I recently transferred departments at Instacart and so have a new manager and skip manager.
My old skip manager (a Director) put a recurring 1:1 for 15 minutes on our calendar for every 6 weeks before I switched. I have 1:1 with her scheduled for tomorrow. I reached out to her to ask her if she wants to keep it and she said it's up to me, we can speak or have meetings on an adhoc basis.
Should I go ahead with this 1:1? I already have a weekly 1:1 with my new manager, a biweekly 1:1 with my old manager, presumably periodical meetings with my new skip, a bikweekly 1:1 with my company mentor, and a monthly 1:1 with my career mentor (thanks Taro!).
I don't want to waste my old skip's time, and in general don't love meetings. I always feel like I wish I had more to say I did.
I'm aware that many people would love the opportunity to speak to a director as it's a great opportunity to get more scope or develop networking skills, but I'm not super amibitious, am happy being an L4 and just want to get my work done and be in good standing. No plans to be a Senior Staff Engineer anytime soon.
It's only 15 minutes to not a big deal either way, but would love to get people's thoughts.
Thanks!
I'd default to keep it: exposure to leadership is valuable. However, if you go into successive meetings with nothing to say, I think it doesn't add value to either person, or it could even be viewed negatively.
Since it's only 15 min, you should walk into each meeting with something insightful/meaningful to say. You want the old skip to say, "I gain something from these meetings."