23 October 2019

I had the incredible privilege to attend the last Calibrate at the end of August. I attended last year as well, and one of the great joys this time was being forced to compare my role and position compared to last year. The comparison made me realize that I had successfully implemented many of the things I had learned that day. The true inspiration lay in realizing the huge growth of myself and my team in maturity over that time.

Michael Lopp, of Rands in Repose and the Rands Leadership Slack fame, gave good advice on seeking clarity in roles around the product and engineering triangle. Since he's been at some large enough companies (like Apple and Slack) that have the scale for program managers, he included those as a point as well. At my smaller scale, the related Team Leader Venn Diagram Lara Hogan created is also super relevant. The jist is similar: actually discuss and agree on who does all the emphemeral work around making a product happen.

Tara Ellis, Engineering Manager at Netflix, gave the talk that really hit home with me this year. She touched on authenticity, how to grow as a leader and continue to introspect on what that truly means to the key pieces of your own self-identity. She was also immensely gracious when I talked to her afterwards about some of my struggles and various outside perspectives on whether it's possible to be too transparent. I continue to think about this often, and think it ties tightly to the recognition of power and the impact that your voice has when you have privilege.

Kathleen Vignos has been an inspiration to me since getting the pleasure of talking with her at the Calibrate 2018 social hour. She's a star at Twitter, whose technology blows my mind regularly, and played a big part in the development of Wired, which in turn played a big part in my realization in high school as an early subscriber how powerful and fun technology could be. She did an amazing job compiling such acheivable goals for an engineering manager to be able to code and scratch that itch in a way that's actually useful to your team and won't slow them down.

I saved Kwasi Ohene-Adu's talk for last because he had one passing line that has struck me repeatedly since seeing this talk: "Being a new manager at a startup can be a pretty risky move." I not only took on a new manager role, but less than a year later, took on directorship. I love it and it's a roller coaster and scary and amazing and I could still use these "new manager" tips SO MUCH. Are we aligned? Did my teammate leave our 1:1 with a renewed sense of purpose? Of course these are high bars, and of course even the most experienced managers can't hit them all every time. Actually consider them every time is something I think the best managers have to do - and now I will do better because of that.

I feel so lucky to have been able to attend this confernence. Every time it renews my sense of why this gig is so incredible and so hard and so worth it.

NB, in the spirit of being an authentic and transparent leader: I started this post in October and am finishing it now on January 30, 2020. Time management and coming back to things you love: difficult and worth it.

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