Hello 👋 ! This is a living document that will help you understand how I work, my expectations, and my guiding principles. This is not a replacement for getting to know me. We’ll be getting to know more about each other via 1:1s and working together!

Frankly as much as I’d like this document to be about how I currently work, much of this also how I would like to work. I am flawed, I make mistakes. I’m very much a work-in-progress, please hold me accountable to all the things I state here 🙇‍♂️ 🙏 😁.

I am an Engineering manager. Okay, but what do they do? I…

• Represent you and the team to the wider organization
• Help you achieve your career goals by providing opportunities
• Keep you accountable to your commitments
• Create and maintain an environment where you can creatively and effectively execute your duties
• Make sure the team is running smoothly; taking care of the “glue” work
• Ensure the team is executing on the most valuable work to the organization
• Provide the vision and context; the why’s
• Hire great teammates
• Exemplify and foster our team values

I expect you to…

• Let me know what’s working and what’s not working for you
• Really take the time off to recharge before being burned out
• Commit to trying out new things when the team wants to experiment with process
• Take ownership from beginning to end on the task, idea, feedback, or general thing you commit to
• Keep me accountable to my commitments as I am to you
• Get to know your teammates and learn how they like to work, communicate, and collaborate

🥇 My team comes first. I work for the team; the team does not work for me. My calendar 🗓️ is always up to date so feel free to schedule a meeting with me any time. If there is no time available I will make time by bailing on any pre-existing engagements scheduled.

🎯 Explicit > Implicit. Vagueness leads to gaps, room for misinterpretation, and risk; this is why I prefer to be explicit over implicit. Whether that’s in my communication, how I define cards or give feedback, I try to be as explicit as possible. If you are ever left a big ❓ appearing in your thoughts after any sort of interaction with me, please yell at me for more clarification.

⚗️ Experiment, experiment, experiment. I love process when they work and abhor them when they don’t. What works for one team, does not for another. Over time, I’ve learned to cater to the audience so in that regard I am always open for experimenting, finding out what works, and discarding the dead weight!

🩹 Failure recovery > failure avoidance. We cannot innovate without taking risks. I want foster a culture where you can be creative, risky and fearless. I will really work to be as flexible as possible here!

🥳 People are most productive when they are happy and motivated. I will try my best to provide the best working environment and to get you the opportunities that get you pumped.

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

• My preferred method of communications are in-person or Slack conversations so feel free to stop by my desk or ping my on Slack at anytime
• If one of us is remote, I prefer using Zoom with video on (so there isn’t any lost visual context)
• I tend to communicate throughout the day and night, but that is just a personal thing; any form of communication (via Slack, GitHub, Jira, etc) from me before/after hours (10am-4pm) can be ignored until the following business day (I’ll also prepend my messages with [not urgent])
• You can Slack me 24 hours a day
• Anytime I’m not in a meeting or already in conversation with someone else, is a good time for me to talk—even when I have my headphones on!
• When communicating over text, I tend to use many emojis (as you may have noticed here 😇) in order to effectively convey my tone

One of the ways I level up is through feedback! Here is how I like my feedback:

• Direct and honest
• Concrete
  • Bad: “Hey Quach, sprint retro was awkward, do you even know how to communicate?”
  • Good: “Hey Quach, sprint retro was awkward because you started talking over Cloud toward the end of their critique on your RFD…”
• Async written first and then in-person (so I have time to process the feedback, get over any emotions, no opportunity to interrupt you or defend myself)
• Otherwise I love feedback in all forms (in-person, Slack, email, phone call, snail mail, etc) and at any time (the sooner the better)

• Reserved time for us to connect and catch up on
• I would rather not use 1:1 time for project updates
• I prefer weekly 1:1s for 30 min but I’m willing to work around your needs
• My preferred time to give and receive feedback
• It’s fine if you feel like you have nothing to share, I will gladly discuss the things that have been on my mind 😊

• I’m a slow 🐌 thinker! I typically need time to think or assess a situation so often I prefer longer discussions in Paper form over multiple debates or meetings
• I like working during the weekend and nights; I do not expect you to be working nights or weekends
• I take vacations, you should too 🏝️
• I like to be with my friends and family and will often work from 🏠 Monday or Friday whenever I do a weekend trip back to SoCal (roughly once per month; twice during holiday seasons)
  • Interested in our remote policy? Checkout +Working Remotely for Makers
• I tend to wear my ❤️ on my sleeve; what you see is what you get!

Again, this is not meant to be a comprehensive manual to how I work. Hopefully I’ve given you a… relatively TL;DR guide on how I operate and my expectations 😬. Feel free to come back every once in awhile, I’ll definitely be updating this as I figure out what is working and what isn’t. I look forward to our working relationship and learning more about you. Lastly, if you have written (or plan to) your own ReadMe, please send it my way 🙏. I’d love to learn more about how you operate 🔩 and understand your expectations!