I am an engineering leader. I am responsible for an engineering department or team, including personnel and productivity. My primary concerns are the everyone on the team is happy, informed, and productive, and that our stakeholders are equally happy with the work that we are doing. My primary concerns are:
- Happiness and development of engineers
- Success of business areas within my domain
- Managing and evolving engineering and team processes to be as efficient as possible
I love to communicate asynchronously. I prefer Slack communication over all other forms so that I can handle multiple conversation simultaneously. I also enjoy using gifs and emoticons, sometimes for comedic effect. Slack is just more fun than email and it's easier for me to manage my notifications.
I generally work from 09:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday, often starting sooner or ending later. I don't mind being contacted outside of those hours, but if I am busy, I might not respond until the morning.
If you want to meet with me in-person or on a video call, please use our calendar system and schedule an appointment. You should be able to see my schedule slots there. I do not like having to decline meetings because someone didn't use the technology available fors cheduling meetings. If you need to schedule something outside of busienss hours, reach out to me on Slack first and ask.
Ideally, everyone I work with cares about the same things that I do and we all work as hard as we are able to bring our dreams to reality. My goal is inform everyone of our goals, and work as a team to bring them about. Some notes about my management processes:
- I believe in bi-weekly 1:1s. This meeting is owned by you (the direct report / coachee). If you do not have anything that you want to talk about at the appointed time, we can skip it. Just let me know. Similarly, my doors are always open if you have something outside the scheduled 1:1 times.
- I expect everyone on our team, myself included, to care about our work and about our fellow teammates. Please try to prioritise team events. It is really important to me that we work together well and care for one another. Everyone on the team needs to know that we have each others' backs.
- I expect people to be honest and respectful to each other. We are all here to do the best we can. Please be understanding of that and respect and be kind to each other. There is no room for hate on my team. If you do have personal issues with other teammates, or with me, I epect you to be an adult and work that out with each other and learn how to work together.
- I expect you to be professional and do the best work that you can do, while being a humble team player. No shaming or finger-pointing please, and step up when you feel something needs to be done. We have regular retrospectives, so you should use these as an opportunity to improve our processes.
- I expect you to manage your own time. You're a well-paid engineer. If you're blocked by something, communicate with your teammates and get unblocked. If something is blocked and you cannot proceed, find something else to work on. if nothing is obvious to work on, talk to me, the product owner, or your teammates and see if anyone could use a hand on what they're working on. There are almost always code reviews and documentation that need doing.
- Testing and Documentation. Sometimes we are working in go-mode and we take some shortcuts and don't have great testing or documentation. This happens, but is not ideal. I expect you to always update documentation and testing with every feature developed. Are your tests sufficient for you to feel confident to release code? Good! Then release code! If not, write more tests!
- I am a bit of a non-conformist, especially with respect to my gender identity. I dress a bit gender-neutral most of the time. My pronouns are
she/her. It doesn't bother me if you usetheyorthemeither. I'm queer and I use that word liberally and don't mind if you do too. If you have a problem with the way that I speak about queer issues, let's have a chat and find common ground. - Like many of my fellow Americans, I have a loud voice. Unlike most Americans - especially Californians, I am very direct and I do not speak in superlatives unless something really deserves it. For example, it's very common for everything in California to be "Amazing!!!" and "Like, oh my god, that's fantastic!!!". I'm chill. when I say something is "good." It's really good and you should be proud of it! Almost everything can be improved and when you do get the "OMG, Amazing!", you'l; know I really mean it!
- I was in the Iraq war, and I have some hearing damage - mostly in my right ear. If I look like I didn't hear you, maybe I didn't. Please be patient and help me to hear and understand.
- I have a large, fluffy sweet dog and really like bringing her to work. If you have a problem with me bringing my dog to work, or with anything that she's doing, or how I'm managing her, please talk to me.
- I have an over-developed sense of responsibility and will try hard not to let you down.
- I check slack and mail frequently after work and on weekends, and sometimes send slack messages or emails off-hours. This is largely because once the message is read, I don't want to forget to respond, so I just do it then and there. If this happens, and you receive one of these, I don't expect you to respond or jump to action unless I use all-caps URGENT. Even then, if you can't respond for whatever reason, we'll find a way out of it, but I'd appreciate your help if it comes to this.
- Diversity and inclusion: Everyone is respected and included. No cliques or judgment. No finger-pointing or shaming.
- Working together as a family on our project. I expect you to care about each other and about the work we are working on together. We are all in this together, so do your part to help us succeed. together. If you feel like someone is not pulling their weight, help them understand that it is important to you. Lead by example.
- Open and psychologically safe communication. Immediate feedback given. Feedback received gracefully. Do not hold back feedback for colleagues or leads.
- Titles have no value. All people can contribute to all areas regardless of title or experience.
- Working from Home is awesome and you should do it often. When you do, please put even more effort into being present on chat and email than you do in the office. Check in and out!
- Sickness sucks. If you're sick, stay home and don't get everyone else sick. Drink fluids, and get your strength back. If you can and want to still work, you're always welcome to stay home and work remotely, getting as much or as little time in on work as you are comfortable doing. Working from Home advice above applies.