# Sam Hill's Manager Readme

**Manager & Senior Engineer at Candid**

# Motivation for this document

I wrote this so you could see what I'm about, and we can work together better.

Thanks for reading!

# My role

I'm measured by how well our team works together to achieve our goals.

 We deliver high-quality software that makes our stakeholders' working lives better and easier.

I'm here to help you get better at delivering the best work in the best way, from start to finish, and to grow your career into exactly what you want.

# What do I value most?

Communication is the most important thing we can do. It's the hardest problem to solve, so we can keep working on it for a long while.

You can help me by being honest about what you want, what's challenging for you, things that bother you, and what you love to do.

I handle conflicts by talking things through. Failing that, I find a handshake and a beer go a long way.

I am relatively new to people-management. Be honest with how I can improve.

# My Expectations

I'll hold weekly 1:1 sessions with you through video chat or in person, if you prefer.  I'm also happy to talk at the climbing gym or while playing video games - Smash Bros, Mario Kart, or whatever you'd like!

Schedule time with me on my Google Calendar anytime I'm free between 10-6:30 est.

When it comes to mistakes (mine or yours), let me know within an hour. We've all made mistakes, and it's much easier to deal with them before they get bigger. I promise I won't get mad.

Defining "done" is important. My and Candid Engineering's expectations are that you take full ownership of projects, start to finish, and remain fully accountable for timeline changes (surfaced as soon as recognized) and delivering to production. Gather requirements, ask questions, make prototypes, ask more questions, build it, test it, ship it, test again, and get feedback. Build these steps into your time estimates and clearly communicate where you are to everyone that can see the project.

I expect you to be available from 10am to 6:30pm EST during the work week, and reply to Slack messages within 30 minutes during those times. 

Please give at least two week's notice when requesting vacation time.

I deeply understand the value of focus-time and will avoid scheduling unnecessary meetings. Please use this time for its intended purpose: work hard on your code. Our team is known for getting things done, and I want that tradition to continue.

Please do not work on the weekends, your vacation time, or more than 45 hours per week, when possible; we strive to ensure that we avoid these as much as we can. Studies show that when you do that, your quality of work decreases dramatically. Since we work on medical devices, high quality of work and low mistakes are of utmost importance.

# 1:1s

 1:1s are for discussing bigger things than your current task at hand. Career development, interpersonal stuff, and whatever I can do to make your life better.

# Where to focus on your first 90 days?

On our team, effective onboarding is getting to know both the code and the people. Make sure you take time to build relationships with the team and our stakeholders, and ask lots of questions. Figure out what they want and it'll be easy to make them happy.

You'll know you're doing a great job in your first 30 days if you've squashed a bug or two and know the key players. Extra credit if you patch up the documentation along the way.