Job
Level + Family + Job Type. Describes a cluster of responsibilities at a defined level.
Talent
Position Architecture
LiminalArc is organized around two ideas that most firms blur together: what work needs to be done and who is doing it on a given engagement. We keep those separate on purpose. This page explains how the system works, why we built it this way, and how to use it.
The takeaway Position ≠ Role. A person holds one Position and plays several Roles over time.
Four words to know
Position
A Job, specific to a Practice and a service. Persistent.
Role
A Position, made specific to an account engagement. Situational.
Job Type
Player. Coach. Player/Coach.
The Short Version
We build durable Positions inside our Practices — each one tied to a service we sell. Then we deploy people from those positions into Roles on accounts, where the work actually meets the client. That separation is what lets us scale capability without losing craft, and lets a person grow a career without being trapped by the shape of any one engagement.
The full reference
Position Architecture in detail
01 The Framework at a Glance
We use a single hierarchy across the whole firm. Every term in it has a specific meaning, and we use them consistently. Jobs describe scope. Positions describe craft. Roles describe deployment. If you only remember one thing, remember that Position ≠ Role. A person holds one Position and can play several Roles over time.
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01
Job Architecture
The overall framework. Everything below is part of it.
Example: The system you are reading about. -
02
Job Family (Practice)
A Practice — a group of related crafts, skills, and capabilities built around a shared discipline.
Example: Engineering Practice. Consulting Practice. -
03
Career Stream
How a role contributes inside its Practice.
Example: Delivery. Doing. Coaching. Architecture. -
04
Job Level
The tier and scope of responsibility. We use 5 bands mapped to 55 numeric levels.
Example: Director (10–19). Manager (20–29). -
05
Job
A combination of Level + Family + Job Type. The cluster of responsibilities at a defined level.
Example: "Manager-band Engineering Player/Coach." -
06
Position
A practice-specific implementation of a Job, tied to a service in our catalog. More specific than a Job.
Example: Lead Engineer – Solutions Architect. -
07
Role
An account-specific implementation of a Position. What someone actually does on an engagement.
Example: Tech Lead on the Acme transformation.
02 The Practices
Every Position in the firm lives inside of a Practice. Today our primary practices are Engineering and Management Consulting.
Engineering Practice
We build, design, and engineer the systems our clients run their businesses on. The Engineering ladder runs from Apprentice and Associate Engineer through Lead, Principal, and the Engineering Practice Lead. Specialist tracks (Front End, Back End, Data, UX, Solutions Architecture, Enterprise Architecture) sit alongside the generalist track so engineers can deepen craft without leaving delivery.
Consulting Practice
We help clients see, decide, and change. The Consulting ladder runs from Engagement Analyst through Senior Consultant, Managing Consultant, Principal Consultant, and the Consulting Practice Lead. Specialty tracks include Value Engineering, Operations Engineering, Change, PPC, Governance, Investment Strategy, and Expedition Leadership. Coaching tracks (Senior Coach, ScrumMaster) live here too — because coaching client teams is part of how we deliver, not a side activity.
03 Player. Coach. Player/Coach.
Every Position is one of three Job Types.
Player
Directly produces deliverables for or with the client.
Coach
Develops capability in client employees as they produce their own deliverables.
Player / Coach
Does both, often in the same week.
04 How We Think About Levels
LiminalArc uses 5 level bands mapped to a numeric scale of 1–55. The band tells you scope and accountability. The number gives us room to recognize growth inside a band without inventing new titles. A person grows by widening scope, deepening craft, and earning new accountabilities — not by collecting titles.
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1–3
Executive Leadership
Overall organizational health, company strategy, and culture. Sets direction for the firm.
Examples: CEO. COO. -
4–9
Senior Leadership
Translates strategy into executable offers and delivery. Practice Leads sit here.
Examples: Cluster Integrator. -
10–19
Director
Functional excellence in delivery — functional strategy, people management, senior client-facing work, participation in sales activities.
Examples: Practice Lead. Principal Consultant. Principal Engineer. -
20–29
Manager
Execution of Outcome-Based Plans and client commitments. People management is possible but not the primary lens.
Examples: Managing Consultant. Tech Lead. -
30–55
Team Member / IC
Direct execution against an Outcome-Based Plan. Where most of the craft lives.
Examples: Delivery Team Coach. Senior Engineer. Analyst.
05 What We Hire Against
Positions are defined by competencies, not just years of experience. Competencies group into areas, and each Position has a minimum required proficiency level for every relevant area.
Universal
- Communication & Influence
- Client & Stakeholder Management (engagement, trust, change, rapid domain learning)
- Delivery Leadership
- Continuous Improvement
- Planning & Prioritization
Engineering-weighted
- Technical Craftsmanship (TDD, clean code, refactoring, CI/CD, secure coding)
- Solutioning & Architecture (modeling, systems thinking, tradeoff analysis, NFRs, make/buy)
Consulting-weighted
- Vision casting
- Consulting Problem Solving (problem framing, value engineering, requirements, risk)
06 How a Position Is Documented
Every Position in the firm has a Position Detail Record — the canonical document for that Position and the parent for every artifact that follows: job descriptions, interview guides, account staffing references, career conversations. Practice Leaders own the narrative and the competency requirements. Talent uses the Position Detail Record for hiring.
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1
Classification
Title, family / practice, career stream, level, job type, services supported, salary band, billability target.
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2
Narrative
Overview, key outcomes, responsibilities, accountability, authority, qualifications, traits, other requirements.
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3
Competency Requirements
Minimum required levels for every applicable competency.
07 Why We Built It This Way
Three design choices are worth calling out because they tend to drive questions.
One vocabulary across the firm
Job, Position, Role, Competency, Skill — these terms get used loosely almost everywhere else. We use them precisely. That precision is what lets a Practice Leader, a recruiter, and an account leader have the same conversation about the same person without translating.
Positions are tied to services, not to people
A Position exists because there is a service in our catalog that needs it. Positions persist; the people who hold them rotate through over careers. That makes the architecture a stable scaffold for both hiring and capacity planning, instead of an org chart that has to be redrawn every time someone joins or leaves.
Roles are downstream of Positions, not the other way around
What a person does on an account is shaped by the Position they hold. That keeps account work coherent with firm-level capability development, and keeps career growth coherent across engagements.
08 Glossary
A fuller glossary lives in the Job Architecture sheet. The most important terms.
- Job Architecture
- The firm-wide framework for organizing roles, levels, and competencies.
- Job Family
- A Practice.
- Career Stream
- How a role contributes inside a Practice (for example Delivery, Doing, Coaching, Architecture).
- Job Level
- The tier of responsibility.
- Job Type
- Player. Coach. Player/Coach.
- Job
- Level + Family + Job Type. Describes a cluster of responsibilities at a defined level.
- Position
- A Job, specific to a Practice and a service. Persistent.
- Role
- A Position, made specific to an account engagement. Situational.
- Competency
- Demonstrable behaviors, knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform a Position.
- Skill
- Narrower than a competency. A specific, learned proficiency.
- Outcome
- A measurable standard of performance by which a job holder is evaluated.
- Responsibility
- An agreement to do something. Shared, not delegated.
- Accountability
- Checking up on a responsibility. May cross hierarchy.
- Authority
- Ability to make a decision without being overruled. Delegable.
- Salary Band
- Defined compensation range tied to a Position.
- Billability Target
- Percentage of working hours expected to be billed to clients.
- Service
- A combination of outcomes and activities that produces value for a client, supporting an Offer.