# Nick's Manager Readme

**Head of Back-End at Qonto**

# 👋 Hello

I'm excited to have you here and appreciate you taking the time to learn more about my leadership style, expectations, and how I work. While this document aims to provide an overview, please keep in mind that I may miss or overlook some of my peculiarities, so please don't hesitate to provide feedback or ask me questions. I'm always open to reviewing my behavior or this document to ensure that we can work effectively together.

I consider this document a living document, meaning it will evolve as I reflect on myself, my behavior, and my expectations. I hope that it will serve as a useful resource for you to understand my approach and enable us to work together effectively.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or feedback.

# **🎯 My role**

My mission is to lead organizations to achieve great results and facilitate growth for the organization and individuals.

My role is to help you thrive in your position and enable you to grow further. I want you to be self-sufficient and make decisions based on all the facts you know, but I can and will support you in this.

# 🧭 My values

Those are things that I consider important, and they drive my actions, decisions, and expectations.

**⚖️ Mindful work-life integration** I balance work and personal life properly. While work is important to me, I don't want to regret not spending enough time with my wife or daughter.

⏱️  **Get results fast, and iterate to improve** I'm results-oriented and motivated by the impact I can make. I’m getting frustrated if I don’t see results fast. When I get the first results and learnings, I start to iterate to improve on the initial foundations.

**🏁 Start finishing stop starting** I prioritize focus and limit the number of tasks I work on at any given time intending to get results fast.

**🏅 Poor quality is not an option** If I can’t do something properly, then I prefer to not do it at all. This sometimes leads to perfectionism - although I actively fight it.

# ⚙️ How I work

- I expect a lot from myself and often do the same from others. Tell me if it’s too much at any point.
- I rely almost entirely on facts and logical thinking and care very little about emotions. If you want to tell me something important or buy me in - focus on explaining the logic behind that, otherwise, I may not understand.
- I may miss the emotional aspect, but I'm aware of its importance and push myself to consider it. Know that it’s not natural for me and may take more time.
- I'm bad at social interactions and chit-chat, but I care about you and will join in if you take the initiative.
- I'm a rather impatient person who likes to see results quickly and can get bored or irritated fast. I may become frustrated when progress seems slow or there are no visible effects fast.
- I’m an extremely structured and organized person. I don’t like chaos and work less productively in such an environment, so I may try to bring order to chaotic situations before focusing on the task at hand.
- If your style is the opposite and you strive in chaos - tell me. I will adapt to not break your flow. But expect that it may be harder for me and take more time.
- I plan everything to ensure that I can accomplish my tasks. If you need anything from me, please let me know and make sure I write it down so I can plan accordingly.
- I’m very open to your feedback so share it whenever you want. I have no problems receiving feedback publicly so you can do that immediately when a situation occurs.
- I believe in collaboration and dislike silos. We’re in the same boat, there’s no “we” versus “they”, [“there is no they on Santa Fe”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e754hUwPTaI&t=1751s). I can get pretty harsh when I see something that seems like this to me.
- By default, I work 9 to 5 and am generally unavailable outside of those hours, unless there's an urgent incident or an important task that was planned. The same applies to weekends and vacations.

# 🫵🏻 **My expectations of you**

- **Take the lead** If you know what to do and how to do it, then go for it and come to me with your intention. If you don't know yet, then ask me and we'll work together to get you up to speed. Taking the lead means being proactive and not waiting for instructions.
- **Honesty and transparency** I expect honesty and transparency from you. If there’s a fuck up, incident, or delay, I expect you to communicate that clearly and early. This applies to me and to every party that needs to be informed. Being transparent about issues allows us to address them quickly and effectively.
- **Learn and Improve** I know that shit happens, but I expect you to learn from it so that it doesn’t repeat. If I see a pattern of mistakes, it's a bad sign for me. I expect you to be open to feedback, learn from it, and strive to improve.
- **Speak Up** I expect you to speak up. If you need help or an answer to a question - ask me. If you want me to do anything - tell me. If you want to share your feedback - do it. Don't assume that something will happen if you don't bring it up. Communication is key.
- **Achieve Results in a Fast and Iterative Way** I expect you to focus on achieving results in a fast and iterative way. If something takes more time, explain the reasons why, and expect that I may challenge them. Don't work for the sake of working. Focus on delivering results efficiently and effectively.
- **Follow up on Tasks** I expect you to follow up on your tasks without me reminding you. Reporting that a task is done is part of the task itself. This applies to small things like marking the task as complete as well. This helps us stay on track and ensure that everything is progressing as planned.
- **Maintain Work-Life Balance** I expect you do not need to work overtime or on weekends. While occasional overtime or weekend work may be necessary, I expect you to prioritize and manage your workload effectively during regular working hours to avoid the need for excessive overtime or weekend work. If you find that you are consistently working beyond regular hours, we should discuss how to improve the situation and ensure a healthy work-life balance.
- **Punctuality** I expect punctuality. If we have a scheduled meeting, please be on time, or inform participants in advance if you are unable to attend. Time is scarce, and we must respect it by valuing each other's time.
- **Effective meetings** If you plan and lead a meeting, I expect you to bring a clear goal for the meeting, its agenda, and meeting notes afterward so that everyone is on the same page. Clear communication and follow-up are essential for effective meetings.
- **Focus on the Meeting** When we’re in a meeting, I expect you to focus on the meeting - no Slack chats, checking emails, or working on something else in between. If you have something more important to work on, communicate that and reject the meeting. But if you are in the meeting, then be in the meeting fully.

## Abstract Management Interface

As a team lead reporting to me, I expect certain outcomes from you to ensure that your team is running smoothly. The following list outlines these outcomes, without prescribing specific methods for achieving them. It is up to you and your team to determine how to achieve these outcomes in a way that works best for you. Hence an interface.

It is important to note that every team and individual has different needs, goals, and challenges; therefore, this list serves as a base. We may work together to develop a more detailed set of expectations specifically relevant to your team. Hence abstract.

If you're interested in learning more about the concept, you can read about it here:

- [https://medium.com/flatiron-engineering/abstract-management-interfaces-7bf70431450](https://medium.com/flatiron-engineering/abstract-management-interfaces-7bf70431450)
- [https://www.theengineeringmanager.com/managing-managers/managing-through-interfaces/](https://www.theengineeringmanager.com/managing-managers/managing-through-interfaces/)

**People**

- Everyone on the team understands the current top priority for the team.
- Each team member understands the importance of their work and how it contributes to the company's overall success.
- All team members feel satisfied with their work and the team environment.
- Team members proactively seek out and collaborate with others both inside and outside the team.
- Each team member has a defined career growth plan.
- Team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas and feedback with others.
- The team regularly provides constructive feedback and recognition to one another.
- You know how to contact each team member in an emergency and know their availability.

**Process**

- Everyone on the team understands the team's process and what "done" means.
- Team members have the autonomy to make decisions and communicate them effectively.
- The team delivers code changes frequently, ideally multiple times per day.
- The team has established processes in place to ensure consistently high-quality work.
- The team responds quickly to issues, questions, and problems, escalating when necessary.
- The team's work progress, project statuses, and key metrics are easily accessible and up-to-date.
- The team recognizes and learns from mistakes, without blaming one another.
- The team continually iterates on processes and interactions to improve overall effectiveness.

**Product**

- Stakeholders are satisfied with the quality and timely delivery of projects.
- The team understands how their product fits into the larger company vision and goals.
- Team members are familiar with the needs and expectations of stakeholders.
- The team communicates any blockers, scope changes, and risks promptly.
- The team is proactive in identifying and addressing issues with their systems before they are reported by stakeholders, businesses, or end-users.
- Engineers can debug live systems efficiently and bring in other team members as needed, sharing their screens to ensure transparency and collaboration.
- The team maintains up-to-date documentation for owned applications and developed features.
- The team is familiar with the long-term technical vision for managed products.
- Engineers understand the architecture of their products and how they fit into the overall infrastructure.
- Engineers can work with and effectively utilize the underlying infrastructure that powers their product.

# 💬 Communicating with me

When you approach me, you can consider the following SLAs for the response time:

- email - up to 48 hours. Email is an asynchronous communication method that can wait. I process my mailbox 3 times a day and not more.
- slack - up to 8 hours. Slack is my preferred communication medium which I check frequently throughout the day: between meetings or my focus time blocks.
- call - immediately. Direct calls (Meets or whatever else tool we use) are reserved only for urgent topics like live incidents.

A similar is applicable when I approach you. If I call you - it’s urgent and I need your fast answer. If it’s Slack - I can wait for an answer. If it’s mail, there’s even less urgency and I usually communicate my expectation.

I tend to default to Slack - if I expect a different response time, I will include such information in the message.

Unless it’s a call due to an urgent incident, I won’t check messages or answer off-hours, during weekends, and on vacations - and I expect the same from you.

If I send you an email or Slack message during your off-hours, I do not expect you to answer until you’re back. It shouldn't happen as I heavily use the schedule message function, but sometimes I may miss or mix up the day you're back.

If I exceptionally contact you during your off-hours, then know it’s because of an urgent situation we cannot deal with and I'd appreciate your support.

## Calendar and task manager

I use both a calendar and a task manager to manage my time effectively. I use my task manager to free up my brain from what I must do and ensure I do not forget about them. My calendar guides my daily schedule and consists mostly of my explicit blockers for focused work and meetings in the second place.

What does it mean for you?

- If you want something from me, ensure that I note it down as a task. Otherwise, I may forget about it or remind myself about it late.
- If you see an empty slot in my calendar, feel free to grab it.
- If you don’t see any available slot and still need me at a particular time, please let me know in advance. There’s a high chance I will be able to rearrange my schedule.

## 1:1s

By default, I schedule weekly 1:1 meetings. However, if we both see that there's not much to discuss weekly, we can switch to bi-weekly meetings. Our meetings will last for 30 minutes by default, but we can extend them if necessary.

We have a shared document for 1:1 topics and notes, which we can both access before and during the meeting. I use it to note down things I want to discuss with you, and I encourage you to do the same. If you add topics in advance, I'll be better prepared to address them.

During the meeting, I want you to drive the agenda. Bring up any relevant topic that's on your mind. Don't just give me a report of what's happening, but bring ideas, challenges, and problems that you want to discuss. If you have a problem, it's better to bring it up early so that we can address it. I don't expect you to come up with a solution every time, but I do expect you to come prepared with ideas on how to move things forward.

## Skip levels

I do regular skip-level 1:1s with the team members not reporting to me directly. The exact cadence depends on the circumstances like the team’s size but I learned that they happen only when I schedule upfront so expect me to set up a recurring meeting.

I want to learn from those meetings how the team is running, how your manager is doing, and if there’s anything I should get involved in and support with. Expect me to come with questions revolving around this and please bring topics you see relevant.

A secondary goal is for you to get to know me, and vice versa. Feel free to come with questions about my work or wider about the business and our strategy.