# Jose's Manager Readme

**Senior Engineering Manager at Walmart Labs**

# Motivation for this document

This is my Manager README, a document that helps introduce you to my management style, philosophy, and expectations. The intended audience is primarily anyone who reports into me, though anyone is free to read it - or even provide feedback on it! Please treat it as a reference and promise on how I will conduct myself as a manager, and what I expect from you.

I urge you to hold me accountable to my promises and to call out anything that might be missing from this document. Without your guidance, I will not be able to improve as a manager.

# My role

As a manager, I am responsible for the well being and productivity of my teammates. My primary goal is and always will be to help you be the best version of yourself.

Your career, just as your life, is yours. As such, I won’t engage in telling you what to do. Instead, I will coach you and offer you feedback. I will partner with you to line up the opportunities needed for the growth you are targeting. All this knowing that at the end of the day, your success depends mostly on you. You set your goals. You set your priorities. You determine whether you take the time to get there.

# What do I value most?

Clear, gentle, honest communication. I promise not to leave you guessing what I “really” think or expect you to read between the lines of what I’m saying. If it’s not clear, and you have a nagging feeling, let me know so I can fix it! It’s not intentional. I’ll also reply promptly to you, or let you know when you can expect a reply if you reach out.

# My Expectations

I expect to have an open and honest working relationship with you. My work calendar is always up to date and I encourage you to grab a slot from it whenever you need time with me. I don't believe in mistakes, good, bad, perfect, or any kind of qualifier that confounds hard work done by people. In fact, let me call it right here, right now. **Perfect is the enemy**

If you have feedback for me, please give it. It could be something you liked and would like to see more of, something you thought I could do better, something you thought I totally messed up, or something that doesn't fit in any of these categories. Even if you think it might not be the case, I _do_ want to hear it. And if you think I don't want to hear it, I'd love feedback on why you feel that way!

# 1:1s

I like using 1:1s to get to know you better. Find out what you're passionate about; what drives you and what scares you. More than anything, I want these to be a safe space for you so you can talk about [things you wouldn’t otherwise bring up](https://medium.com/@mrabkin/the-art-of-the-awkward-1-1-f4e1dcbd1c5c) in a group setting. If I mess this up in any way, feel free to let me or my boss know.

# Personality quirks

- I am an [introvert](https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts?language=en). Not to be confused with shy, distant, moody, or indifferent.
- I'm a _"funny"_ guy. However, sometimes I think I'm funnier than I really am. Feel free to call me out on it.
- When you ask “do you have 5 minutes?” in Slack or email, please add the topic you’d like to discuss, otherwise, I’ll think _“do you have 5 minutes for me to tell you I’m thinking of quitting.”_ -- we’re biased for bad news and I’m no different.
- From leaders in the org (e.g. Senior IC, Managers) I expect to create the reality they’d like to see - tell me what you plan to do, instead of waiting for me to offer a way or shape reality for you. If you’re stuck, tell me and I’ll help. You’re the driver.
- I'm borderline obsessive and a big believer in “[no broken windows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory)” when building products: I like clean logs, clean exceptions, clean PagerDuty. Once things go south here it’s very hard to truly understand the health of the system.
- I write a lot, and I’ll expect you to write more than you’re used to. It is Walmart scale ;)  
- I'll be slacking you at all hours of the day and night. I have 0 expectations of having you engage in conversation outside of work hours. That's just part of my process, so feel free to ignore me until the next morning.