# Morgan Roderick's Manager Readme **Senior Engineering Manager at Pleo** # Motivation for this document The audience for this document is everyone who has me as their manager, whether they're new joiners or have been around for awhile. I'm hoping that the document will make it easier for us to get off to a good start together. # My vision My vision for my work as an engineering manager is that everyone who works with me, will think back on this time as a [golden age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age) of their careers. If we manage to pull this off together, then this will be a time in our careers, where we - had great achievements - honed our craft and refined our practices - improved our communication skills and grew as humans - forged strong professional relationships - made life long friendships # My role Below is the job description that is in my employment contract. > Engineering managers are responsible for delivery and outcomes across multiple engineering teams. They foster the environment in which engineers perform at their best and grow both as individuals and as a team. They do so by making sure that it is clear for each team member what is expected of them and how they can grow. They make sure our processes are helping rather than standing in a way and they are working with all engineers to ensure high-quality standards for our software. My interpretation of this is: - Help the people around me to grow as professionals and as human beings. I expect the same from them - Help identify and remove obstacles that prevent people and the organisation from achieving their goals # What do I value most? - Authenticity and transparency - Treat all our colleagues and customers with respect - Be a driving force for the betterment of those around you - Lift others up - help nurture and foster the growth of those around you - Understand that everyone is unique - Everyone has their own work processes; way of doing things; and preferences - be accommodating, understanding and respectful of that and let people know how they can best work with you - Reasonable expectations of work-life balance. For example: - If you have a family/personal emergency, take the time you need. Please send me a message, so I can notify our team - I try to have good work-life balance myself and am reasonably good at managing it. Don't work longer hours, just because you see me work in early evening ... you might not notice when I work shorter days. # My Expectations - I expect people to manage their own time and figure out their own working hours - Set your working hours in calendar, so it's easy for others to see when they can expect you to be available - Let your team know, when you know you're going to be unavailable and on your return - Manage your time away in our system - Stay on top of communications — feel free to ask for my help with this - Manage people's expectations on when they can expect replies from you - Manage your inboxes in mail, Linear, GitHub, Slack, etc. so things don't pile up - Create email rules to help organise your email and stay on top of things - Write weekly updates in our [people platform](https://lattice.com/) - That allows me to stay up to date on what is going on in your work life and allows us to go deeper on topics in our 1-1s - I do the same for my manager - Own your development plan - I will work with you to help you shape a good development plan, but it is ultimately up to you - Own your achievement log - Your achievement log is an important tool in your career and helps me represent you well when it comes to pay rises and promotions - You're the one that best remembers what your achievements are - I expect you to dedicate time to keep this up to date # 1:1s **Cadence** For most of my team members, we have 1-1s on a fortnightly cadence. For new joiners and tech leads, we have 1-1s on a weekly cadence. As a people manager, I believe that 1-1s are the most important meetings I can attend and therefore the last meetings I will cancel. **Topics** Ideally, the content of the meeting will be determined by the team member and not by me. I encourage people to add things to our shared agenda in our [people platform](https://lattice.com/). Sometimes, I will also bring topics for us to talk about. **Scheduling** In my calendar, I have reserved a many of slots throughout the week using Google Calendar's "Focus time" feature. I've labeled these "Focus: 1-1". I have more slots every week, than I have 1-1s. The idea is that if someone needs to re-schedule a 1-1 with me, they will always be able to find a vacant slot in the same week, or in the following week. They can pick a "Focus: 1-1" slot that doesn't already have a 1-1 in it and move our meeting to that. Since the "Focus time" feature automatically rejects all overlapping meetings, people will have to notify me that they want to reschedule our meeting, otherwise I won't notice and also won't receive calendar notifications. I find this works really well, as there is no longer multiple messages going back and forth for rescheduling. People usually send me a single message, saying something like "I've rescheduled our 1-1 to Thursday" ... and then I go and accept the new time. When I can, I try to schedule meetings with software engineers at either end of their workday, as I subscribe to the ideas in the essay [Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule](https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html) by Paul Graham. When that's not possible, I'll try to schedule meetings close to another meeting, leaving them larger chunks of uninterrupted time. # Personality quirks - I am sensitive to noise and poor acoustics (echo). With enough background noise and echo, I find it very draining to have conversations. With enough exposure to that, my mood tends to take a downturn and I will excuse myself. # Where to focus on your first 90 days? - Go through the company, competence and team onboarding processes. These take time, but they're very valuable and important - Start building your social network in the organisation - Set up social calls with colleagues outside the team - Set aside time for reflection every week. I suggest Friday mornings - Write your weekly update for your manager - Review your Development Plan - Review your Achievement Log