The Arm KSA Framework is super-set of the competencies (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) that the semiconductor industry needs from early career software and hardware engineers.
The Education team at Arm, along with contributions from 100+ Arm engineers and external stakeholders, has been developing a competency framework, which is a comprehensive super-set of the KSAs that the semiconductor industry needs from early career software or hardware engineers. The framework is structured in four strands:
• Personal skills
• Social and team skills
• Knowledge
• Technical skills
These strands unpack into a total of over 750 statements.
Development work on the KSA Framework began with intensive research into the current understanding of the skills and knowledge used by entry-level software and hardware engineers. This included academic and industry research and models, resulting in a draft structure and initial content.
Following the design of this draft, multiple rounds of consultations were carried out with software and hardware engineers in a variety of specialisms. Over 100 Arm engineers provided feedback. The structure and content of the Framework were adapted accordingly. To ensure the Framework reflected a variety of relevant perspectives consultees included senior engineers, hiring managers, graduates and interns. They also included members of Employee Resource Groups focused on issues connected with diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as engineers who had experienced school and higher education in countries outside Europe and North America.
The central questions addressed in consultations was: does the Framework capture the knowledge, skills and abilities that are valuable to entry-level engineers? If not, what’s missing? How can it be changed or augmented to match your expectations and experiences? Throughout each consultation feedback was recorded on elements of the Framework (see below for an explanation of its structure):
- Technical skills
- Knowledge
- Additional information, such as the programming languages currently used in connection with a particular skill
The Framework represents the sum total of the research, consultation and iterative development work described above. One would not expect a single engineer to be proficient in all the KSAs. Instead, the Framework represents a super-set of skills and knowledge for entry-level engineers across software and hardware specialisms.
It can help to visualise the framework as a tree diagram. The framework is a nested hierarchy built around four strands. Each strand expands to either four or five levels. Each new level breaks down the previous level into a greater level of detail or ‘granularity’.
Strand 1 includes four levels: Personal Skills, Sub-strands, Skill sets and Exemplar skills Strand 2 includes four levels: Social & Team skills, Sub-strands, Skill sets and Exemplar skills Strand 3 includes four levels: Knowledge, Sub-strands, Knowledge areas and Knowledge statements Strand 4 includes five levels: Technical skills, Sub-strand, Skill sets, Skills and Skill descriptors Another feature of the Framework is Additional Fields. They include examples of the tools, platforms, programming languages, methodologies and techniques which are applied by entry level engineers in the context of a specific skill or knowledge area. Separating this detail enables the KSAs to be presented at a level of abstraction such that they focus on principles rather than capturing their current implementations, which can change both over short timeframes and between specialisms.
The Framework is presented in an Excel workbook. The workbook contains ten worksheets:
- Contents: Quick links between the sheets in the workbook and references
- Framework strands & description: Description of the four strands of the Framework
- Structure overview: Description of the structure of each of the four strands
- Strand 1: Complete content: sub-strands, sub-strand descriptions, skill sets, and example skills, for Strand 1: Personal skills
- Strand 2: Complete content: sub-strands, sub-strand descriptions, skill sets, and example skills, for Strand 2: Social & Team skills
- Overview of Strand 3: Higher level content: sub-strands, sub-strand descriptions, and knowledge areas, for Strand 3: Knowledge
- Strand 3: Complete content for Strand 3: sub-strands, sub-strand descriptions, knowledge areas, knowledge statements and additional fields, for Strand 3: Knowledge
- Overview of Strand 4: Higher level content: sub-strands, skill sets, and skill set descriptions, for Strand 4: Technical Skills
- Strand 4 SW sub-strand: Complete content: skill sets, skill set descriptions, skills, skill descriptors and additional fields for the software engineering technical skills sub-strand in Strand 4
- Strand 4 HW sub-strand: Complete content: skill sets, skill set descriptions, skills, skill descriptors and additional fields for the hardware engineering technical skills sub-strand in Strand 4
It is important to note that although Strand 4 is separated into hardware and software skills, this does not imply that an engineer working in e.g. a hardware specialism would only apply skills from the hardware sub-strand. No engineering role would rely solely on content from one of the sub-strands.
The KSA framework is focused on technical roles, rather than leadership or management career pathways. As such, it complements other frameworks. One of the strengths of the KSA framework is that it is adaptable. If, on occasion, new KSAs are identified that are not represented in the framework, they can be added in consultation with communities of engineers. This open process ensures that the language used to describe a KSA meets the needs of as many different engineering specialisms as possible. The outcome, we hope, is a common language to describe KSAs across an organization, and broader industry. The process also ensures that education and training interventions (built on top of KSA frameworks) can be developed and implemented quickly to meet emerging job market needs.
The Framework has been published under an EULA which enables other organisations to use the Framework and create their own versions, subject to licensing terms. Our hope is that, driven by our Semiconductor Education Alliance, the Framework will provide a Foundation for developing a common understanding of the competencies required across the semiconductor sector.
When approaching constructing a version of the Arm KSA Framework you may find it helpful to consider the following questions:
- For what collection of roles and level of expertise are you constructing the content?
- From what groups do you want representation? E.g. Hiring managers, graduates, from different offices, from different projects or working teams, from specific designated groups
- How will you introduce the Framework?
- Will those consulting feedback on the whole Framework or specific subsections?
- How will you manage collecting feedback and version control?
- At what level of granularity will you make amendments?
Our End-User Licence Agreement (EULA) permits you to adapt the KSA Framework subject to certain conditions. Please refer to the EULA for details.
Arm is committed to making the language we use inclusive, meaningful, and respectful. Our goal is to remove and replace non-inclusive language from our vocabulary to reflect our values and represent our global ecosystem. Arm is working actively with our partners, standards bodies, and the wider ecosystem to adopt a consistent approach to the use of inclusive language and to eradicate and replace offensive terms. We recognise that this will take time. This material may contain references to non-inclusive language; it will be updated with newer terms as those terms are agreed and ratified with the wider community. Contact us at [email protected] with questions or comments about this resource. You can also report non-inclusive and offensive terminology usage in Arm content at [email protected]