I see a few people are joining so we can come back to this in a couple of minutes. So this will be relevant to what we're discussing today, which is, is engineering management, right? For you. Um So I guess the first question is who, who am I?And why am I here talking to you today? So my name is Marissa Moino. I am a senior engineering manager at Tax Fix. I've been with the company for just over two years now in, in various management roles for about five years in total. And uh I really like making things. It's part of what got me into engineering in the first place. I made the shirt that I'm wearing today and I have two cats that I love telling people about and sharing photos and all of that jazz. So that's a little bit about me before we kick things off and the message that I really want to share today. And which is, I assume why uh a few of you are here today is that becoming a manager? Is, is a change. It's not, it's not the same, same experience and it's not the same skill set that you may have used when you're being a software engineer. I know some people have maybe experienced being at companies where somebody who is an incredible technical contributor has been promoted to a manager role and has found that they don't necessarily have the same skill set that would be necessary to become a very successful manager.

So this is a lot of this is a quick highlight of some of the skills that I had to learn to be a manager that I didn't really have experience with when I was a software engineer. So for example, with one on ones like how, how to get something out of it, how to make it something productive with anything around budgeting. I it was like a complete mystery uh in the beginning and performance evaluation, it seemed to be everything kind of coming together to hit me at once. So learning the new skills of um in terms of giving, giving great feedback, uh being able to do career coaching, all of the people management aspects of things. While some of these I may have had a chance to sort of touch on when I was doing software engineering. They, it was a completely different level when I moved to a management role. Uh similarly contract negotiations, even making offers to people uh is something that nobody really taught me how to do or told me what I would need to be doing when I was uh transitioning into the role, recruiting and hiring.

I'd participated in interviews before, but I, I, how was I making was I making the right choice that somebody is gonna be a fit for the team that they're gonna be a fit for the company if we have somebody who's OK? Now, is it still right to wait for somebody? Uh later, uh another was managing up. So how much information do the people above me actually need to know? Do they wanna know this minutia? Do they wanna know it? Like how, how much detail needs to be shared to be able to communicate effectively? And then how do I manage now, all of these things uh in a manager role, I, I suddenly had a lot more that were, I can kind of set my priorities a bit more, which I'll touch on again in a moment. And that kind of meant that I, I had a lot more freedom to, to what I wanted to do and I wanted to say yes to everything I wanted to do it all. And that's something that I really struggled with when I was uh coming into a management role initially. So then, um again, also the way that my time uh broke down has changed as well. So I, I usually describe people to people that my role.

Uh First II, I would tell people that being an engineering manager is building and debugging software teams. Whereas being a software engineer is building and debugging software, being an engineering manager is building and debugging soft for teams. And so part of how I do that is these different areas. So with one on ones, it's really that people aspect of things, really trying to understand what might be impacting people on my team, what might be um skills that they might want to work on in the future. How can I find opportunities for them to see their advancement at the company uh with the context part of things, it's kind of getting an idea of what's coming up for the team, maybe sitting in another sessions talking with product, talking with other stakeholders in the company and collecting all of that information about what's really gonna be important uh coming up for the team and how can we set them up for success and then kind of combining those two to some extent is sync.

So making sure that everybody is talking who needs to be talking, that information is getting to where it needs to be and making sure that everybody knows what's going on. And then the last is kind of taking all of those three areas and turning it into action that's going to benefit the team and benefit the company. So for example, if I'm hearing from my team that they don't have certain tools or skills or information, maybe that our Q A process is confusing and they, they wanna understand it better, they want more tools to be able to, to know how, how to create like, yeah, great, great quality software or something.

Maybe it's like setting up sessions, setting up knowledge transfer, essentially being able to take the information you're getting and turn it into action that's gonna benefit the group that you're working with. Um So when I first moved into a management role, I found that it was a completely different situation in terms of stress. So this is kind of what uh I was getting at with this. What stresses you out at work uh to start off is that for me, what, what stressed me out when I was a software engineer, completely changed when I became a manager. So when I was working as a software engineer, I might be worried about the deadlines that maybe, maybe there was top down deadlines coming down and we were, we gonna be able to make them. Uh could we get those things done when something breaks in production or like how does it impact our customers? How quickly can we fix it? And those stresses have somewhat changed since I've been into a manager role. Uh I know a lot of people become a manager because they really want to make a difference for people. I think personally that's a great reason to become a manager.

Um Is why why you wanna do it is, is to try to make a difference, to try to help people and it can hurt and it can be stressful when that doesn't work for everybody. Maybe there's a decision that you need to make and there's just no way to make it a decision that's going to make every person in your team happy. Um Maybe, maybe you can see or understand some of the reasons why a decision has been made that might not be visible to the team. Um There's always gonna be cases like that where, where this will become a AAA stress factor over time and then also how I spend my time has changed. So I've been in a lot more meetings since I became a manager. Uh I find that I don't have as much time to dedicate to technical work. Uh I, I've my manager once I reached out to him and I said, hey, I'm, I'm not as up to date as I used to be on what's going on in the tech stack. Is this something that's a concern for you about my work? And he told me that anybody essentially working eight hours a day on, on technical topics is gonna be better and have essentially more opportunities to learn and develop on that front than I was.

So this is something that I somewhat had to, to let go to some extent, not necessarily to completely let go of the technical aspect of things, but to know that and trust my team to sometimes be able to make decisions that I might not have all of the, all of the expertise on these days.

Um in addition to that, yeah, I, I'm, I'm in meetings a lot more. I find at least the end at the end of the day that my social battery uh has been impacted by how I've spent my time during the work day in a management role. Now, the other thing that is stressful is that I'm, I become very accountable for urgent issues. So if, if an incident goes wrong, people are gonna start reaching out to me and asking what's going on, what's happening with the team. Uh Like when is this gonna be fixed all of that? Um And for that, I'm, I'm the person in between. And I, I think it's important as a manager to be able to help the team to, to manage those kind of incoming urgent requests and such as well so that they're not overburdened and stressed by it in addition. Um And then, yeah, sometimes you have to support hard decisions, there might be things that you don't 100% agree with, but you maybe see the re reasons the business uh is choosing to do that and you have to find some ways to support it, to maintain the team morale, to keep, keep everything going and happy and productive as as best as possible.

So I think that these, these are things that have been stress factors that I didn't necessarily experience when I was working as an individual contributor, but now as a manager, they're part of my job. Uh and part of what I'm experiencing day to day. Um And so that kind of brings me to the, is this right for you? And part of that is what motivates you. One of the advices that I got when I was looking into sort of where I want to be going with my career direction is, let's say I get assigned, you know, 10 tasks at a particular given point in time. Like let's say this week, I, I start off my week and I see that I have 10 things coming up on my plate. What are the things that regardless of priority, regardless of urgency? I'm excited to pick those things up and start working on them. Where do I like to dedicate my time? Where do I find that I get the most reward from what I'm doing? Um And for me, a lot of those did come down to, to management tasks or things that were going to be benefiting my team working on a career ladder, looking at, looking at career progression for engineers at the company, uh helping to build a good team culture, recruiting, things like that.

Um Were all things that I was really excited to start my week with and that fell more closely to management responsibilities than they did to my respon as an individual contributor. One thing that I would recommend to people as well is to Google moving motivators. This is like a list of different motivators that can impact how you work and, and what decisions you make at work for your career and try to put those in order from what's most important to you and what's least important to you. So for example, one of them is for, I believe, like longing or uh acceptance or something along those lines. And so that's if you, if you want to be able to have that sort of community impact, to be able to work more closely with people, to have an impact on the team culture, that for example, could be something that would motivate you and and make potentially a management track, be something that could, could be a fit for you in your role.

So that being said, I talked a little bit about the stress factors and the motivations, the things that kind of keep me going that make this something that's worthwhile for me are, are the things that I find particularly rewarding about being a manager. So I, I feel like I can make a difference. The reason I became a manager. And honestly, the story that I've heard from a lot of people who have become managers has been a negative experience that they've had with a manager. In the past, there were times where I could see other, I was working at a company and they were making decisions and I couldn't understand why and what was going into those decisions being made. And I felt like there were better directions that we could go in that would impact the team differently. And uh I wanted to be able to builds the environment that I would want to be able to work in for other engineers in the future and being able to change policies, being able to uh change how we work together and being able to hold people accountable was a, a large part of why I wanted to become a manager.

Uh I also, I have more control over those workplace decisions that will be impacting the team if there's a deadline coming up. Uh I, I'm in a great position to be able to push back and say, what can we deliver. Uh Let's let's set these deadlines bottom up rather than top down. Um be able to, to say like, well, the, the team's gonna need a little bit more time to work on this because we wanna, we wanna, we don't wanna silo knowledge, we want everybody to be able to learn and work on this task. This shouldn't just go to the person who can do it the fastest. So essentially, I, I have, I have more autonomy. Uh I have more um control over things that may be impacting everybody. And I feel like I, I have the ability to make decisions with the outcome of trying to make my team productive and happy. Then similarly, I have a bit more freedom in setting priorities. So when I was saying like, what are those 10 tasks that really excite you? Um There can be always like maybe 10 things that are going on in, in the organization that need focus. Uh And this is one thing as well when I talked about time management and that was a skill that I wasn't so good at, when I became a manager.

Uh I feel like when I am setting my priorities, it's really easy to want to do everything and to see that everything has a benefit. Um And in this case, sometimes I can, I can pick and choose what I see as maybe having the highest impact on the teams, what I see as potentially having the highest impact in the organization or even like what I find to be the most interesting and rewarding for me to work on.

Um So I feel like I have, I have a bit more autonomy in, in general. Uh And then the last thing that I find to be incredibly rewarding and that really makes me excited and happy to be a, a manager is that I feel really proud of my team. I've, I'm just, I, I don't, I don't know how else to say that I, I'm, I'm incredibly proud of everything that they do everything that they work on and accomplish. I feel like the individuals who are a part of my team. I, I trust them to, to do their best work and to work hard. I, I don't need to like follow up and manage them too much. I, I, I'm really excited and happy to be going to work and to work with them every day. Now, a lot of people who have started uh into a management role and who have come to me in terms of mentorship sessions and such, we all tend to have kind of the same questions starting out. Uh And I think, I don't know, is OK, so when you first become a manager, sometimes it feels a little bit like you're pushed into the deep end of a pool where you don't necessarily have the tools. Like how can you, how can you do one on ones?

Uh What, what ways do other companies do this, what ways do other managers do this? It can be a bit daunting sometimes to, to feel like you're in a completely different ballpark of work and um and not necessarily know where to get started. And I think it's OK to, to admit you don't know something to ask for, help, talk to other people and look for the resources that are out there that can help you uh to, to improve in those areas. So I've included a couple of things here that have been particularly beneficial for me, um books and newsletters, uh Slack groups, communities, this this conference, for example, Uh And I find that a lot of times people in your network are a great, great source of information as well.

Um There's like mentorship platforms and mentorship groups, potentially in your area, meet up groups and it's a great way to just kind of get out there and sort of get a little bit of information about um like what other people are doing, what their management style is. Um And speaking of management style, one person gave me the advice to try to write down four adjectives that described what kind of manager that I wanted to be. So, for example, I want to be somebody who's approachable, who has a go getter attitude. Um And, and such like that, and when I started to write those down, I started to think about what my brand was as a manager and what I wanted to be as a manager and I could find a work environment that maybe fit in with what I had been looking for and that would value uh the kind of management style that I wanted to be working in and the kind of team that I wanted to be working in as well.

Um So those are all little tips that have been helpful to me, at least in my journey. And uh yeah, we have, I think only a couple minutes left. So I would like to kind of put it out there and see if there are any questions and speaking of the, I don't know, is OK and reaching out to people is OK. Um Also feel free to contact me on linkedin or to send me an email and ask me anything after this. If you want to grab some time with me. I'm also happy to chat about things specifically. I see there's been a question in the chat with, how do we deal with an under performing team? I think um there's so many dimensions to this answer. So if it's the team as a whole, I think it's really important to identify what might be the areas that could be affecting that team. So for example, could it be that there's maybe unclear requirements? Could it be the timelines aren't set correctly? Could it be a lack of knowledge? Uh I think it can be really important to get down to those root causes and some of that will be observation, some of that will just be talking to people and getting all of that info.

Um And yeah, essentially, then setting up a plan maybe with some goals and responding quickly. So I I'm a strong believer in retrospective and being able to take those action items and put them into effect as soon as possible, taking that and turning it into action is critical.

So the next question is around, how does one handle being under a non supportive manager? This is something that I have struggled with a lot. I I think it's important. The, the first thing is that if this is a situation that you have to deal with, to set clear expectations with your manager, have them maybe have a sit down and say like, what are you expecting me to do from this role? What are your, what outcome do you wanna have? Um And try to get an understanding of what they see as um your role and your priorities, uh maybe even come to them with a list of things that you have on your plate. Uh And say, what of these should I be putting at the top? What should be my top priority? And then if that's the, if that's the outcome, these things will not get done. And that's OK. I think it can also be, yeah, having a conversation and telling them like this is, this is the outcome that I wanna see for the team. This is how I see us getting there. And um yeah, trying to, trying to come up with some solution where they can potentially trust you to at least try out a few things or to, to experiment in your own way on, on what might work for the team.

So I think that can, that can be highly dependent. I know there's, there's a whole broad range of what a non supportive manager looks like. Uh And so it, it can differ depending on your situation. And uh if you wanna reach out to me individually again. Like I, I'd be happy to talk about your particular case. Um, um, well, yeah, I see. We're out of time. I'm just gonna really quickly answer this. Do you end up working overtime? Uh, if you have to run to another session? Go ahead and do so. Um, but yeah, so I end up working overtime personally. I don't. And I mean, I'm, I'm in, in Germany and, uh, there, it's, I, I moved here from the US and it's been a bit more flexible in terms of expectations for working overtime. But I usually try to cap my day. I turn off notifications at the end of my day. And I feel like that sets a really positive example for my team about what my expectations are from them as well. Also, I feel like it also sets expectations with my manager about what I can accomplish in a given workday and a given amount of time. Uh And I think it kind of helps to set more realistic expectations of what, what can be done uh in a given work week. I know when I was in the U SI certainly worked overtime more than I would have liked.

Uh And I don't know, I, I feel like if you're in a great supportive work environment, then that shouldn't be, that shouldn't necessarily have to be a requirement of being a manager. Great. So, yeah, so, uh thank you all so much. I really appreciate you joining me today. And uh I hope that this was a little bit helpful. Again, if you have more specific questions, I know this was a short amount of time for this session. So if you wanna talk further, um don't hesitate to reach out. Thanks a lot.