This is my recent setup, and two years in, I'm really happy with it so far.
- One Manager (1 Appraiser, 1 Judge of Intent, 3 Negotiator, 5 Manager)
The expedition leader and trader. Probably has high connections in the Mountainhomes, which allowed him to get this cushy job despite being underqualified and generally disliked by his underlings. The other dwarves do their best to get things done in spite of him.
- One Commander (1 Weaponsmith, 1 Axedwarf, 5 Armor User, 3 Shield User)
When the fortress is getting off the ground, he does woodcutting; later, he puts that axe to other uses. This dwarf got my second Strange Mood in this fortress (which is what the point of Weaponsmithing was hoping for), resulting in a Legendary Weaponsmith and an artifact iron spear, so I'm cross-training this dwarf as a speardwarf so he can carry his own artifact into battle.
- One Doctor (5 Diagnostician, various points in the other medical skills)
Chief Medical Dwarf and general dwarfitarian, she's upset that the military dwarves keep getting injured in stupid ways, but does her best to patiently patch them up anyway. In the early seasons of this fort, she's been a food-producer through Butchery (who better than a triage surgeon to deconstruct a mule?) and Herbalism (knows which plants are medicinal/poisonous because she's tasted them all to see what they do).
- One Thinker (5 Mechanic, 5 Bowyer)
The brains of the operation, but nobody really listens to him because they're too busy with their own various insanities. I like to imagine that this dwarf is the one that is actually planning the dig designations and fortress layout. A sort of dwarven Da Vinci, he ends up with a little bit of all sorts of technical skills (I have him do a lot of carpentry at the outset of the fortress), and is the most likely to eventually be a multi-Legendary dwarf. He also does the bookkeeping, because nobody else here is fastidious enough to care about counting all the orthoclase in the fortress.
- One Fortress Foredwarf (5 Mason, 5 Building Designer)
Ruthless and efficient, this no-nonsense taskmaster keeps the working dwarves in line. She's the one holding the blueprints, issuing the orders, and keeping the miners and masons operating at peak efficiency (or else). As the sheriff, she has the authority to back up her threats with Justice. She's a dwarf with big ambitions and dreams of glory, and she's not about to allow her lazy and incompetent peers to hold her back.
- Two Laborers (no skills)
They do the mining, the heavy lifting, and whatever else is unsavory but necessary. Commoners or criminals from the Mountainhomes, they've accepted this lowly position with an almost-certainly-doomed fortress expedition as a ticket out of their old lives of poverty or imprisonment, with an opportunity to improve their lots. Maybe they will become legends and heroes, great warriors and builders of a new palatial dwarven kingdom. Maybe they will die horribly and be forgotten. No one really cares which!