Career Development

Career Development

Before Starting

Check for EM context first:

1. Read .agents/em-context.md if it exists
2. If a person is mentioned, look for .agents/reports/[name].md — it may contain their level, goals, and growth history
3. Use that context — only ask for information not already covered

If .agents/em-context.md does not exist, ask for a minimal manager profile first and save it before giving detailed advice: role/title, team size, team mission or ownership area, and current challenge or priority.

If a specific person is central to the conversation and .agents/reports/[name].md does not exist, ask for a minimal profile for that person first and save it before giving detailed advice: title/level, tenure, strengths, and current challenge or growth area.

If the conversation reveals durable new context later, update .agents/em-context.md or .agents/reports/[name].md automatically. Save stable facts and patterns, not guesses, transient frustration, or unresolved interpretations.

Response Style

Keep the first answer concise and useful. Do not dump the whole framework unless the user asks for depth.

Default to:

• State the likely diagnosis or recommendation first
• Ask at most 2-3 targeted questions only if the missing context changes the advice
• Give the next concrete action and, when useful, exact wording the manager can use
• Mention the relevant framework briefly, but do not explain every part of it
• Offer a deeper version only after the direct answer

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How to Use This Skill

• Where is this person developmentally / what's their current level of impact? → The Circles of Influence Model
• Report is fixated on a specific title or timeline → The Tarzan Method
• Someone's growth seems to have stalled → What Growth Actually Looks Like
• Not sure what to say in the career conversation → Having the Career Conversation
• Deciding whether to push for a promotion now → Promotion Readiness vs. Promotion Timing

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Default Response Shape

When helping with career development, produce a manager-ready plan:

1. Current growth read: where the person appears to be operating now.
2. Next growth edge: what kind of impact they need to demonstrate next.
3. Conversation questions: what to ask in the next career 1:1.
4. Opportunities to create: projects, visibility, mentoring, ownership, or scope.
5. Expectation setting: what to say about timing, evidence, and promotion limits.

Do not promise promotion. Separate "ready to grow" from "the organization has a slot and evidence."

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The Circles of Influence Model

A useful frame for thinking about where an engineer is and where they're going. Impact expands in concentric circles:

Personal — Masters their own craft. Delivers reliable results. Writes good code, handles on-call, completes tasks well. This is the foundation.

Team — Makes the team better. Onboards new members, reviews others' code effectively, gives useful feedback, covers for teammates. Their absence would be felt on the team.

Group — Shapes cross-team work. Leads cross-functional initiatives, participates in hiring, influences architecture decisions that span teams. Their impact reaches beyond their immediate team.

Company — Drives org-wide outcomes. Sets technical direction, builds capability across multiple teams, affects how the whole engineering organization works.

How to use this in career conversations:

• Figure out which circle the engineer is currently operating in consistently.
• The next step up requires expanding impact, not just deepening skill in the current circle.
• The promotion case is made at the next circle — not by getting better at the current one.

A Senior engineer who writes excellent code but never helps teammates grow is strong at the Personal circle but hasn't entered the Team circle. That's the gap to address, not more technical depth.

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The Tarzan Method

Engineers (and managers) often assume careers move in straight lines: engineer → senior → staff → principal, or EM → director → VP. This leads to fixating on the fastest route up a single ladder.

The reality: senior roles require both capability AND company need. You can be fully capable of a Staff Engineer role but there's no Staff-level problem for you to own right now. The role has to exist and need filling at the moment you're ready for it.

The Tarzan model: swing to the next vine, not to the destination. Tarzan doesn't plan a route across the jungle — he grabs the next available vine, swings as far as it takes him, then looks for the next one. Careers work the same way.

Practical implications for career conversations with reports:

• Help them identify the next swing, not a 5-year plan.
• A lateral move or a "detour" into a different area often builds the breadth that enables the jump to senior impact later.
• Fixation on a specific title by a specific date is usually counterproductive — the right opportunity has to exist, and forcing it creates bad outcomes (jumping to a company that needs someone at that level before they're actually ready, for instance).

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