Subject matter expert meaning: the person who knows
A subject matter expert, or SME, is the person everyone relies on for answers about one area of work, like an old system or a big client. On a project, the SME supplies the facts and someone else writes them up.
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What a subject matter expert is
Subject matter expert meaning at work
A subject matter expert has specialized knowledge of one area of work, such as the billing system or one big client. On a project, SME is more often a role than a job title. The SME answers questions and checks drafts, and somebody else writes the document.
SME as a job title
Some job ads use the letters as the title, as in a forensics SME hired to supply scientific know-how. Those roles pay for what you know more than for managing people.
The other SME
In business, SME also stands for small or medium-sized enterprise, a company below big-corporation size. Australians looked up the meaning of SME 67,150 times in a year. The searches don’t say which SME they meant.
Subject matter, since the 1590s
Subject matter, meaning what a book or a discussion is about, was first recorded between 1590 and 1600. The dictionaries that list the full phrase give no date for its first use.
SMEs at the office
The person everyone asks
Every team has an SME who answers the same question four times a day, so their own work starts after 6 pm. A team that leans on one SME can call that knowledge a moat, since no competitor can copy it. Nobody else on the team can either.
When something urgent breaks, the SME is the first person pulled onto the tiger team.
How people become the SME
Plenty of SMEs never applied for the role. They fixed the reporting script once, and their name went into a comment at the top of the file. When they move to another team, the questions follow them for a year. The questions stop once somebody writes the answer down where the next person can find it.
Vacations and the lottery question
Nobody plans for the SME’s vacation, or for the day they win the lottery. Their out-of-office message names a coworker to ask instead. That coworker forwards every question back to the SME, who comes home to a two-week pile. The fix is a second person who learns half of what the SME knows, and a written page for the rest.
Saying no to the fifth “quick question” of the morning helps too. Our how to professionally say phrasebook has polite wording for that no.
The SME and other teams
Every department sends one
Cross-functional projects run on SMEs, one from each department:
- from finance, the person who understands the budget codes
- from legal, the one who reads the contracts
- from IT, whoever knows the old system
- from sales, whoever handles the big client
Of all the people terms in corporate jargon, SME is the one that names someone a project can’t run without.
An email that names the SME
Subject: Billing migration, who to ask
Hi all, for anything on the old billing system, Priya is our
SMEgo-to person until cutover on the 14th. Please batch your questions into Tuesday’s 30-minute slot so she can still do her own job.
Subject matter expert in a sentence
Let's bring in a subject matter expert before we commit.
Pieter is the only subject matter expert on the billing system, so his vacation days need the CTO's approval.
We're hiring a subject matter expert in payroll tax, Rosa, to train the team before year-end.
They need a subject matter expert on the webinar panel, Quentin, and you once fixed the printer.
Questions about subject matter experts
What does "SME position" mean?
A role where you're the go-to specialist for one area. You answer questions and check work instead of managing a team. Some job ads use SME as a title, as in a forensics SME.
What's another term for subject matter expert?
Specialist, domain expert, go-to person or resident expert. Inside a team, people often skip the title and say "ask Priya".
Is SME a good job?
It can be, since deep knowledge is hard to replace. But that knowledge can also keep you in the same job, because the team can't spare you. Your calendar fills up with other people's questions too.
How do you become an SME?
To become an SME, learn one area of work, like a system, a process or a big client, better than anyone else on the team. By definition, an SME is someone with specialized knowledge in a particular area of work or activity.
What else does SME stand for?
Small or medium-sized enterprise, a business smaller than a large corporation. Dictionaries list both meanings under the same three letters, so the sentence around SME tells you which one is meant.