Views = mine. Engineering Manager at Spotify šŸ¤“šŸ‘©šŸ½ā€šŸ’» āœŠšŸ¾ Whisk(e)y woman šŸ‘©šŸ½ā€šŸ«šŸ„ƒ UVA AlumšŸ”ø Scuba Diver 🤿 IG: womanwithwhiskey

Washington, DC
Joined June 2017
Random internet manager here šŸ‘‹šŸ½ I have so many thoughts here and if you don’t know me, I’m known for building psychologically safe and efficient teams. Some of my favorite compliments I’ve received about my management are: 1- ā€œyour team would run through brick walls for youā€. 2- ā€œyour team doesn’t play about you, even when you’re not aroundā€ 3- many of my engineers saying they’d following me ā€œanywhereā€ I know it’s not common but I LOVE trying to be the best manager I can be to each person on my team. However, I understand that mode of thinking isn’t for everyone. But no matter what your mindset is on management, I truly believe a few ways of working will help you build an effective and stable team that’s built to last. First, the quoted post is right. Some managers intentionally don’t grow engineers to keep the team ā€œstableā€. But if an engineer feels they don’t have room to grow and/or are unhappy, they’re not going to do their best work. Potentially creating a drag on the team until they finally find their exit. If you have motivated people, do your best to align them with what makes them tick and let them soar. Quality people will always be able to leave, help them see the value in staying. And when it does come time for them to leave, don’t take it personal. It’s a job šŸ’œ Second, if onboarding people is a grueling task, dig into why. Yes, people take time to get organizational context, but are there other onboarding changes you could make to make things more smooth? Outdated documentation? Breaking down knowledge siloes? Engineers who don’t want to help their team? Whatever it is, lessen the impact of the onboarding drag. Third, great employees are hard to find. If you find a few, do you really want to lose them because you’re scared they’ll leave? IMHO, I prefer to give these phenomenal employees a work environment that’s hard to find elsewhere. Giving a crap puts you ahead of majority of managers. Fourth, I want to acknowledge that the industry is in a tight spot right now. If you lose someone, you may not get the backfill. Which can feel scary when the workload isn’t decreasing. But even with the potential of losing the headcount, I still stand by the fact that limiting your people’s growth isn’t the fix here. If anything, managers should lean into coaching and aligning their people with high impact work in case the team’s value ever comes into question. Lastly, remember that your best people can always leave. If they’re good enough, there’s likely always another company that wants them. Refusing to nurture their career will only expedite their exit. My approach is to make sure they enjoy their time under my management so I can slowly but surely build my ā€œforever teamā€ of people I’d hire anywhere I work.
Most managers already know how to run great 1:1s. They choose not to because their org punishes them for it. Every experienced manager has heard the advice. Let your reports own the agenda. Focus on their growth. Coach instead of direct. They learned it in their first leadership training. They’ve read the books. They’ve nodded along in the workshops. They still run status update 1:1s. And the reason is structural. A manager who develops their reports well creates people who get promoted out, get poached, or start asking for the manager’s job. A manager who runs low-energy status updates keeps the team stable, dependent, and unlikely to leave. HR tracks attrition as a negative on the manager’s scorecard. Nobody tracks ā€œI developed three people so well they all got promoted in 18 monthsā€ as a win. The incentive math is brutal. Develop your people → they leave → you backfill → you spend 6 months ramping a new hire → your team’s output craters during the transition → your performance review suffers. Run status updates → team stays put → output is predictable → you look like a stable operator. This is why advice like this resonates massively and changes almost nobody’s behavior. The managers reading and bookmarking it will open their next 1:1 on Monday and ask ā€œso what’s your status on the Q2 deliverables?ā€ Because their org rewards exactly that. The managers who actually run great 1:1s tend to work at companies where developing people out of your team is celebrated. Those orgs are rare. And until that changes, most 1:1s stay exactly where they are: status updates with a calendar invite.
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I know Love Is Blind is no stranger to weirdos, but this bunch feels like a special blend of strange.
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Sending love to all the folks working through these PHP vulnerabilities. I hope today is a bit easier and you're able to do something you love doing this weekend.
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Last night I was getting my bi-weekly massage when my massage therapist educated me on the fact that roaches like to live in coffee makers. It's obviously not a problem in my home, but I immediately flashed to all the places I've had a cup of joe šŸ˜‚ I've also been playing with the idea of getting a nice espresso machine off FB Marketplace. That idea is completely dead.
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This morning I realized people have complimented me my entire life on how good I am with money. I’ve never questioned it, but I think my family doing that made me assume this trait as part of who I am. Which in turn made me want to be even better at handling money. A self fulfilling prophecy.
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Another house hunting pro tip
Replying to @engineering_bae
Also, folks should see if they have an "assumable mortgage."
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The prices aren't coming down, but folks I know are having success with approaching home owners who have had their home on the market for a few weeks. If you find an seller in the right situation, you can negotiate a lower price and/or seller credits.
BREAKING: There are now far more people trying to sell homes than buy them. U.S. home sellers outnumber buyers by an estimated 560,000, or 58%, the widest gap on record, per Redfin data going back to 2013.
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I’ve been with Comcast for 17 years and have heard a solid amount of criticism around their internet and/or customer service. As we setup Verizon in our home, I’m here to say they don’t get enough hate.
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Rye Old Fashioned in hand, body freshly bathed, prepping for the week ahead.
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Today I learned about hot water heater *blankets*. There’s so much to owning a stand alone house 🄲 If you’ve done it, what advice would you give to first timers?
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If it helps, we have a basement, sump pumps, fireplaces, mature trees surrounding the house, and a yard.
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Taylor Poindexter retweeted
How Fast Can You Read? Lock In….
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My phone updated to the new iOS last night. I used it for about one hour before the screen went black and refused to turn back on beyond random haptic responses. It eventually responded to my reboot and is functioning fine, but lets see how long this thing lasts.
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We just purchased an older home and our utility room is absolutely terrifying. To help us, I've been trying to find videos of people tackling equally chaotic rooms, but everything I find is someone describing their room how we describe ours but with 25% the amount of chaos. Wish us good fortune! lol
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ā€œYou’re built for what you build for.ā€ This was an awesome reminder from my husband after I told him what I’m *not* built for (distance running in this case lol). I carried this quote with me on my morning run and it energized me to my core.
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Him saying this also immediately made me think of @drgurner helping me be my best and most badass self. Keep these people in your corner.
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Given all the buzz around Yesteryear, I thought I’d love the book but I didn’t. I would sum it up as ā€œfineā€.
I'm starting to read Yesteryear tonight and I'm so excited.
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I’ve still consistently been able to take on stretch projects that are slowly building me into the future Director of Engineering that I want to be.
What’s some career wins you’ve had recently that you’re excited about? We hear a lot of doom and gloom about the industry but we know folks are still finding wins where they can.
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TIL some colleges are having Computer Science majors learn a programming language called Dr. Racket. I had never heard of this language until a recent interview lol
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There are so many sick people on this plane and I’m beyond grateful hubby and I are masked down. There’s too much going on in life for us to become sick 🄲
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