manager-README - A readme about me

What's a readme? Why have one? More here! https://managerreadme.com/

Let's talk :-)

I'm really looking forward to getting to know a lot of people over the next few weeks :-) Feel free to drop me a slack any time, put some time in my diary or even phone me up.

Don't know what to talk about? Areas of interest and/or expertise for me include:

• Agile, lean and DevOps cultures and processes (theory of constraints is one of my faves)
• Diversity, inclusivity and belonging at work
• Career progression - what's next for you, how you're approaching it, how to set career goals and objectives, etc.
• Scaling teams and companies
• Work-life balance, especially work/kid juggling hacks!
• Pair and mob programming
• Your favourite solution architecture patterns
• Functional vs OO programming... which is better, and why.
• Show me your holiday pics/kids/pets/favourite gifs and memes.
• My Little Pony, dinosaurs, Disney Princesses... (kids are getting into Pokemon next but still at the WTF stage with those...)

Honestly I can find pretty much anything interesting (although if it’s anything sports-based, you’re going to have to start at a very basic level for me... sorry Toby)

My role

As an engineering manager, I have three main responsibilities:

1. My first responsibility is to the people in my team, helping them excel in the job they're doing today and supporting their growth so they can excel at whatever they want to do in the future.
2. I support delivery, by helping delivery teams with their work. This might be through supporting improvements in ways of working or processes, thoughts and discussions on technical approaches, or pitching in to get work done when appropriate.
3. I work with other senior people in the department to make sure we've always got a holistic view of the engineering department, are planning for the future and keeping everything running smoothly.

My leadership style

My preferred style is to work with teams with large amounts of autonomy and I generally take a strong coaching approach to my role. I always strive to make teams self-organising and take collective responsibility. If you ask me "what should I do", I'll take that as a starting point for a conversation.

If the team is in a tight spot then I might move to a more command-and-control style for short periods. Hopefully you won't see this :-)

My first rule of leadership is no surprises. That means:

• I value transparency, and I hate surprises - I'll always try hard to avoid surprising you!
• If you want to have a chat about something in particular, then that's cool - but you're more likely to get more out of it if you give me a heads up on the topic first.
• If there's something on your mind then please tell me - I'm not a mind-reader.
• If there's something on my mind then I'll always try to to talk about it before it becomes a problem.

My values

I value...

• Intellectual curiosity, experimentation and growth mindset
• Collaboration and constructive challenge
• Kindness and generosity
• Reliability, conscientiousness and rigour

Getting the most out of working with me

I work best in one-on-one or small group situations. In bigger groups, I'll often play the observer or the facilitator.

I like big-picture thinking and work best if given plenty of context. I am happy to dive into the detail as well, and don't have too many problems switching between big-picture and detail thinking. I love fast-paced collaborative conversations, especially around a whiteboard (let's see how that works remotely!).

I love systems thinking and am better at designing processes than I am at following them.

My superpower is asking questions.

My personality quirks

I'm mostly pragmatic but sometimes I tend towards perfectionism.

My job usually involves a lot of context switching, a lot of meetings and keeping an eye on many things at once. This is usually happy chaos for me but if it gets too much then it can become a stress trigger.

I have a tendency to take things literally and am not always the best at reading sub-text. If your communication protocols rely on hints or noticing social interactions, you should expect high packet loss :-)

Personal context:

• My husband is called Josh. He’s a product person. We have two daughters, ages 9 and 6.
• I don’t generally get time for hobbies (see above), but I will move heaven and earth to get a ski trip in (I am an extremely good skier).
• Bit of a coffee snob.
• I have two cats. They’re called Alfred and Arthur. They’re British Shorthairs, more affectionate and more demanding than cats should be.
• I don’t read much, but when I do, it’s sci-fi or Terry Pratchett.
• Occasional gamer (PS4). Revisiting my youth with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2.
• We moved to Barcelona just over a year ago from SW London because we could, so we did. It’s been great! (Apart from the bits where we’ve been stuck indoors)