Responsibility, accountability and impact. →
Follows instructions, completes routine tasks under close supervision, and requires guidance. Learns and applies basic skills and knowledge.
Assists and supports others, works under routine supervision, and uses discretion to solve routine problems. Actively learns through training and on-the-job experiences.
Performs varied tasks, including complex and non-routine, using standard methods. Plans and manages own work, exercises discretion, and meets deadlines. Proactively enhances their skills and impact.
Performs diverse complex activities, supports and supervises others, works autonomously under general direction, and contributes expertise to deliver team objectives.
Accountable for achieving workgroup objectives and managing work from analysis to execution and evaluation. Provides authoritative guidance in their field and works under broad direction.
Influences the organisation significantly, makes high-level decisions, shapes policies, demonstrates thought leadership, fosters collaboration, and accepts accountability for strategic initiatives and outcomes.
Determines overall organisational vision and strategy, operates at the highest level, and assumes accountability for overall success.
Coder vs Developer vs Software Engineer
Focus of the roleThis role is designed for organisations that separate problem definition, design and release accountability from implementation work. Implements software components by following defined instructions and specifications.
SFIA 1
Performs routine coding tasks by following detailed instructions and using prescribed tools under close supervision.
SFIA 2
Assists with implementing software components, supports testing activities and resolves routine issues under regular supervision.
SFIA 3
Implements defined software components, applies standard methods to resolve routine technical issues and manages own tasks within agreed boundaries.
Focus of the roleThis role suits organisations that expect developers to own solution delivery outcomes, while operating within established architectural and engineering constraints. Delivers working software solutions by designing, building and improving software within a defined scope.
SFIA 2
Assists in developing software solutions by implementing changes, fixing defects and supporting testing activities under guidance.
SFIA 3
Designs, builds and tests software components, applies judgement to solve routine problems and manages own work to meet delivery commitments.
SFIA 4
Designs and integrates software components, contributes to system design decisions and guides others to deliver reliable software solutions.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for delivering software solutions within a defined domain, provides authoritative guidance on design and implementation and assures solution quality.
Focus of the roleThis role reflects organisations that require explicit engineering assurance, systematic risk management and sustained system reliability. Applies engineering discipline to design, validate and evolve software systems that remain reliable under change.
SFIA 4
Applies engineering principles to design and evaluate software systems, contributes to architectural decisions and supports teams in applying disciplined practices.
SFIA 5
Is accountable for the engineering integrity of software systems within a defined scope, advises on trade-offs and assures release readiness.
SFIA 6
Sets engineering direction across domains, establishes engineering standards and practices and influences organisational decisions affecting software systems.
DevOps, Platform Engineer, Infrastructure Engineer
DevOps and Reliability Engineer
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Focus of the roleEstablishes and operates the practices, platforms, and pipelines that enable software delivery and operational excellence.
SFIA 3
Implements automation, follows established delivery and reliability practices, supports pipelines and monitoring, and contributes to incident response activities.
SFIA 4
Designs delivery and reliability solutions, makes technical decisions within a stream, develops automation and observability, and guides other practitioners.
SFIA 5
Leads delivery, automation, and reliability practices across teams, shapes technical standards, drives service quality improvements, and develops deep expertise in a chosen stream.
SFIA 6
Sets organisational direction for delivery and reliability engineering, defines policies and frameworks, advances strategic automation and observability capabilities, and represents the discipline at senior levels.
Infrastructure Engineer
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Focus of the roleDesigns, implements, and maintains the underlying infrastructure that supports robust, scalable, secure applications and services.
SFIA 1
Supports routine infrastructure tasks under close supervision, follows defined procedures, and gains familiarity with core tooling and operations.
SFIA 2
Performs standard infrastructure activities, manages basic cloud or on-prem resources, updates documentation, and escalates issues appropriately.
SFIA 3
Implements defined infrastructure solutions, maintains compute, storage, and network services, applies IaC practices, and resolves common operational issues.
SFIA 4
Designs infrastructure components, develops IaC repositories, integrates security controls, optimises performance, and advises colleagues on technical choices.
SFIA 5
Leads infrastructure engineering across teams, defines standards and patterns, architects scalable and secure environments, and guides strategic adoption of automation and cloud services.
Test Automation Engineer
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Focus of the roleDesigns, develops, and maintains automated test solutions that enable efficient, repeatable, and scalable testing.
SFIA 2
Automates repeatable tasks, uses standard tools.
SFIA 3
Builds test coverage through new infrastructure, automates testing tasks.
SFIA 4
Implements scalable and reliable automated tests and frameworks.
SFIA 5
Plans and drives automation activities, adopts and adapts tools and techniques, contributes to organisational standards.
Release Engineer
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Focus of the roleManages software building, release processes and deployment strategies ensuring reliable, repeatable delivery.
SFIA 3
Executes release processes using established pipelines, monitors deployments and escalates issues following standard procedures.
SFIA 4
Designs release pipelines and deployment strategies, automates build and release processes, resolves complex deployment issues and advises teams on release practices.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for release engineering across multiple products or teams, defines release standards and strategies, and assures deployment reliability.
Platform Engineer
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Focus of the roleDesigns and builds internal developer platforms, shared tooling and self-service infrastructure abstractions.
SFIA 3
Implements platform components using established patterns, maintains shared tooling and supports developer self-service capabilities.
SFIA 4
Designs platform abstractions and developer tooling, makes technical decisions on platform architecture and guides teams on effective platform use.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for platform strategy within a domain, defines platform standards and service levels and drives adoption across the organisation.
SFIA 6
Sets organisational direction for internal platform engineering, defines platform principles and investment priorities and represents platform strategy at senior levels.
Emerging and specialist
AI/ML Software Engineer
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Focus of the roleDesigns, builds and maintains software systems incorporating AI and ML components, bridging ML research and production engineering.
SFIA 3
Implements ML model integration following established patterns, builds data pipelines, applies testing approaches for ML components and manages own work.
SFIA 4
Designs ML system architectures, builds production inference and training pipelines, implements model monitoring and advises teams on ML engineering.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for ML system engineering across a domain, provides authoritative guidance on ML infrastructure, model lifecycle and production ML quality.
SFIA 6
Sets organisational direction for ML engineering practices, defines ML platform strategy and influences investment in AI/ML engineering capabilities.
Software configuration management
Configuration Manager
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Focus of the rolePlans, implements and monitors SCM processes including identification, change control, status accounting and auditing.
SFIA 3
Maintains configuration records, processes change requests following established procedures and supports configuration audits.
SFIA 4
Plans and implements SCM processes, manages change control boards, conducts configuration audits and advises teams on SCM practices.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for SCM across multiple projects, defines SCM standards and tool strategies and assures baseline integrity.
Software design and architecture
Software Architect
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Focus of the roleSpecifies and designs software systems using architectural patterns, modelling techniques, and design principles to create robust, scalable, and maintainable solutions.
SFIA 4
Designs complex software applications and modules, evaluates trade-offs, creates design views, leads design reviews.
SFIA 5
Architects large/complex systems, adopts and adapts methods, undertakes impact analysis, contributes to organisational standards.
SFIA 6
Leads selection of architectural methods, defines organisational principles and frameworks, ensures adherence to technical strategies.
Software Designer
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Focus of the roleTransforms requirements into detailed design specifications, creating component structures, interfaces and behavioural models.
SFIA 3
Produces detailed designs for defined components using standard notations, applies design patterns and participates in design reviews.
SFIA 4
Designs complex components and subsystems, evaluates design alternatives, creates design documentation and guides others on design practices.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for design quality across a domain, provides authoritative guidance on design methods and contributes to organisational design standards.
Software engineering management
Engineering Manager
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Focus of the roleLeads, manages, develops and deploys software engineers and engineering capabilities across teams.
SFIA 5
Manages engineering teams, plans resourcing and capacity, develops team members' skills and ensures delivery against commitments.
SFIA 6
Shapes engineering culture and capability across multiple teams, defines hiring and development strategies and influences organisational investment in engineering.
SFIA 7
Sets the engineering vision and strategy for the organisation, secures executive commitment to engineering excellence and ensures talent pipeline.
Software Project Manager
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Focus of the rolePlans, executes, monitors and controls software projects including scope, schedule, cost, quality and risk management.
SFIA 4
Plans and manages software projects of moderate complexity, monitors progress, manages risks and dependencies and coordinates delivery.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for delivery of complex software projects or programmes, provides authoritative guidance on planning and risk and assures delivery quality.
SFIA 6
Defines project management standards for the organisation, leads strategic programme delivery and influences approaches to software project governance.
Software maintenance and evolution
Maintenance Engineer
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Focus of the roleMaintains and evolves existing software systems through corrective, adaptive, perfective and preventive activities.
SFIA 2
Assists with resolving reported defects, applies defined fixes under guidance, updates documentation and supports regression testing.
SFIA 3
Investigates and resolves software faults, performs impact analysis for changes, applies maintenance techniques and manages own work to agreed priorities.
SFIA 4
Leads maintenance for complex systems, evaluates technical debt, plans corrective and adaptive changes and guides others on program comprehension.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for maintainability and evolution strategy within a domain, provides authoritative advice on reengineering approaches and contributes to standards.
Software quality and testing
Test Analyst
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Focus of the roleAnalyses requirements and designs to create effective test strategies and test cases that verify software behaviour against specifications.
SFIA 1
Executes test scripts under supervision, records results.
SFIA 2
Designs test cases from specifications provided, executes tests, reports results.
SFIA 3
Designs tests under own direction, participates in requirement reviews, applies standards independently.
SFIA 4
Selects testing approaches, develops test plans, identifies improvements in requirements processes.
Non-functional Test Specialist
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Focus of the roleDeep specialist focus e.g. security, performance or other non-functional quality attributes.
SFIA 3
Designs specialist tests under own direction, applies standards.
SFIA 4
Selects specialist approaches, develops test plans, provides specialist advice.
SFIA 5
Plans and drives specialist activities, provides authoritative guidance.
Focus of the rolePlanning, coordinating, and leading testing activities.
SFIA 4
Plans, coordinates and reports on testing activities including work of others, collaborates across parties.
SFIA 5
Plans and drives testing activities, provides authoritative advice, assesses risks and takes preventative action.
Software Quality Analyst
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Focus of the roleEmbeds quality practices throughout the software development lifecycle, working collaboratively with development teams to shift quality left.
SFIA 3
Applies agreed quality standards, participates in reviews, analyses quality metrics.
SFIA 4
Collaborates across parties, identifies process improvements, enables comprehensive coverage.
SFIA 5
Plans and drives quality activities, provides authoritative advice, contributes to organisational policies.
Quality Assurance
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Focus of the roleProvides independent assurance that quality processes are being followed and quality standards are being met.
SFIA 4
Plans and conducts assessments, determines risks, provides advice on standards.
SFIA 5
Assesses complex areas, evaluates non-compliances, oversees others' assurance activities.
Quality Engineering Leader
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Focus of the roleSets quality strategy and builds organisational quality capability, shaping culture and practices at an enterprise level.
SFIA 5
Plans and drives improvement activities across stages, contributes to organisational policies.
SFIA 6
Develops organisational policies, promotes culture of quality, leads strategic quality initiatives.
SFIA 7
Determines quality strategy, secures executive commitment, ensures adequate resources.
Software requirements and analysis
Requirements Engineer
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Focus of the roleElicits, analyses, specifies, validates and manages software requirements throughout the lifecycle.
SFIA 3
Elicits and documents requirements using standard techniques, participates in requirements reviews and maintains traceability records.
SFIA 4
Analyses complex requirements, resolves conflicts between stakeholders, selects appropriate specification techniques and guides others on requirements practices.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for requirements quality across a programme or domain, provides authoritative advice on elicitation and specification methods and contributes to organisational standards.
Software security
Software Security Engineer
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Focus of the roleIntegrates security throughout the software development lifecycle including secure design, construction and testing.
SFIA 3
Applies secure coding practices, conducts basic security testing using standard tools and follows established security guidelines.
SFIA 4
Designs security controls for software systems, conducts threat modelling, integrates security into CI/CD pipelines and advises teams on secure design.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for application security across a domain, provides authoritative guidance on security architecture and secure SDLC practices.
SFIA 6
Defines organisational approaches to software security engineering, establishes secure development standards and influences investment in security capabilities.
Application Security Specialist
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Focus of the roleIdentifies, assesses and remediates security vulnerabilities in software applications through testing and analysis.
SFIA 3
Executes application security tests using standard tools, records and triages vulnerability findings and supports remediation.
SFIA 4
Plans and conducts application security assessments, selects testing techniques, analyses complex findings and advises teams on remediation priorities.
SFIA 5
Takes accountability for application security testing across a domain, provides authoritative guidance on vulnerability management and contributes to standards.