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Expectations Grid

Expectations for the Makers

Makers are individual contributors who focus on their craft, leading and managing cross-functional projects. To help designers in maker roles carve their career paths, we provide an expectations grid that’s used to guide development discussions between makers and their managers. We also hope it’s useful for you as you consider a design role at Addepar!

Designer /
Researcher

Ic 1

Designer II /
Researcher II

Ic 2

Senior Designer /
Senior Researcher

Ic 3

Senior Designer II /
Senior Researcher II

Ic 4

Staff Designer /
Staff Researcher

Ic 5

Principal Designer /
Principal Researcher

Ic 6

Your Goal

Learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can.

Knowledge & Craft
  • You are comfortable working on function-level problems with guidance and mentorship.
  • Your work follows design or research best practices.
Leadership & Culture
  • You're available and present on your teams.
  • You contribute positively to Addepar's culture.
  • You proactively solicit feedback on your work. You receive and act upon critical feedback positively.
  • You exhibit curiosity and enthusiasm in your work.
  • You are introspective and thoughtful about how you and the team can improve.
Planning & Execution
  • You estimate and plan for specific tasks.
Your Goal

Contribute with enthusiasm and grow into a well-rounded designer or researcher.

Knowledge & Craft
  • You have a solid understanding of the users, workflows, and problems your team is responsible for.
  • You understand how your work connects to Addepar’s goals.
  • You are focused on growing as a designer or researcher, gaining expertise in existing tools and learning new ones.
  • You incorporate Addepar's design or research best practices into your daily work.
  • Your files are easy to review and maintain.
  • You're comfortable iterating on existing work.
  • You carry out the right level of exploration within project constraints.
Leadership & Culture
  • You welcome and guide new hires, and convey important information.
  • You proactively look for ways to be helpful.
  • You proactively look for and participate in opportunities where you can learn from others.
  • You escalate conflict to the appropriate individual.
Planning & Execution
  • You estimate and plan for larger tasks. You manage your time well.
  • You recognize when you’re blocked and escalate timely.
Your Goal

Use your skillset to own projects and deliver results.

Knowledge & Craft
  • You are fluent in your team's domain, to the extent that you can easily explain aspects of your team's focus areas.
  • You have significant knowledge of particular aspects of design or research.
  • You own projects and enhancements from design and implementation to feedback and delivery.
  • You consider your designs or research within the context of the larger Addepar experience.
  • Your designs or research follow a clear, systematic content hierarchy and organization.
  • You are well-versed in the design or research tools and methodologies used at Addepar.
  • You increase design consistency in your focus areas.
Leadership & Culture
  • You guide other designers or researchers in your area of expertise by explaining the concepts and thoughts behind important information.
  • You share the work of your team cross-functionally to uncover dependencies and opportunities, while elevating your team’s impact.
  • You drive connections between your work and the work of other teams.
  • You uphold Addepar's high bar for design, both for yourself and others.
  • You actively participate in Addepar's interview process and help the team evaluate great candidates.
  • You contribute to building Addepar Design as a recognized brand in design and fintech communities.
Planning & Execution
  • You set challenging but realistic timelines that reflect healthy work habits.
  • You identify the right problem to solve. You triage research and exploration.
  • You collaborate well with your team members.
  • You unblock yourself.
Your Goal

Set direction, drive complex initiatives, and educate and empower teams.

Knowledge & Craft
  • You are entrusted with complex and complicated projects. You are comfortable operating with ambiguity.
  • You are sought out for your expertise. You use your expertise to drive value across Addepar.
  • You research and pioneer the adoption of new design tools and methodologies.
  • You identify inefficiencies in the design or research process and propose solutions to fix them.
  • You deliver high-quality work that doesn't require major revisions.
Leadership & Culture
  • You empower your peers to achieve a higher level of performance and foster a supportive culture.
  • You mentor and provide guidance, coaching, and constructive feedback to your peers.
  • You proactively educate others about the work of your team.
  • You facilitate constructive, productive discussions around design, research, and organizational issues.
  • You initiate difficult conversations in a timely and tactful manner. You generally resolve conflict without needing to escalate.
  • You regularly elevate Addepar's brand externally.
  • You evangelize design thinking and champion a mature design culture throughout Addepar.
Planning & Execution
  • You plan and scope complex, long-term projects, including those with external dependencies or multiple team members.
  • You effectively highlight trade-offs within project constraints.
  • You collaborate well across teams and with key stakeholders.
  • You unblock others.
Your Goal

Own complex initiatives and empower your peers.

Knowledge & Craft
  • You drive key decisions and strategic design or research direction across multiple teams to provide company-level impact.
  • You have deep and expert knowledge in a particular area.
  • You thrive in situations that deal with ambiguity.
  • While you contribute at the strategic level, you continue to provide hands-on support.
  • You bring a strong perspective that motivates designers or researchers to develop simple, pragmatic solutions to complex problems.
  • You simplify and clearly articulate complex ideas.
Leadership & Culture
  • You proactively share your expert knowledge with others.
  • You lead decisions for your department that help build intuitive user experiences and ensure brand consistency.
  • You improve the design process across teams.
  • You proactively seek learning opportunities from other industry leaders.
  • You actively source, select, and sell great candidates.
  • You help create an inclusive design culture where those with less experience and less influence have a voice and can have impact.
Planning & Execution
  • You drive department-level objectives, and achieve those objectives in creative and effective ways.
  • You create formal agreements to coordinate work amongst teams, and can drive disparate teams to consensus.
Your Goal

Set vision and connect it with business strategies.

Knowledge & Craft
  • You use your extensive experience, deep industry expertise, and broad design or research knowledge to craft solutions for Addepar's most complex initiatives.
  • You evaluate and drive strategic business and user experience decisions for Addepar.
  • You define design or research principles and best practices that can be applied across all of Addepar.
  • Your work inspires and transforms Addepar's brand and user experience.
  • You set the standard for design or research excellence.
  • You drive innovation at Addepar.
Leadership & Culture
  • You lead decisions across Design to optimize team efficiency and understanding. You push the Design Team forward.
  • You are a thought leader in multiple areas who educates and shares best practices. Your contributions deliver strategic and prescriptive guidance.
  • You are a trusted partner to senior design and business leadership.
  • You have established yourself and Addepar's Design Team as thought leaders in the design industry.
Planning & Execution
  • Your work has a bottom-line impact (e.g., ROI, revenue, cost reduction) and/or yields a competitive advantage for our users and for Addepar.
  • You identify both immediate and future risks and constraints, and you pragmatically advise on how to make the right trade-offs.

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Equal Employment Opportunity – Addepar is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We seek to bring together diverse ideas, experiences, skill sets, perspectives, backgrounds and identities to drive innovative solutions. We commit to promoting a welcoming environment where inclusion and belonging are held as a shared responsibility.