Views = mine. Engineering Manager at Spotify 🤓👩🏽💻 ✊🏾 Whisk(e)y woman 👩🏽🏫🥃 UVA Alum🔸 Scuba Diver 🤿 IG: womanwithwhiskey
Washington, DC
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Random internet manager here 👋🏽 I have so many thoughts here and if you don’t know me, I’m known for building psychologically safe and efficient teams. Some of my favorite compliments I’ve received about my management are: 1- “your team would run through brick walls for you”. 2- “your team doesn’t play about you, even when you’re not around” 3- many of my engineers saying they’d following me “anywhere”
I know it’s not common but I LOVE trying to be the best manager I can be to each person on my team. However, I understand that mode of thinking isn’t for everyone.
But no matter what your mindset is on management, I truly believe a few ways of working will help you build an effective and stable team that’s built to last.
First, the quoted post is right. Some managers intentionally don’t grow engineers to keep the team “stable”. But if an engineer feels they don’t have room to grow and/or are unhappy, they’re not going to do their best work. Potentially creating a drag on the team until they finally find their exit. If you have motivated people, do your best to align them with what makes them tick and let them soar. Quality people will always be able to leave, help them see the value in staying. And when it does come time for them to leave, don’t take it personal. It’s a job 💜
Second, if onboarding people is a grueling task, dig into why. Yes, people take time to get organizational context, but are there other onboarding changes you could make to make things more smooth? Outdated documentation? Breaking down knowledge siloes? Engineers who don’t want to help their team? Whatever it is, lessen the impact of the onboarding drag.
Third, great employees are hard to find. If you find a few, do you really want to lose them because you’re scared they’ll leave? IMHO, I prefer to give these phenomenal employees a work environment that’s hard to find elsewhere. Giving a crap puts you ahead of majority of managers.
Fourth, I want to acknowledge that the industry is in a tight spot right now. If you lose someone, you may not get the backfill. Which can feel scary when the workload isn’t decreasing. But even with the potential of losing the headcount, I still stand by the fact that limiting your people’s growth isn’t the fix here. If anything, managers should lean into coaching and aligning their people with high impact work in case the team’s value ever comes into question.
Lastly, remember that your best people can always leave. If they’re good enough, there’s likely always another company that wants them. Refusing to nurture their career will only expedite their exit. My approach is to make sure they enjoy their time under my management so I can slowly but surely build my “forever team” of people I’d hire anywhere I work.
Most managers already know how to run great 1:1s. They choose not to because their org punishes them for it.
Every experienced manager has heard the advice. Let your reports own the agenda. Focus on their growth. Coach instead of direct. They learned it in their first leadership training. They’ve read the books. They’ve nodded along in the workshops.
They still run status update 1:1s. And the reason is structural.
A manager who develops their reports well creates people who get promoted out, get poached, or start asking for the manager’s job. A manager who runs low-energy status updates keeps the team stable, dependent, and unlikely to leave. HR tracks attrition as a negative on the manager’s scorecard. Nobody tracks “I developed three people so well they all got promoted in 18 months” as a win.
The incentive math is brutal. Develop your people → they leave → you backfill → you spend 6 months ramping a new hire → your team’s output craters during the transition → your performance review suffers. Run status updates → team stays put → output is predictable → you look like a stable operator.
This is why advice like this resonates massively and changes almost nobody’s behavior. The managers reading and bookmarking it will open their next 1:1 on Monday and ask “so what’s your status on the Q2 deliverables?” Because their org rewards exactly that.
The managers who actually run great 1:1s tend to work at companies where developing people out of your team is celebrated. Those orgs are rare. And until that changes, most 1:1s stay exactly where they are: status updates with a calendar invite.
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My mom would risk going broke to bet on me.
Her belief in me sometimes still surprises me after all these years but it also charges me up like no other.
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Tech jobs have been so cushy that some folks seem incapable of realizing this is J-O-B. Even as we stare at one of the toughest job markets folks have seen in decades.
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My mail in ballot arrived today. Do I return it like usual and trust it'll be treated with the care it deserves or should I go vote in person this year?
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I spent the day reading several docs end to end as I onboard myself onto a new initiative I'm leading and it was AWESOME.
I had originally started with prompting Claude for responses, but the content wasn't sticking with me. It was so nice to read documents that people wrote without the assistance of AI and I hope they won't become a thing of the past.
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Taylor Poindexter retweeted
Finally some peace and quiet.
LMFAO -- Trump is holding an event at the White House right now but there's no audio because the press pool isn't there. The Newsmax host notes that this is an example of Trump's attacks on the press "backfiring just a little bit"
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Just spotted someone wearing an Ed Sheeran t-shirt, I wonder what they’re trying to signal (if anything) lol
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Talking to folks about my home buying process and they all locked in mortgage rates that are 3% or under for their long term family homes and the competition apparently wasn’t nearly as aggressive 🥲
Where’s my Time Machine lol
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I’m at my nephew’s flag football game and the field next to their game has a team of all girls and they are DOMINATING.
I love to see it.
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“The result is never in question for me. Just what path do you take to get there.”
- Abel, A Most Violent Year
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Negotiating to buy a home can be such an interesting and laborious process. Loan process aside, the emotions sellers have tied to a home and/or how much they “feel” their house is worth can make things 10x harder than it needs to be.
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My uber driver is going below the speed limit while cruising in the left lane on the highway.
It’s taking everything out of me to keep my trap shut on this 25 minute ride.
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My husband noticed I was angry and pensive as he kissed me goodbye so he asked me what’s wrong.
I told him I was actively considering asking the mortgage lenders if they’d also like to see a picture of my butthole to make sure no one has been siphoning me money in there either.
Needless to say, that was not the response he was expecting 😂
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