Abraham Maslow introduced his now-famous hierarchy of needs in 1943, proposing that people had to achieve a sequential set of conditions to attain complete fulfilment. The five levels of the hierarchy were represented as a pyramid to convey the idea that higher levels, such as self-actualization, could not be reached until lower levels, such as basic physiological needs, were first conquered.
A few years ago, LinkedIn’s engineering leader Kevin Scott (now CTO and SVP at Microsoft) created a Maslow-inspired “Engineering Hierarchy of Needs” to help guide the development of our technology organization.
