# David Ives's Manager Readme **Engineering Manager at Pusher** # The purpose of this document While I will be spending the first period of time with Pusher getting to know you all, I would like to introduce myself to you and hopefully give you an insight into how I came to be working with you today and how I like to work. I’ll explain a little about my work history, what I have achieved, how I like to communicate, what you can expect from me and what I’ll expect from you. I am always happy to expand upon anything that I have noted so please ask me anything in our first proper catch up. ## TLDR; My purpose here is to facilitate the success and growth of: 1. You 2. The team 3. The company My job is to clear roadblocks and allow you to deliver to your full potential. Once this is achieved, the team works more efficiently which then allows us to provide a better service to the company. I will always be honest and open with you and I expect the same in return. I am here for context, not control. You are the experts in your field. It is not my responsibility to have all of the answers, I am here to provide you with context and the tools that empower you to get the job done. We will spend a lot of time together. We don’t have to end up with me being the best man at your wedding (although I do scrub up fairly well), but we have to work together to build a strong relationship that makes us working together an enjoyable, productive and rewarding part of both of our lives. ## My responsibilities I am primarily here to do two things: 1. Provide context 2. Engage, retain, and grow world-class talent (that’s you!) ## About me I am married to a wonderful woman, we have one son and a miniature schnauzer. I live in Torquay (The English Riviera) in the South West but stay in London during the week. My main hobbies, outside of being with my family, are surfing and snowboarding. I don’t get to do either of these things as often as I would like but still manage to get away to Indonesia every once in a while to surf in warm water rather than the icy cold Devon coast. I came to software engineering fairly late after running a chain of retail outlets for many years. Developing software sparked a passion in me that I had been searching for. I self taught myself in every spare minute that I had until I was able to gain an entry level position in the technology team of a Healthcare Trust. From there, I was able to use my organisational skills, gained in over a decade of retail management, to quickly take the helm of the team and begin to grow the department. Anyone that has worked in the public sector will know that it offers a huge amount of scope for advancement providing a corporate environment suits your ambitions. Suffice to say, that wasn’t the opportunity that I was looking for. From here I was extremely lucky to join magicseaweed.com - a global surf forecasting service based, not on the sun kissed beaches of Southern California, but in South Devon. This was a huge turning point in my career where I was very fortunate to work with some incredible engineers on a project that was truly groundbreaking. As an avid surfer from the age of 10, this was a dream role for me and I enjoyed 5 years of building an incredible product. As rewarding as I found surfing every day and working in flip flops, I was starting to miss the opportunity to build a team myself. It was at this point that I was approached by Crowdcube - the world’s leading equity crowdfunding platform. I joined them as a Senior Engineer just after they had received a significant funding round and were looking to expand the team. Once again, my managerial skills were recognised and I was given the role of Head of Engineering soon after joining. I grew the team considerably in Exeter (the company’s HQ) and subsequently opened satellite engineering offices in London and Cardiff. Shortly after a second round of funding, it was apparent that a technical presence was required on the Senior Leadership Team and I was promoted to CTO. This was obviously the highlight of my career, up to that point, and the team was further grown and enjoyed huge success. However, after several years, I missed being more involved with the day to day action of the engineering team - the role was executive focused and I had built a team of incredibly talented senior engineers that kept the team running very smoothly. It was time to seek a new challenge. I was approached by Decibel Insight to take the role of VP Engineering and work with their CTO/Co-Founder to build the team and grow the product. This was an extremely rewarding time where I was fortunate to work with some very talented individuals on a fantastic product. This brings me right up to date where I was contacted by Pusher. I obviously don’t need to explain what an exciting proposition that was (if I do, maybe we can discuss it on our 1:1 ;) ). So here we are. I’m more than happy to expand on anything from above, although if you are still reading this, you pretty much know my life story now. ## What you can expect from me Support, dedication, fairness, candour. The bottom line is that I am here for you. I support the engineers. I serve you, not the other way round. We all work for the best of the company. I do not entertain gossip, backstabbing or the passing of blame. We win as a team and we fail as a team. Everything is a joint effort and we have each others backs at all times. A mistake shared is a challenge, a mistake hidden is a failure. I will always be honest with you. Some might say brutally honest, but I don’t believe that I am doing you the service that you deserve by skirting around an issue. If something isn’t right, I want us to address it straight away so that we can work together to fix it. I believe in giving praise in public and providing criticism in private. I take pleasure in sharing our successes with the rest of the company in All Hands etc. If this is something that makes you uncomfortable, please tell me. I would never intentionally embarrass you in any way. We will not get every decision right. What is important is that we look for the positive in every outcome. We learn from our successes but we learn as much, if not more, from our failures. We will be brave in our attitude and never be apprehensive to try new approaches. In fact, that is what will make us stand out - our desire to be exceptional. I will support you and we will collectively strive for excellence while understanding and embracing that aiming high will sometimes result in falling short. I will provide you with clear expectations of what we need to achieve but give you the support and autonomy to deliver the best possible solution. We will discuss your progress regularly and you will be given every opportunity to raise any issues at any time. If I feel that we are not moving in the right direction, we will look at the situation together, analyse the factors involved and decide on a plan to course correct. I am not here purely to assist you with matters that are directly linked to your role. I am also here for your personal development and well being. If there are issues that may affect your personal life that I can help with in some way, please let me. Understandably, you may not wish to go into detail, that is perfectly fine. I would like to think that I am experienced enough to know when someone needs help but please don’t hesitate to let me know if there is something that I can assist you with.   ## What I expect from you Our relationship is two way; I expect you to let me know when you feel that I could have performed more effectively or handled a situation better. We will need to grow together and this relies on us being open with each other and practising [radical candour](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yODalLQ2lM). Disagree and challenge me. I am not here to be right, I am here to facilitate the growth of you, the product and the company. I am here to facilitate your growth in your role, and beyond. This definitely requires significant effort from yourself. Seize the opportunities that are given to you and push me to get you the ones that haven’t been. The main point that I am counting on from you is communication. I will provide you with feedback as we progress and I expect the same from you. You are expected to do amazing work - if something is blocking you from achieving this, let me know so I can help you. Remember, I am here to serve you. I expect you to show empathy - to our customers and especially to your colleagues. This is a team effort, everybody in the organisation has a tough job. Do your best to understand what challenges those around you are facing. How can you help them to alleviate these problems? Talk to other departments in the company and grasp how engineering can assist them in making things easier. Investigate the metrics that other teams are using to define success and figure out how we can work with them to improve these. ## What I do not want to see in the team **I have an issue with people that hoard knowledge in an attempt to gain a position of power.** People may believe that this makes them irreplaceable, I see them as a liability. The most valuable engineers to me are the ones that are willing and able to share their knowledge and mentor others. This gives them the opportunity to pass some me of their tasks to others and take more complex responsibilities in other areas. **People who are not willing to accept blame.** If you believe you have made a mistake, raise it early so we can address it. As a team, we can remedy the issue quickly. We can later look at how we found ourselves in this position and what we can do to prevent it recurring in the future. **Not coming to me with an issue but whispering about it in corners.** I will undoubtedly not pick up on everything that could be improved so I will sometimes need your help to identify them. If these problems are not addressed effectively, they become toxic. This is not OK. **People not willing to put effort into their own careers.** I will support you to the best of my ability but I do expect you to take responsibility yourself. \ ## How to communicate with me Short answer; however works best for you. I am here for you so please feel free to approach me however you feel is appropriate and makes you comfortable. We will have regular 1:1’s and team discussions but please do not hesitate to bring up anything at all at anytime. Do not wait for a scheduled meeting to bring up an issue that is affecting you, talk to me whenever you need to. I will most likely check my Slack etc. outside of work hours so if you do need anything at any point, feel free to contact me. I will do my best to get back to you ASAP. I do focus on my family at weekends so it may take a little longer to get a response than during the week but I will try. If there is something that you would rather discuss outside of the office, I enjoy walking catch ups or grabbing a coffee somewhere so let me know what you feel comfortable with.    ## How I will communicate with you I will always do my utmost to distract you as little as possible. I won’t email you and then follow up with a tap on the shoulder to check you have received it. If you have your headphones on, I take that as a ‘do not disturb’ signal. However, if I am wearing headphones, you are free to wave at me to get my attention or tap my desk - I am most likely just listening to music so can definitely be available. Ideally, I will Slack you and you can answer when it is convenient for you. Obviously, if something is extremely urgent, I will let you know that I need your attention. My favourite means of communication is face to face. I believe that we both get a lot more out of sitting together and discussing something but, I will always use the most appropriate method for the situation and your personal preference. I may well send you a Slack message or email you outside of work hours. This does certainly not mean that I expect an answer from you at that time - most likely, I don’t want to forget something that we can discuss at the next convenient time. I don’t expect you to keep the same hours as I do. If you need me, please feel free to put an appointment in my diary. Very few of my meetings are more important than you: I will do my very best to rearrange my schedule if we need to discuss something urgently. There will be some things that I simply cannot discuss with you. This could be for various reasons as declared by the business, but I will always be honest with you. ## One to Ones 1:1s aren’t status updates. Unless that’s what you want to discuss. They are for us to discuss your goals and progress as well as any issues that are bothering you or items that you would like clarifying. I will have big picture ideas that I want to run past you. I may well bring them up in your 1:1s if time allows. If it doesn’t, I will arrange a more appropriate time to go through them with you. Spend a few minutes preparing for these meetings so we can use the time as effectively as possible. It is your time, let’s make the most of it. ## What I will need your help with It’s going to take me some time to get to know you and understand how I can help you best. Work with me and let me know what you need and what it is that I can do for you, If you feel that I can perform more efficiently or deal with situations better, please tell me - I want to continually improve and I can only achieve this with your honest feedback on my approach and performance. I can only really provide you with the best value if we discuss what you need: where are we falling short? What are your motivations? What do you want from your career? Is there any particular training that you could benefit from? We will work together to design a PDP (Personal Development Plan) that will support and nurture your career path. Whatever you want for your future, we can work together to give you the tools you need to succeed. ## My track record I have been managing engineers for the last 7 years. In that time I have conducted several hundred interviews, built 4 engineering teams, made approximately 50 appointments, granted several internal promotions and, unfortunately, performed a number of dismissals. On the subject of dismissals, I want to stress that this was absolutely the last resort. I will have worked very closely with the people involved and explored many avenues to attempt to rectify the situation before a dismissal has been necessary. They have all been a result of a unique set of circumstances. It is something that I take incredibly seriously and have always been carried out with the best interests of the team and the company as a primary factor. The ‘Performance’ section below will provide more context. ## Performance I follow a Green / Orange / Red performance assessment and communication model. My goal is for you to always know where you’re at. If you ever feel you don’t know, just ask me. **Green** - there might be things to improve, or there might not. If nothing ever changed, it’s all good. **Orange** - there are one or more behaviors that, if left unchecked in the long term, will not be sustainable. Something needs to change. **Red** - there is a significant problem, with a timebox, and we have explicitly talked about both the problem and the timebox. Going **orange** sounds terrifying. It shouldn’t be. It is absolutely recoverable! Even going **red** is recoverable. Recovering from orange (or red) builds a lot of trust. You’ve proven that you accept feedback, acknowledge your role in the situation, and are willing and capable of changing, growing, and improving. That is HUGE. ## What is missing? This is intended to be a living document so I would really appreciate your input into how useful it was for you. Is there anything that you would like to have seen in here? Is there anything that you feel is unnecessary? ## Summary If you need anything at all, please ask - that’s what I’m here for.