Working with Freddy
I created this document to explain my expectations and views around work and working together and to help hold me accountable. Use this document as a door into my way to operate and understand my mental framework. Please, feel free to use this document to support your onboarding and our continued work relationship, do not hesitate to ask questions and talk openly about it.
This document suggests a common understanding, a protocol for us to work together. I emphasize the word “suggest” since neither you nor anyone needs to follow it, though I encourage you to at least skim through it and understand my expectations for our interactions.
The most important responsibility of my role is to create clarity and provide context for my organization and everyone reporting to me. I’m responsible for:
- Provide context and create clarity for you and my organization
- Hiring, retaining, and growing world-class talent
- Implement and iterate on management mechanisms to ensure the smooth operations of my organizations
My success depends significantly on your success! I Cannot emphasize this enough. I’m successful when you can build world-class software that solves real problems and create value for its users. Whether you are an engineering manager, a director, a software engineer, a TPM, or a product manager, I will strive to provide you with everything you need to build that software. More precisely, I will make sure that you have:
- Enough context to understand your priorities and the focus of your team(s) over the next quarter
- Enough freedom to discover what you need to do, how it should be done, and then get it done
- A clear roadmap, or a path to create one, to attain your objectives
- An understanding of your role and the role of others in making progress (relationship building) and a clear road to move forward
Please, be relentless in reminding me when I’m not providing you with what you need to succeed in your role.
I will sometimes assign you work items via email. Please tell me if you need more context or do not have enough capacity to find alternatives in such a case.
If I delegate a task to you or your team, please record it somewhere, and be mindful that I will let you know if I need you to complete it ASAP. Otherwise, I would expect an ETA from you or your team.
I’m US EST-based, and I work from 9 AM-ish to 5 PM-ish. Sometimes I may start working earlier or finish later. I may be unresponsive outside of those hours, and I do not expect you to be available or communicate with me outside of your local working hours (I will try hard not to email or message during your off-work time).
I work a bit on the weekends and unusual hours; this is my choice. I do not expect you to work on the weekend or off-hours. If I send you a message and forget to schedule it, you can wait and reply until Monday or a reasonable time. The weekend is your time, not mine or the company’s!
- Servant Leadership: Leaders serve their teams, not the other way around. They listen carefully and act with empathy in the best interest of their teams and company.
- Small teams can make a significant impact: I believe that small teams of competent individuals working in synchrony can produce incredible results that lead to incommensurable impact. I do not need a big team or a big organization. I need a small team of world-class talent who can deliver fast when motivated and with clear objectives.
- Bias for action is 90% of the work: Doing and producing a result is 90% of any endeavor. I value people that can not only ideate but also jump to action.
- Dreaming big and starting small: Dreaming big gives us a reason to be excited, but there of a journey to getting there, and it starts small. Iterating rather than doing big-bang deliveries increases the chances of getting to that dream.
- Working backward and making data-driven decisions: Working backward is one of the best ways of generating outcomes, clearly envisioning a goal, and tracing a path to it. When paired with data-driven decision-making, it yields the best results.
- Performance measured in outcomes, not raw output: The ultimate goal of any organization is producing outcomes, be it for the customer, the patrons, the stakeholders, etc. High-performance individuals and teams focus on outcomes over intermediate output. For example, it is more important that engineers deliver features than the number of lines of code they write.
- I value ownership, autonomy, and judgment: You will get all the freedom you need to thrive in exchange: I’m not a micromanager, I won’t be on top of everything you do, and I expect to answer critical strategic questions. I expect you to figure out the tactical things, be autonomous, and operate with your best judgment.
- I do not expect perfection, but I expect polishness: Everything can improve all the time. Documents, code, and architectures can improve continually given enough time. I do not expect that. Instead, I expect the basic questions to have answers, documents to be spellchecked, diagrams to be clean, and code to be understandable and clear.
- I expect leaders (managers and ICs) to step up and fill the gap, drive change, and be proactive: Leaders come from everywhere, and anyone can become a leader. I expect people in my organization to take action when they see gaps and own their resolution. I expect leaders to ask hard questions and work on finding answers to those questions.
I believe in transparency and honesty. Please, gift me candid and unfiltered feedback. I need you to be frank and point out wholes in my reasoning. I will give you candid and respectful feedback about your performance or ideas. I will strive to create a safe space to share feedback and ideas, remove defensiveness, and highlight the benefits of honest and impactful feedback.
In general:
- You do not need to wait until the performance review period to give feedback
- Before delivering your feedback, write it down; if it is negative, it will help you cool down; if it is positive, it will help you put things in perspective
- More than any other factor, candid and compassionate feedback is central to a cohesive, high-functioning team
- We receive feedback better in the context of psychological safety.
- Feedback should happen as quickly as possible
I have regular 1:1 with most people in my organization at least once a quarter. If you are my direct report, expect to receive a meeting invite for a 1:1 of at least 30 minutes (sometimes 45 min or 1 hour).
To better structure our 1:1s, please come prepared with a discussion topic, candid feedback, questions, burning issues, etc. Remember, 1:1s are meetings primarily for you and your topics. We will always start with what you have in mind and move to my items. Also, our 1:1s are not status meetings unless you want to talk about statuses.
Before our first 1:1, I will create a (google) document for the two of us to capture future 1:1 topics and provide a handy historical record of what we’ve discussed. If I do not create one, please, feel free to create one.
I will own our 1:1 invitation; there is nothing for you to do. If I have not set up your 1:1, please remind me to set up a recurring one. Note that 1:1s are flexible and can change to fit our shifting schedules.
We’ll have a staff meeting with your peers and sometimes an extended team every week for 60 minutes no matter what. Unlike 1:1s, we have a shared document that captures agenda topics for the entire team. Similar to 1:1s, we aren’t discussing status at this meeting but issues of substance that affect the whole team.
My workday orbits around meetings and my rhythm of business. My calendar is open to anyone, and you will rarely see a private meeting unless it is a personal appointment. If you have a question about a meeting on my calendar, ask me, there are no taboos.
In general, I expect an agenda and a picture of success for meetings with a short document summarizing the topic for the meeting. If you send me the document reasonably in advance, I will read it before the meeting and come prepared with questions and ask them in the document.
I try to avoid large meetings unless there is a good reason for them to exist. If I run a meeting, I will start that meeting on time and, in most cases, give people 5-minutes of courtesy. When I’m invited to a meeting, I will ask for clarification on my attendance if it’s not clear why I was invited to a meeting. If we complete the meeting before the time is over, we should give the time back to everyone. If it is clear that we won’t achieve the meeting’s goals in the allotted time, let’s stop the meeting before time is up and determine how to finish it later.
I will provide you with feedback about your performance often and in actionable bites, usually during our 1:1s. My goal is for you never to be surprised if you are underperforming and to be appraised when you are overperforming. To make performance slightly more concrete, we will define a few personal objectives for your development and delivery (in the form of OKRs or SMART goals) and review these goals at the end of each quarter.
Whether you are a manager or an individual contributor, I will ask you to keep a brag book. A brag book (or win book) is a document that inventory your accomplishments, when they happened, and other relevant details. I love brag books because they refresh our memory and remind me of our excellent work. If you do not have a brag book, please start one ASAP.
My policy is never to refuse a vacation, no matter what — given that the request follows the company policies. In most cases, I will need to be informed in advance (usually two weeks) when you go on a “planned” vacation that may disrupt our usual business (for example, when you leave for more than a week). I'm a big fan of shared vacation calendars; please put your time off there. Also, fill your request in our time-off reporting system (if we have any).
I’m what some people would refer to as old school, and I prefer email over other types of communication for non-urgent or time-sensitive matters. I try to reply promptly to emails that are somehow time-sensitive or require a decision. I’m also good at batching email replies, so if you do not get a response immediately, give me 24 hours to write back.
I reply very quickly to direct messaging (slack, teams, etc.) for time-sensitive matters and reply almost instantly to SMS. I’m not very big on group chats and may ignore them for a while unless someone mentions my name. Likewise, if an email is not directed to me personally, I may take some extra time to reply.
Some nits: I like documents with 10/11 pt font. 12pt documents push a nerve in me. If you are using slides, put figures and images on them. Do not overload them with text.
I’m human, and I will drop the ball from time to time. If you notice me dropping the ball, please let me know ASAP.
Sometimes, I will look at your team’s code and design; this is not a bad sign — I live to dive deep into the technical details, poke holes, and understand the rationale behind our choices. I like to know what my teams are doing and why. And from time to time, I will request a full architectural review of what your teams are building, the principles and patterns in them, and the challenges associated with it.