Product Design levels

These levels serve to help Product Designers assess their opportunities for career growth in the Product Design function. The levels below follow a growth track in the art and craft of Product Design and not in a person management track.

Level 1: Product Designer I

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Executes on defined projects or tasks in their area of focus, directed by senior leaders.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Receives detailed instruction on most projects or tasks. Asks questions, and knows when to stop and ask for help.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Works effectively in teams to align priorities and manage execution on defined projects or tasks. Works directly under Senior-level designers.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Considers the customer's perspective when making decisions. Knows when to ask clarifying questions.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Regularly participates in team discussions for ongoing feature work. May lead discussions on smaller topics.

Level 2: Product Designer I

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Executes on defined projects or tasks in their area of focus, with limited direction.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Receives general instruction on day-to-day work, and detailed instruction on new projects or tasks. Engages, and enables senior designers to deliver high quality work.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Works effectively in teams to align priorities and manage execution on defined projects or tasks. Works directly under Senior-level designers.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	nderstands and applies basic level best practices for customer impact within their daily work. Will ask for input on more complicated topics.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Regularly participates in team discussions for ongoing feature work. May lead discussions on smaller topics.

Level 3: Product Designer II

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Influences and executes defined projects or tasks and features across the product.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Receives general instruction on new projects or tasks. Enables senior designers to deliver high quality work.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Works directly with PM and ENG, providing input on the feature work to be done by the team, with product and engineering requirements.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Can navigate moderately complex decisions and thought process about how features and implemetations bring customer value, and can make decisions in these areas independently. Starts to understand and contribute to cross-feature and/or cross-team implications of customer impact.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Drops fluidly into feature team projects, ramps quickly and drives features to successful outcomes. Drives discussions on small and mid-size topics. Participates actively in discussions and efforts that cross teams. Actively seeks feedback and growth opportunities.

Level 4: Product Designer II

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Executes and delivers high impact features and design changes across the product.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Receives minimal instruction. Engages and enables senior designers to deliver high quality work. Enages in the open source community to contribute design efforts in building new features and contributions to Compass, the Mattermost Design System.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Works directly with PM and ENG, helping define the feature work to be done by the team, with product and engineering requirements.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Can navigate moderately complex decisions and thought process about how features and implemetations bring customer value, and can make decisions in these areas independently. Starts to understand and contribute to cross-feature and/or cross-team implications of customer impact.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Drops fluidly into feature team projects, ramps quickly and drives features to successful outcomes. Drives discussions on small and mid-size topics. Participates actively in discussions and efforts that cross teams. Actively seeks feedback and growth opportunities.

Level 5: Senior Product Designer

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Influences product vision for high impact features and design changes across the product.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Defines new feature assignments for themselves, usually without requiring help. Enages and inspires other designers to engage in the open source community to contribute design efforts in building new features and contributions to Compass, the Mattermost Design System.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Recognized by colleagues and community as a design authority, passively influencing discussions and behavior, and working in sync with PM, ENG, and customer teams. Frequently sought out by product and engineering leads for opinion on both product and design directions.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Can indepently make decisions affecting customer value/impact for complex topics within a product/feature-set. Leads cross-product, cross-feature, and cross-team discussions related to customer value/impact, and can bring the stakeholders to a decision point.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Frequently called upon to comment on product, customer and community discussions. Is very comfortable in customer and community discussions, aligns efforts, and develops superior solutions through discussion and analysis. Participates deeply in cross-team efforts. Begins to lead discussions on topics that reach outside of design.

Level 6: Senior Product Designer

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Influences product vision for high impact features and design changes across the product.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Defines new feature assignments for other members of the team, usually without requiring help. Leads the coordination and management of campaigns when creating new features and products.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Highly respected by colleagues and community as a design authority, actively influencing discussions and behavior with input and suggestions, and working in sync with PM, ENG, and customer teams. Engages with people in the broader design community (outside of Mattermost) to identify and and implement best practices within Mattermost.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Can indepently make decisions affecting customer value/impact for complex topics within a product/feature-set. Leads cross-product, cross-feature, and cross-team discussions related to customer value/impact, and can bring the stakeholders to a decision point.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Frequently called upon to comment on product, customer and community discussions. Is very comfortable in customer and community discussions, aligns efforts, and develops superior solutions through discussion and analysis. Participates deeply in cross-team efforts. Begins to lead discussions on topics that reach outside of design.

Level 7: Staff Product Designer

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Consults on product vision and strategy for product area, roadmap, and innovations across teams.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Defines new feature assignments for members of other teams, usually without requiring help. Mentors and trains new team members and community designers while leading the coordination and management of design campaigns to create new features and products.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Frequently sought out by product and engineering leads for opinion on product directions and technical discussions.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Has ownership for cross-product customer impact topics. Can anticipate complex issues early in the product development process (generally focused within Product). Starts to anticipate and resolve cross functional topics and issues.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Primary product design lead for projects, providing thought leadership in selecting and guiding these efforts. Works regularly with stakeholders outside of product. Is often the intial resource to drive design efforts for a new product or major feature.

Level 8: Principal Product Designer

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Defines product desgin and direction for entire product suites or product divisions.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Independently defines new feature assignments across teams working on the same product or system. Influences, shapes and can redirect customer and community product developement discussions, rapidly understanding disparate viewpoints and leading discussions that align thinking and efforts to influence the product direction of large scale projects.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Seen as the expert on product area of ownership. Engages with peers in customer and partner organizations to shape joint product development plans.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Works consistently with PM, ENG, and sales leadership to set goals and deliverables for customer value. Represents product design in discussions with non-design functions. Engages heavily with customers and community to share our design philosopy and principles. Applies our philosophy and principles to bring value to customer from work done all across the company.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Works consistently with PM, ENG, and Mattermost leadership to set organizational objectives and direction. Translates these objectives to clear and actionable projects for prduct design.

Level 9: Distinguished Product Designer

Leadership Principle	Competencies	Level Expectations
Ownership	Scope: "What do I work on?" Scope is the domain over which you are expected to show ownership.	Uses past experience and input from stakeholders to shape and define product design and new features and products for Mattermost. Translates learnings from the broader product design world to bring value to Mattermost's customers and community.
High-Impact	Supervision: "How much do I rely on my Design?" Community: "How do others work with me?" The need to receive supervision is inversely related to the instinct to choose what is high-impact.	Conceives, designs, explains, and oversees product design direction for nearly any feature or product with no outside direciton. Independently executes on cross-team (within prodcut) and cross-function (within Mattermost) effort with little or no supervision. Considered an expert in many design domains. Works across a broad set of product, design, and even technical and non-technical efforts.
Earn Trust	Influence: "Who do I work with?" As more people and parts of the organization earn your trust, your influence grows.	Highly respected by colleagues and community as a design authority, actively influencing discussions and behavior with input and suggestions, and working in sync with PM, ENG, and customer teams. Engages with people in the broader design community (outside of Mattermost) to identify and and implement best practices within Mattermost.
Customer Obsession	Customer Impact: "How do I bring value?" Community spans both open-source and enterprise, but ultimately manifests in the same obsession for enabling customers to be successful.	Works consistently with PM, ENG, and sales leadership to set goals and deliverables for customer value. Represents product design in discussions with non-design functions. Engages heavily with customers and community to share our design philosopy and principles. Applies our philosophy and principles to bring value to customer from work done all across the company.
Self-Awareness	Interaction: "Who relies on me?" Iteration: "How do I improve myself and others?" Self-awareness yields an ability to seamlessly fit into any conversation or effort, interacting with a group to work towards the best possible outcome and always iterating towards the best possible outcome.	Works consistently with PM, ENG, and Mattermost leadership to set organizational objectives and direction. Translates these objectives to clear and actionable projects for prduct design.