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<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Welcome to a brand new front end happy hour episode. With the move gem just recently made transitioning into management, we thought it'd be interesting to talk about what it's like to make the move from an individual contributor to a manager. We are joined by two managers Nazneen and Dan to hear their thoughts and experiences as well. Nazneen and, Dan, thanks for joining us. Can you give us a brief introduction of who you are, what you do and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages?

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
Okay, I'll go first. I'm imagining, as you all know, I'm a new software engineering manager at Netflix animation UI team. Before that, I used to work as an individual contributor at Netflix, and I got into tech with the traditional path of going to college and university and getting a master's degree. And I'm very happy to be here. My favorite font and happy hour drink. I can pick one, but I pick two sparkling wine and coffee. And today I'm drinking coffee.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Nice. Yeah, there's no harm in having to Dan.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
Yes. So my name is Dan DiGangi. I am a engineering manager at DocuSign, about four years in now. And my background originally was in Once Upon a Time design and digital art made my way to development. And then nowadays manager. So I spend a lot of time on the JavaScript side, but I manage a full stack team on the it's called CLM, which is everybody knows the signature side of Docusign. This is all the the contract management side. So that's what I do.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
That's awesome for clarifying that too. Because yeah, most people are, know DocuSign is like, Oh, I just signed that thing and not the other aspect of it. All right. Well, let's also give introductions of today's panels, which is Gemini, Gemini want to start off? Sure. I'm

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
young engineering manager at Netflix. I'm Ryan Burgess.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
I'm a software engineering manager at Netflix, I realized that it's been almost eight years of being in management. So it's kind of cool. Jem and nausea. Both have fresh perspectives. And then Dan and I will have, hopefully some perspectives, but maybe just not as fresh, which will be good. In each episode, the front end Happy Hour podcast, we'd like to choose a keyword that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink. And what did we decide today's keyword is transition transition, which I'm pretty sure this words coming up. But yeah, let's, let's start off I really thought as a first way to kick this off is what's it been like moving from IC to manager that transition? Cheers. How does it go? Yes,

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
the first thing that always comes to mind is letting go of control of everything, you get locked all this direct hands on, you own the thing. And very quickly, it's there's five, six, however, many people that you have that are now taking on the responsibilities and your job is no longer to live in that low level critical path like that. And that's the thing that always comes to mind. I think about the transition those first three months were really, really tough

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
for me was very recent. So in the first couple of days, I was thinking I'm missing something. It's like, Am I doing everything right? Is there something missing? Am I not doing something? And then after a couple of days, I realized, Oh, that was the coding section that it was missing. I'm not coding anymore, then why are we doing? So that's a big question of what you're doing when you are transitioning to becoming a manager from an IC. Here's, here's,

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I was thinking about this the other day, what makes being a new manager especially difficult, and I think it's just what you highlighted there NAS which is nobody's telling you what to do anymore. And you're the one who tells people what to do, which is your entire career. Heck your entire life, Someone's probably been telling you what to do some boss or something like that. Then you you make to management. And now, nobody tells you anything. It's totally up to you. There's no one to blame but you anymore, something goes wrong. So it's, it's scary. I get why people don't necessarily want to do it. Only a small percentage of ICS ever want to make the transition to management because it's really difficult. Cheers.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Here's your keyword. Yeah, you all touched on so many good things that one thing that came to mind too, maybe not so much when you move into the team that you are working in. And then that's how I started out as like I was an IC and then moved into the same team that I then managed. But there's been times too when you join a new company that and that did happen me when even when I joined Netflix is you have a bit of imposter syndrome where you feel like you have to prove it technically like there's something in the back of my mind is like, Yo, I'm one of you. I know this like don't worry, I am technical. I've gotten over that over the years like I definitely have been I know early on not something that's hard, because you feel like you still want to prove yourself as being technical and knowing that what you've been doing for years before moving into management, and so that one came to mind, and then to some of the things that you all were saying, I think that it's also you just don't you have less things that are tangible, right? You're like, Am I doing a good job? I don't know. Like, it's hard. They're like, did I ship that feature? As an engineer? You're like, Yeah, I did. There was very few bugs, you did a good job. Like there's a lot more tangible things. And so that's really hard to move into. And it's not a promotion, I think sometimes that gets mixed up, is people think that it's a promotion. And even people can disagree with me. And I know people will. But I think it's a role change, you are starting at the bottom, in a sense, like you are doing something completely different than you were you could have been top of your game as an engineer and very senior, but then you're starting out as a new role, which trying to figure it all out. And and so it kind of feels like you just stepped in as a junior. And so you're a junior manager, it's the same as like being a junior engineer,

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
that always makes me think a lot of people like, Oh, this is harder. This is harder. And it's not that one's harder or easier than the other. It's they're different. They solve different problems, you have different focal points, right? Like, my job is no longer to ship code. That's the best possible thing in the world that I can get out there. Right? It's now how do I take a bunch of disparate people and make them successful, like I might have been if I was an engineer. So one thing I like at Docusign. And I think you guys have some similar Netflix, I've seen it the other big tech is you can keep going down the engineer path, but managers a different path architect in the sense of the different paths, you get like this very deep knowledge, horizontal knowledge, or just you like to manage people. And it's nice to know, you can kind of figure out or attempt to figure out where you're going to fit. And some people find that what we do is what's for them. And there's a lot of people that find out, it's totally not for them. And the engineer path is where they might be more successful, depending on kind of how they are with what they do.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
Obviously, it's a Netflix heavy show, kind of always has been. But being honest, that's not something Netflix does very well. I know, we always speak a lot about how great our culture is. And we there's definitely a lot of really good things Netflix does. But I think in my perspective, growing people into like figuring out if management's right for them, or if like being a Senior Principal, or whatever, high end engineers title is in vogue right now, is not something we've historically done. It's very much you get to come in, you get hired to do a job. And you're the best in the world, or one of the best in the world at this particular job. So that's great. Anything outside of that is totally on you. Like if you want to be a manager, you have to step up and demonstrate that you have the capability and the talents and the people skills to do it. But it's not something we actively do. Versus I you know, I have friends who work at startups who, you know, they started, I see that the company grew, they became a tech lead, the company grew some more and they're like, Hey, you should be a manager and person's like, okay, and they kind of fell into it, which is a pretty common story. Netflix, you don't fall in the management, you actively pursue it. And I don't know if that's, that's good or bad. That's just is it is the way it is currently.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
So that being said, Jem, I think, how do you even prepare? At some point, you, you both This is fresh for you and NAS? You're like, I think I want to do that. But how do you demonstrate those skills?

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
Well, I think for me, I came to the realization years back that I'm interested in leadership. And I'm always a huge fan of pilot projects. Run What do you want at a smaller scale, see if you like it, so I started doing mentorships and I think that was a great representation of being a manager. It built a lot of skills in me over time being able to sit an hour and just listen, because I was a talkative person. I wanted to talk all the time. And building that was really hard. Being able to create and you know, develop empathy, me being able to put myself in other people's problems, being able to understand them and dedicate myself to solving and enabling other people. Then I realize, okay, this is one step closer to what I'm think I want to be. I think that this is the right approach. This is the right route for me. And I agree with Jem, at Netflix, there is no Bootcamp for managers. There is no pilot projects that officially company puts you in. So you need to really know why you want to be a manager, and how you want to be a manager and what type of leader do you want to be before you step up and running those pilot projects, however that might be for you? Could be great example. And I don't think we need to be managers to be leaders. We can be leaders, even when we are engineers, so finding those opportunities are the keys for you to try out. How was it to lead something

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
else? Maybe as a follow up? I agree entirely with that, like, yes, all of us are actually not in our head. Because yeah, you don't have to be a manager to be a leader. And I love that. How do you go about getting opportunities, though, to lead some of these efforts or pilot projects.

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
So for me, I always express my interest, it's really great way to let other people know what you're interested at, people can guess that you're interested into leading things. And if you don't ask for something, you're not going to be given that early enough in your career or never. So always let other people around, you know, let your manager know what you're interested at that your director know, let your colleagues know, build relationships. I know, Jem do that all the time. And he gave me a great advice long ago, to now start building your relationships when I joined Netflix. And I think that was a great advice. let other people know you about your interests and your career path. So one day when those opportunities arrive, they think about you.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
So for my side, I kind of stumbled into it. And the reason was, was one, it's so it's funny, you say that the relationship thing, I didn't realize that I had built all these branches. And I don't mean, within my side of engineering, I mean, every layer of the company that I was at, there's like 7080 people. So it was it's not Netflix DocuSign big now, but it was a decent amount. And I remember once upon a time, someone said in order to like, get into certain opportunities, they're like, keep do the thing that keeps your boss up, and I'd solve those problems. And even though it's a company, and there's everybody's, there's all these things happening, ask for forgiveness later was kind of approach I've taken a lot of times, now it's a little different, you have to be very strategic and tactical about that. But there's always going to be clear problems. And if the value is there and aligned for the company, it's something that you see the way to put those things together, like, just start going after those on top of asking, right, like, make it known, and then start going after them. Because that's the thing. Not everybody knows how to align an opportunity to you. And sometimes you have to go in one, either find it or figure out where is that alignment go back and be like, Hey, this is how I think this could come together. And that's, I think, a really interesting approach to try and take and start moving into those things.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I think my my general critique this isn't that that just Netflix's the entire industry of the self selection model of management is it tends to bias towards a certain type of personality and a certain type of person, specifically, like if you're underrepresented in tech, you don't see a lot of people that would like you, you never have, your bias isn't going to be like, let me accelerate my career growth. Or let me move my career directions and become a leader. You generally rely on people to push you up or pull you up versus if you're kind of well represented. And you see the path that other people have followed, like, oh, yeah, that person can a manager can become a manager as well. That's what I see a lot of, and I'm not a fan of it, I really think we need to have better career trajectories for everyone. So like, Give everybody a shot at God, a manager, here's the track, you follow, and everybody follows it. And then naturally, the people that are the best will become managers, people that aren't, they might find that hybrid, like a tech lead position where you're still coding, but you're still leading as well. But generally, but the whole Yeah, you know, I someone spotted you, your talent, they pulled you up just doesn't happen enough for like for women and people of color. So I think we need to be more deliberate about how we're, we're growing people and shaping them that that rant aside of that critique of the industry, not as what you said about mentorship. So spot on, if you're if you're stuck in your career, or let's say your mid level right now, or even your senior, you're saying like how do I, how do I push myself a little bit farther mentor, somebody, I promise you, you will learn something, you will learn something about yourself, you'll learn some about others. And you'll learn what it's like to have no control whatsoever, to only be able to have good words and good advice. And hopefully they take it. And that's something new, that's something new for most engineers, where we're used to input equals output, or as a manager, you have your output, but you don't know. Or you have your input, but you have no idea what the outputs gonna be. It's totally, it might be a year from now when you actually get that feedback, which we should cover in a bit about the the feedback loop of being a manager but Yeah, huge plus one on mentorship. I think everybody should try to do it. If you have the experience.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
I think it's a good way to you you get communication and empathy for someone and like that back and forth. And and you're helping someone to like, isn't that kind of rewarding to like, as you're learning, you're helping someone to and I think that that's amazing. And Jem, I really like what you said about if I was to summarize it, you know, especially from underrepresented groups, but it's it's how do you make it a fair playing field of just make it clear, like what's required for someone to be in a manager position or a very A high level architect or staff principle, I don't know, throw all your buzzwords out there. But like those higher up roles, what's the path there? What differs from you today, then that to get there, and it needs to be clear to everyone? And I don't think that that's always been the case, or I'm sure there are companies that do it really well, some that don't. And it's like, it should be very clear in the company, this is how I do that. And and I think that that makes it more equitable for anyone wanting to do it,

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
it's a huge, that's a huge topic, right with managers is setting expectations and having people draw from them how to build and execute around them. And when they're not there, everybody's just kind of like, unless you have some clear leader who might be exactly the person for a manager, or whatever the scenario is, is, nobody knows what to do, because they don't know what they're going after. So you have to set those all the time. So I like that a lot.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Yeah, it's, it's a tough skill set. Because you don't want to be like over prescriptive on it either. Like nobody wants, like, here's your checklist of things to go do. And explicitly, I've painted the picture for you, you need to do this exactly the way it's there. Like, here's the blueprint, that doesn't work that well, you want to set a direction, that makes enough sense that people it's clear, but also gives people the ability to own some of that too, and to really strive at putting that together.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
So some, some people are checklist oriented, that that's true. They, they are great software engineers, they're amazing software engineers, but they're like, this isn't my life, this is a thing I do. This is how I exchange my time for money. And you know, I want to raise my family or get into cars, or woodworking or whatever, whatever else they find passionate, but they're still really good engineers. But they might be more checklist oriented, where it's like, I close this ticket, this ticket, I ship this feature, my job's done. I sleep well on Friday, because I know I did my work well, that that is a type of person to I can say being a manager, it's not like those people probably are not the best managers. I mean, maybe I don't know. But that's not from what am I very, very four months of experience. That's not how the manager is. There's no checklists, you can make one but it will change. And then by the time you're done, you're like, Why do I even make a checklist? Because it's completely different? It's actually a 10 page paper, instead of a checklist. And yeah, I don't know, there. There are many different personality types. And what I'm seeing with being a manager versus being an IC, is there's such a broad spectrum of management styles. And then you see that reflected in the team and how they operate. And no one's and I this is something I want to get to is the feedback cycle is, you can't say one is better than the other because you don't know. Like, Dan, you probably has very different style than mine or Ryan's or nozzle, we probably all have slightly different styles. No one's to say who's right? Because you don't know until like years down the road with like, Dan, man, you really pushed me hard, like really, really hard. And I'm so much better for Thank you. Versus I could do it. And it could be Jem, I really hated you for that I was going through a hard time and you kept pushing me and like you made me burn out. And but like you don't know what's going to happen until much, much further down the road. So I'm curious, your thoughts on that?

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Well, what you just touched on too, is it's very individual, right? Like when you're managing people, you're managing people keyword, their people. And you have to think about it at an individual because, yeah, you're right, like that example where pushing someone really hard works for one, and not the other, like it can have the complete opposite effect, which makes management hard. I don't

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
even think you could ever honestly measure it like to say one's better than the other. Right, like, well, what are you measuring? Is it the we delivered 30 points against this philosophy for 18. Sprint's or is it know that this person's career went this route? Or you know, I mean, like even trying to define edges around stuff like that. It's, as long as I'd say people are growing, and they're going in the direction they want. That's the most baseline thing, but I would I don't think I could ever compare the success of our styles. Honestly, on any level playing field. I think it's just very tough. And that's my lane favorite sayings. People are like, how would you describe big difference between software and management? I always say software is binary, it's very zeros and ones. It's literally that right? Where people management this dynamic, it's there's really not as much there's always gray area in the middle of things. And that's that's what makes it so much or not more sorry than software, I mean, different to try and figure out those type of diamond dynamics, you know, and it's like you said, Jem, I really liked what you said too, about the to do list. I have my beautiful Excel spreadsheet that starts off great, but a month later, I'm like, Is this even mine?

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
That's true. I think that's how I felt when I become a manager. I felt like when I was a software engineer, everything for me was binary, right? I was on to the playing field. But then when I became a manager, everything became like a string theory play. infield, there were so many points on the field to keep track of that. You don't know what you're doing at some points. And it was easy when you were an engineer, you don't know something, you have a Stack Overflow, right? You search and thorough, you have the answer. And I think when you're a manager, you need to build that patience and having some grace with yourself to be able to wait for the answer and really build up that understanding. It takes time. And that was something that I learned at Netflix, I think that's something that Netflix grew me into as an engineer, to be able to build that understanding phase, and not make judgments too fast, being able to be in that gray area for long and be okay with it. Because I was a perfectionist before I joined Netflix, I wanted everything to be right on, I wanted that checklist person to be. And then I changed working at Netflix, I think that was a great experience. For me. That's why I'm saying you don't need to be a manager to learn to lead and to understand leadership. You can do it even when you're an engineer.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
I'm also curious, like, I'm not even going to ask like, Were you nervous moving into management? Because like, it's more about what were you nervous about moving into management? Because I don't believe that you weren't all of us here. I feel like there was some fear of jumping in and I'm curious, what were those fears that you had?

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
There? There was a lot, I felt pretty confident because I'd spent five years in Netflix. So I understood the culture. Now it's like you're saying, people are leaders at Netflix. They don't not necessarily people, leaders, but they're leaders in their own right. So I felt comfortable in that area. I think what made me no service was having the respect to the team. And And to your point, like you want to come in there and prove, oh, no, I'm a great coder. I speak your language. I know who you are. And all the all these like, you know, I'm cool, too. One thing I learned pretty early on, it's like, that's a mistake. If I come in there trying to prove what a great coder I am that I'm not doing my job as a manager. And respect comes over time. I think I tried to push it too hard, like, Hey, I'm the cool manager, you need a new computer expensive. Go ahead, like Yeah, you know, like, try to try to earn their respect, like the cheap way. Rather than like, let me put the time in, let me understand you personally. And let me figure out like how best I can help you be your best self and do your best work. That was something that really made me nervous. And I'm still figuring out, like I said, I'm four months in my thinking probably the next four months will change drastically as it has already. And my understanding of people. And my role is still so ambiguous. Even now. If you people ask me, I was at the park the other day, and someone's like, oh, yeah, you work for Netflix, as you know, the self conversations in in Silicon Valley go. It's like, Oh, where do you work? Where do you work? Like, oh, you lead the web platform team? What do you do? And I like had this long spiel, but I'm like, this still doesn't really capture it. Because I'm still not sure what I do. And what the team does, because it's not well defined. And that was another thing that was difficult going in was the boundaries of my team were still very ambiguous. So all this swirl, coming in, maybe very nervous.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
I also need to work on that elevator pitch. My team

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
30 seconds. That's it.

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
I remember I spent the day preparing my introduction to the team. I was like, Oh, my God, how the team going to send you. How about this slide? Should I put a slide together? Should I put pictures? I'm going to introduce myself. But yeah, absolutely. I was nervous. Definitely. And I think that's totally natural. And I embrace that nervousness. And I told myself, admit, you're not going to know a lot of face. And that's okay. Just be okay with that. And seek understanding and seek answers. Try to rely on your team and your partners, other people around you to understand. And one thing that really helped me was that understanding that I don't have to make decisions so fast. It's okay to wait. And it's okay to ask more questions. Because I don't have everything. I'm new to the team. And suddenly, you're have to make a lot of decisions, joining the team and you don't know anything about the team. So it's okay to postpone things. And it's okay to give yourself that time to learn and admit it and set that expectation for your team. That you know what I'm learning, I don't know so many things, and I'm gonna learn for a month probably from now. So I'm gonna rely on you and come to you a lot of times for information

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
like that. You're being vulnerable, right? Like it's like, yeah, don't don't try and make changes immediately. I think oftentimes, new managers we do make mistakes like that, where we feel like we have to quickly have all the answers and it's like, if people expect you to like that's you're not being set up for success, and I think it's okay to say you're He was like, I need to, I need more information on this before I make a decision, like, let me get back to you or, you know, ask asking follow up questions on them, I think is so helpful and I love that you're already doing that. Like, that's, that's great.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
So kinda like Jem said, I, I stumbled into management. So I, I didn't feel nervous when I first started because I had already been in it. Like, if I really like Trump drew back, it was just problems that were bigger than like my jurisdiction and not being able to make like, those, like fix those things like that was that at the time, when it came to DocuSign, though, a bunch of stuff came to mind. So definitely imposter syndrome. I was like, this a huge company, they're super advanced, and you know, not just technically and all these different ways. And then you start questioning, like, maybe I don't do I know how to grow people like all these things, you know, really quickly come to mind, you get nervous. The technical side, you mentioned, Ryan, that's like, they didn't really didn't do as much that because you don't do that in management. But what if it turns out it is heavily technical, and I am not as deep as I need to be. And then the last one, this is very particular. And I think, Jem, you started talking earlier about the personality styles. So I'm sure you guys know me, I'm very outgoing, energetic, kind of can dominate conversations at times. And when I went into DocuSign, like, you know, and you got to put it in the listening mode, and like, ask the questions and stuff like trying to know you got to find your own style, because you know, it can as much as it can that benefit, it can also be a detriment, because you have to start to tweak and bridge your style for the company, for your people. Just all those things, and I got really, really, really bad anxiety to be honest with you. It takes time to get past it, but it does get better. You and you will get better. I

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
think a unique fear for me, too, that the first management role was just being thrown in. It was the team that I worked in, and now you're managing this team was also that nagging question of like, I mean, these people didn't choose me as their manager, right? Like the I didn't hire them personally. And that's always like, a little worrisome, too, is now they've got stuck with this brand new manager. That was one that I had that fear or even like, Oh, these some of these people were my peers, right and that and now that I'm their manager, and that dynamic has changed a bit. One thing I did remember doing is just bringing that up, like just like tackling it face on was like, like in one on ones with the team is like so we were peers before. Now I'm your manager, what concerns do you have? And there were some and we talked through them. But I think if it was there, I was nervous even asking the question in fear of the response. But it felt good to just be able to be on a level playing field and understanding where they're coming from. And maybe I can adapt or trying to address it or just say like, Yeah, I'm gonna have to learn and, you know, hopefully I don't fail you.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
That's dropping the ego, and being vulnerable and humble, and like being willing to say, like, I don't know, or, Hey, I'm not doing that good at this. Here's an example of it. In fact, I try to do that really frequently. Because you can try and hold up big super superhero style all the time. But everybody's a person, we're good at, something's not good at others, as long as you're moving forward and 1% better, right a day, or whatever it is, that's, that's really gonna help people like, I think, drive, you know, grow respect, they're also gonna understand better, they're also going to be much more, you know, if you make a mistake, right, it's like, oh, like, they're aware of this, and they're going to get better at it, you know, like, maybe don't do it 10 times in a row. But it makes us like the way that you work with people just so much better when you can drop that down and start talking about that with someone the right way.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
I think that that's like, you're also building trust with your team in that sense, too, is like, early on, you know, being vulnerable, and just sharing that it automatically it removes a bit of or lowers a wall. That's like, all this is my manager. It's like you're opening the door for feedback for yourself too, which is really good. But I think that going to that point of like, we try and prove ourselves technically build trust, like that's like your the best thing you can do with your team when you start. It's not easy, either. Like that's Yeah, I think that's a fear, too, is are they going to trust me, and it takes time, and you can't force that either. It's not tangible.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
It's a struggle to figure out if I'm doing the right thing at any given time, if I'm focusing my energy on the right thing, because the feedback loop is so long. Like for instance, the team we came up with the roadmap a few weeks ago, I shared it out partners and all that stuff that managers do. And I won't know if the project assignments, the timing, if it's the right focus area is the right thing to do probably for a year. And that's for me right now. That's a real struggle is just, I don't know if any given time I'm doing the right thing. I have to just trust my instincts, which is a really scary thing to do. Like you're totally totally on the success or failure? Yes, there are external factors, but it's totally on me to figure that out. And that's scary. There, there are times when I'm just like, almost paralyzed by, I can't make a decision this way or that way. But I know like, I need to make a decision that is my job to make decisions. And like, it's not something I can ask the team to weigh in, because it's just, it's too high level. It's not something they should be focusing on. But I have to decide. And that's, I'm still dealing with that right now. It's really difficult. So I hope that gets better. I assume over time, you just like learn to trust your instincts more. But starting off as manager, trusting your instincts is something that it takes a lot of getting used to. Versus like Nazy said, you can just StackOverflow everything and generally know the right answer. Software is binary, it's ones and zeros. Manager. Who knows. It's it's a quantum mechanics, it's all given states until the waveform collapses into the what actually happens. And that's still up in the air.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Here is a good point too, is the feedback loop in that aspect of like, oh, I go check StackOverflow, this looks like it will work I try it, it works or it doesn't work. Very quick feedback loop into gem your point you're like, I may not know if this decision was right. And if it paid off in the long run. So true. You have to still do those make those decisions. But I also think you get good at trying to look for signals, or ask for feedback on and check in like you want to be, you want to close that feedback loop, right? Like it's not as it's not as one or zero as binary as coding. But there are signals and check ins that you can be doing periodically to get a sense are we headed down the right direction, and open up to be pivoting to write like you made this decision that supposed to be a year from now or play out for a full year? Just be comfortable that there's no way that it's going to be perfect? Nobody plans perfectly. So I think you get good at to your point gems like you figure it out? Probably not fully, but like you figured out how to look for the right signals. And you can pivot and iterate on it. I am curious me this is more probably for Jem and NAS. But you know, I'm sure Dan and I have screwed your data too. Yeah. What have been the immediate challenges that you've had to think about deal with as you and we've, we've touched a little bit on this as like the fears. But you know, what are some immediate things that you dive into and have to think about,

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is getting to know my team. And I think that's one of the most important things when you when you join us a new manager, start to get to you know, your team and start to get to know your partners. And then I think for me was that getting to know understanding the context, the reading and learning phase, and then creating a learning plan down the road that how I'm going to continuously learn and create a system that you block those time for yourself as a manager to have those thinking times and learning times. Because your calendar, my understanding is gonna get really booked. And if you don't do that early on, my understanding was I would never be able to have those times to be able to learn and think and what I'm thinking even as a manager, I shouldn't stop learning technical things. Along with leadership, you still need to have some technical understanding to keep yourself up to date with the industry as you go forward. So have a plan of how you want to do that. Do you want to take courses do you have side projects? Do you want to allocate Friday's your technical reading? How do you want to grow as a leader because being a manager, the journey doesn't stop here. It just starts from here. And that's one area I think I have to learn a lot of things moving forward. And having that plan for me is that I'm gonna learn I'm gonna pick mentors for leadership, who's going to be those people I'm gonna refer to I think get lonelier as a manager because you no longer have those colleagues you can just go and chat anything about relationships change the really picking those people across the company that you can trust and you can share you know what I did this I tackled this situation this way what do you think what what I've shouldn't been doing? So those are important and planning those learnings those mentors are people who can you trust them they can help you with? Those were the first things that was on my mind during the first month.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
You just go hang out on a podcast with other managers you do that

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
too. Now it's I'm glad you brought that up because I actually forgotten already but you the first month first two months was probably man that's probably the loneliest time in my career. Like it's just it's so much only being a manager because like, you have all these problems, but they're specific to your team. So I can't be like, Hey, Dan, what do you think about this? Or because like, yeah, you're gonna care at some level, but not to the level that is required, because it's not your team. And it's not you have your own problems to deal with. So it's all these really specific problems that are just yours. And there's not really people you can talk to you because they're so specific to that. Yeah, it was, it was really hard. I guess the first few months was really lonely. And I think I talked about on Twitter a bit, just the isolation of being a manager, and there's no one to share problems with, you can share some with your team, to a degree, but not so much where they think the sky is falling. Because like, you got to keep them confident in your leadership as well. But yeah, that was that was rough. I'm glad I got through it. I have people I can talk to you now. And people understand me better. But yeah, don't. For everybody considering being a new manager, like don't underestimate that. It's really, really difficult. Even regular meetings with your manager and one on ones. It's just, it's not the same. You just Yeah. It was tough.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
Someone brought this up earlier as rhombic estimation, and not being as good at that it's really hard and software, like five years, or one, five or 15 years. And in my opinion, and the reason I brought up with someone when you said earlier about, Jem, you're talking about your instincts, right? And right, the higher you go, you have to make bigger decisions with less information. So your instincts become so key. And I was like, I don't know if my instincts are there to support that large of a type of decision that I need to make. And you can always think that, as I said, the two is like, I don't know, I might need to go get more information. And that is part of it. But that's not always how that's going to be. And I remember that coming up really quickly when I first started for me.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Yeah, you do have to sometimes make split decisions, or, you know, in hiring, we haven't even covered any of that yet. But like hiring someone, that's a pretty big decision for like, many, many reasons team dynamic, are they going to be performing on the team? All the things you have to think about? You have a really short window of time with each candidate, right? Like, you may have talked to them a few times. But you're covering all these little aspects to try and get enough signals. Is this person going to be good, but you don't fully know until they're, you know, working with them? And it takes time? So yeah, there is some split decisions. That is nerve racking. That's a good point. I think the way Jem even ended, there's I think it's good that maybe just before we dive into pics, I I'd love to kind of hear, what advice would you all give to someone who's made that transition? Or is just making that transition? Cheers to both of them? Cheers. Yes,

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I'll share the advice. My manager, who have already learned a ton from Shawn Sharma is my he's a director, but He's my manager. And his advice early on was, don't try to emulate someone else's leadership style. Because like, at best, you'll only be number two at doing that. Find your own style, and lean into that. Because you you will be number one being you. But if you try to copy someone else, then it's just gonna be a poor facsimile of them, which really helps. And essentially, that's a way of saying, trust your instincts, like you are in this position, because you know, you interviewed for it and experienced leader saw something in you, even if you don't see it, it just trust your instincts. More. And that's something that's really easy to say, it's very hard to do. But and I'm still working on it. But yeah, be yourself I think is the the short blurb there

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
on I think I love that job. And I just want to jump in on that. I think you can emulate style. I've definitely gravitated towards certain leaders styles, where I look up to them. And I'm like, wow, I really like how they do that. But I think that you've spelled it out so correctly is like you can pull from them. But don't exactly like be that person. Because I LOVE what Sean said is like you're just number two to that person

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
and love that for me. Plus One, two, what Jem said definitely, that's the number one advice. And also, I think it know that it takes time to build trust. Don't expect on the first one on one people open up completely and tell you everything they know and talk about their problems. I think that will take some while until they can build that trust and you're part of that. And another. This is more into sales. But for me really knowing that leadership is more to inspire and enable rather than to dictate things to people, people things when they become management. They have more authority. That's not true. And yes, you can have budgets and things and Take the team out to a lunch. But that's not the authority. As a leader, you're there to paint a picture anything, you should also become a good painter, to paint that picture that the team and vision. And really that also takes time and having that patience with yourself and knowing what picture you want to paint and paint it so clearly, that people not only concede, but also they can feel it. And that that's a skill that I'm still trying to learn. And I think it will take a while for me

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
to feel like I'm just kind of lifting off of what you both said. But so definitely one is just in John's realm, which is Know thyself, which is, who you are, what your style is not trying to be something you're not and learning about yourself. So you can build a style. And then to it as well. You said no others spend time getting to know people figure out how to really not personal but professionally like dig in and understand how they think and they work. And then it's a lot easier to think about growth and career development because you actually know what makes them tick. And you have time with them. Right? Because you need that time. Those are definitely two big ones. I had a third one now I'm totally forgetting, which always happens once a podcast.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
Your third advice was gonna be always write things down.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
That's true. Yes, always take notes. That is actually really good advice. Really, really good advice.

Unknown Speaker  
Take notes and then organize notes into a bigger note you have later on?

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I don't know about that. But yeah, just so you all know, Nas is one of the most organized people I know. Like Alice for her lists. That's what she's Isaac.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
Oh, yeah, that's the right way to do it. Me too.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I can't even find my notebook. There right here somewhere. I'm not organized.

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
You're, you're gonna live in spreadsheets, you have to live in spreadsheets to manage. Oh, I know, the third one that I was gonna say. Because this is just I think it's worth saying always is that you're gonna make a lot of decisions, and sometimes good, sometimes bad. But you definitely need your prayer, there are going to be times where you have to play the manager card and not just make a decision. But it might not be the happier decision of the ones on the table. And that's, it's funny, I think you get I get nervous, I get nervous times. And really, it's never come back to bite me. But like I said, you put yourself in that position by being in a management, you need to prepare for that. I think that's really important to know. And they are tough decisions. They really are.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Yep. I mean, they're you're also dealing with people's careers too, right? hiring or firing. And those are not easy decisions. You guys all have really good advice, I thought of one that's maybe down a different track. I started making some manager video clips around like a lot of these types of topics. And the one that stuck out to me was the managers shooting code. And and I'm going to tell you this, because and there's arguments and on like pros and cons and fighting back and forth. I've seen it all on Twitter, I don't believe they should. And I made the mistake early in my career. Like when I first moved into management, I was trying to juggle both. Before management, I was in this role of a lead front end engineer. And then it was like, Cool. Now you're a manager, our team was underwater, like with how much work we had to do. And so I thought I was being helpful by doing coding. And the thing is, is I was doing that coding, probably in the evenings. And on the weekends. It wasn't during the day because I was in meetings all the time. And so what ended up happening is, I'm burning out, but then I'm also Am I a good engineer anymore. And I'm a good manager, probably neither. And so I quickly had to realize that I need to delegate. And I need to get good at prioritization. And also communicating with stakeholders and saying, like, we are not getting to this, because of these other impactful things that we're working on. And I could have done better for my team is just practicing those skills, and then spending my time hiring that, you know, we had open roles and rather than trying to pick up the slack, so I stress this is I do not think managers should be coding. There's a lot of reasons why that was just one example. But I think even just that managers are playing a different role. And you need to be thinking about the team and allowing empowering them to do their jobs. And so if you're doing that job, then it's hard you're not fully in the manager seat. And so I can't stress that one enough. And I know people will disagree with me, you know, hit me up on Twitter all day long. I'm happy to hear your arguments. That's great. Let's jump into pics in each episode of the front end Happy Hour podcast. We'd love to share pics of things that we've found interesting want to share with you all. Let's start it off with you.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I've got two picks today. The first one is movie that I saw over the over the weekend. I had to use HBO Max That's, that's just an app for like, I don't know, I think designers hate you. Or they hate their jobs. And they're like, let's make an app is as bad as we can Anyways, now all being our expected people to work on it, but it's not a good app. Come on, you can do better anyways. So I use HBO max. And I watched the Suicide Squad, which was a lot of fun. Like, it's, I wouldn't say lighthearted. That's definitely not not what is going for. But it's, it's just a fun irreverent movie where you don't really know where it's going. People kind of like Game of Thrones people can die. So like, there's no guarantees, just because you're a star character, you're going to make it to the end of the movie, which makes it actually more compelling. It was just a lot of fun news from director James Gunn, who is probably more famous for Guardians of the Galaxy. And he he brought in some energy, but much more adult and much more blood filled. But there's a lot of fun the Suicide Squad I recommend it. It's it's light hearted, but pretty violent. So you know, probably probably don't get into that if you're, that's not your yourself fun. My second pick is an article I came across on the Segway do remember the Segway by chance. Yeah, number. So for the younger younger of our audience, you probably don't remember what Well, I'm air quoting big deal. This was was it was this thing that was a piece of technology in the early 2000s. And it was hyped up to be the most revolutionary thing since like the internet was invented. And this wasn't just you know, social media wasn't a thing back then. I know, really dating ourselves. But a social media wasn't a thing. This was real. I guess the influence of the day. So Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, all the big names in tech. We're like, this thing is revolutionary. I've seen it. It's going to change everything. It's going to change how cities are designed, it's going to change transportation. It's going to change how we work, and all these things, but nobody knew what it was. So it's like so hyped. Everybody's like, yeah, yeah, this is gonna be amazing. And it turns out, it's a personal scooter with a gyroscope on it. That doesn't tilt over, which is pretty cool. I mean, but is it revolutionary? Maybe for personal transport, but, you know, we're not all riding segways now, but it didn't change anything. But to me, it's a cautionary tale of over promising and hype in terms of like, you know, if they just released this, it could have been cool. It could have been revolutionary, but because the bar was set so high so early, that it didn't matter short of personal teleportation, you know, like Star Trek style. Nothing was gonna live up to the hype. And it's a good lesson in under promising and over deliver versus the other way around. And that's a lesson like, you know, this is from 20 years ago, but we can still learn today,

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
Joe, the owner of segway went off a cliff. I thought it was a myth. It's not a myth.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I feel bad. I should admit this. Well, I'll tell you all the listeners who know me over the years, I chuckled when I read that I feel that like I respect the van and his family, but I chuckled at the irony that he believed in segway so much, and he invested a lot of money and then he went over a cliff because he was trying to get away some hikers or something. Yeah, that and that that pretty much ended the Segway as we know it for now.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
It still exists is like tour things like I definitely see them even in San Francisco. They're like tour tourist attractions, which is interesting. I

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
really want to see that is it website right now existed out that

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
the Segway? Yeah, yeah. I'll share the link in the show notes. It's an article on slate about this whole thing and this viral story. And it's a really entertaining read, especially if you remember the times. But yeah, and I'd say the other big miss on segways is they're not cool. Which is something really dumb, but I think we technologists underestimate cool factors. Remember Google Glass. That was awesome revolutionary technology. It's a heads up display that you wear. But it wasn't cool. And it never caught on and still hasn't caught on. And to this day, we still don't have wearable glasses that people wear because they're not cool. Just like the Segway is not cool. Anyways, you

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
want to make you want to make fun of me. There's Google photos of me when I bought it. So check my Facebook, you want to make fun of me

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
knows what kind of picks you have.

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
Okay, so I have a book because I'm a bookworm. As you all know. So book I recently learned it's related to leadership called turn the ship around by David Mackay. I really liked it. It talks about leading leaders instead of leading followers and it was an amazing book changed my perspective a lot. And the second pick is actually game. I'm playing Animal Crossing and I'm kind of getting addicted. So if you're playing it if you have an island, ping me on Twitter, I want to come and visit and come visit my island. Yeah, second peak.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
That's awesome. And that is such a good book. Like I think the story He's behind it. And just like, there's a lot of thoughtfulness and mind. Like, it's just an interesting perspective on leadership. I really enjoyed that book as well.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
I've also read that book. Yeah, it is it is solid. And that's my leadership style as well as like, people underneath me, or people that lead should lead in their own right. Which is, it's easy to say it's hard to do. Yep.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
All right, Dan, what do you have for us?

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
So because I'm always working in growth and whatnot. So one, one thing that came up is maybe yesterday on LinkedIn, and I do not go on LinkedIn for content very often for a variety of reasons. But it was someone wrote wrote about you guys. Are you familiar with Myers Briggs? MBTI. Some people are wildly obsessed with it, especially like fortune one, hundreds. And he gets into like, how there's like, some validity around the ways that you can kind of like, start to wrap ideas around like personalities, and like different parts of you. But then basically is like, I took it a week later, I took it a year later. And it's wildly different than what I took away from it in the end was that you, it is really difficult to box people into any one thing, and we're so dynamic and very across the board that, yeah, you might get some semblance of an idea doing that. But there's so much that just is not going to apply at times or is not even right or relevant. And I thought it was really interesting. I used to be obsessed with the Myers Briggs. So it's like, you know, someone kind of shoving it back, you're like, oh, new perspective, you know. And then. So one, one is other ones, a book that I just refinished. And it's called third circle theory, by this guy, his name is Benjamin. Good evening. And it's just about just kind of mindset and growing through these different stages in your life. And one thing, this is not like, reinvent the wheel type stuff, but just talking about how the unknown is scary. And the reason that you build confidence is by learning things, getting more information. And as you start to do that, that's that fear, that unknown becomes a piece of confidence. And so in, in thinking about, you know, like, for any of us, if your management thing, it's scary, you don't know what it is, you don't know what you need to do, but the only way is to start trying to learn it, understand it, practice it, and then slowly that fear changes to something dramatically different. And it was, it was interesting how well it aligned with what we were talking about today, thinking about it.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
By I once read that Myers Briggs is just horoscopes, but for nerds, and people think they're better at horoscopes. That would that was my partner. And I ended up marrying her because I thought it was so funny that it was part of her dating profile. But I still believe that yeah, Myers Briggs is a reflection of your current mood, rather than who you are at the core.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Yeah. All right. Well, I have two picks that I'm going to say are leadership oriented. And the first one is the Apple show, Ted lasso. I mean, it's just so good. It's like it just an easygoing show. And, and of course, now season two's out, which has been really good as well. His way of leadership is something to think about too. Like he has a unique way of leading. And I think we could all learn from the similar styles. They're like, yeah, don't replicate and be the TED lasso. But I think there's some there's some unique perspectives there. And then I figured with a lot of what we've been talking about came up a few times in this episode is vulnerability. And vulnerability is something that we often think, I think, in our culture, especially in the US, it's like seen as maybe as a weakness. And I feel like it shouldn't be. And Brene Brown has a book called The Power of vulnerability. And it is such a good book. Like, it's just she puts this perspective on, like, how being vulnerable can be so helpful as a leader. There's just like, I felt like reading this, I was just nodding my head along with all the great information that she was saying, it's been a while since I read it. I feel like I've read it twice. It's not good. I really enjoyed it. So I highly recommend that book. Well, thank you all for listening. Today's episode, I want to thank Naus and Dan, thanks so much for joining us and sharing some great insights into your experiences. Where can people get in touch with you?

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
Well, I'm on Twitter. My handle is I think NASA dot.com If it wasn't find me from Ryan Suter or just you know,

</p>
<p><strong>Dan DiGangi</strong><br />
I like to I like to nerd out on Twitter and engineering and leadership stuff. So I'm just at Danda gangee.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Nice and you can find us front end Happy Hour on Twitter as well at front end age. You can listen to us on whatever you like listen to podcasts on any last words.

</p>
<p><strong>Nazanin Delam</strong><br />
If you want something go for it. Never give up.

</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Burgess</strong><br />
Wow. We ended on a positive information. I love it NAS way to go. Great.

</p>
<p><strong>Jem Young</strong><br />
We're usually very snarky and sarcastic in our closing words. So that was nice.

</p>
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