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Working With Your Manager Q&A and Videos

About Working With Your Manager

Doing this properly is a hard requirement for professional success. As a software engineer in particular, this relationship needs to be carefully navigated to achieve maximum impact.

Choosing between 2 projects

Mid-Level Software Engineer [L4] at Taro Community profile pic
Mid-Level Software Engineer [L4] at Taro Community

I switched jobs ~4 months ago and switched teams (not voluntarily) after ~1 month. My eventual goal is to (voluntarily) internally transfer into the AI org once I'm eligible.

During a 1:1 with my skip manager, I mentioned that my current team didn’t have much opportunity for impact. He floated a meaty project in a different org and asked if I was interested. Previous question . Let’s call this option 1. Afterward, I spoke to my direct manager, who presented opportunities in the other team that he directly manages. Let’s call this option 2.

Now I'm trying to decide between these options.

Pros of option 1:

  • More technically interesting
  • Platform/infra play that will eventually integrate with every single product => project has large scope

Cons of option 1:

  • Not sure whom I'll work with
  • Not sure how much support I'd get. (Good thing if lots of scope; bad thing if I'm flailing alone)
  • Org structure tbd: although my skip asked if I want to work on this, he’s loaning engineers to another org to fund the initiative.
  • Uncertainty re: how well defined the work is

Pros of option 2:

  • I know there are things that I can start working on tomorrow that are time-sensitive and needed for an upcoming product launch.
  • My EM manages this team and is responsible for the overall delivery. He seems to care more about this new project/team than my current team.
    • It sounds like my EM would rather that I work on option 2 than option 1
  • Product surface is high-visibility and therefore affords opportunity for impact

Cons of option 2:

  • I'm less interested in product / user-facing work, even though it's high-visibility

With all this in mind, does anyone have advice on which option I should pick or things to keep in mind?

Thanks for reading this far!

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Need help on how to navigate PIP

Entry-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Entry-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community

I've not had great reviews from manager in the past few months. I think it all started with me taking PTO for 3 weeks in december and something I handed over to team before leaving not working as expected. Before that maybe I had a made an impression that I was not proactive enough and it all escalated with this issue in PTO. They had to source a member from another team to get it done.

After I was back from my PTO I did work really hard to get back at the work left and finish diligently, but it again happened that after this work was merged, some other api's failed in Integration environment. And I fixed it soon and got it working. But by this time my manager had decided to put me in PIP I guess.

Now about the PIP, its 60 days long and the way my manager talked about it seemed like she wants me to take it very seriously and improve and she and other seniors can support me during that. My skip manager who is a director, however seems like a not so nice person, I also have a have monthly connect with him next week. He can easily influence the decision even if I do well and my manager wants me. How do I talk to him is one question? And how do I navigate this whole PIP is another.

Since the market is also very bad right now, I'm planning to work hard and complete every objective there is on the PIP document. What do you think about this? I am on stem opt visa and might have 3-5 months to find another gig that's all.

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How to give constructive upward feedback towards an Engineering Manager?

Software Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Software Engineer at Taro Community

A bit of context, I've read the EM videos on Taro, and I feel the one that I have is not on the same levels. They lack of many things. I fear to provide the proper feedback because my promotion and appraisal is on the line.

They got promoted from SDE 1 to EM because of the funding

  1. I would recommend my manager to others?
    ~ For people management yes, for technical stuff no
  2. My manager assigns stretch opportunities to help me develop in my career?
    ~ I don't really understand this question
  3. My manager communicates clear goals for our team
    ~ No they don't, don't have any documentation, a system design decisions are made on ad hoc basis, team is not aware about the changes.
  4. My manager consistently shows consideration for me as a person
    ~ yes people ops are good
  5. My manager effectively collaborates across boundaries(eg team, org)
    ~ Nope, there are certain teams expecting the manager to steer the ship but since there is no planning many of the things are pending
  6. My manager gives me actionable feedback on a regular basis
    ~ Nope 1-1 is there is no feedback for me
  7. My manager has had a meaningful discussion with me about my career development in the past six months
    ~ Yep promotion and appraisal talks as I'm identified as top IC + team lead who is proactive
  8. My manager has the technical expertise required to effectively manage me.
    ~ Nope, they lack
  9. My manager keeps the team focused on priorities, even when its difficult
    ~ This they do but always the output has no value only there is a hype and fear to get things done, no business value is generated
  10. My manager makes tough decisions effectively
    ~ They reorg the team only thinking them as a resource rather than how much context and individual has made in the project
  11. My manager provides the autonomy I need to do my job
    ~ They do and then I plan it accordingly but when a junior goes to manager he changes the scope and context
  12. What would you have your manager change?
  13. What would you recommend your manager keep doing?

But, overall I fear to write what I wish to communicate to the leadership.

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Worked with manager for promotion, but he suddenly got laid off. How to navigate?

Mid-Level Software Engineer at PowerSchool profile pic
Mid-Level Software Engineer at PowerSchool

I read and implemented a lot of the advice from Taro on building my relationship with my manager. I also worked closely with him for a year to position myself for the promotion to Senior. Every two weeks, I would meticulously document senior behavior in my "brag document" that I shared with him through Microsoft OneNote. Every month during our 1:1, I would ask him for feedback on what I needed to continue doing or change to reach Senior. During performance review each quarter, I used all of this to officially document my growth, and secured 3 Exceeds with 1 Meets. By the end of Q4, he was primed to go to bat for me.

Then he suddenly got laid off a month or two before names are submitted up the chain of command for promotion. I imagine others might have or will encounter a similar situation. In addition to layoffs, company reorganization or your manager jumping into another opportunity might have similar effects.

It feels like so much of my effort over the past year was futile. What makes this sting even more is that I'm fully aware of my company's promotion cycle, which is once a year in March/April. Promotions rarely happen outside this cycle.

What are some tactics to navigate this current situation and a strategy to avoid this single point of failure in the future?

Here's what I've done so far

  • Reached out to manager on LinkedIn to console him on layoffs. Fortunately he brought up the topic of my promotion and advised me to pass along a message to my next manager that we were working together on my promotion.
  • My company is still undergoing reorg, and I don't have an official manager yet, so reached out to his manager, which is the Director. The "brag document" in OneNote came in handy since I shared it with him and passed along the message from my manager
  • Started looking at other companies for senior roles. It's difficult to bear the thought of starting over from square one with a new manager within my current company and waiting a whole other year.

Here's my thoughts around strategy moving forward

  • Maybe work with manager's manager, in addition to the direct manager, for promotions. Would work more closely with direct manager, but at least touch base with manager's manager once a quarter regarding the promo.
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Promotion Level Project?

Data Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Data Engineer at Taro Community

I'm at a company where we are migrating from AWS to Snowflake due to Snowflake's simplicity and cost savings.

The Team responsible for the migration and in charge of Snowflake is led by a guy who is difficult to work with. He's not unpleasant, but if he gets you on the phone, he loves to talk and take up a ton of time. I was literally on a call with him for 2 hours yesterday because he goes off on tangents and likes to hear himself talk. He also has a bit of an accent which makes it harder to understand him.

So he's a Director and leader of that team and I'm a Data Engineer on an adjacent team. As part of the migration to Snowflake, he had the company agree to license a piece of 3rd party software to move data into Snowflake. This piece of software is one that none of the Engineers in the department want to use: it's old, closed-source, no one knows it and is a dead-end on a resume. On top of that, I'm pretty sure it's completely unnecessary! I think Snowflake provides a way of getting data into it that works as well. The biggest thing is the cost! It's a whopping percentage of our cloud spend!

This director had a good relationship with the VP of my department (my former skip) who was the one who signed off on the 3rd-party software but recently left. I was discussing the situation with a colleague today and realized that since my former skip is no longer around, I could potentially make the case to my new skip, which could earn my plaudits. It's an easy way to save the company a pile of money every year (multiples of my salary).

So I'm thinking of doing a POC of how I can replace the 3rd-party. I mentioned this to my manager today, and he said we already have a 3 year contract with the vendor. I think he's resigned to the idea that we're locked in for 3 years.

If I can reproduce the functionality of the 3rd party software (just bringing in data into Snowflake), should I make the case to my new skip (who doesn't know me yet)? I'm assuming I should go through my manager first.

Should I try and share the credit with my coworkers who also don't want to use the 3rd party and would probably back me up?

Thanks!

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Should I mention offers I turned down to my boss?

Data Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Data Engineer at Taro Community

It's performance review time, and I want a nice raise and bonus just as much as anyone else.

Standard procedure for getting a raise seems to be making the case for yourself: keep track of all your accomplishments during the year so you can present them to your boss when asking for a raise/bonus. Simple enough. I'm prepping that list of things right now.

It's also been the case that this past year I turned down 3 offers that each would have paid me more than my current gig - between 20% and 40%. Now, even though I'm underpaid at my current gig, it's also the case that I'm compensated for that by it being super chill - no deadlines, lots of latitude on what to work on, a nice WFH arrangement (1 day in office a week), and pleasant coworkers.

My question is, do I mention that I got the offers in addition to mentioning the things I'd accomplished over the year? There's an element of "hardball" in that, but maybe it's not a bad move. I guess the phrasing of it is the key. So instead of saying "I've got other offers, give me more money or I leave", it's "I really like working here and with you. So much so that I turned down other companies that were offering decently more. Can you see what can be done to raise my compensation?"

Finally, I'm aware that the best way to ask for a raise is :
"I really enjoy working on this team. I want to do more to increase my impact and empower my teammates - What are the steps I need to take to get to that next level?"

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