Platform Concepts
To get the most out of Illumera, it is important to understand the fundamental concepts that drive the federated marketplace.
The Five Operating Questions
Illumera's architecture is designed to answer five critical questions for every organization in the federal contracting space:
1. Inventory — "Who do we have?" A real-time ledger of all personnel within your organization and across partner networks, with full profile and skill data.
2. Capability — "What can they do?" A granular, standardized taxonomy maps the exact skills, certifications, and proficiency levels of every individual.
3. Capacity — "When are they available?" Availability status and committed hours per week for each individual, keeping the network informed of who can take on new work.
4. Allocation — "Where should they go?" Intelligent matching connects capabilities and capacity to specific project requirements and open slots across six scoring dimensions.
5. Execution — "How do we execute?" End-to-end management of engagements — from invitation through active work to completion — with full audit trail and notification history.
The Talent Network
Illumera uses a relational data model connecting people, skills, projects, project slots, and companies. This structure allows the matching engine to evaluate candidates against multi-dimensional slot requirements, combining deterministic scoring with AI-assisted signal calibration.
The "federated" aspect means talent can be sourced from your own organization, from partner companies on the platform, or from independent professionals — all scored through the same engine on a level playing field.
Skill Taxonomy
Illumera maintains a standardized skill taxonomy to eliminate ambiguity. Each person selects skills from this shared set and self-rates their proficiency. Slots define required skills, and matching compares person skills directly against slot requirements using proficiency-weighted scoring.
Five Proficiency Levels:
| Level | Description |
|---|---|
| Aware | Familiarity with the concept; aware of its existence and use cases. |
| Beginner | Can apply with guidance; learning through practice. |
| Intermediate | Independent practical application; regularly uses in work. |
| Advanced | Deep applied knowledge; solves complex problems with this skill. |
| Expert | Recognized authority; designs systems, teaches others, sets standards. |
Match Scoring — Six Dimensions
When you view a candidate or a project, you will see a Match Score (0–100%). This score is computed across six independent dimensions:
- Skill Match — Proficiency-weighted overlap between the person's skills and the slot's required skills.
- Culture Fit — Alignment between work-style preferences using CVF archetype scoring (Collaborative, Innovative, Results-Driven, Structured).
- Cost Efficiency — Person's target rate relative to the slot's budget ceiling.
- Experience — Seniority level and domain depth relevant to the role.
- Availability — Person's available hours per week versus slot requirements.
- Domain Depth — Specialization in the project's primary technology domain.
Each dimension produces a 0–1 score. A deterministic baseline is computed first; for the AI-assisted dimensions (culture fit, experience, domain depth), Anthropic Claude provides a calibration delta that accounts for signal quality and profile completeness.
Seniority Levels
Talent profiles and project slots use a six-level seniority scale:
| Level | Typical profile |
|---|---|
| Junior | Early career; learning under guidance. |
| Mid | Independent contributor; 3–5 years practical experience. |
| Senior | Leads delivery; deep domain expertise. |
| Lead | Technical or team leadership; cross-functional influence. |
| Principal | Organization-wide technical authority. |
| Fellow | Recognized industry expert; sets long-term direction. Note: the experience scoring engine does not yet have a dedicated rank entry for fellow; it currently falls back to the mid-equivalent rank in match score computation. |
Work Environment Compatibility
The Culture Fit dimension uses the Competing Values Framework (CVF) — a validated organizational culture model — to measure work environment alignment between candidates and companies.
Both candidates and companies complete a structured questionnaire. The resulting archetype vectors (Collaborative / Innovative / Results-Driven / Structured) are compared using a weighted dot-product alignment: the person's CVF scores are multiplied by the reference (slot or company) archetype weights, summed, and scaled to a [0.25, 0.95] range. Constraint penalties are then applied for mismatches in work mode, travel tolerance, clearance level, and schedule preferences.
This is a key differentiator for Illumera: culture fit is explainable, structured, and based on validated frameworks — not keyword tags or gut instinct. In the gig economy, where contractors move between multiple organizations, work environment compatibility is often the difference between a successful engagement and an early termination.