B-0001 Badging System / Skills Competency
BUILDER GRANTS
Call for proposals for the MVP Wave closes at 11:59pm PT on January 26, 2022.
About this Grant
Type: Problem Solving
Mentor: Shreena Amin, VP Product Management, Freelance Labs Inc.
Project Length:
7 weeks
Estimated: 10-15 hrs/week (95 hrs total)
Deadline: April 8, 2022
Contribution Overview
Product Management
Compensation $14,250
Option 1: 50/50 Split USDC to BTRST
Option 2: 70/30 Split USDC to BTRST
The amount of BTRST will be determined based on the USD value of the grant (30 day trailing average USD price of the token at time of grant issued). Add’l FAQs for compensation can be found here.
Grant Overview
As a Product Manager, you will explore, research, and test different solutions that enable skills assessments for talent on the Braintrust network looking to validate their experience and skills. Ultimately, you will recommend a solution and work with the Braintrust design team to make recommendations on risk/rewards, cost, scalability options technical feasibility, etc. This work will supplement a larger project around talent validation.
About the Project
1. What is the Problem or Opportunity?
GSV is directly attributed to the job fill rate on the Braintrust platform. The more jobs that are filled - at a higher frequency - the more GSV is earned. Continuing to grow the Platform with high quality, skills-aligned talent remains one of the key factors in improving the job fill rate and GSV. One of the largest obstacles in growing an excellent talent pool is the slow and manual vetting/screening process.
The current process is reliant on human screeners who may or may not be able to assess certain technical skills with a high level of confidence. Validating seniority and technical skill proficiency is vital to clients who rely on the vetting system to interview, and ultimately hire Braintrust talent.
Braintrust is seeking a skills assessment program that would allow Braintrust talent to validate their skills in an effort to gain approval status and also create important differentiators in the form of badges and certifications.
2. Why now?
In order to increase fill rate, the talent pool needs to grow exponentially while also helping talent differentiate themselves and help clients select the most well-matched talent.
3. Project Overview
This problem-solving grant requires high-level strategic problem-solving to evaluate how Braintrust can automate portions of the screening process to approve more talent, more quickly and increase the number of qualified and vetted talent on the platform.
The grantee must determine the best solution for fulfilling the requirements and goals of this project.
Should there be a self-built and self-managed external solution?
Should the solution tie into a learning platform with customizable courses?
Should the solution link to an existing skills assessment platform with pre-built courses?
Options should be evaluated for risk, reward, ongoing costs, extensibility, technical feasibility, scalability, and usability. Options should be tested and implementation recommendations should be included as a final deliverable.
3a. High-Level Requirements / Outputs
Skills verification is a broad topic, but to a narrow scope, the product solution should first solve to evaluate and assess top engineering languages, frameworks, technologies, etc. The solution should assess seniority and competency for the following engineering languages:
C++
C#
GoLang
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Objective C
Python
Swift
PHP
Ruby
Rust
Solidity
TypeScript
The solution should be evaluated for
Risks / Rewards
On-Going costs
Extensibility:
Flexibly able to add additional skills verifications in the future:
Engineering Frameworks and technologies (List)
Technical Skills associated with additional roles (Design, Product Management, Marketing, etc)
Soft Skills: written/ verbal communication, interpersonal scores, English proficiency, project management, organizational skills, etc
Technical Feasibility: How easily can the solution integrate with the Braintrust platform?
Could the solution add badges to a talent’s profile? To a talent’s proposal?
Scalability:
How can additional community members write and contribute to the assessments?
Provide a final recommendation on how future Educator Grants could be used to create additional assessments.
Usability:
What would the user experience be like?
How much customization to create a branded experience is available?
After defining a proposed solution, there should be additional in-depth documentation and recommendations on how to best implement the solution:
Cost Analysis - estimated ongoing costs / recommended levels (if necessary)
Extensibility overview - how might the tool test for other hard/soft skills in the future?
Technical Feasibility - review the solutions with the Core Code team to understand the effort/risks/concerns related to technical implementation.
Scalability recommendations: Provide a final recommendation on how future Educator Grants could be used to create additional assessments.
Usability: provide high-level recommendations on potential workflows to evaluate in the future and any customization recommendations for a branded experience.
The final recommended solution should run a pilot/test program that assesses its effectiveness. The grantee will be expected to design and execute this test and iterate on the implementation of the recommended solution based on results.
Please note: A similar pilot project has been run for English skills assessment. You should evaluate the process/testing done for this project to help inform the evaluation you will run for this project.
The final project should include the following:
Summary of research, testing, and data that informed the recommended solution.
Solution Implementation Recommendations.
Future high-level versioning and recommended release plans for product roll-out.
4. Milestones & Checkpoints
All contributors will be expected to record a 1-2 minute summary video to be shared with the community in the monthly Growth Reports video. Additional periodic written updates will be expected.
Anticipated Timeline and milestones (subject to change):
Week 1 (estimated 10 hours)
Kickoff with Mentor
Review Requirements / Expectations
Provide Access
Decide meeting/ check in cadence
Develop research plan
Week 2: Research and written recommendation (estimated 15 hours)
Week 3: Additional evaluation and written recommendation (estimated 15 hours)
MILESTONE ONE: Planning and research is completed
Week 4: Pilot Program design and recruiting. (estimated 20 hrs) Week 5: Pilot Program testing (estimated 15 hrs)
MILESTONE TWO: Pilot Program is completed
Week 6: Refine recommendation documentation (estimated 15 hrs)
Week 7: Finalize recommendation documentation (estimated 10 hrs)
MILESTONE THREE: Project is completed, grant payout is expected
Timelines and requirements will be confirmed between all parties during the Kickoff. Minor adjustments and accommodations will be made. Project Delivery can be adjusted up to two weeks. Additional changes in requirements or timelines will need to be documented using a Change Request.
The Contributor
This grant is available to any Level 1 - Level 3 Braintrust Contributor. You will be asked to submit your Discord username in your application to verify contributor status.
This project requires a senior level problem solver with experience in Product Management and Engineering:
Strong experience in gathering product requirements and product evaluations
Strong Django/Python skills to integrate into existing backend systems
Strategic thinker
This project is available for a team of contributors:
Teams must submit a single proposal that includes identified individuals that will cover all aspects of the project.
The Proposal should include a breakdown of which individual on the team will be completing each requirement.
Individuals cannot submit a proposal for a portion of the grant requirements. Grant compensation must be shared between the team members.
The best contributors to the Braintrust project:
Have a strong sense of commitment to the Braintrust platform and their fellow community members who will benefit from their contributions.
Are proactive and clear communicators that keep mentors updated with wins, challenges, and blockers.
Take ownership of their work, and embody a “figure it out” mentality that is driven by their desire to make Braintrust the best network.
Are strong project managers who identify challenges and communicate solutions early and often. They appreciate the mentors who are there to guide their work, not manage the project.
About the Selection Process
| Schedule | Date |
|---|---|
Call for Submissions | January 12, 2022 |
Submissions Close | January 26, 2022 |
Last day for interviews | February 11, 2022 |
Selection Date | February 16, 2022 |
Offer Acceptance Date | February 18, 2022 |
Project Kickoff | February 21, 2022 |
Estimated Project Delivery | April 8, 2022 |
About the Selection Process
Additional questions about this grant should be added to this public FAQ doc. Questions will be answered by the Grant Mentor, Shreena Amin.
Additional Notes about Projects in the Grant Program:
Grant compensation includes both the time and materials needed to complete the project. A portion of the grant can be requested up front to cover material costs. These expenses are approved by the Grants committee.
All projects are completed open source for the benefit of the community. Grant contributors do not own the IP associated with their grant.
All grants have an expectation of thorough and public documentation that can be used by future contributors that want to enhance / improve upon past efforts, document process and how-to, FAQs.
Grants require a 1 year service agreement (up to 10 additional hours) to accommodate bug fixing, updates to libraries, etc.
There is a formal process by which the Grants Committee and/or Grantee can request a change to the scope/ compensation/timelines of this project. The changes must be agreed upon by both parties.
Propos
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