Core Philosophy

Capabilities are the contract. Seats are the fulfillment. Titles are internal coverage.

The SOW sells an outcome, priced from the capabilities-at-levels underneath it — never headcount, and never a title. A title is internal shorthand for a coherent bundle of owned capabilities; it groups coverage, it isn't a thing a client buys.

An L4 is the atomic internal unit — accountable for one capability cluster's maturity. L4s compose into the lines below: common compositions, named for internal coverage, not for the market.

A pair of single-spike L4s and one M-shaped person can fulfil the same commitment. The contract promises capabilities at levels; it doesn't care who covers them.

Five lines cover every capability, so each has a coherent home and none is a grab-bag — now an enforced invariant, not just a claim.

What the SOW shows

Three layers, one of them hidden.

1 · Outcome

What's sold and priced. "We'll build the integration hub."

2 · Capabilities at levels, with counts

The price justification, surfaced if the client asks how the number was reached — "core systems engineering at L2, ×3." The count lives here because load drives price. But it's the demanded shape, a capability at a level with a quantity, not named bodies.

Invokes: Commercial scoping & envelope shaping, Pricing under uncertainty

3 · Seats

How we assemble the count — three L2s, or one L3 absorbing it. Internal. Never on the SOW.

The title never appears on the SOW. The level carries the seniority a title used to imply — and carries it precisely.

"Capabilities at levels, with counts" is the same person-agnostic shape we can put in front of a client; the moment it resolves to named people, it drops below the line.

Lines

Product Architect

Owns whether it's the right thing: framed, priced, and directed honestly. Leads presales, because shaping a deal is the same judgment as delivering one.

Owns

Commercial (whole domain), Framing (whole domain)

Executes

Frames the ask to one lever; names the hard constraints and collapse risks; makes the go / redirect / stop call; shapes and prices the envelope; aligns the people who can block the work.

Shape

Deep-T to barbell: the judgment core of an engagement, framing and commercial in one lane.

Experience Architect

Owns whether the thing users touch is real and usable: a working product, not a prototype.

Owns

Product & interface building

Executes

Assembles from design tokens and a component library; ships increments to live preview; owns state and edge-case behaviour; sets tokens, component contracts, and motion at depth.

Shape

Deep-T: the experience layer.

Held separate from Product Architect deliberately — a fold is possible in principle, blocked in practice by bench (we don't have strategists who also carry a designer's craft).

AI Architect

Owns whether a probabilistic system is trustworthy: working on real data, proven before ship, safe once the client runs it.

Owns

AI systems engineering, Autonomous-system governance

Executes

Evaluation before architecture; models grounded in the client's corpus; deploy gated on eval evidence, not a demo; controls and stop-rules for post-handoff autonomy.

Shape

Deep-T: the specialist consultant, narrow coverage, full judgment in the lane.

Forward Deployed Engineer

Owns whether a deterministic system is built and proven: durable, ownable, and visibly true.

Owns

Core systems engineering, Production hardening, Durable delivery, Slice building, Proof (whole domain)

Executes

Instrumented slices to test assumptions early; core systems fit to the client's stack; hardened against real load; a clean codebase the client can extend; proven against criteria set up front.

Shape

Deep-T to barbell (build + proof, or build + AI). Highest-volume line.

Adoption Architect

Owns whether the client's people and organization can actually run and own what was built.

Owns

Enablement (whole domain), Client operating-model design, Transition & warranty design

Executes

Puts client people in the hard calls so they inherit the judgment, not just the repo; designs the adoption path against the org's real incentives and fears; leaves an operating model the team can run and a handoff with explicit dates and boundaries.

Shape

Deep-T: judgment-heavy, senior.

Proposed — weak as a standalone line, under discussion. Held as its own line so Enablement and client-side Continuity have a coverage home instead of hiding inside another.

Title · Ownership · Seat

Title

How we group coverage internally.

Internal shorthand for a coherent bundle of owned capabilities — Product Architect, Experience Architect, AI Architect, FDE, Adoption Architect. A title never appears on the SOW; the client buys the outcome, priced from the capabilities-at-levels underneath. Titles are peer categories, not a ladder — and not people. Seniority is carried on the band and the level, not here. They exist to guarantee every capability has exactly one home — which is why a title can't be dropped without rehoming its capabilities first.

Not
  • A commercial artefact. It is not on the SOW and not on the rate card.
  • A capability. A title groups capabilities; it never replaces one.
  • A level. "Product Architect" is the bundle; "L3" is the depth.
  • Seniority. That is the consultant band.
  • A seat. A title is durable ownership; a seat is one capability at one level on one engagement.

Capability ownership

What you're accountable for.

The atomic, permanent unit. An L4 keeps a capability cluster fit: authors the guardrails, prompt packs, and templates, and sets the standard others execute against. This is a person's durable identity, and where progression lives. You advance by deepening ownership and building the assets the firm runs on, not by billing more hours.

Not
  • L3 execution. An L3 sets the standard on the work; an L4 is accountable for the capability itself.
  • A management line or a headcount.

Level

How deeply, per capability.

L1 guided, L2 solo, L3 sets the standard, L4 owns the capability. Per-capability, not per-person — the same person can be L3 in one capability and L1 in another they're growing into. A capability at a level is what sets the price (e.g. "Framing · L3"). The level is the seniority signal the SOW carries — what a title used to imply, stated precisely.

Not
  • Seniority. That is the consultant band.
  • A dial. A level is depth of judgment; a dial is how hot the capability is running right now.
  • A property of a domain, a skill, a title, or a person.

Project seat

What you're doing now.

The role you occupy on a specific squad for a specific slice of work. Seats shift within an engagement as the work changes; the same person may sit Slice Builder one sprint and Governance Lead the next. Because seats are activated by what the work needs, their catalog lives in the operating view, not here.

Not
  • A second list to maintain alongside capabilities.
  • A title. A title is durable ownership of a capability bundle; a seat is one capability at one level on one engagement. Both are internal.
  • A line on a SOW. The contract buys the outcome, priced from capabilities-at-levels. Seats never appear.
  • A person. One person can staff a seat, or several people together can make up the capability at the level needed.

How seats get filled

Once the SOW is signed, its capabilities-at-levels are the seat list — seats are read off the contract, not designed.

1 · Qualification

Who can fill it. Each capability's L4 certifies who can execute it at each level. The qualified pool is the L4, plus anyone they've certified to that level.

2 · Assignment

Who does. A resourcing function assigns from the qualified pool by availability, continuity, development, and fit.

L4 qualifies; resourcing assigns — kept apart so logistics can't quietly lower a seat's level.

Recorded in two places, neither on the SOW: capability profiles (firm-level — person, capability, certified level) and engagement staffing (per-engagement, internal, changeable).

Consultant band

Who you are at the firm.

The whole-person HR identity — Senior Consultant, Principal Consultant. This is where career seniority lives: comp, progression band, the title on an offer letter. It correlates with level (a Principal is typically L3 in their owned capabilities) but never collapses into it — the band is per-person, the level is per-capability. Seniority didn't disappear from the model; it moved here, out of the client-facing layer, so what a client buys and how senior you are can be stated separately.

Not
  • A level. The band is per person; the level is per capability.
  • A title. A title groups owned capabilities; neither is what a client buys, and seniority lives here rather than on either.
  • A capability. Nothing is promised to a client by a band.