# ericaandersen's Manager Readme

**Engineering Manager at WP Engine**

# Hi, I'm Erica. 👋

Thank you for checking out my Manager README. This document is meant to be an introduction to me (my non-work side), answers to some high level questions you may have, and a starting point for our working relationship. This document is not the end all be all. I'm going to change, you're going to change, and this is merely a baseline for us to work from going forward. 

# The 411: My Personal Side 💁‍♀️

**✈️ East Coast vs. West Coast:** I grew up in the suburbs of Washington D.C. (NoVa for those familiar with the DMV), did a brief stint in NYC, and ultimately moved to Southern California in January 2016. Although I miss the connectedness of East Coast cities and ease of travel, I absolutely love California. Nothing can beat the beauty of the rugged coastline, _generally_ temperate weather, or outdoor-mindset of the West Coast.

**😂 What's so funny?:** If you've had a call with me, you've probably noticed my laugh. I owe this trait to my mom, who has an equally boisterous laugh. I love to laugh, most often at myself. 

**🗺 11 countries and counting: ** I enjoy experiencing new cities, cultures, and cuisines. Each year, I try to visit at least one new country and am desperately hoping international travel becomes easier to do in 2022. My favorite country as a whole has been Spain. My favorite city has been Medellín, Colombia. I could see myself living in either Paris, France (where Dave proposed!) or Copenhagen, Denmark (where my Dad's family is from - hence the "e" in Anders **e** n).

# Engineering Management 💼

TL;DR I entered management when I realized the well-being of the overall team and celebrating my teammates successes brought me more joy than my own engineering contributions. You may hear me reference "we" over "me" (thanks to my 15 years of playing team sports) but I'll be sure to balance this with plenty of "you" questions/perspectives during our 1:1 time.

# Professional Values ✨

**Communication and Context:** One of my favorite expressions is to make the implicit, explicit. Which means I'll try my best to remove any unspoken assumptions and provide appropriate context when communicating with you. My goal is for us to feel like we're, more often than not, on the same page and minimize the possibility of miscommunications. If you do ever feel unclear about something we've discussed or that I've been too vague, please don't hesitate to ask me for more clarity.

**Respect and Appreciation:** While I'm hopeful we'll have a _perfect_ working relationship, there may be times when we disagree with each other. It's important to me that through any disagreement we remain respectful of one another. If we maintain respect for one another, my appreciation for you will be unparalleled. On that note of appreciation, I'm an overall positive person and often find the good in things - it's even one of my top 5 CliftonStrengths qualities. I already appreciate you for reading through my readme. 

**Honesty and Trust:****  **At the core of my values listed above, is honesty. In order for context to be accurate, communication to be open, and because I respect and appreciate you, I'm going to be honest with you. However, I also believe that honest conversations are only possible when there's trust between us. I'm new here so I know this will likely take time to build up. If I make any missteps with you along the way, I just ask that you please (virtually) pull me aside to let me know.

# Let's Get Together! 👯

## Scheduling 📅

**Calendar:** I'm diligent about keeping my Google calendar up-to-date. ** ** Feel free to drop a meeting on my calendar. If you want or need to talk to me, and my schedule is full, DM me on Slack and I’ll adjust my schedule accordingly!

**Time Preference:**  I generally try to stack meetings in the morning and set focus time and tasks for the afternoons. However, rarely is there ever a task that would supersede meeting with you and I'm flexible with times that work best for you!

**Meeting Buffer:** I try to leave 5-10 minutes of space between meetings for note cleanup, quick breaks, etc.

## 1:1s (One-on-Ones) 🤝

**Consistency:** Consistent ** ** 1:1s are very important to me. I'm always going to protect dedicated time for you to talk about anything you want or need with me.

**Agendas:** 1:1 Agendas will live in 15:Five. ** ** 1:1s meetings are primarily for you and secondarily for me so I'll let you set the top lines. From time to time, I'll use these as a space to relay larger company-wide updates, P&E team updates, and reminders to you. 

**Scheduling:** Although we'll set up our 1:1s to be recurring bi-weekly on the same day/time, we can shift and change our meetings to fit around shifting schedules. 

**Feedback:**  Formal reviews are not the only time we’ll exchange feedback. This will be a recurring topic in our 1:1s. I'm going to ask you for feedback in 1:1s regularly. No matter how many times you say you have no feedback for me, I'm never going to stop asking.

**Reminder:**  Don’t save urgent matters for a 1:1. If you DM me on Slack with an urgent matter, I'll set time up to discuss by EOD or first thing the next morning.

## Slack 📱

I'm a fairly responsive Slack-er! However, when I'm in a meeting I try to be focused and away from Slack so please forgive me if it takes me some time to respond.  At a minimum, you can expect to hear from me by the end of day. If you didn't, please re-ping me as the message may have gotten buried! 

# I'm always learning ✍

I'll be doing a lot of observing and note-taking over the next few months here. I'm very excited to learn how the company, the Flywheel product line, and most importantly you as an individual, operate and thrive. If something I'm doing isn't working for you, please don't hesitate to share that feedback with me. I look forward to getting to know you more soon!