The Engineering Judgment Decision Protocol

When facing any talent decision—hiring, promotion, performance management, or team design—run through this five-step protocol.

Step 1: Identify the Scarce Resource. What bottleneck does this decision address? If the answer is "output," the decision is wrong. The bottleneck is judgment. Is the scarce resource being developed, consumed, or ignored?

Step 2: Test Against the Ladder. What core question does this person answer today? What core question must they answer to earn the next rung? Is their current work developing the judgment required for advancement? No promotion without a demonstrated answer to the next rung's core question.

Step 3: Assess Learning Speed Impact. Does this grow the apprenticeship system or shrink it? Does this create conditions for judgment to develop, or conditions for output to dominate? What is the three-year consequence on the talent pipeline?

Step 4: Apply the Collective Judgment Test. Does this engineer's presence make the team smarter? Does their code require others to reason about surfaces they did not create? What happens to team decision quality the week after they go on vacation?

Step 5: Verify the Ladder Is Legible. Can you explain this decision using the written ladder? Will the person affected understand why? Does this decision make the ladder more credible or less?