Comms Career Development Framework

	IC4	IC5
Role Summary	An autonomous contributor, executor, and collaborator, who has a thorough understanding of the broader market. They see projects through from idea to execution and completion, working cross-collaboratively to raise awareness of Sourcegraph.	A very experienced Comms leader, driving multiple cross-functional projects in a highly autonomous way that shapes the future of Sourcegraph’s business.
Launch/Project Management
Scope and Impact	Manages day-to-day projects autonomously and leads planning initiatives specific to their role, with minor support from manager.	Drives year-long campaigns and initiatives across the organization.
Collaboration	Collaborates and influences the comms strategy across the company to develop content and projects. Has a POV about how Marketing should contribute.	Drives strategy for company projects (launches and campaigns, company kickoffs, important milestones, etc.), managing a wide range of stakeholders to drive results. May work with agencies, partners, and customers. May own small budgets.
Drive to Completion	Oversees work with cross-functional teams to hit project timelines. Proactively surfaces and addresses blockers. Works with manager to resolve complex blockers.	Keeps all stakeholders on track to hit project timelines. Proactively surfaces and resolves blockers without manager.
Internal Communication	Keeps the company and stakeholders up-to-date through all relevant channels (Slack, company meetings, trainings, etc.) with little guidance from manager. Proactively builds Comms advocates within the company to champion Sourcegraph.	Influences company strategy and innovation with key stakeholders and leadership.
Maximizing Impact	Sets and achieves ambitious goals in partnership with manager, works to drive alignment across multiple stakeholders. Proactively flags barriers to achieving goals.	Independently sets and delivers ambitious departmental goals. Is comfortable challenging strategic direction of projects and company intiatives with support from manager.
Product Expertise
Sourcegraph	Strong understanding of the entire code intelligence platform and the broader market.	Expert in all aspects of Sourcegraph as a code intelligence platform and the broader market.
Competition	Understands direct and indirect competitors in our category and how we compare. Creates messaging and comms resources to relay competitive positioning for appropriate channel/audience, with support from manager. - Social: Drives messaging and campaigns to differentiate ourselves with external audience. - Internal: Supports leadership with messaging for teams on changing competitive landscape.	Is an expert on all competitors and uses competitive intelligence. Owns messaging and comms resources to relay competitive positioning for appropriate channel/audience, with little support from manager. - Social: Proactively creates campaigns and messaging to differentiate ourselves with external audience. - Internal: Drives comms for leadership with messaging for teams on changing competitive landscape.
Market	Has a solid understanding of the devtools ecosystem and where Sourcegraph fits in. - Social: Drives relevant conversation on social channels and seeks guidance from EMs/PMs when needed. Flags relevant conversations happening online and seeks guidance from PM/EM on participating. - Internal: Works with leadership to keep team informed of market positioning and important company messaging.	Proactively collaborates across the organization to support messaging and positioning to elevate the Sourcegraph brand. - Social: Flags relevant conversations happening online and leverages listening data to create campaigns and projects around market trends. - Internal: Drives internal strategy and messaging based on changing external trends, adjust comms for leadership based on needs of company and market.
Messaging and Writing
Messaging	Works and regularly consults with EMs, PMs, PMM, and/or leadership to craft messaging.	Drives collaboration on messaging and content for all projects, in partnership with EMs, PMs, PMM, and/or leadership, which requires very little adjustments and consultation.
Developer-First	Understands how influential devs and dev communities perceive the product and effectively communicates in a way that earns respect from developers. Uses understanding of product to create stronger messaging and community.	Uses technical intuition to create better messaging and positioning. Evolves nuance and understanding alongside the evolving technical landscape and trends of Sourcegraph and the market.
Leadership Voice	Works with leadership to craft messages in their voice, shares outline and collaborates to finalize.	Has mastered leadership voice and tone, requiring minimal edits.
Strategic Thinking
Strategy	Regularly suggests campaign, project, and other ideas to help drive awareness for Sourcegraph and boost team morale.	Regularly suggests thought leadership projects and comms strategies to help Sourcegraph achieve its goals. Independently works to get such comms projects prioritized and resourced, including driving buy-in at the executive level.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Leadership	Effectively consults and collaborates with the senior leadership team on comms projects and direction.	Partners with senior leadership on all company and product moments, supports them in tough comms moments.
General	A strong communicator, who drives cross-functional collaboration efforts and the long-term direction of their team. Shares their experience and expertise to help others grow, through mentoring and coaching other teammates, focussing on insightful strategy/plans/RFC reviews, etc. Effectively able to convince and challenge teammates and cross-functional stakeholders using valid expertise and respectful communication. Routinely drives improvements in team processes.	Manages conflicting views at the executive level, without need for escalation to their manager. Used as a resource to uplevel campaigns, programs, or initiatives.
Engineering and Product	Effectively partners with multiple PMs/EMs and/or ICs to promote promote projects and milestones internall and externally.	Works with Product/Eng leadership to promote moments and milestones; consulted by leadership on major decisions for comms support.
Sales and CE	Regularly connects with sales team and leadership to understand challenges and opportunities. Social: leverages social platforms to support Sales’ ID’d opportunities.	Social: Influences GTM strategy through projects that impact the broader GTM teams (personas, use cases, competitive strategy, etc).
Cross-Functional Projects	Owns social/internal comms for any project, with support from manager.	Serves as the social/internal comms DRI for cross-functional projects.