# Chris Paul's Manager Readme **Engineering Manager at Square** Hi there! You're probably reading this because we work together. 😊 It is my hope that this README will give you a better idea of how we can best work together. Let's help each other grow and build great things! # My job As a manager, my job is two-fold: 1. **Deliver an aligned result**. This means making sure that we're working together effectively to ship software in support of our team's mission and purpose. I also work with you and our product management team to ensure our work aligns with the priorities of Square leadership. 2. **Enable your success as an engineer on that team**. I do this in a number of ways. 1. **By getting to know you**. We will meet for regular 1-on-1s. These are entirely for you to discuss whatever is on your mind. They are never for status updates (though I am happy to listen if you want to talk about it). 2. **By giving you feedback**. We all need feedback to learn and improve ourselves. I will do my best to give you timely and actionable feedback as soon as I have it. 3. **By identifying work you can do that is interesting and challenging**. We have a lot of important work to do. I want to make sure you are working on things that align with your goals.  4. **By helping you prioritize your existing work.** There will be times when you've got a few things you can work on. When it's not clear what you should work on next, I can help you figure out that out based on our team's current priorities. 5. **By helping you resolve blockers.** When you're stuck, let me know. I will pair with you or escalate the issue to someone who can help you fix it. As you can see, I weigh heavily towards the second item on that list. While I am passionate about building software, I get particularly excited about the growth and development of the people on my team. # What do I value most? I value good communication. It is particularly important as Square embraces distributed work. What does good communication look like to me? - **Asking lots of questions.** If you don't understand something, it's likely others don't as well. It also helps your teammates provide you with the right context and connect you to the proper resources to do your best work. ([How to Ask Good Questions](https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/)) - **Flagging risks early and often.**  If something doesn't look quite right or things feel off, flag it early, even if you're not sure what it might be. This can be anything from a schedule that is overly optimistic to a team process that feels clunky.  - **Radiating intent.** You should bias towards action, but sometimes you may want to get buy-in or approval before taking action. For decisions that need some level of team consensus but don't require a design doc, a trick for unblocking yourself is to radiate intent: Broadcast what you plan to do and when you plan to do it... and then do it. ([Don't ask forgiveness, radiate intent](https://medium.com/@ElizAyer/dont-ask-forgiveness-radiate-intent-d36fd22393a3)) - **Acknowledging others.** When someone asks a question or shares information, acknowledge the person on the other end. This can be as simple as an emoji response in Slack.  # What does helping me look like? I'm aware of two weaknesses that I'd like your help with: - I can get too deep in the technical weeds and miss the big picture. Help me zoom back out and take a first-principles approach by asking, "What problem are we trying to solve?"  - I will sometimes take on too much work. This is a combination of saying "Yes," too often and wanting to protect the team's bandwidth (so I end up doing the work myself). Help me identify things that can be appropriately delegated to others.  This is a non-exhaustive list. ☺️Help me understand my other weaknesses by giving me feedback. If this is difficult to do, use the [SBI](https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/situation-behavior-impact-feedback.htm) ("Situation, Behavior, Impact") or [NVC](https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/learn-nonviolent-communication/4-part-nvc/) ("Non-Violent Communication") models. # My Expectations Keep consistent hours. You don't need to define these specifically, but the team should  know when you'll be available.  Own your work by testing your code thoroughly and finishing what you start. Mistakes will happen! Let me and/or the team know immediately. I don't care about assigning blame, I care about making sure we can learn from mistakes and ensure the process is in place to prevent the same mistake in the future.  # 1:1s I expect you to lead our 1:1s.  By default, I'll set up a 30-minute sync for us once a week, but duration and cadence is ultimately up to you. I will also link a Google Doc for us to share notes and discussion topics. I use this to write down and remember what we talk about, and you're welcome to use this as you see fit. Some things you can talk to me about in 1:1s: - What's been going well? - What's not going well? - Team priorities - Ask for opportunities - Career planning - Ask for feedback - Give me feedback - Brainstorm - Ask for resources (From [this lovely comic](https://twitter.com/b0rk/status/1037186572234498048/photo/1) by Julia Evans) # Where to focus on your first 90 days? In your first 7 days, you will have a working development environment, make your first commit, and deploy your changes to production.  In your first 30 days, you will complete your first project and have a grasp on our team's service ownership boundaries and understand our team's KPIs and Square's basic revenue model. In your first 90 days, you will complete your first design, see the implementation through from start to finish, and announce the update to the company. You will understand how the team fits into Payment Platform and what levers we control to improve the Seller experience.