# Andreja Dulovic's Manager Readme **Head of Data Engineering at abcam** # Hello Hi, my name is Andreja. I’ve been in technology for a long time. The first time I wrote useful code and got some compensation for it was in 1997. The app calculated a distribution of static weight load on a carrying beam to predict the breaking point.  In the meantime I first became an engineer in telecommunications, then a solution/integration architect, team lead in Cloud and DevEx, and a product manager. Today I lead Engineering teams especially in the Data domain.  Throughout my career I focused on leading teams and making sure that groups of people (mostly engineers) deliver things which make profit and pay our salaries, so to say. Although I still keep up to date with technology - managing engineers and “taming chaos” of development is my main focus. It makes me happy to see a well-functioning group of people who cooperate towards the same goals and deliver with excellence. I still code a bit in my free time, mostly in node.js or Python. Let me know if you’d like to test my webapp for simple project management. Writing about leadership in tech is also a hobby of mine, I post mostly on [www.andrejadulovic.com](http://www.andrejadulovic.com). # What is this document about? This manager’s readme document outlines what can you expect from me regarding us working together. I hope it will help us understand each other's values, and expectations. This document is by no means a substitute for one-on-one recurring meetings where we will aim to help each other. The purpose of this readme is to help us have a good start as soon as possible.  If you have your readme document, please share it with me, I am interested to read it. **_The following chapters are mostly intended for team members who report to me directly or indirectly._** # How can I support you? As your (in)direct manager, I will periodically ask you about your ambitions and what would you like to  experience in the following period at work. We can balance **some (!)** of the team’s work according to people’s motives and engagement. Of course, we must prioritize business objectives first, because achieving them is how we all earn our salaries. A big part of my job is to match the right people with right work and their motives, so our teams can grow professionally and increase productivity. As your manager am here to provide you with guidance, coaching, opportunities to have a bigger impact, and to support you. Regardless of your seniority, you can expect that I will share with you my honest, direct, and unambiguous views about your work (feedback) # Our one-on-one meetings I have regular one-on-one meetings with all my direct and indirect reports. The main purpose of these meetings is to exchange feedback and talk about how can we help each other. One-on-one meetings are yours as much they are mine, even more yours. Use our one-on-ones with me to talk about your career and aspirations, offer your perspective on technology, processes, culture, ask for my support, or offer your ideas. Development plans and performance assessments are just a part of what we will do together. # Feedback culture and habits  You can expect regular feedback from me. I will first ask you how do you like to receive feedback because I’ve met different people in my career and learned that one type of communication doesn’t fit everyone.  The main purpose of feedback is to help each other (and indirectly, the company) to achieve our best results. But feedback is not just between a manager and a report, it is also a matter of culture among the team members. It is my job to create and maintain the culture of open and constructive feedback within the team. Please don’t forget to give me feedback and offer your opinions on my work, I would appreciate that. Also, please don’t wait for our recurring one-on-one if you need to talk with me. **Just reach out.** # Ownership mentality  I highly value ownership mentality. For me, ownership means “starting and finishing actions to reach a goal”. It means that a person _doesn’t wait_ to be told how to do something, but takes proactive action on their own to discover (ask or research) how to move forward. Having ownership means that one doesn’t need “handholding”, doesn’t need a “personal assistant”, and acts like a manager of their own workload.  Ownership is a significant aspect of being engaged at work. Ownership is not the same as seniority - I’ve also worked with junior engineers who exhibited a strong ownership mentality. All of them have grown and have amazing careers by now. Everyone needs help, and asking for help timely is a sign of ownership mentality. Of course, the more senior a professional is the bigger scope they own. You can expect from me coaching, feedback and - most importantly - opportunities for your ownership. # Your autonomy One of my goals as your manager is to enable your autonomy to handle your projects with full ownership. If I can trust you to care and get meaningful results daily on our projects, that’s our success. Of course, I will always try to help you with details if you get stuck or if I notice that you need help. But if I often need to check your work or if I always have to make decisions that you could make yourself, it means that I owe you some more coaching. As your manager, I will probably be responsible for many many projects. If I must take a deep dive into all details of each project every day, then I would need more than 24 hours per day. That’s why I will help with optimal processes to make sure our teams deliver well. But these processes are worthless without your input, timely reporting, and timely escalations. We will work on it together to iterate the processes and your ideas about efficiency are very important. # Ideas, plans, and actions  Our company can only get value (profit) from projects that are successfully delivered to production. It means that ideas and plans are worthless **unless** we take action (time) to deliver them. Good ideas are plentiful, but good execution is scarce. A big part of my job is to make sure that our teams focus and spend time on efforts that bring benefit to the company (aligned with our leadership) and that we stick to the agreed plans. If you can’t clearly connect your work, projects, user stories with company goals, talk with your manager or reach out to me directly _as soon as possible_ so I can help you prioritize your work. # Working in a team  Engineering is a trade which attracts smart and resourceful people. But as the complexity of technology grows, the need for teamwork grows - and supersedes individual brilliance. A team of mediocre engineers who work well together will outperform a team of dysfunctional superstars. The most common obstacle for team efficiency are “ego battles”. Interrupting each other, status games, not giving space for others to talk, rejecting ideas on prejudice, inflammatory discussions, debating for the sake of “victory” rather than reaching the optimal conclusion - all these things manifest in many ways and hinder team's success. You can expect from me that I will take care of the culture in our teams, and coaching about the teamwork. I will help our teams create and maintain the best possible atmosphere, collaboration, and fairness. Your ability to work in a team is more important to me than your technical brilliance. # Decision making and fast delivery over perfectionism  I always think about how much one day/week/month of our team’s time costs. Every wasted moment is a financial negative for the company. Delaying drains the budget. For example, would you rather receive a profit of 100 euros per month for a year (next 12 months) starting **now** (100x_12=1200) or delay the start for 4 months and receive 130 per month for the rest of the year (12-4=8 months). That is 130x_8=1040. It’s obvious that it’s better to start making profit sooner in this case even with 30% more profit per month, but delayed for 4 months. Besides, we are likely to iterate and change the solution later after it’s proven that it brings benefit. This calculation shows “a sense of urgency” (or agile approach) but it is essentially about stop wasting time on perfectionism and unnecessary decision making, and having the courage to deliver an imperfect thing which has a positive effect. There are many decision-making processes and I will help our teams to constantly optimize our ways of working and provide coaching about these processes. Of course, you can always count on me to step in if necessary. # Thanks! Thank you for your patience and for reading this far. This readme document is a work in progress, just as I am a “work in progress”. :) There is always something to be added, but let’s wrap up here and I am looking forward to getting to know you and working with you.