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.
As a manager - I would love it if someone tells me that! This makes my life so much easier!
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.
> Tip: Your manager really, really wants to hear what you really honestly think.
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 will add that these types tend to amass deep expertise in what they do as well, because they're not just "passing through" the responsibilities - it's their craft.
They are incredible teammates and, in my experience, contribute more than "their share" to the mission.
> Hell, if you tell me that I'll do everything I can to give you a raise asap.
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.
> Tip: Your manager really, really wants to hear what you really honestly think.
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.
Couch it in how you want to contribute to your team.
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.
I would be totally fine with someone telling me in a one on one that they are comfortable with their current position and would like to stay there. My expectation at that point would be that we would work on growth within that position. How can we (you and I) do the best job we can maximizing your impact and output where you currently are and make you the best version of what you want to be.
Honestly, any manager who is against that isn't a good manager.
I like growing employees, but I'd be lying if it said I didn't put immense value on the great employees that are content where they are with what they're doing. They're dependable and they mean I have some form of "old guard" that really knows a system inside out without going through documentation or experimenting. That is very valuable.
As an engineering manager, I would absolutely love to hear this from a report. It provides immediate clarity to me on how to provide great projects and work options for you.
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.
You have two options, If you have a good manager just say that you just want to keep the same volume of work to be done and that will be all.
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.
As a manager I would be fine with this explanation. If you are valuable in the area you are and you don't want to move on that's fine with me. We need someone in that role and you fill it nicely so by all means stay in that role. There should still be plenty of growth opportunity for you if you want it... it doesn't have to come with a title change. Having 100 people that all want promotions that cycle and only 20 slots to promote into is stressful to handle so you not being part of that but still contributing is kind of great.
Hiring engineers is hard. Unless you’re in a very large company with complex internal politics, you can tell your manager literally anything and they’ll be fine with it. Most managers have been taught that engineers need excitement and growth and so they’re offering it because trying to retain you, they’re trying to avoid you being excited by something new and shiny. “I am happy and want to stay exactly where I am” is music to their ears, shout it from the roof tops. I wouldn’t take any lessons from layoffs.
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.
Actually that sounds amazing: you seem to want to do what you do and do that right, nothing more, nothing less.
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.
Have you considered contracting / consultancy engagements?
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.
I thought about it, and I decided not to. TBH, I like vesting stocks and the stock growth helps me work alot less than I need to ( get to quit, take a year off and live off selling the stock, then go back to work).
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.
This is asking a lot from you, but in your situation, I think your goal should be to build up enough of a relationship with your manager that you feel comfortable telling them that, or realize that that's never going to happen at your current company and find a new job.
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.
That’s good for you. But how good is it for them for you not to inform them of the existential risks of them not getting better at their job and staying marketable? Even if they don’t want a raise? Every industry goes through changes and you should encourage them to stay up to date on those changes instead of just chugging along on the legacy products.
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?
Sounds like you're working somewhere with an "up or out" culture? I've been there, done that, then moved on to a much nicer job. IMHO its a ridiculous way for a company to run. There are loads of people, like you or I or other commenters here, who will do a hard day's work, but don't want the extra stress and instead want enough time with our spouse and kid(s). We are nevertheless super useful to our employers. In fact, we're excellent value, because we don't chase the big bucks and we stick around gaining knowledge. My advice is GTFO from there. ;)
Do you trust your manager? You should just tell him/her that. I don't think I'd worry about layoffs in this market. Big difference between unambitious and lazy/not competent. I'm a PM and devs like you are worth their weight in gold. You could work on the framing a bit. Something like "I'm quite happy with my current scope and responsibilities. I enjoy working to make our current codebase more stable and maintainable and adding scope would either take away from what I enjoy or my family time at home, which isn't worth the tradeoff to me"
>> 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.
I agree with not wanting a promotion, I’m perfectly fine with where I am compensation wise and job wise.
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.
> I'm afraid to tell my manager that, because which manager wants an unambitious engineer?
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.
There’s no problem with that as long as you don’t express it in a negative way.
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 sympathize, before becoming a manager I was exactly you. Eventually, I realized I just don't want to be coding all day. I hate the endless chase to become good with some new technology.
Being a manager has its own challenges but overall I can say I am much happier than in my prior job where I was an individual contributor.
One thing to keep in mind is that "expert on team's codebase" is a form of career growth. Not always the best or most prestigious kind but it's enough that the company finds you valuable and worth paying more.
Agreed with the other comments here. I would love to hear this as an engineering manager. I fear the work becoming stale for my team and push growth opportunities to keep things interesting.
You’re a SWE. Point out how your growth is $$$ for the business. Once you’re through the first chunk of your career, it’s enough, and it’s what they really want.
My situation is as follows. I joined my current company 1 year ago; my team is composed of 5 people (data scientists, engineers, 1 product manager) and it is within an area (there are like 10 areas, and each area has around 2 to 3 teams). Alongside my team, there is another team in my area. There is only one engineer manager for the whole area (so, like 8 engineers to "manage").
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".
Sounds like you need to change the intent of your 1:1s. I am senior at a big company (managing teams of teams) and my manager is a senior executive. I meet with him every other week and that is most of the contact I have with him. That works, as he trusts me to execute on his strategic objectives, and I like it like that. Our 1:1s are very purposeful. I inform him on things I think he should know, ask him for support where I need him, and remind him of my career aspirations to get opportunities that move me in that direction. That's it. It ends up as a nice conversation and gets us both what we need. It sounds like you could move your meetings in that general direction.
Well, my 1:1s go like that actually. My point is: if you suddenly remove your 1:1s, would the business or you get impacted? In my case the answer is: no.
The 1:1s are not terrible nor bad, I just feel that they are just superflous.
> Seems to me that the job of the engineer manager is just too lightweight.
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.
> 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
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.
Sounds like your engineering manager isn’t doing a good job. I’ve actually learned how to be a better manager by learning what not to do from other crummy managers I’ve had or others had. Hope it doesn’t turn you off from management track or look at all managers like they don’t pull their weight
The thing is they are not a "bad manager" in the sense of: they do micromanaging, they never answer our questions, etc. What I think is that an engineer manager is not always needed... the only reason my company has them is to handle salary raises and promotions in a more ordered way (which is a win for the company, but not so much for the employees).
Yeah, I’ve been finding my one on ones useless recently, and this article seems to have some more useless “wisdom” here summed up in a nice package. Kind of annoying to me that the writer implies the one on one is for me to fill his valuable time. I’m loving my work, don’t have any issues with my coworkers, and like my current position. I really don’t have critical feedback to bring to the table every one on one. To be honest, if everything is going smoothly, all I can do is talk about what I’m excited to work on next and how life is going. Which is a status update.
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.
When I don't have anything work-related to report, there are no concerns on either side, and there are no situational changes, we just chat with my manager for the whole half-hour about various life topics.
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 hate when this happens. It's been a recent revelation of mine that I'm happiest when my personal business remains personal. I hate having to scrape through my life sanitizing topics into conversational safe spaces just to get paid.
> 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.
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.
> I’ve been finding my one on ones useless recently
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.
Additionally I have seen multiple articles or heard managers talk about having an open document between themselves and the report that they "own" and can fill up with stuff and as an IC/report I just don't see where I'm supposed to find the time to do all that and additionally as the team manager who is responsible for reporting up what we're doing/etc why don't you do more tracking of my accomplishments/etc too? You're literally reporting up on those accomplishments to higher managers so why can't you also collate that info for me to present in 1:1s?
Generally agreed, but I’d say it’s easy to forget long standing issues because you mentioned it once and no one followed up. It’s a good idea to keep 1-1 meeting notes to follow up on things and keep a record. And honestly if people have nothing much to discuss or are not interested in chitchat you should just wrap the check in early and let everyone get back to work or life.
I also think the managers should come with conversation starters to these meetings. Be curious about what your reports do and proactively ask them about something specific they did last month and anything they can do to improve. Coming with a blank slate because you think you are doing someone a favor by giving them your time will always lead to status updates or awkward silences.
The conversation starter needs to be chosen carefully though. If it's a question about a project, it may be easily construed as dissatisfaction on the progress of the project, when the manager is neutrally curious.
I have seen 1:1s used more strategically by employees who have 1on1 with managers outside their team. These employees often get promoted quickly. Note, at performance review time, employees are stacked against each other. If the other managers know you well and are giving you advice then chances are they won't push back if your manager ranks you highly. In addition, employees are ranked by how much they influence others so it helps to have a relationship with the other team leads and to know their goals. Furthermore, some managers don't care about their direct report's careers so having a 1on1 with another manager gives you a chance to get advice that your manager might not want you to know. For example, your manager most likely will not tell you how to be promoted above him/her; if you talk to another manager you can learn this.
- 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
I used to have a boss who’d ask me to rate my company satisfaction with the company 1-10 at every 1:1. This always struck me as one of the laziest/misguided management moves I’ve encountered, and I’m sure he felt it was both accurate and clever. If you manage people, and don’t understand that basic power dynamics will always trump encouragements for “openness”, you are naive at best and willfully blind at worst.
One of things I always looked out for as manager (which I am not currently) was a change in feed-back I got. If it turned from open, direct and honest to tounge-in-cheek, carefully worded and limited, punctuated with various versions of "nothing to report" I took it as a sign something was wrong.
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.
Exactly this. As an employee, in this situation, you are always one step away from saying something to the person who can make your life miserable if they take offence. At no point am I ever open in these things, always guarded and watchful of what I'm saying because of who I'm saying it to. It's a corporate pipe dream to think otherwise.
Heard one of the Warby Parker founders speak once, and he mentioned a similar process at their company. I believe once a week all employees anonymously rated their satisfaction 1-10. He was very bought into the thought that "happy employees = productive employees". He said the weekly ratings was a very powerful tool for the executive team to get a feel for how the team was feeling, and if they could push harder or needed to ease up. Compared with the alternative of waiting to see resignation numbers go up, seemed like a pretty brilliant idea to me.
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.
Not to defend the constant ratings, but imagine managers are not in fact all stupid for a second, and that they realize the power dynamic is there. You still need to do the same job and fulfill the expectations of your own manager, as a manager. It's easy to assume stupidity, and I'm sure there's plenty dumb moves made, but what you find cringy another report finds cool and easy. I bet there are people who would love a no fluff rating and be done vs a bullshit 10 mins of talk where in the end the manager still makes a mental note of your face next to a 7/10. Anyone who manages people sees completely different reactions from different people to exactly the same thing, so that isn't surprising. But sometimes engineers adopt a cynical view of it all where because you don't like something it must mean nobody does.
Very few people can be fully open with their Managers; it is inbuilt into the hierarchy and nothing to do with stupidity. It is the Manager's job to be aware of it and then devise techniques for getting around it and/or make allowances for it.
> imagine managers are not in fact all stupid for a second
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.
I don't know. It would be bad to have that replace other real conversations, but i could see it being easier for some people to just answer a 6 instead of a 7 instead of the IC explicitly bringing up out of nowhere that they are slightly less happy thus week than last week for unclear reasons that they themselves don't understand.
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 disagree. I approach 1:1s as an opportunity to just shoot the shit if that person is interested, or if there is something on their mind they can choose to chat about it. As the article states, it's that person's chance to completely dictate the conversation.
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.
I am glad for your team, that you genuinely care. There are enough people stuck in management positions that should sit locked in the basement instead of managing people and making their lives miserable. Currently my one-on-ones are 20 minutes meetings once a year where manager reads from paper what he thinks about my performance last year. I have no right to question his decision. I could open a case with HR to review my review, but it will not improve anything for sure. As long my reviews are good I am good.
I would disagree, but it comes down to what kind of manager you have. I have seen plenty of people here on HN say that their 1:1 are basically just a manager going through the motion but there are still many 1:1 who are highly effective.
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.
> I would disagree, but it comes down to what kind of manager you have. I have seen plenty of people here on HN say that their 1:1 are basically just a manager going through the motion but there are still many 1:1 who are highly effective.
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).
1-on-1s are one of my most valuable meetings. You have a direct line to your manager (and often "skip level" where you talking to their boss). That's phenomenal time to push your agenda, build consensus, stuff like that. But if you are just a Jira ticket finisher (and you like it, which is cool!) then I can see how it is less useful.
I’m in a similar position and have a more connected approach. I always have an idea of what my direct reports are up to, and a high level understanding of what their reports are up to. I always have 3-4 discussion items ready, these are usually about whatever is important for the business at the time that intersect with their line of work.
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.
Readit News
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.
https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/robert-cialdini/
- 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.