Add a few more changes

Author: dbhynds

careers/software-engineer.md

@@ -20,11 +20,11 @@ An apprentice engineer focuses on learning the basic skills of software engineer
 
 An engineer I is capable of taking on well-defined technical problems and managing their own work each sprint.
 
-**Technical Knowledge:** They have a theoretical understanding of the core concepts and best practices of software engineering and have some practical experience implementing them. They understand the basics of writing performant, well-abstracted code, but need help with complex tasks and tasks outside their specialization.
+**Technical Knowledge:** They have a theoretical understanding of the core concepts and best practices of software engineering and have some practical experience implementing them. They understand the basics of writing performant, well-abstracted code, but need help with complex tasks.
 
 **Productivity:** They are capable of completing small, well-defined tasks on time with minimal help from other engineers. They are mindful of their technical limitations and take them into account when planning their work. They focus on reliably delivering quality work on time. They review their own code first before submitting a PR.
 
-**Impact:** They deliver well-defined tasks that contribute to the team's sprint goals. They actively participate in team norms, processes, and expectations. They deliver the work assigned to them in a sprint with [###WHAT###] consistency.
+**Impact:** They deliver well-defined tasks that contribute to the team's sprint goals. They actively participate in team norms, processes, and expectations. They deliver the work assigned to them in a sprint often, and demonstrate improved reliability in doing so over time.
 
 **Communication:** They ask questions to understand how their work fits into the larger context. They proactively communicate whether their work is ahead, on track, or behind, and are especially mindful about communicating when work is taking longer than expected. They welcome feedback and apply the feedback they received in other contexts.
 
@@ -56,4 +56,4 @@ An engineer III is capable of taking on complex technical problems and coordinat
 
 **Communication:** They point out novel opportunities for refactoring during code review. They proactively work to minimize or mitigate potential problems before they arise.
 
-**Collaboration:** Others on the team reach out for help in their area of expertise, and they make themselves available. They are capable of effectively running small to medium-sized projects independently, but need coaching to successfully manage large projects.
+**Collaboration:** Others on the team reach out for help in their area of expertise, and they make themselves available. They are capable of effectively running small to medium-sized projects with little to no coaching, but need help to successfully manage large projects.

careers/technical-engineer.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ The technical engineer focuses on individual contributorship and technical leade
 
 ## Senior Engineer
 
-The senior engineer displays a mastery of the core competencies of software engineering. Strong technical knowledge and high productivity are table stakes at this level. Growth opportunities focus on developing impact, communication, and collaboration skills in preparation for the staff engineer role.
+The senior engineer displays a mastery of the core competencies of software engineering. Strong technical knowledge and high productivity are table stakes at this level. Growth opportunities focus on developing impact, communication, and collaboration skills for Senior Engineers and higher.
 
 **Technical Knowledge:** They have deep understanding of their technical specialty, and a working knowledge of other domains. They take responsibility for the overall health and quality of their domain. They have responsibilities beyond writing code (managing audits, running on-call rotations, owning a backlog, etc.) to help them manage their domain within the organization. Feedback on their code usually revolves around subjective decisions, rather than objective issues. They proactively stay abreast of industry best practices and trends, and have acquired at least one major skill outside of core coding such as monitoring, documentation, integration testing, visual design, and performance optimization.
 
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ Concrete examples could include:
 - Oversee cross-team initiatives (a11y, code quality, testing, reliability, etc.)
 - Solve problems that span multiple groups
 
-**Engineering Perspective:** Staff-plus engineers are the folks who will often get unexpectedly pulled into the room where this sort of decision is happening. This gives them the opportunity to inject the engineering context and perspective into a decision while it's still possible to change the outcome. These brief moments of input on critical decisions are unduly impactful and will allow you to inject an engineering perspective where it would otherwise be missed.
+**Engineering Perspective:** Staff-plus engineers are the folks who will often get unexpectedly pulled into the room where critical decisions need to be made (often without the luxury of have time or the full context). This gives them the opportunity to inject the engineering context and perspective into a decision while it's still possible to change the outcome. These brief moments of input on critical decisions are unduly impactful and will allow you to inject an engineering perspective where it would otherwise be missed.
 
 Concrete examples could include: