What you can put to work
From the next conversation to a working document.
Agree on what a level means
Six levels defined by the decisions a person can make, with one standard across five disciplines.
Make performance and values concrete
Record expected outcomes, delivery context and observable working behaviors alongside the level assessment.
Run the calibration
Prepare the scorecards, work through disagreements and document the promotion decision.
Editable templates included
Company setup, performance record, evidence log, self-assessment, calibration scorecard, promotion case and transfer record, plus a worked example.
Where to start
Complete Company setup with your partners. Agree the role expectations and working standards, then use the evidence log and grading examples before calibration.
Across the three workbooks
Run the cycle with People and Finance teams.
Functional leaders
Define strong work, bring the evidence and own the development commitments.
People
Make standards consistent, connect values to behavior and give disputed evidence a clear review route.
Finance
Agree the limits, compare proposed and approved costs, and reconcile the decision before release.
One case, from assessment to action
Follow a fictional team through calibration, a pay proposal that exceeds the period budget, an approved timing change and a development plan with protected time.
Keep the assessment honest
A funding constraint produces a documented pay decision and effective date. It does not rewrite the evidence about someone’s work.
Written by Renato Valdés-Olmos
Built from running the cycle.
I have run leveling, compensation and development cycles at companies of 25, 250 and 2500 people. These workbooks turn those mechanics into documents you can use with your team. The shared six-level framework is new in v1.
More about my work
One complete chapter · No email required
Read section two.
02The shared core: six levels, six axes
One shared core across engineering, product, research, design and marketing. Decision scope defines the shared level; craft demonstrates how credibly a person operates at that level within their discipline. That makes the five disciplines comparable without pretending their craft standards are interchangeable.
Craft is required, but it cannot be the common scale. An excellent systems architect, product strategist, researcher and brand designer demonstrate different expertise, and the useful craft list changes as the work changes. Each role therefore names a primary specialism, any supporting specialisms and the depth required. The shared level records the authority and consequence of the decisions made through that craft.
| Level | Decides | In one sentence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | How | Chooses the approach inside a problem somebody else framed and scoped. |
| 2 | What | Can be handed a goal instead of a spec, and decides what to build against it. |
| 3 | Which problem | Decides what is worth solving, and says so before anybody asks. |
| 4 | What we refuse | Holds a position with a commercial cost attached, in the room where money is allocated. |
| 5 | What outlives us | Encodes a standard so it operates without the person who holds it. |
| 6 | What we will not do | Sets the constraints everyone else works inside, in the company's own terms. |
Every level is described against the same six axes. A promotion has to be arguable on at least three of them. If it can only be argued on one, it is a retitle.
| Axis | The question it asks |
|---|---|
| Decision rights | What does this person decide alone, what with one named other person, and what do they escalate? Written as a list of decisions, never as a scope statement. |
| Judgment density | Does adding them to a room add throughput, or add decisions? On a stuck project you are almost never short of capacity. You are short of people able to end an argument. |
| Opinions held | What contestable positions do they hold about what should exist, and have they defended one when defending it cost something? |
| Range | Which decisions are they trusted to make in a lane that is not theirs? |
| What survives them | What sits in a component, a schema, a definition of done, a constraint on what a model may generate? |
| Ownership | Informed, involved, invested. Carried over intact. |
Decision rights over agents
The question this document will be asked next is what to do about the agents. The answer is that it already has a column for them. A decision right is a decision right whoever executes it, so the level defines what a person may let an agent decide, the same way it defines everything else. Write it into the decision-rights row when you adopt the framework; the table below is the starting point. Boris Cherny's original post and replies describe five archetypes — prototyper, builder, sweeper, grower and maintainer — as temperaments that cut across job functions. They are qualities a person brings to a level, not levels themselves. The outward-facing editor, scout, orchestrator and risk steward extend the same idea to work directed at people and signals. As making gets cheap, the editor gains authority; within this core, that is level 3 or 4 work.
| Level | May let an agent decide | May not |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | How, within the task, with the output reviewed. | Anything that changes the task. |
| 2 | What to build against the goal, on their own surface, with the trail kept. | What ships to a customer without a person having read it. |
| 3 | Which options to generate and which to discard, inside a problem the person framed. | Which problem. The framing is the level. |
| 4 | Whatever the team's written refusals permit, without a person in the loop. | Anything the refusals cover. Writing the refusals is the level. |
| 5 | Anything inside the encoded standard. | The standard. That the constraint holds in the tooling, not in the review, is the level. |
| 6 | — | What a model may generate at all, in the company's terms. This is a level 6 decision and nobody else's. |
Why decision rights define the level
Scope is the word every ladder uses, and it is the reason promotions stop meaning anything. "Owns a larger surface" can be true of somebody who decides nothing on it. Decision rights force the question to be answerable: name three decisions this person now makes alone that they did not make last year. If you cannot, the level did not change.
Set the company context before you grade
Functional leaders, People and Finance agree the setup before the cycle opens. Record the business priorities, covered roles, cycle dates, evidence period and named decision owners in the Company setup template. The examples in this workbook cover engineering, product, research, design and marketing. Other job families need their own role mapping and calibration examples before adoption.
| Owner | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Functional leadership | Define role scope and expected work, supply evidence and own development commitments. |
| People | Maintain the standard, support managers, facilitate calibration and arrange an independent review of disputed evidence. |
| Finance | Agree the financial envelope and cost assumptions before the cycle. Cost and approve pay proposals after calibration; keep funding constraints separate from assessment. |
Four questions, four recorded answers
A level describes scope and decision rights. Performance describes delivery during a defined period. Working standards describe how the work was done. Compensation records the funded action under the pay policy. Keep all four answers visible; a level or a count of above marks cannot answer all four.
| Question | Evidence to record |
|---|---|
| What level is the work? | Decisions owned, scope, six-axis evidence and the calibration rationale. |
| What was delivered? | Agreed outcome, baseline, result, quality and delivery context. Record dependencies and changed priorities before judging the result. |
| How was it delivered? | A company value translated into an observable behavior, a dated example and its effect on colleagues or customers. |
| What action is funded? | Proposed and approved pay, effective dates, budget impact, approvers and any deferred action with a review date. |
Use the Performance record alongside the calibration scorecard. Agree expectations at the start of the period and record changes when they happen. The person can add context and correct factual errors before calibration. People records the reviewer, decision, rationale and response date when a material disagreement remains. Do not treat a missing opportunity or a manager's withheld authority as a lack of ability.
Company values as working standards
Write behavior that can be observed in the work. For ownership: name the decision owner, surface a material risk early and close the commitment. For collaboration: invite the affected discipline before deciding and record how its evidence changed the choice. Use examples across different roles and working styles. Familiarity, confidence, social similarity and hours visibly spent at work are not substitutes for evidence.
Publish the examples with People before the period starts. Assess both results and working standards, with context; do not invent a universal weighted score. An unresolved conduct or policy issue follows the company's established process. The six axes are a guide to calibration, not an automatic employment decision.
Try it
Stress-test a level with one real decision.
Choose the highest decision boundary the person already owns, then test whether the evidence would survive calibration. The result is a copyable calibration note.
Highest boundary demonstrated
Evidence test
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Choose what you need
Start with a workbook, or use the whole set.
Leveling
For EPD leaders extending one credible standard across Engineering, Product, Research, Design and Marketing, with People as the partner who makes it fair and durable.
Compensation
For CFOs and Finance teams setting pay for Engineering, Product, Research, Design and Marketing, with EPD leaders supplying the role and market evidence behind every decision.
Development
For Engineering, Product, Research, Design and Marketing leaders and People teams to run together: turn review evidence into funded growth work, protected time and explicit manager commitments.
The new standard
Leveling, compensation and development in the age of AI.
A shared standard for levels, pay and growth. All three workbooks, their printable documents, 24 editable templates and reference sheets, plus three worked examples. Save $18 compared with buying separately.
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Team license
All three workbooks and their templates for one leadership team or function at one company. Already bought a single copy? Its price is credited toward the team license. License details.
Enterprise license
Company-wide, multi-division or portfolio-company use, with the licensed entities and rollout scope agreed before purchase. Suitable when procurement, legal, security or implementation support needs to be part of the work. License details.
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A few practical questions.
What do I receive?
The workbook unlocks on this site. You also get a printable pdf and editable .xlsx templates. The set includes all three workbooks and their templates. These are digital downloads; no physical book is shipped.
Do I need the other workbooks?
Start here if you are introducing the system. Compensation and Development use the levels and six axes defined in this workbook.
Will this work with our HRIS and AI tools?
Yes. The spreadsheets are designed for field mapping, and every online workspace can export versioned JSON. Put only the approved record into your HR system, keyed by a stable employee ID; keep private notes and draft reasoning outside it. An approved AI client or MCP connection can read the exported file, check completeness and prepare drafts through your own file or drive connector. The site does not expose a hosted MCP endpoint or receive employee records, and an AI tool should never approve a level, pay decision or development commitment.
Why not use the framework built into our HR package?
Use it when it fits. An HR package is good at forms, permissions, workflow and storage. These workbooks help your leadership team decide what the fields mean, which evidence counts, who owns the judgment and how exceptions work. Treat the workbook as an acceptance test for the package; if the package preserves the standard and the three separate decisions, configure it there instead of rebuilding the forms.
How do I get access?
After checkout, an email goes to the address you paid with. Its private reader link opens the complete workbook. You can also open the reader from this page and enter the access key from the email. The sample remains a separate public chapter.
Can I use it with my team?
A single purchase covers one person, with sharing permitted with your own manager and managers who report to you while running a cycle. The $499 team license covers one leadership team or function at one company. Company-wide, multi-division or portfolio-company use needs an enterprise license. A single purchase can be credited toward the team license. Read the license.
What if we need an enterprise rollout?
Enterprise licenses start at $2,500 for company-wide, multi-division or portfolio-company use, procurement requirements and an agreed rollout scope. Contact me with the organizations, approximate audience, countries and timing for a quote.
Can I get a refund?
Read the complete sample chapter before buying. Because the workbook, PDF and editable files are delivered immediately, checkout asks you to acknowledge that the purchase becomes final when digital access begins. Duplicate charges, persistent access failures, material differences from the description and mandatory legal remedies remain covered. Read the access and refund terms.
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Every revision of v1 is included and sent to the address you paid with. Your purchase does not subscribe you to the essay newsletter.
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Stripe sends a receipt after purchase. Reply to it with your company name and tax number if you need a company invoice. Any applicable tax is shown at checkout.
Give every level a clear standard.
Give EPD leaders one shared standard for roles, performance and promotion across EPD and Marketing. People gets the evidence trail and controls needed to keep it consistent across teams.
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© 2026 Renato Valdés-Olmos