team-archetypeslisted

# Team Archetypes — compose by posture, not by title As engineering, product, design, and DS melt into a new kind of role, the durable unit of a team isn't the job function — it's the **posture** someone takes toward the work at a given stage. Boris Cherny (Claude Code) named five archetypes that recur across every function: the same person can be a Prototyper on one project and a Maintainer on another; a designer, an engineer, and a PM can each be any of the five. This skill is a lens for **composing a team — of humans OR of AIOS agents — by archetype, matched to product stage.** ## The five archetypes | # | Archetype | What they do | Posture | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | **Prototyper** | Churns out brand-new ideas; most don't ship | Generative, throwaway-tolerant, speed over polish | | 2 | **Builder** | Turns a prototype/idea into production-grade product/infra | Hardening, end-to-end ownership | | 3 | **Sweeper** | Simplifies code/systems, unships, optimizes, cleans UI | Subtractive, entropy-fighting | | 4 | **Grower** | Iterates a *built* product to improve Product-Market Fit | Experiment-driven, metric-chasing | | 5 | **Maintainer** | Owns a mature system: secure, reliable, fast, efficient at scale | Stewardship, operational rigor | Most people (and most good agents) span **2–3** of these. Archetype is **not** tied to job function — it's a disposition toward the work. ## The core move — match the mix to the stage A healthy team needs a *mix*, and the right mix depends