What Makes for an Excellent Mendix Developer?

In 2018, you hired 10 young, ambitious junior developers. Fast forward to 2025, and they are now Mendix Experts with certifications like PSM 1 and TMAP. They seek career growth and higher earnings, but you lack a structured framework to guide them. Setting up a clear career path for them can be daunting. In this article I will offer a methodology for creating your own Mendix Developer career framework, as well as an example framework to tweak to your liking.

Career Frameworks Background

Assessing developer skill, or really any skill, is a heavily researched topic. Just to scratch the surface, there are some generic frameworks like Dreyfus or SFIA9, or very specific ones tailored to specific companies, such as Google's Engineering Career Framework. What goes to show from just these examples is that skill is highly context dependent: in the end, every company has a need for different skillsets, and so they will need their own tailored career development framework. However, what we can also see from just these three examples, is that there is considerable overlap.

First of all, across all these models, skill development follows progressive levels, from non-existent, to complete mastery. While SFIA9 has 7, Google has 8, and Dreyfus has 5. The main idea here is that we try to create Stable, Unique, Abstracted, Value-differentiating levels, and that there should be something to really aspire to. (Yes, think SUAVE as in Business Capability here.) Moreover, if we go for just 3 levels (junior, medior, senior), then we might not be able to provide enough differentiation based on just these levels. Hence, the first step in building a career framework is to determine the levels you would like to see within your company.

Secondly, all these frameworks apply levels to aspects, such as "People & Skills" (SFIA9) or "Building" (Google). At the cross-section of aspect and level, we get a behavioural descriptors, such as "Makes minor modifications to existing screens, or minor server changes to support client needs" from "Building" at "Engineer 1" (Google). Here is where I think the power of a proper career framework lies: these behavioural descriptors should be generic enough to apply to many people and allow them the freedom to pursue their own interests within their function. However, the descriptors should also be specific enough to be able to differentiate between levels easily.

Let's also highlight a very limited descriptor, namely, the number of years of experience. People differ in the way they grow. They might even regress. Having 50 years of experience in development does not mean being an excellent developer. Conversely, having just 3 years of experience does not ipso facto mean that one cannot be a superb developer. This is where the bell curve comes in - not for assessing who exceeds expectations - but for salary grade distribution in your business. Simply said, it will be impossible to have a company consisting only of principals or juniors; most likely, the bulk of developers will be seniors. It is extremely handy to map the number of levels you want against your preferred salary grade distribution.

Beyond just defining roles, a career framework is a strategic tool for structured growth conversations. The tool should make having these conversations easier and clearer, and should allow career opportunity to be more fairly distributed within your organisation. A developer should basically have a guidebook with behaviours required to grow to the next level. Plus, that guidebook will help the manager distribute grades and salaries properly too. In the end, of course, a tool is just a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

Mendix Career Framework

Now we know something about the background of career frameworks and how to construct some barebone aspects and levels, let's take a look at the particular Mendix aspects that make a Mendix developer skillful. As is visible from Google's framework, they have chosen a technology-agnostic approach with 4 aspects: Scope of Influence, Building, Executing, Leadership. This is logical since Google uses a wide variety of technologies. It is a great start for pure engineers, however, a Mendix developer usually does not just engineer. For example, they are typically also involved more in testing and the business analysis aspects of development, such as requirements elicitation/engineering. The sub type of 'Mendix consultant' may additionally be involved in business development, etc.

This complexity underscores the need for a flexible yet structured approach to career growth. Let's be clear that there is a great diversity of skillsets in and amongst skilled Mendix (or any) developers, and that diversity is crucial in our multifunctional development teams, so it should not be blocked by having a career framework that is too narrowly defined.

Let's try to take a mental image of a Mendix developer that can really rock your organisation. This is probably someone who is creative, generates business, invents stuff or uses new technologies, solves blocking issues, helps other people out a lot, is visible, etc.. Moreover, these are also usually people who bring in a ton of additional experience from other fields. For example, they may have worked with other LowCode technologies, or they may have years of full stack experience (warning: can be a pro or con!).

Here is where I think I/T/M-shaped thinking can come in handy. When a junior starts out, they learn 1 skill in a vertical direction - the I. Then, when they become senior, they start to branch out to other knowledge. They might become teachers, ór they might learn about additional programming languages, ór become a good business analyst or scrum master as well - the horizontal bar in the T. Finally, after years and years of growth, they might become M-shaped as distinguished developers: these people bring multiple (4+) skills to the table and aggregate them all easily to create a huge impact, even in light of difficult circumstances. Imagine a consultant Enterprise Architect who is also a veteran trainer, knows a variety of high-code languages such as Java, Javascript, SQL, PhP, and then finally is a Mendix Expert and MVP and can present really well in four languages (English, Dutch, French, Spanish). Crucial is that these people can generally make the most impact in difficult circumstances precisely because they bring so much to the table.

To put this into practice, here’s an example of a Mendix career framework that provides a structured foundation for career growth, adaptable to various business needs.

This framework serves as a starting point for defining career paths in Mendix development. While every organization’s needs are unique, this model provides a flexible foundation for structured growth.

For Business Leaders: How does this framework align with your company’s growth strategy? What adjustments would make it work best for your team?

For Mendix Developers: Would this framework help you navigate your career? What would you add to reflect your own growth journey?

What’s your take on this approach? Whether you’re a business leader refining career paths or a Mendix developer mapping your growth, I’d love to hear your perspective. Let’s discuss in the comments.