I'm looking forward to getting to know you! This document is not intended to replace or override the relationship and mutual understanding we will build as we work together. Its intention is to give you an idea of how I think and how I work.
TL;DR: I am here to make sure our team is successful, happy and working on the things that are most important to our team, engineering organisation and keeping our customers and business secure.
More granularly:
- I am here to make sure you are both successful and happy. I want you to improve your technical skills, grow your career, enjoy your work, and believe in both our team's and our company's mission.
- I am here to make sure our team is successful and pointed in the right direction. I am here to make sure our team is all aligned and pushing in the same direction.
- I am here to make sure our team is getting what we need from other teams, and that other teams are getting what they need from us; I'm also here to help make sure we are working on the right things, which is not necessarily everything we are asked to do.
- I fully intend to get stuck in and engineer solutions too!
These are in approximate order of importance. If you are not successful and happy, our team is not successful (or happy). If our team is struggling, creating secure solutions will most likely not be my top priority.
Additionally: My job is not to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. I have a servant-leadership management style, so im here to encourage, motivate, support you. Provide foresight and get out of your way whilst you crack on with tasks at hand.
If you have feedback for me, please give it. It could be something you liked and would like to see more of, something you thought I could do better, something you thought I totally screwed up, or something that doesn't fit in any of these categories. Even if you think it might not be the case, I do want to hear it. And if you think I don't want to hear it, I'd love to hear why you feel that way.
If you can give me this feedback face-to-face (Zoom/Meet or in person), that's my preference. If you're only comfortable kicking off a discussion with an email or a Slack message, I would rather you do that than not bring it up at all.
If you're not comfortable giving me some feedback yourself, I'd love for you to give it to someone above me in the management chain so they can anonymously relay it to me.
Similarly, if you have feedback for a team member or colleague, I encourage you to give it to them directly; if you're not comfortable doing so, let's chat and I can either get the feedback to them or we can figure out a way to deliver it in a method that makes you comfortable.
I will put 30 minutes in your calendar bi-weekly for a one-on-one. If you need more time, let me know and I will adjust. I will probably schedule our first one-on-one for an hour just to be sure we have time to go over the team mission and other introductory things; don't feel the need to prepare for it.
One-on-ones are your time. I will probably have some things to discuss with you, but this is first and foremost your opportunity to let me know how you're doing, what you need, what you wish could be different, how you feel about our team and your teammates, what your career goals are... etc. These are for the conversations you might not necessarily have with me when we're sitting at our desks amongst coworkers. If you'd like to give me a brief status update on things you're working on or that you're stuck on, that is fine with me, but those are generally better-suited to a quick chat, an @ on a Github issue, a Slack message, or a separate meeting.
I encourage you to write down some things throughout the week that you want to chat about if you think that will help, since it can sometimes be hard to think of or bring up things in the moment. If you have things you want to talk about but struggle with bringing them up, feel free to send me a vague agenda ahead of time. If you don't know what to talk about, say so. We can use that as a topic.
These are some interesting articles I've read about one-on-ones, though I don't necessarily agree with all of the points: 1, 2. If you have thoughts on either, that might make a good topic to include in a one-on-one.
I will give you feedback on how you're doing continuously, including in our one-on-ones. If I'm worried about your performance, I will let you know. My goal is for you to never be unsure about how you're performing (and how I think you're performing). If you ever feel unsure about either of these things, please let me know.
I currently work in a hybrid fashion with most of that time in-office. I generally consider my work hours to be 8am to 6pm, though this can vary depending on meetings. If I am not available during my normal hours for some reason, I will mark it in my Slack status (and on my calendar if I am out for a day or more).
I will update this readme if a in-office option arises for our team or organisation.
I will get a sense of your normal working hours as we begin working together, and I will make a strong effort not to message you outside of these hours because I know many people have Slack notifications sent to their phone. I will sometimes send emails outside of your working hours (especially if we're in different time zones), as emails don't tend to notify people quite as intrusively; you should not feel obligated to respond until you are working. With Slack I tend to use the "schedule message" functionality if I am sending a message outside of your usual working times, since it tends to trigger a notification. If you are receiving after-hours Slack messages from me with any frequency, please let me know—it may mean I'm misunderstanding the hours you normally work.
If for any reason I do urgently need you outside of your normal working hours, I will page you. Hopefully extremely rarely (if ever).
Similarly, if you email or Slack me outside of my working hours, I may not respond quickly. I do try to keep up with notifications in case there's anything urgent, but if I read a message and it's non-urgent, I may leave it until the next working day. If you have something non-urgent you want to tell me and it's outside of my work hours, I don't mind if you Slack me, though I always appreciate an explicit note that it's non-urgent! If you need me urgently outside of work hours, paging me is the best way to get hold of me, though you can always try Slack too first.
- Slack me or set up an impromptu Zoom or Google Meet.
- Throw something on my calendar. If I am scheduled for an interview or something else I can't reschedule and you invite me to a meeting, I may chat with you and reschedule. If you see that I've blocked off the day or time block as "meeting-free", that does not apply to you—it's more to discourage folks outside the team from scheduling non-urgent meetings that day that could be scheduled otherwise. If you need to talk, schedule over this as much as you need.
Even though we work remote on some days, you can expect me to be as available as I would be if I was in the office. Although it may feel weird to schedule a brief Zoom meeting when you'd normally just swing by a desk for five minutes, please do so without hesitation if you think chatting face-to-face or screen-sharing will be more useful than textual communication.
Take this document with a grain of salt. I have never experienced having me as a manager. If I'm your Technical Lead (TL) and something here seems off, open a pull request or issue, or (probably more comfortably) bring it up to me in one-on-one or over Slack. 😃
This document is meant to focus on how I work and what to expect from me. We will discuss expectations I have of you and the rest of the team soon after we begin working together, and I will link you to an internal onboarding information where possible.
Here are some things I love. If you ever want to strike up casual conversation and don't know what to talk about, these are some good bets.
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Indoor climbing / bouldering. I started back in early 2019 and didnt make an effort during lockdown (2020-21). Come 2022 I am enjoying being back on the wall, I climb at around v3 - v4 which is 6A - 6B+ hoping to get this to a v5 | 6C+ over the remainder of this year. Currently in need of a new pair of climbing shoes..not climbed since Feb as my shoes were stolen, lol.
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Cycling & running. Have cycled from Birmingham to London over a 24 hour period as well as ran numerous 5ks, 10kms and a few half marathons. Not ran a bunch this year but booked in for a December 10k.
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I like to read, both fiction and non-fiction. I am always looking for suggestions. I read Bad Blood over Christmas, and am currently reading High Output Management by Andrew Grove, whilst commuting. Another book ive started very recently and almost finished with is surrounded by idiots, a great read. Yet another book started with others not being finished yet is Radical Candor.
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Cooking. I dont do it often but when I do I like to give it my full attention. I always want to hear about new recipes you've tried or want to try, or just chat about cooking in general. I am quite the foodie. Winter is here! and so are roasted veggie soaps, AMA.