involved.
	Economic thinking	Understands the importance of weighing cost and value in decision making. Asks more senior Ics and managers for help in applying this type of thinking to their tasks and projects.	When taking action, weighs cost and value in order to take the most cost-effective action with help from superiors. Sometimes uses this type of thinking to make suggestions to teammates.	When taking action, weighs cost and value in order to take the most cost-effective action. Uses this thinking in their own work and promotes the economic thinking towards teammates without jeoparziding quality and/or time.	When taking action, weighs cost and value in order to take the most cost-effective action. Uses this thinking in their own work, and to foster a culture within their team where people apply economic thinking to make timely decisions without jeopardizing the quality.	When taking action, weighs cost and value in order to make the most cost-effective action. Uses this thinking in their own work, and to foster a culture across several teams where people apply economic thinking to make timely decisions without jeopardizing the quality.	When taking action, weighs cost and value in order to make the most cost-effective action. Uses this thinking in their own work, and to foster a culture within the organization where people apply economic thinking to make timely decisions without jeopardizing the quality.
	Supervision	Normally receives detailed instructions on different tasks.	Usually receives general instructions on routine work and detailed instructions on new projects or assignments.	Normally receives little instruction on day-to-day work, general instructions on new assignments/projects.	Determines the methods and procedures to be followed on new assignments and acts as an advisor to other employee's activities.	Acts independently to determine methods and procedures on new or special assignments. Supervises and advises the activities of others.	Exercises wide latitude in determining objectives and approaches to critical assignments.
Teamwork	Delivering feedback	You respond to requests. Understands how to deliver feedback in a useful manner.	You support colleagues. Delivers feedback to their teammates when applicable in a useful manner.	You actively engage with colleagues by providing constructive feedback and encourage collaboration. Delivers feedback to their team's business stakeholders when opportunities arise.	You motivate others to work with themselves to reach the team's objectives. Facilitate and inspire cross-department collaboration.	You are an advisor in establishing a collaborative culture. Facilitates the culture of delivering feedback across several teams as well as their respective business stakeholders. Actively demonstrates these behaviours.	You engage in internal transformational partnerships that lead to high-performance. Identify external opportunities and instills a culture based on collaboration and feedback delivery. Actively demonstrates these behaviours.
	Seeking and receiving feedback	Sometimes seeks out feedback from their teammates and manager and works to use feedback that they receive as a tool for growth.	Actively seeks out feedback from their teammates and manager and works to use feedback that they receive as a tool for growth.	Actively seeks out structured feedback from their teammates and manager and works to use feedback that they receive as a tool for growth.	Works within their team and with its business stakeholders to foster a culture of seeking out feedback and using it as a tool for growth. Actively demonstrates these behaviours.	Works across several teams and with their business stakeholders to foster a culture of seeking out feedback and using it as a tool for growth. Actively demonstrates these behaviours.	Works across the organization to foster a culture of seeking out feedback and using it as a tool for growth. Actively demonstrates these behaviours.
	Effective communication	Understands the importance of effective communication and in an audience-oriented way, in written and verbal form. Actively listens to others and ensures they are understood.	Usually communicates effectively, clearly, concisely and in an audience-oriented way in written and verbal form both technical and non-technical subjects, to their teammates. Actively listens to others and ensures they are understood. Respects the time of the audience.	Communicates effectively, clearly, concisely in written and verbal form both technical and non-technical subjects, and in an audience-oriented way. Actively listens.	Is able to communicate effectively with a diverse team. Fosters a culture of clear, concise, effective, audience-oriented communication on their team, ensuring teammates actively listen to others and are understood. Actively demonstrates behaviours. Respects the time of the audience.	Is able to communicate effectively with a diverse set of teams. Fosters a culture of clear, concise, effective, audience-oriented communication across several teams, ensuring teammates actively listen to others and are understood. Actively demonstrates these behaviours. Respects the time of the audience.	Is able to communicate effectively across the company. Fosters a culture of clear, concise, effective, audience-oriented communication across the company, ensuring teammates actively listen to others and are understood. Actively demonstrates these behaviours. Respects the time of the audience.
	Knowledge Sharing	Understands their area of work and shares their knowledge frequently with their teammates. Attends tech-sessions.	Understands their work domain, shares their knowledge frequently with their teammates. Watches out for opportunities to share knowledge. Supports the creation of content and/or gives Tech-Sessions that are related to the application of tools within a defined process, with the supervision from superiors.	Understands their team's domain, shares their knowledge frequently with their teammates. Watches out for opportunities to share knowledge and encourages others to do the same. Creates content and/or provides Tech-Sessions related to processes without any supervision.	Fosters a culture of documentation and knowledge sharing within their team and with their team's business stakeholders; actively demonstrates these behaviors. Creates content and/or gives Tech-Sessions related to our business: concepts, models, frameworks etc.	Fosters a culture of documentation and knowledge sharing across several teams and their respective business stakeholders; actively demonstrates these behaviors. Identifies knowledge GAP from internal references and created relevant content to be applied in Tech-Sessions.	Fosters a culture of documentation and knowledge sharing across the organization; actively demonstrates these behaviors. You identify knowledge gaps from external references and create relevant content to be applied in Tech-Sessions.
		The employee is informed about our documentation process and knows how to find information when needed.	The employee is responsible for gathering relevant information and data for superiors to create documentation.	The employee is responsible for writing the documentation that is under its responsibility/accountability with the review from superiors.	The employee is responsible for selecting processes creating documentation for the department.	The employee is responsible for prioritizing and ensuring that the documentation is relevant and applicable to a variety of departments.	The employee is responsible for designing organizational processes from scratch in order for the teams to document them.
	Collaboration	When requested, helps their teammates overcome obstacles, resolve blockers, and complete work tasks. Gives or shares credit where due.	Sometimes helps their teammates overcome obstacles, resolve blockers, and complete work tasks. Gives or shares credit where due.	Consistently helps their teammates overcome obstacles, resolve blockers, and complete work tasks. Gives or shares credit where due.	Consistently works across teams to help them resolve blockers, and complete work tasks. Ensures that credit is shared and given where due.	Consistently works across different teams to enable them to support each other. Ensures that credit is shared and given where due.	Consistently works across the organization to enable teams to support each other. Ensures that credit is shared and given where due.
	Handling change	Openly shares their opinions and contributes to discussions in a respectful manner. Works with teammates to resolve disagreements in a healthy manner. Is open to changing their perspective and plans based on others' input.	Openly shares their opinions, understands diverse views and contributes to discussions in a respectful manner. Approaches disagreement with their teammates non-defensively with inquisitiveness. Uses contradictory opinions as a basis for constructive, productive conversations. Is open to changing their perspective and plans based on others' input. Supports change across the team.	Encourages their teammates to openly share their opinions, integrates their point of view and contributes to discussions in a respectful manner. Approaches disagreement non-defensively with inquisitiveness. Uses contradictory opinions as a basis for constructive, productive conversations. Is open to changing their perspective and plans based on others' input. Points out the need for change across the team.	Fosters a culture within their team where people are encouraged to share their opinions, function well across diverse groups and contribute to discussions in a respectful manner. Approaches disagreement non-defensively with inquisitiveness, and uses contradictory opinions as a basis for constructive, productive conversations. Is open to changing their perspective and plans based on others' input. Makes compelling cases for change across the different teams.	Fosters a culture across several teams where people are encouraged to share their opinions. Facilitates engagement between people and contributes to discussions in a respectful manner, approaches disagreement non-defensively with inquisitiveness, and uses contradictory opinions as a basis for constructive, productive conversations. Works through surface-level disagreements to expose the concerns of disagreeing voices and integrates these concerns into their perspective and plans. Mobilizes others to initiate change.	Fosters an inclusive culture across the organization where people are encouraged to share their opinions and contribute to discussions in a respectful manner, approach disagreement non-defensively with inquisitiveness, and use contradictory opinion as a basis for constructive, productive conversations. Integrates disagreeing perspectives from the whole company into their perspective and plans. Drives firm-wide momentum for change.
Informal Leadership	Decision making	Understands the impact of biases on decision making. Understands accountability.	Strives to be objective and reflects on their own biases when making decisions.	Holds themselves accountable for decision and outcomes. Raises awareness for how biases impact decisions and ensures accountability is practiced within their team. Demonstrates these behaviours themselves.	Takes ownership of decisions made in their team by helping their teammates make clear decisions in alignment with organizational goals, backing decisions made, and taking responsibility for their success.	Takes ownership of decisions made across teams by helping them make clear decisions in alignment with organizational goals, backing decisions made, and taking responsibility for their success. Raises awareness for how biases impact decisions and ensures accountability is practiced throughout those teams. Demonstrates these behaviours themselves.	Takes ownership of decisions made in the organization by helping colleagues make clear decisions in alignment with organizational goals, backing decisions made, and taking responsibility for their success. Raises awareness for how biases impact decisions and ensures accountability is practiced throughout the organization. Demonstrates these behaviours themselves.
	Facilitation	Not applicable at this level	Facilitiates discussions within their team, ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to share their opinion and be heard. Encourages quiet participants and ensures no one person dominates the conversation.	Conducts discussions within their team, facilitates discussions within different teams, ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to share their opinion and be heard and that discussion outcomes tie to goals. Encourages quiet participants and ensures no one person dominates the conversation.	Facilitates discussions across teams, ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to share their opinion and be heard and that discussion outcomes tie to goals. Ensures relevant parties are included in discussions. Guides discussions toward decisions, clarifies and gets buy-in.	Facilitates discussions across teams, ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to share their opinion and be heard and that discussion outcomes tie to goals. Ensures relevant parties are included in discussions. Guides discussions toward decisions, clarifies and gets buy-in.	Facilitates organization-wide discussions, ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to share their opinion and be heard, and that discussion outcomes tie to goals.
	Advisement	Seeks out guidance and advisement to grow their own experience.	Seeks out guidance to grow their own experience. Sometimes advises their teammates in an open, respectful, flexible, empathetic manner.	Mentors their teammates in an open, respectful, flexible, empathetic manner. Seeks out mentoring opportunities specifically to create team redundancy and backfill ability.	Mentors their teammates in an open, respectful, flexible, empathetic manner. Seeks out mentoring opportunities specifically to create team redundancy and backfill ability. Mentors members of other teams as needed.	Mentors across teams in an open, respectful, flexible, empathetic manner. Fosters a culture of mentoring across teams by seeking out mentoring opportunities for themselves and others, and supports others in their growth as mentors.	Mentors across the organization in an open, respectful, flexible, empathetic manner. Fosters an organizational culture of mentoring by seeking out mentoring opportunities for themselves and others, and supports others in their growth as mentors.
Strategy Involvement (Balanced ScoreCard)	Driving strategic alignment	Contributes to conversations based on organizational strategy and principles with their teammates when appropriate.	Initiates conversations based on organizational strategy and principles with their teammates when appropriate. Oriented towards goals and works towards their team's goals.	Conducts conversations based on organizational strategy and principles with their teammates when appropriate to ensure team alignment and cross-department alignment. Strongly oriented towards goals and ensures their team is continuously working towards their shared goals.	Fosters a culture within their team of having conversations based on organizational strategy and principles to create alignment. Strongly oriented towards goals and ensures their team is continuously working towards their shared goals.	Fosters a culture across several teams of having conversations based on organizational strategy and principles to create alignment. Strongly oriented towards goals and ensures several teams are continuously working towards their goals.	Fosters a culture across the organization of having conversations based on organizational strategy and principles to create alignment. Ensures goals are understood and continuously worked towards across the organization.
	SG Knowledge	Has a basic understanding of their team's domain and SG strategic plan, industry, and market space. Has a basic understanding of adjacent teams' business domains.	Has a basic understanding of their team's domain, and how it contributes to the overall organization's strategy. Strong knowledge of adjacent teams' business domains.	Has a thorough understanding of their team's domain, how it's built in the strategic map and how it contributes to overall business strategy. Has complete understanding of adjacent teams' business domains.	Has a thorough understanding of their team's domain, strategy, and how it's built into strategic map. Has a thorough understanding of adjacent teams' strategies, how they map to their team and interaction points, and how this is built into strategic maps.	Has a thorough understanding of several team's domains, and how they contribute to the overall organizational strategy through their strategic maps.	Has a thorough understanding of the entire business, organizational strategy (strategic maps), including all department's domains, and how they contribute to overall strategy.
	Strategic work	Is aware of the organization's strategy.	Understands the organization's strategy and how it's related to his/her daily work.	Understands the organization's strategy and how it's related to his/her daily work.	Collaborates and decides on their team's work based on organization's strategy, together with their teammates and senior employees. Sometimes involved in work on organizational strategy.	Usually involved in strategic organizational decisions and plans. Leads cross-team strategic efforts, influencing decisions to achieve cross-team alignment on major goals. It's directly responsible for achieving one or more business' goals.	Leads strategic organizational decisions and plans. Consistently works at a strategic level, influencing decisions to achieve organizational alignment on major goals. Acts as a spokesperson for Secure Group Strategic Plan and has a thorough holistic understanding of the business.
	Product Roadmap	Is aware of the product roadmap.	Understands the product's roadmap, the business implications and it's involved in discussions within the team.	Understands the organization's product strategy. Constantly involved in discussions about the implications for their team.	Collaborates and decides on their team's work based on the organization's product strategy, together with their teammates and senior employees. Thorough understanding of the market space.	Usually involved in decisions on your team based on the product and plans on an organizational level. Leads cross-team strategic efforts, influencing decisions to achieve cross-team alignment on major goals.	Leads strategic organizational decisions and plans based on the product strategy. Consistently works at a strategic level, influencing decisions to achieve organizational alignment on major goals.
Software Engineering	Writing code	Writes code with testability, readability, edge cases, and errors in mind.	Consistently writes functions that are easily testable, easily understood by other developers, and accounts for edge cases and errors. Uses docstrings effectively.	Consistently writes production-ready code that is easily testable, easily understood by other developers and accounts for edge cases and errors. Understands when it is appropriate to leave comments, but biases towards self-documenting code.	Consistently writes production-ready code that is easily testable, easily understood by other developers and accounts for edge cases and errors. Understands when it is appropriate to leave comments, but biases towards self-documenting code.	Consistently writes production-ready code that is easily testable, easily understood by other developers and accounts for edge cases and errors. Understands when it is appropriate to leave comments, but biases towards self-documenting code.	Consistently writes production-ready code that is easily testable, easily understood by other developers and accounts for edge cases and errors. Understands when it is appropriate to leave comments, but biases towards self-documenting code.
	Testing	Knows the testing pyramid. Writes unit tests, sometimes with help from more senior engineers.	Understands the testing pyramid, writes unit tests in accordance with it, as well as higher-level tests with help from more senior engineers. Always tests expected edge cases and errors as well as the happy path.	Understands the testing pyramid and writes unit tests as well as higher-level tests in accordance with it. Always writes tests to handle expected edge cases and errors gracefully, as well as happy paths.	Understands their team's testing approach and uses quality metrics to identify gaps. Works with their team to recommend solutions that are in accordance with accepted testing frameworks and the testing pyramid.	Understands the testing approach of several teams and uses quality metrics to identify gaps. Works with those teams to recommend solutions that are in accordance with accepted testing frameworks and the testing pyramid. Influences organization-wide testing strategy.	Understands organizational testing approach, and uses quality metrics to identify gaps. Works with all teams to recommend solutions that are in accordance with accepted testing frameworks and the testing pyramid. Drives organization-wide testing strategy.
	Debugging	Understands the basics of debugging and the tools used for it.	Uses a systematic approach to debug issues located within a single service.	Uses a systematic approach to debug issues located within a single service.	Proficient at using systematic debugging to diagnose all issues within the scope of their domain.	Proficient at using systematic debugging to diagnose all issues within a set of related domains.	Leads incident response across the engineering organization as needed. Uses systematic debugging to diagnose issues across the organization.
	Observability	Not applicable at this level	Is aware of the organization's monitoring philosophy and the operational data for their team’s domain.	Is aware of the organization's monitoring philosophy. Helps tune and change the monitoring on their team accordingly. Is aware of the operational data for their team’s domain and uses it as a basis for suggesting stability and performance improvements.	Drives monitoring work on their team based on the organization's monitoring philosophy. Is aware of the operational data for their team’s domain and uses it as a basis for driving changes to the team's services to achieve stability and performance improvements.	Fosters a culture of observability across several teams and helps them use operational data to improve stability and performance of their domains.	Fosters a culture of observability across the engineering organization. Helps teams across the engineering organization use operational data to improve stability and performance of their domains.
	Understanding code	Is able to gain context within team's domain with help from more senior engineers.	Understands a portion of the team's domain, can gain sufficient context to work productively in that portion.	Understands their team's domain at a high level and can gather sufficient context to work productively within it. Has expertise in a portion of their team's domain.	Has expertise in their team's domain, including the breadth of services, how they interact, and data flows between systems. Understands adjacent domains as they affect their team.	Has expertise in a set of related team's domains, including the breadth of services, how they interact, and data flows between systems.	Has expertise in the organization's architecture, including all domains, their bounded contexts, and how they interact with each other.
	Software Architecture	Is aware of overall service architecture. Designs basic functions with an awareness of overall service architecture, avoiding duplication across codebases and interface-breaking changes.	Designs functions that are aligned with the overall service architecture.	Consistently designs code that is aligned with the overall service architecture. Utilizes abstractions and code isolation effectively.	Architects services and systems using well-accepted design patterns to allow for iterative, autonomous development and future scaling. Anticipates future use cases and makes design decisions that minimize the cost of future changes.	Works across teams to foster a culture of architecture that allows for iterative, autonomous development and future scaling. Guides several teams in anticipation of future use cases and helps them make design decisions that minimize the cost of future changes.	Works across the organization to foster a culture of architecture that allows for iterative, autonomous development and future scaling. Guides teams in the organization in anticipation of future use cases and helps them make design decisions that minimize the cost of future changes.
	Product Thinking	Understands basic utility of the product.	Understands product area of focus, how it fits into the overall business, and sometimes makes improvement suggestions for it in their area of impact.	Thoroughly understands the business model in relation to their current focus area. Sometimes participates in roadmap feedback with product team. Looks for opportunities to simplify product & technical design.	Evaluates and creates new product features in collaboration with the product team. Regularly participates in the creation of the team roadmap and ensures feedback. Simplifies product and technical design through proactive conversations.	Recognizes product opportunities and differentiators in relation to the competition. Often helps refine roadmaps across teams based on technical strategy & constraints. Helps to define & create new product abilities by changing technical strategy or constraints.	Actively seeks to create or redefine roadmaps across the organization with product & business counterparts.
	Security	Understands the importance of security.	Understands the importance of security. Utilizes this knowledge to ask more senior engineers for help on making decisions that may have security implications.	Approaches all engineering work with a security lens. Actively looks for security vulnerabilities both in the code and when providing peer reviews.	Actively works with the security team, as well as their own team, to refine their team's approach to security based on the organization's security strategy. Fosters a security first mindset within their own team, and leads by example.	Actively works with the security team, as well as across several teams, to apply the organization's security strategy. Fosters a security-first mindset across those teams, leading by example.	Actively works with the security team to set and refine organization-wide security strategy. Fosters a security-first mindset across the organization. Can recognize obscure security threats that go unnoticed to others.

Individual Contributors Steps

Steps Chart
IC Path	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Step 4
Level 1	Ownership: No ownership, receives instructions on almost all tasks.	Ownership: Little ownership, receives instructions on most tasks.	Ownership: Some ownership, receives instructions on some tasks.	Ownership: Increasing ownership, can work independently on many routine tasks.
	Initiative: None expected, does work as instructed.	Initiative: Little expected, does work as instructed.	Initiative: Starts taking the initiative by asking questions and learning more about the tasks/projects.	Initiative: An Increasing by asking targeted/relevant questions.
Level 2	Ownership: Works mostly independently on individual tasks.	Ownership: Works on individual tasks entirely independently.	Ownership: Mastering ability to break down projects into tasks; co-owns projects with strong guidance.	Ownership: Co-owns projects' and owns pieces of larger projectss with decreasing guidance.
	Initiative: Begins deeper questioning of processes to understand them better.	Initiative: Deep questioning of processes; begins to suggest improvements.	Initiative: Shows some initiative through optimization of existing processes.	Initiative: Takes more initiative through iterating on existing processes.
Level 3	Ownership: Co-owns projects and individually owns pieces of larger projects in their area completely.	Ownership: Fully owns projects in their area with the guidance of superiors.	Ownership: Fully owns projects in their area with decreasing guidance.	Ownership: Owns projects in their area wholly.
	Initiative: Makes relevant decisions within their scope without constantly seeking consensus.	Initiative: Makes effective decisions within their scope without seeking consensus.	Initiative: Takes some initiative through identifying gaps and opportunities.	Initiative: Takes more initiative through identifying gaps and opportunities.
Level 4	Ownership: Works independently and owns projects entirely, both in their area and cross-functionally.	Ownership: It is seen as a mentor and known as the expert in their subject area.	Ownership: Identifies and proactively attacks significant challenges and problems in their area.	Ownership: Leads adoption of new systems/tools/methodologies and/or technologies in their area.
	Initiative: Gives guidance and unblocks stuck processes; finds opportunities to mentor and grow teammates.	Initiative: Gives guidance and unblocks others; finds opportunities to mentor and grow teammates.	Initiative: Shows some discretion in delegating tasks and focusing on a higher level.	Initiative: Shows more discretion in delegating tasks and focusing on higher levels.
Level 5	Ownership: Conceives and owns projects entirely, both in their area and cross-functionally. Identifies scopes and work stages to transform them into well-defined milestones for projects or initiatives.	Ownership: Demonstrates knowledge of industry trends; researches and leads adoptionof new approaches or technologies in their area.	Ownership: Starts being involved in setting direction at an area level.	Ownership: It's wholly involved in setting direction at areas level.
	Initiative: Minimizes the complexity of projects/processes to get to work more effectively.	Initiative: Reduces the complexity of projects/processes to get more done with less work.	Initiative: Takes some initiative in identifying and solving important problems, often coordinating cross-functionally within departments.	Initiative: Takes more initiative to identify and solve important problems, often coordinating cross-functionally within departments.
Level 6	Ownership: Drives projects on which multiple teams depend on.	Ownership: As subject matter expert (recognized authority), plays a crucial role in developing the overall company strategy.	Ownership: Decisions have a direct impact on the long-term success of Secure Group.	Ownership: Leads the company in developing direction in significant areas.
	Initiative: Routinely and consistently pushes forward multiple teams/areas within the company.	Initiative: Drives the conversation about the area’s direction, drives team-wide consensus to develop and adopt orientation.	Initiative:Identifies significant strategic opportunities to allow Secure Group to 'grow as a business.	Initiative: Identifies and acts on significant strategic opportunities to allow Secure Group to achieve global strategic goals.