Operations

In SparkFabrik the term developer is used generally to identify employees that deliver solutions to the customer.
It doesn't matter if your job is to write code, design a new interface or take care of the operations on a cloud appliance. Your job is still to develop things: be it from scratch or to improve them.

Careers

Operational career paths expand vertically (Growth) and horizontally (Specialities).

Growth

We recognize four levels of professional skills, depending on seniority and level of proficiency. Each level has its salary bracket, mission and clear expectations. Developers progress over this career path by their length of service, their results and by nurturing their technical and non-technical skills.

• Junior developer: this is the level where duly graduated people or developers already experienced in other technologies start. We expect people to quickly step up to the next level, ideally in 12 to 36 months of employment.
• Senior developer: this is the level that composes the big part of our company and that we heavily rely upon. People at this level are skilled and proficient with both our technology and our methodology. They can mentor juniors and are autonomous in their work.
• Lead developer: those are the people that lead teams and projects in SparkFabrik. Those people have a senior-level background on top of which they developed the soft skills necessary to govern the social, technical and organizational complexity of our work.
• Professional: this is the highest operational role in SparkFabrik. Professionals are the people that embody a speciality, can work with one or multiple teams at once, represent SparkFabrik at important tables, provide training and mentorships, etc. Professionals may occasionally lead a team, but they are supposed to work cross-teams as reference key people.

Learn more about each role accountabilities.

Specialities

We explained that SparkFabrik only employs developers. Sure there are differences and each person has their own natural or acquired inclination. We broadly recognize four Specialities that qualify you as a developer and do our best to make you shine in accordance with your nature. During your career, you will probably cover more than a single speciality, even at the same time.

• Analyst: Analysts are great when it comes to mapping a domain, fathoming complexity and expressing it in a clear, rational, understandable form. Analysts may not always have a solution at hand but for sure they know when a need is fulfilled or a problem is solved. Analysts' skills make for great Product Owners.
• Architect: Architects describe the best possible solution to a framed problem. They are great decision makers, understand the long-term implications of technical choices, know how to quickly probe, understand and adapt and always grasp the big picture.
• Specialist: Specialists are vertically experts in a discipline or area: be it writing software, cloud operations, Agile or UX design. Those are the keenest to work in pair with project teams in the long run when there are critical challenges.
• Manager: Managers make things work. They coach, measure, plan, steer and ultimately support people to give their best, remove obstacles, and improve their processes and procedures. In SparkFabrik people are never managed -- work is. So managers govern but never rule.

How to advance

We track and rule people career advancement to make it fair and clear to everybody.