Draft: Engineering Gearing Ratios for ICs above the Staff-level

[HIGHLIGHT] this is a proposal. We are soliciting feedback from all of Engineering. Two perfectly reasonable outcomes might be that this does not move forward. Or that it substantially changes [HIGHLIGHT]

Review app

• Main content: https://span-of-influence.about.gitlab-review.app/handbook/engineering/career-development/#staff-ic-gearing-ratios
• Also see job family changes in commits

Why is this change being made?

Implementing a process to 1.) get more leverage from of our Staff+ ICs, and 2.) prevent a top-heavy organization [title inflation]. It must also be transparent, fair, and simple to enforce.

Other virtues that have come out of the discussion:

• Make diversity targets the same for Staff+ ICs as they are for Manager+'s.
• Keep the switching cost low by
  • Don't change anyone's current title
  • Don't change anyone's role (substantially)

To do's

• Move to the company/structure section at Sid's request, as other divisions will need this too
• Update Staff+ job families with "technical leverage" expectations
• Get feedback from Engineering Division and alter the proposal when necessary
  • Get Sid's initial feedback
  • Post in Eric's staff meeting - Aug 12
  • Post in #evpe slack channel - Aug 12
  • Place in the week-in-review - Aug 17
  • Post in Eric's staff meeting - Aug 19
  • Post in Eric's APAC-friendly office hours - Aug 19
  • Solicit feedback in Architecture Kickoff working group - Aug 19
  • Socialize in e-group offsite - Aug 20
  • Post in Eric's staff meeting - Aug 26
  • Post in Eric's EMEA-friendly office hours - Aug 27
  • Schedule EMEA-friendly AMA on this topic
  • Schedule APAC-friendly AMA on this topic
• Write an FAQ (if decision moves ahead) for comms
• Final decision and optionally merge? - TBD

CC Department Heads: @clefelhocz1 @sloyd @meks @JohnathanHunt @tcooney @clenneville CC Current Fellows & Distinguished: @stanhu @dzaporozhets @glopezfernandez @ayufan @andrewn @plafoucriere CC Current Staff: @pharrison @dappelt @joernchen @ashmckenzie @iamphill @nick.thomas @ntepluhina @twk3 @WarheadsSE @abrandl @DylanGriffith @dbalexandre @mkozono @tkuah @grzesiek @fcatteau @theoretick @d0c-s4vage @mikeeddington @rymai @wchandler @mikelewis @jacobvosmaer-gitlab @smcgivern @yorickpeterse @nolith @jarv @Finotto

Author Checklist

• Provided a concise title for the MR
• Added a description to this MR explaining the reasons for the proposed change, per [say-why-not-just-what][transparency]
• Assign this change to the correct DRI
  • If the DRI for the page/s being updated isn’t immediately clear, then assign it to your manager.
  • If your manager does not have merge rights, please ask someone to merge it AFTER it has been approved by your manager in [#mr-buddies][mr-buddies-slack].
  • If the changes relate to any part of the project other than updates to content and/or data files please make sure to ping @gl-static-site-editor in a comment for a review and merge. For example changes to .gitlab-ci.yml, JavaScript/CSS/Ruby code or the layout files.