Tech Leadership & People: SFIA levels and developer seniority
Fennec team · 18 May 2026 · 4 min read
This is the discipline most engineers get the least explicit training in: how to help other people do great work, and how to represent engineering to people who don't write code. It's easy to dismiss as 'soft skills', but at senior levels it is usually the entire job.
SFIA levels here move from focusing on your own work, to leading multiple teams and shaping engineering culture at scale. The evidence looks different too: it's rarely a pull request, more often a development plan, a 1:1 note, or feedback from someone you helped.
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Level 1: Follow
“I focus on my own work and am learning to collaborate effectively within my team.”
The evidence here looks different from code: contributions you made in a retro, feedback that you collaborate well with your team, or a clear status update you wrote about your own work without being chased for it.
Give one piece of constructive feedback in a retro this sprint, even a small one counts. Ask a teammate what's blocking them and actually help, and practice writing a status update clear enough that nobody needs to ask a follow-up question.
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Level 2: Assist
“I communicate clearly, support teammates informally, and contribute positively to team culture and retrospectives.”
Look for moments your communication changed an outcome: a well-written pull request description or Slack explanation that helped someone else understand your work, informal support you gave a struggling teammate, or an idea you raised in a retro that the team actually acted on.
Write one technical explanation clearly enough that a non-expert understands it, that's a harder skill than it sounds. Offer to pair with someone who's stuck without being asked, and raise an idea in a retro that changes what the team does next rather than just naming a problem.
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Level 3: Apply
“I actively help junior engineers grow, manage my stakeholder relationships without escalating everything, and take ownership of cross-team coordination when it's needed. People come to me for advice.”
This is where mentorship and ownership start to show: a junior engineer you mentored who visibly leveled up, with notes on what you actually did, a stakeholder relationship you managed without escalating everything, or cross-team coordination you drove yourself.
Mentor one engineer deliberately, not just answer their questions when they happen to ask. Own a stakeholder relationship end to end for one project, and coordinate a piece of cross-team work yourself, since that's usually the first taste of responsibility beyond your own ticket queue.
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Level 4: Enable
“I manage a team: performance conversations, development plans, hiring, culture. I represent engineering to senior business stakeholders and I'm accountable for the team's outcomes, not just my own.”
By now the evidence is managerial in substance if not always in title: performance conversations and development plans you ran, a hiring process you contributed to meaningfully, or a team outcome you were accountable for, not just your own contribution to it.
Run a real development conversation with a report and write down what you agreed, vague conversations rarely lead anywhere. Represent your team's work to a senior stakeholder yourself, and take ownership of a team outcome, since that shift, from your work to the team's work, is the actual test of this level.
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Level 5: Ensure & Advise
“I lead multiple teams, develop managers, define engineering culture at scale, and hold accountability for engineering strategy and headcount.”
The evidence spans multiple teams now: other managers you developed, an engineering culture initiative you led across more than one team, or accountability for strategy or headcount at a scale beyond any single team's remit.
Develop another manager, not just individual contributors, that's a different and harder skill. Define a culture practice that spans multiple teams, and take ownership of a strategic outcome beyond your own team's scope, since that's usually what the title change is actually recognising.
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Level 6: Initiate & Influence
“I set engineering leadership direction and culture at an organisational or industry level.”
At the top, the evidence is organisational and often external: leadership direction or culture you set at the organisation level, recognition through writing, talks, or industry standing, or a leadership decision that visibly shaped the company's engineering direction.
From here, publish your leadership thinking externally, set engineering leadership direction at the organisation level, and expect to represent engineering leadership in conversations well outside your own company as often as inside it.
Go deeper
Widely referenced writing on engineering management and staff engineering.
Practical guidance on management and feedback.
Interviews and patterns from staff and principal engineers.
Knowing where you sit is one thing, proving it later is another. Fennec lets you log tech leadership & people evidence as you go, a shipped feature, a decision, a review, tagged to the level it demonstrates, so the case for your next step is already made when you need it.