# Burak Tasci's Manager Readme

**Senior Engineering Manager at Delivery Hero**

If you are reading this, we either already work together or are about to. This should make that easier.

# A little bit about me

- I was born in Turkey, raised partly in the Netherlands, and now live in Berlin.
- I have been building software for more than 15 years.
- I still enjoy working across different levels of the job, from technical detail to leadership.
- I am at my best when there is clear structure, clear expectations and a long term direction.
- I am comfortable with ambiguity for a while, but not with drift.
- I am strongly data driven, but I care just as much about judgment.
- I care about ownership, simplicity and creating real value.

I want teams to be building things that matter, and the people doing the work to be growing. If either stalls, something is off.

# What you can expect from me as your manager

I look to engineering leaders to build real ownership in their domains. I would rather hear your thinking, the problem space, the tradeoffs and your recommendation than give you instructions. I will push back, ask questions and add context from adjacent teams, but the decision stays with you unless the blast radius crosses squad boundaries.

I clear the path, give you context and get out of the way. My best days are when you have everything you need to make good calls in your own domain, without checking with me first.

I will not tell you how to run your team. I will tell you what I am seeing and ask hard questions. If I start crossing that line, say so. I would rather fix that early.

Keep me in the loop. I do not need polished updates, but I do need signal. If something is important and likely to stay with us for a long time, I would rather be involved early than hear about it once the shape is already fixed.

I like being close to the real problem. If something matters, bring me into the debate early.

I tend to trust people early. What keeps that trust healthy is openness, especially when something is off.

- If delivery is slipping, morale is off, or a technical bet is not landing, tell me early.
- You do not need to have the fix ready. I can work with early signals.

# What matters to me most

I care a lot that teams have a long term direction, and a strategy that gives that direction a real path forward.

I also care whether teams finish what they committed to, and whether quality issues are caught internally or by a customer. Those two signals tell me a lot about scope discipline and engineering habits.

On the people side, I watch whether engineers on your team can see a path forward. If someone talented is stalling, I want to know what is blocking them and I will ask.

I do not need a dashboard walkthrough in our 1:1s. Tell me:

- what is working
- what is not
- what you are worried about
- and what you plan to do about it.

## Feedback

I give feedback quickly, in days, sometimes in hours. If something went well, I will say so and be specific about what. I will also make sure your team's success is seen in the right place and by the right people.

If something needs to change, I will say that too, directly and in private.

I usually ask before going into difficult feedback. This is not about judging, it is about helping. I care much more about what we do differently next time than doing a retrospective of what went wrong.

I need the same from you. If I am doing something that is not helping, tell me. I would rather hear it now than find out through a survey.

## Growth

Your career is yours. You set the direction and the pace. My job is to make sure the right opportunities exist and to tell you honestly where you stand relative to where you want to go.

I will challenge you and give you room to grow into bigger problems. And when you do good work, I will help make sure it gets seen.

Growth shows up in the size of problems you can carry and in the quality of decisions you can make without me. When I see that expanding, we talk about what comes next.

# Getting in touch

Slack, WhatsApp, email, or just a calendar invite. Whatever fits the moment. I am easy to reach and hard to bother.

My calendar may look full, but very few things on it matter more than talking when you need to talk.

If I message late, it is usually because I am emptying my head, not because I expect an immediate reply. Those messages are rare. Reply during your hours.

# Outside the office

I lift weights. I enjoy fast cars and track days. I cook steaks and take them seriously.

I learn constantly, mostly in engineering, leadership and strategy, but really in anything that helps me stay sharp.