Engineering Level Expectations

History of Engineering Level Expectations

Comcast Engineering Level Expectations were written by the Product Engineering (PE) Senior Leadership Team (SLT) in 2012 and revised in 2013. Contributors to these expectations included Mark Muehl, Mike Fischer, Timojhen Mark, Shan Lu, Nicholas Kaiho and the management team at Comcast/Reston.Expectations for each level are based on the following areas:

• Technical Expertise(Education, Experience, Skill)
• Innovation(Contributes New Ideas, Encourages Others, Researches, Documents, Experiments, Analyzes)
• Flexibility(Able to adapt to changing BU and project needs)
• Relationship Building(Professionalism, Tact, Teamwork)
• Customer Focus(Professionalism, Customer Awareness/Consideration)
• Execution(Reliability, Stability, Maturity, Follow-Through)

Engineer 1 (Entry-Level Engineer)

• Serves as the holistic owner for the entire application stack including: hardware, operating systems, application layer, and network
• Able to automate trivial tasks using loops, without conditionals or exception handling.
• Basic understanding of departmental tools such as Nagios, SPDB, Puppet, and Opsware.
• Able to respond to alarms and repair common issues
• Creates product support documentation and provides 24/7 on-call escalated support for Comcast NOCs, XOCs, and Service Desks
• Responsible for the maintenance ofComcast’s technical product offerings
• Works with moderate guidance from the product team
• Able to manage their tasks
• (Innovation) Is optimistic, curious, and open-minded about new ideas
• (Flexibility) Able to adapt in a positive, calm manner
• (Relationship Building) Is open-minded to receiving feedback and communicates effectively
• (Customer Focus) Understands customer requirements and needs and provides excellent customer service
• (Execution) - Demonstrates drive, reliability, and a sense of urgency

Engineer 2 (Junior Engineer)

• Serves as the holistic owner for the entire application stack including: hardware, operating systems, application layer, and network
• Able to automate simple tasks using loops, conditionals, file operations, network operations, and reusing code developed by others.
• Solid understanding of departmental tools such as Nagios, SPDB, Puppet, and Opsware
• Able to use analysis tools to identify technicalissues and bottlenecks and provide recommendations for long-term fixes
• Able to help onboard new employees/contractors and train NOC employees
• Able to manage tasks, estimate level of effort at the task level, and recognize when tasks are at risk of completion
• Works with light guidance fromthe product team
• Responsible for the maintenanceand deployment ofproducts
• (Innovation) Is optimistic, curious, open-minded, and contributes new ideas
• (Flexibility) Able to adapt in a positive, calm manner and identifies ways to contribute to a successful change
• (Relationship Building) Is open-minded to giving and receiving feedback, communicates effectively and positively impacts the team
• (Customer Focus) Understands customer requirements and needs, provides excellent customer service, and takes personal ownership of customer issues
• (Execution) - Demonstrates drive, reliability, a sense of urgency, and is self-organized.

Engineer 3 (Systems Engineer)

• Serves as the holistic owner for the entire application stack including: hardware, operating systems, application layer, and network
• Able to automate routine tasks using loops, conditionals, regular expressions, and exception handling
• Proficiency of departmental tools such as Nagios, SPDB, Puppet, and Opsware.
• Able to use analysis tools to identify andpermanently solve technical issuesand bottlenecks
• Able to onboard new employees/contractors, train NOC employees,and mentor junior employees
• Responsible for the maintenance, deployment,and improvement ofproducts Works independently withinthe product team and demonstrates* strong self-initiative* Good organizational skills.
• Able to manage tasks, estimate the level of effort at the task level, recognize when tasks are at risk of completion, and reprioritize appropriately
• Strong communication skills, able to present to peers and management
• Undertakes technical lead responsibilities for a project
• Able to intake new projects with guidance
• (Innovation) Is optimistic, curious, open-minded, contributes new ideas, and encourages others to contribute ideas
• (Flexibility) Supports an environment that embraces change and identifies ways to contribute to a successful change (Relationship Building) Is open-minded to giving and receiving feedback, communicates effectively, positively impacts team, and encourages others to express contrary views
• (Customer Focus) Understands customer requirements and needs, provides excellent customer service, takes personal ownership of customer issues, and considers impacts of actions on customers and makes appropriate decisions
• (Execution) - Demonstrates drive, reliability, a sense of urgency, is self-organized, prioritizes effectively, and understands when (and when not to) escalate

Engineer 4 (Senior Engineer)

• Serves as the holistic owner for the entire application stack including: hardware, operating systems, application layer, and network
• Able to automate complex tasks and create robust tooling for others to consume
• Contributor of departmental tools such as Nagios, SPDB, Puppet, and Opsware.
• Able to use analysis tools to identify andpermanently solve architectural issuesand bottlenecks
• Able to onboard new employees/contractors, train NOC employees,and mentor junior employees
• Responsible for the analysis, maintenance, deployment,and improvement ofproducts Works asa leader withinthe product team and shows strong self-initiative Excellent organizational skills.
• Able to manage strategic goals, estimate level of effort for complex initiatives, recognize when goals are at risk of completion, and reprioritize appropriately
• Excellent communication skills, able to present to peers, management, and customers
• Highly visible and respected across multiple teams
• May act as a management delegate during meetings
• Provides technical guidance within the technical and product teams and delegates appropriate tasks.
• Evaluates new technologies and provides sound recommendations with business sense
• Able to intake new projects with lightguidance
• (Innovation) Is optimistic, curious, open-minded, contributes new ideas, encourages others to contribute, and experiments with various solutions
• (Flexibility) Creates an environment that embraces change, identifies ways to contribute to a successful change, able to understand and communicate impacts of change, and provides multiple change alternatives and impacts
• (Relationship Building) Is open-minded to giving and receiving feedback, communicates effectively, positively impacts team, encourages others to express contrary views, promotes collaboration across multiple teams, and handles questions well in highly visible situations
• (Customer Focus) Demonstrates ownership, accountability, and responsibility to ensure superior customer service. (Execution) - Demonstrates drive, reliability, a sense of urgency, is self-organized, prioritizes effectively, and understands when (and when not to) escalate, and able to negotiate timelines and deliverables for successful execution

Engineer 5 (Principal Engineer)

• Serves as the holistic owner for the entire application stack including: hardware, operating systems, application layer, and network
• Able to automate complex tasks, create robust tooling, and computationallyefficient code Driver of departmental tools such as Nagios, SPDB, Puppet, and Opsware.
• Able to use analysis tools to identify and solve architectural issues and bottlenecks thatspan multiple projects and peer groups
• Able to onboard new employees/contractors, train NOC employees, and mentor junior employees Responsible for the maintenance, deployment,and improvement ofproducts Excellent organizational skills.
• Able to manage their strategic goals, estimate the level of effort for complex initiatives, recognize when goals are at risk of completion, reprioritize appropriately, and recommend strategic roadmaps to reach business goals
• Excellent communication skills, able to present and articulate to peers, senior management, and customers
• Highly visible and respected across multiple teams, processes broad scope of influence
• Has political savvy and able to handle difficult customers
• Works as a leader of multiple product teams and shows strong self initiative
• Provides technical guidance to thedepartment, team, and product teams and delegates appropriate tasks
• Acts as a management delegate during meetingsor during extended management absences
• Evaluates new technologies andprovides sound recommendations with strong business sense and higher business drivers in mind
• Able to intake new projects independently
• (Innovation) Is optimistic, curious, open-minded, contributes new ideas, encourages others to contribute, experiments with various solutions with business focus
• (Flexibility) Creates an environment that embraces change and proactively proposes solutions due to adapting business priorities, threats, and opportunities
• (Relationship Building) Is open-minded to giving and receiving feedback, communicates effectively, positively impacts team, encourages others to express contrary views, promotes collaboration across multiple teams, handles questions well in highly visible situations, and is a role model for strong relationship building
• (Customer Focus) Anticipates customer needs to influence the development of solutions
• (Execution) - Demonstrates drive, reliability, a sense of urgency, is self-organized, prioritizes effectively, and understands when (and when not to) escalate, able to negotiate timelines and deliverables for successful execution, and strategically allocates resources in ways to optimize successes

Engineer 6 (Distinguished Engineer)

• All duties and behaviors of an Engineer 5, but exhibits these behaviors with greater scope(departmental level)