1. Do you want career growth?
No, and its hard to tell that to my manager. More growth leads to more responsibility, which is more stress. I'm happy where I am and I don't want promotions.
I'm afraid to tell my manager that, because which manager wants an unambitious engineer? There was someone like that on our team and he was laid off in the last layoff round, so I have to "pretend" I'm working towards the next level.
2. Do you want more interesting work?
Also no, I'm perfectly happy maintaining our current codebase, not interested in new and shiny projects because my most interesting time is spent at home with my kiddo.
Any tips on how I can handle my 1:1s?
It means, that I will not have to worry about figuring out a good place for you to grow into. It also means that I will not have to worry about finding a replacement for you after you get promoted.
Hell, if you tell me that I'll do everything I can to give you a raise asap.
Tip: Your manager really, really wants to hear what you really honestly think. Even if it's not a positive thing (and just wanting to continue doing what you're doing is very positive!). It's super hard to guess what people are trying to say because most people don't just tell you straight. Of course there are exceptions - that's probably a sign of a crappy manager. If that's the case, sorry, you can probably find a better job.
As the original commenter noted, the person who was honest about what they really thought was the one laid off when the time came. I won't say it's true for you, but at many organizations "I really want to hear what you honestly think..." has a second clause: "... so that I know who my most valuable 'resources' are."
I'm unconvinced that (from the employee's perspective) the best way to engage with management or HR is radical transparency.
I mean, yes, this is almost always true, but that does not mean that it's always in your best interests to tell your manager what you honestly think.
They are incredible teammates and, in my experience, contribute more than "their share" to the mission.
This is not how salary raises work IMHO.
In my experience as a new (~2 years) manager, you get many questions when proposing salary raises to people perceived as happy, satisfied and agreeable.
I always feel like I need to put more effort on behalf of my reports and kind of repeat many times the obvious fact that it is better if we don't wait for people to find another job so that we - as a company - come back begging for them to accept a counter-offer raise.
Ofcourse. I too want the same. But neither do. As an IC I want hard to be replace me and get top pay for my ability. Exact opposite is my managers incentive.
Instead of "I don't want interesting work", say you want to help support members of the team who are looking for new opportunities, or something like that. There's X work maintaining the codebase and Y work on new and shiny projects and Z employees. Suggest perhaps cross-training in other people's less-stressful work (if there is any).
If you say that, then your manager (in their head), can be thinking, "Okay so we have this new project, and songzme doesn't want it, but her coworker does, so if songzme can pick up some of the maintenance work, the coworker will have time for new project." Obviously, keep your total workload under control, but a manager's job is to get a team to do something. It's fine to play support, just be open to it.
It doesn't have to be permanent. I've had time periods when I've volunteered for projects and others when I'm not interested due to external factors. During those times, I just did more of the team's work that required the least 'brain'. Which is great for the team members who are feeling bored and want to try something new.
Honestly, any manager who is against that isn't a good manager.
However, there are a few points in your post that may be conflating topics.
First, 'maintaining the current codebase' and providing work that is valuable to the team/org are not the same thing. Some engineers will endlessly poke around the internals of a code base, refactoring, tuning, renaming for clarity, but never provide anything of real value. This is a pitfall.
Second, I would separate 'career growth' from promotion. Companies orient promotion ladders around particular dimensions that you may or may not care about, but that doesn't mean you can't be growing. Consider if there are ways you want to grow that are outside of what your company is asking for as a promotable step. I don't mind if engineers don't want to be promoted but I'm concerned if they have no desire to grow.
Finally, your post makes it sound like you believe an engineer's lack of ambition led to their being laid off, however this may conflate ambition for output. Are you sure a lack of ambition was the reason or were they not producing anything of value (as in point 1 above)?
For bonus courage points, consider having a candid discussion with your manager about each of these topics. I would wager that you will be much better aligned afterwards.
If you have a bad manager just lie, say that the work is hard enough, that its challenging maintaining a codebase up to date, that you are interested in this kind of work, that there is lots of work to be done, documenting, making tests, replacing old parts with newer parts and that you see your future being an expert in that kind of tasks.
Usually there is a kind of trade off between being responsible for a piece of software and the amount of work to be done on that project.
If you are doing good work, that sounds like any managers dream: reliability!
I certainly want to help every member of my team to reach their personal goals but all of that means work for me, and work for finding who will replace them at their current position.
There are only so many L+1 spots, someone who wants to do actual work in the team rather than invest a lot of time getting such a spot and potentially do things that may be risky or end up leaving the firm could be a very valuable part of the team.
I find things like 1:1's infantile / patronising / condescending, I'm sure some employees are convinced about their benefit, however I'm unable to come to that conclusion myself when thinking about it.
For me contracting is a more honest exchange of my time and expertise, for money.
With contracting I would have to save and every hour I don't work is an hour I'm not getting money its a bit stressful to think about.
I have reports who have told me that they're happy doing what they're doing. I don't see it as a negative at all - they're employees who are quietly getting their job done and I don't have to worry about them leaving for career growth or Peter Principle-ing them into incompetence. It's important that we continue to have 1:1s though. People aren't static, they can change their mind, and I also want to make sure I keep an ear out for little things that are annoying them, and do what I can to make them go away.
I met two developers in 2016 who had been with the same company for 10 and 17 years respectively maintaining a PowerBuilder app from 1999 running on Sql server 2003.
The company was happy to let them keep chugging along until the company got acquired by venture capital and they said they “no longer wanted to be a software company”. How do you think that worked out for them?
>> Also no, I'm perfectly happy maintaining our current codebase, not interested in new and shiny projects because my most interesting time is spent at home with my kiddo.
So as a manager my concern here is you're communicating I don't want to grow or add more value. I'm not sure if that's your intent. There are actually very few roles where I've needed someone to "just keep doing exactly what you're doing right now", and they are typically short-term bridges to more important projects or quickly devolve into lowest-cost commodity solutions.
You don't have to get promoted or work on bleeding-edge tech, but you definitely need to grow. If you're not growing, your stagnating, and your time is limited.
The follow-on comments from other managers about how you're a dream IC really scare me; they present a mindset that developers are a problem that needs to be solved as easily as possible. Give me a demanding, passionate and yes, needy, developer over someone who's stopped progressing every time.
>> Any tips on how I can handle my 1:1s?
Don't share that you're perfectly content with the current status-quo and that you don't want any further growth or responsibility.
But yes, I keep up with the new shiny projects and keep my resume current. The tides are always shifting in tech. Managers change, companies get acquired, go under etc. It’s my responsibility to myself and my family to keep myself competitive in the market.
I’m not going to do that by not staying in sync with the market.
the laying someone off for that is silly. But when I was managing a team for the first time I would have found it really helpful if one of them told me that! It was so far from my imagination that there would be an _unambitious engineer_ the thought never occurred to me. I wasn't a lot of my time and theirs working on this erroneous world-view.
At least, I manage people who say this and it is perfectly fine.
Also, this level of ambition has a tendency to change with people’s life circumstances.
The most important thing for me is making sure the work someone is doing is aligned with their goals, whether that is work life balance or expanding their role as fast as is feasible or something in between.
I have 1:1s every 2 weeks with my engineer manager... and that's basically 99% of the contact I have with them. My eng. manager rarely attends my team's sprint plannings (or any other Scrum ceremony like retros, standups, etc.). We rarely (if any) discuss long-term technical planning/ideas/solutions. They know which products we maintain and in what we are working on, but not much more.
In the 1:1 we are very open, but it always feels like "this is something we have to do, let's carry on with it". They always recommend me some blogs, conferences, sometimes books... but to be honest I'm quite past that phase in my career: it's not that I don't appreciate recommendations, it's that I have been working for more than 10 years in the industry and I have pretty much clear what's my "career path", and it doesn't depend on engineer managers (my "career path" is to keep being an IC, doing a good job, not getting too attached to companies... and switch jobs every 3 years or so).
Seems to me that the job of the engineer manager is just too lightweight. We hire them people because they have two things: a) good people skills, and b) a good track of experience working on tech. We never get to "use" my engineer manager for point b, and point a is summarized as "let's have a good chat every 2 weeks".
The 1:1s are not terrible nor bad, I just feel that they are just superflous.
Maybe you don't see other things they do. Their work isn't only 1:1 with you. For instance, hiring, evaluating employees, redirecting team efforts if new priority arises, fostering collaboration with other teams if needed, unblocking things, reporting to high management about the team whereabout, making sure every IC has what they need for their job, taking the temperature of the team, informing people about opportunities, and so on...
Yes, they screen CVs and join tech interviews. I also join tech interviews.
> evaluating employees
True. They use the 1:1s to keep track of the evaluation afaik.
> redirecting team efforts if new priority arises
As I said, our eng. manager doesn't usually join our planning nor has ever said anything regarding "X has more prio than Y"... Redirecting the team effort is mostly on the team itself (PM + tech lead)
> fostering collaboration with other teams if needed
Again, this happens only if the teams decide to do so. Teams are quite self sub-stained.
> unblocking things
Never happen in our team. If there are any technical blockers, that's usually solved by the tech lead + infra team. If there any business blockers, that's solved by our PM + stakeholders.
> reporting to high management about the team whereabout
Eng. managers have private Slack channels, so can't say anything about this regard.
> making sure every IC has what they need for their job
Care to elaborate? If I need an IDE, I ask in the #it-support channel. If I need to take holiday/sick-leave I ask my team and PM. If I prefer Postgres instead of MySQL, I talk with the infra team; any business-related issue? I talk to my PM... what kind of stuff one asks to their eng. manager?
> taking the temperature of the team, informing people about opportunities, and so on
Lightweight job I would say. But yes, a job nonetheless.
THIS is what the 1:1 is for. That is where you communicate to your manager what you need in order to keep from leaving in a few years. You might not get it and leave anyway, but then again, you might. Nothing lost in the trying.*
* I'm not suggesting you frame it as an ultimatum but let them know what you want.
that's terrible
By the way, I found the “figure out my problems and solve them” line very rich. Every morning we have a standup where my manager tells me what his main concerns are and then I change my priority of work to keep his stress (and thus mine) low on whatever the new issue is. That’s generally how managers and employees work. You’re probably doing something very wrong or are very green if you don’t know what your managers chief stressors and concerns are, because I have no idea how you’d manage your work properly otherwise.
Sometimes it may bring to memory something related to work, which we can discuss. Sometimes it will be completely unrelated to work for the whole meeting, but I think there is still value in that. It helps us build a better relationship and reveals more about who we are and how we think and helps just generally "tune" ourselves to each other.
I basically agree with nearly everything you said. I just wanted to widen the scope a bit on the quoted part. Working in an agency in a client facing role, my main focus is to reduce the stressors for my client and "arm" them with things that make them look good with their managers and leadership.
Else than that I can only agree that when everything is fine - why should I fill 30 - 45 minutes of my managers time (that could be used more efficiently).
Also: If not everything is well I feel it is important to see if this is something your manager can do anything about. Not because you should not tell them if they can't do anything about, but to adjust your expectations and state it as an information/request. Oftentimes I found myself talking to my manager about things that don't work well but they could not do anything about this. But we found ourselves nonetheless creating ideas how to mitigate this in other areas.
It sounds like you have a good problem to have. Given your described state you have space for relationship building. Many humans enjoy different kinds of chitchat. If one is able to create a positive expected emotional outcome from interactions, it acts as a thumb on the scales in your favor in other areas.
Cialdini's book "Pre-suasion" has good information about different techniques to operationalize. Below is a podcast in which he discusses the ethical use of such.
- You can catch new leaders and senior ICs on their way in the door and make yourself helpful to them, which makes a positive and memorable first impression
- You build relationships that make you more effective in your role
- You accelerate the dissemination of knowledge across silos
- You exercise control over the flow of information to help the organization meet its goals
- You learn how power flows through the organization
- You discover other teams that you may want to work more closely with, or take steps to avoid working with
- You become better able to empathize with other teams because you have a human connection
Obviously, this effect is much easier when you are not in a management position. Because of that I was usually borderline paranoid about these changes in 1:1s with my directs.
In small teams I found the way to have informal, spontaneous 1:1s very effective. The basis, so, always was regularly scheduled ones unless you just forget to have them.
EDIT: For sure every 1:1 is different, and every 1:1 with different people need to be run differently. Some people like to discuss private stuff, others want in-depth tech discussions. Sometimes 1:1s are over in 5 minutes, sometimes they take an hour. Be flexible, and never use anything said in a 1:1 "against" the other person.
This was many years ago so apologies if some details are a bit off, but the gist of the story has stuck with me over the years.
Giving a 1-10 rating directly to your supervisor is a completely different thing and the number is tainted by all sorts of other dynamics.
I don’t really see where the commenter implied this.
To support their stance, I have also had lots of managers at various-sized companies (FAANG incl), who didn’t understand the inherent 1:1 power dynamic. They would expect full honesty, while covering up anything above my pay-grade.
power dynamics vary. some developers can always easily get another job, so they have a lot of power. in a case like that, asking the developer to rate their satisfaction seems normal & good, like a customer satisfaction survey.
I think the best is to personalize things as best you can (depending on your team size). Some personalities are less interested in talking, which is fine―I just try to make sure nothing is blocking them or they're not dissatisfied. Some people love to talk about their life, and I usually have to time-box that.
I genuinely care about how my team is doing and want to help them grow, so 1:1s are my main opportunity to figure out how I can help them... especially in the era of remote work.
1:1s between me and my manager are usually very productive. Our project had non existent tests and through 1:1s I was able to advocate for tests and TDD to my manager. 6 months later our entire team is all-in on TDD. There were other gaps that I noticed on my team too that I would bring up in our 1:1 and we have a discussion about it. Are all my suggestions going to be implemented? No, but it's still worth having a discussion.
In my experience it's a bit of a mix; sometimes (even often, if things are just going well) 1:1 are just "going through the motions", but sometimes it's a good opportunity to raise concerns or issues that don't necessarily have a place otherwise. It partly depends on the manger, but also hugely depends if there's actually something to discus.
I personally wouldn't raise technical concerns in there though; these are the kind of things that fit in well in general technical meetings where the entire team can discus the issue, and the manager can then make a decision (assuming there isn't a broad consensus yes).
I start with their agenda. They would’ve seen me how I prepare mine before, so usually they would have a similar agenda. I listen to them, discuss, and create action items together. Then we talk through my agenda, and we end with their thoughts as well since they might have just remembered something or it might have come up during my items.
I also make sure the items contain their development and also try to understand if their reports are developing in the direction they want and how I can help.
For myself, I do not find it useful to offload the responsibility of a productive 1-1 to my reports. It is both of ours, and since I have more experience in this, I behave as such and they are usually encouraged by it and start doing the same.
My #1 best recommendation for those starting out is to always tell your direct reports that this is their time and you guys can talk about whatever is on your mind. Like the article says, make sure you verbalize this is not a status update meeting. What's obvious to you is not obvious to them.
If you guys run out of topics to chop up, I also recommend asking for advice from your direct report about any subject that's on your mind. It builds rapport.
Phone call? Book a calendar invite. Talk to your manager? Schedule a one-on-one. Want to raise a technical comment? Issue a Jira ticket.
Not to say that this is all bad, but wondering if it's really helpful.
I hate unscheduled phone calls; I've asked recruiters to make an appointment first, so I can be mentally ready for a phone call. Else I'll be interrupted during focus time (headphones on, balancing seven things in my head simultaneously, you know the drill).
> Talk to your manager? Schedule a one-on-one.
For random day to day stuff, sure, scheduling something might be overboard. But for more serious business, you should put aside some time for both. This is also about respecting each other's time and schedule; you are not the center of your manager's attention.
> Want to raise a technical comment? Issue a Jira ticket.
I think this is an important step to take so that you sit down and think about the issue; it's like rubber ducking, if you can't explain it in e.g. a ticket, you don't understand the problem well enough. Second, task tracking software is documentation; in ten years' time you will thank yourself for making a ticket. (That said, I don't believe storing it in 3rd party software is good, ideally all documentation, including tickets, would be in your git repository. Commit volume and churn is a bit of an issue though).
No, it is not.
Too much formalization brings the power dynamic imbalance front-and-center and leads to people telling you what they think you want to hear.
If you're scheduling because you've seen over time that predictable schedules is what other co-workers prefer, then you're using the tools to improve everyone's lives.
If you're scheduling because you're supposed to schedule and you never gave it second thought - you're in good company, you're simply among the 99%.
I used to just ping my direct reports for 1:1s each week when it suited me, and then realised that that's pretty disrespectful of other people's time. I switched to asking people to schedule time with me in my calendar out of respect for their schedule.
Because we're past a point where if you don't have that shipping label on it, you can just ignore it and say you never got it.
It was inevitable.
- If you're a direct manager in the 1:1, it is your job to take notes. Period.
- 1:1s are business meetings about results, and sometimes personal matters are discussed.
- If you have role power, you need to be cautious with what you say during a 1:1. People will take things literally.
- Agendas should be simple. 10 minutes you, 10 minutes me, 10 minutes for the future. Most important thing first, always.
- To start a 1:1, make a statement or a question, sometimes the small talk is not wanted or dreaded. "How's it going", "How are you", "How are things" are all valid.
- Don't come with an agenda to a 1:1. People hate not being able to contribute.
- If you setup 1:1s as a tool to get to know the team members you work with regularly, follow a simple 15 minutes you, 15 minutes me type of deal. (Especially if you're a PM, TPM, or EM working with another discipline)
An agenda, either shared with the other person or not, is fine. I'd rather have a meeting with agenda / talking points rather than one without. It doesn't prevent people from being able to contribute, as long as you don't monopolize your part.
Of course, you need to trust your manager. I’ve made the mistake of doing that more than once.
In a department I worked in, there were no scheduled 1-to-1, just a weekly slot that was guaranteed to be available if requested. Nobody ever took it. The manager thought it meant that everything was fine, while in reality he had no idea about how people were doing or how they were feeling.
Nobody wants to come to the manager with problems when he's the one with the power and they don't have a trusty relationship with him. And you don't get trust if you don't communicate regularly.
We chew up an amazing amount of time on this kind of theater.
If you are not talking to all your people every day as a matter of course, they are basically unmanaged. For the love of god don't schedule any meetings. You shouldn't need to since you are just part of your employees flow of work.
The employee / manager relationship should be one in which either party can feel free to just raise any concern the moment that it comes up. Meetings are not how that occurs.
This is true in an ideal world, but not everyone is comfortable being direct with superiors. Regular 1-1s establish a baseline and a foundation that can be built on. Plenty of people will delay raising concern until damage has already been done. Regular, private communication lets the manager get ahead of these issues and handle morale problems before they surface.
These 1:1s are becoming what every process inevitably becomes. A strict panacea which turns out to not be a panacea at all.
If I have an issue, I’ll go speak to who I need to when I have an issue.
Maybe it’s because I’m introverted, a person of few words and no nonsense but I’ve always found 1:1s to be corporate lip service. I’m in a place I’m happy, my employer happy with my work and I have no interest in career paths etc. That doesn’t mean I’ve no interest in being better/doing better work, which I’m constantly doing, I just have no interest playing the game going through different org chart paths as happy where I am and certainly don’t want to do management.
1:1’s are offical company time so if you share your being stressed or other issues I’ve seen that used against people before, it’s not a private confidential chat, it’s a manager/employee chat.
I find it’s best for me to smile, nod my head and ask the other person how they are.
Experiences outside of corporate I found it more genuine the ceo randomly saying hey do you want to get a coffee/lunch instead of a prescribed scheduled 1:1.
People are busy, you some times don't get the chance to sit down and just talk about anything on your mind. Something else than the current backlog or whatever.
By scheduling regular meetings, it doesn't mean you _have to_ spend an hour talking about whatever, it's a block in your calendar where _you can_. In my experience, these are never forced, but rather an opportunity any party can use to chat, if none get the chance outside of it.
One week its an "Alignment" meeting between me and my manager. This is a time where the manager can talk to me about my current tasks and if I need any assistance from him. We also go over our yearly goals on a regular basis here, just so we can make sure that I am on the right track.
The next week we have our 1:1 meeting. These are lead by me and gives me dedicated time to discuss anything I would like.
What I described above is the only structure to the meetings. If manager doesn't have much to discuss in our alignment meetings he opens the floor for any 1:1 type of discussion and on the flip side, if I wanted to talk about my current blockers during my 1:1 meeting that is also fine.
So to answer your question, our 1:1 are biweekly.
One of my previous managers would just drop by my office on Friday afternoon to check in. This was shorter and shallower, more of a status update. My 1:1s tend to have a longer term focus: handing off responsibility for a project, and discussing which upcoming projects sound interesting.
As a soon-to-be manager myself, I will probably start with weekly 1:1s until I get to know the team well enough, then drop back to biweekly.
A couple years ago, I asked him to meet weekly and he obliged. It felt like he wasn't willing to actually engage in the discussion. I walked back that request to two weeks and then monthly.
I've been trying to talk less as well, since I realize that it's a one-sided conversation. It's difficult for me though, since I feel like we should be talking more.
i would say every other week should be perfect.
I think it works the best when it's completely open to anything at all.
However... why do they feel like turning it into a status update? Is it because the manager isn't sufficiently looped in to what's happening on a daily basis?
At times I’ll interrupt them and say ’this isnt a status call, this is your time to complain, vent, suggest, ask whatever you like and find a way for me to help you’. I always try to keep them upbeat and ask about the weekend, hobbies, etc. Not everybody wants that conversation i think.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Where did this one on one thing come from? A one on one is a boxing match or a schoolyard fight, not an open chat.
8:2:1 is a ratio of cocktail ingredients. 16:9 is an aspect ratio. 1:7 is a steep hill to climb. To, by, and in respectively. The latter two would be weird choices but at least they’d be consistent with the syntax of x:y. “on” though?! Where did that come from?
Don’t say “Japanese poetry” :)
Now one to one implies an equal relationship and especially in our field it feels weird imo to call them one to ones. Typical, you aren't equal levels in a 1:1 meeting. So maybe the one on one caught on because of the subtlety of one being on top of or above the other.
Face to face sounds too literal and agressive.
1:1 is an easy clear way to represent one on one. Although, we are forcing a double meaning on it. But hey that's the great thing about language. It's ever evolving.
Personally, in meeting titles I write PersonA/PersonB but I do type 1:1 over one on one when referring to the meeting type.
The whole point of a 1:1 is an opportunity to see your direct as a person and not as a direct. It puts you on equal playing ground for the moment, and as a manager, it is your responsibility to make sure your direct feels that way. When they trust you, they'll tell you how they really feel. That means being open about what they want out of their career, when they are thinking about leaving, when there's an uncomfortable problem on the team. That is what 1:1 is for, and that's why I always refer to them as a one-to-one and not a one-on-one.
The way most of my 1:1 calls initiate usually starts with someone else on the team expressing a bad mood about something and me doing a quick check in on teams.
I find that happy or otherwise productive employees will either reach out actively on their own, or not require this sort of interaction in the first place.
Also what you are describing on your second sentence is not a 1:1 meeting.
Ours redirected to a big fat 404.
He's the one with the power, he's deciding the raises, he's in the room his HR when they're discussing promotions.
If it matters, it sounds like I am backfilling a position for someone who took a director position in a different part of the organization.
Aside from the elsewhere-mentioned “once a month is basically being unmanaged”, the idea that a lot of direct reports is “flat” and not “managers stretched way too thin” is kind of glaring.
> I don't know if anyone's ever told you that half the time this business comes down to 'I don't like that guy.'
What articles like these fail to realize or fail to point to is that a lot of your work outcomes come down to whether your manager likes you, their manager likes you and your coworkers like you. This isn't universal of course. There are some people who are disliked but clearly brilliant enough for it to matter. These people are the exception not th enorm.
At Google, there was a meme in performance review that goes something like:
> This project would've failed without this person. It failed anyway but it definitely would've without them.
You can take the same set of circumstances and interpret them differently based on who you like and who you don't. Project fails? Someone you like did what they could for the team. Someone you don't didn't contribute enough. Project succeeds? Person you like was a key reason why. Person you don't wasn't.
So when it comes to 1:1s, if your manager likes you you're more likely to be someone they advocate for, extol the virtues of your accomplishments and so on. If your manager is liked the more likely their opinions are to carry weight.
So how to get the most value of your 1:1s? Figure out if your manager likes you and figure out if their managers likes them.
[1]: https://twitter.com/madmenqts/status/783648743690231808?lang...
I'm introvert (probably like large part of soft eng).
That and when it’s a recurring meeting that has no end-date.
https://www.codeleadmanage.com/articles/20210118-how_to_effe...
My TL;DR is every manager needs to develop their own strategy. The best way to do this is to start, experiment and iterate, but hopefully there's some conventions and ideas that can help.
