Code Quality

At Level 4, you’re shaping the way teams think about quality across systems. You don’t just follow standards—you help define and evolve them. You proactively identify systemic patterns that reduce code health and take strategic action. You help large groups of engineers write better code, not through reviews alone, but through tools, shared practices, and technical vision.

Key Behaviors

  • Leads quality-focused initiatives across teams or platforms
  • Creates or evolves team-wide linting, tooling, and conventions
  • Drives quality discussions in architecture and design reviews
  • Refactors foundational systems for long-term maintainability
  • Mentors engineers on systemic code design and clarity

Common Struggles

  • May become overly focused on ideal standards vs. real-world trade-offs
  • Can encounter resistance to change from other teams
  • Risks burnout from reviewing or guiding too many efforts personally

Success Indicators

You know you're successful when you:

  • Improve code quality at the system or platform level
  • Reduce recurring complexity through design and documentation
  • Help shape technical culture to value and prioritize maintainability
  • Make it easier for large groups to write better code consistently

Mindset Shift

From:

I improve quality across teams.

To:

I change how our engineering culture thinks about quality.

Questions to Ask Yourself

  • What invisible habits are shaping how we write code?
  • Are our tools and defaults helping or hurting?
  • How do I make quality an emergent property of our culture?

Build These Habits

  • 1
    Champion quality at the planning, design, and strategy levels
  • 2
    Write guides and tooling that outlast any individual effort
  • 3
    Embed quality principles in onboarding, documentation, and reviews

Seek Feedback

  • Where do engineers feel friction around writing clean code?
  • What code health issues repeat across teams?
  • Is our bar for quality clear, achievable, and consistent?

Signals You're Ready to Level Up

  • Tools and standards you define are adopted org-wide
  • Other teams proactively seek your input on quality decisions
  • You influence how quality shows up in process, planning, and leadership

Focus Summary

  • Raise the bar.
  • Build the infrastructure.
  • Make great code the default.

At Level 4, you don’t just improve the code—you improve the ecosystem. You help entire teams move with clarity and confidence.