# Matt Thompson's Manager Readme

**Engineering Manager at Codat**

# Motivation for this document

Share what drives me as an engineer, a manager, and as an individual.

Make clearer the things I care about in and out of work.

Give insight into what things I can help you with, so that there's always an open invite to approach me about anything here.

# Me

8 years as an engineer before managing, 3 years as a technical lead. I love shipping valuable software to real users, working with the business to solve problems, architecting scalable distributed systems.

I try to be incredibly open and transparent, allowing everyone I work with to have access to as much information as possible to make the best decisions. I'm very candid, so generally when asked a question, will answer honestly.

I've only recently moved from being fully tech focused, so still have very strong technical knowledge and like to use it where I can.

I like driving fast motorbikes and cars.

# My role

Coaching and mentoring tech leads and engineers to accelerate their careers, with a focus on delivery and working with others across the organisation to gain influence, then use that influence to enact change.

Working with several teams to build software that aligns with business strategy.

Driving teams toward measuring and improving the [four key metrics](https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/four-key-metrics), really pushing for continuous delivery and agile working.

# What do I value most?

Continuous delivery. The reality of releasing every commit immediately to production, and the level of quality, automation, agility, and maturity that is gained by reaching it successfully.

Pragmatism. There's a balance between getting the minimum done, and doing everything perfectly - engineers need to be constantly considering when to be an idealist, when to be practical, and when to combine them both for the perfect outcome at that time.

# 1:1s

I hold 1:1s every 2 weeks with people I manage, and then have less frequent / ad hoc skip meetings with indirect reports.

During 1:1s I focus more on what we're trying to do to move forward than what has happened, unless we can learn from the past.

I'm happy to lead, but mainly want the time to be useful for you or for me to learn how to help you better.

# Personality quirks

Super high risk appetite - I like to get 10 things done with 2 things failing instead of only 5 things done with no failures. I tend to struggle when people want to be very risk averse and move slowly/methodically.

# Where to focus on your first 90 days?

Becoming valuable to the team. Everyone wants to hear "I can't believe you've only worked here for 3 months" at the end of probation - beyond being strong at your role, filling gaps that the team needs and getting feedback on where you'll have the most impact helps to be valuable immediately.

Use me as a resource. I want to help everyone I can to be as strong at their role as possible, and I can guide or facilitate anything you might need to do that.