Coaching Career Milestones and Job Roles
The 10 technical coaching milestones outlined in the Learning Hour and Ensemble tracks detail the new skills and abilities that people have at each milestone. If their organization has a supportive career structure, then reaching a new milestone might mean they get more allocated more time for coaching, as well as a new job title and associated benefits.
Increasing the visibility and time allocated for technical coaching can create a virtuous circle where coaches do more coaching, get more experience, and level up sooner. Overall, both they and the people they are coaching become more skilled, and everyone in the organization gains from opportunities to level up and increase technical excellence.
Milestones 1-3: Individual contributor with coaching skills
Most developers will continue in an individual contributor role working in a team. The facilitation and mentoring skills they gain are useful for any senior developer, not only those who are heading towards a technical coaching career.
As they proceed through these milestones, they will start to devote more time to preparing and leading learning hours, and getting more or less formal training in facilitation skills and how to handle conflict. We suggest technical coaching becomes a formal part-time role alongside development work when they reach milestone 3 in either track.
Milestone 4: Part-time technical coach
At this level of skill we expect that technical coaching will already be a significant part of the person’s role. Although they will also be among the most skilled developers on the team, they multiply their impact through raising up others rather than delivering even more as individual contributors.
The other part of their job may be to continue as an individual contributor in a team. Alternatively, they may step into a staff+ or architect role, working across several teams. Alongside coaching, they may also be responsible for more general technical leadership and facilitating architectural decisions.
After reaching milestone 4 in both tracks, technical coaches should have the skills and experience they need to be invited to join the Samman Technical Coaching society. (Such an invitation of membership is offered at the discretion of the society’s board).
Milestone 5: Full-time technical coach
To reach this stage and continue to deliver at it, “Technical Coach” will probably be a full-time job role. It takes time and a mandate to achieve this level of skill. We suggest this role is equivalent to a staff engineer or architect position, and the coach works closely with the rest of the technical leadership.