I am an empathetic servant leader who takes pride in mentoring people and helping them succeed.  I work to make my team successful by establishing trust, removing impediments, mentoring and investing in each member’s growth.    

I have the ability to communicate at all levels with honesty, empathy and a sense of humor.  I have managed teams through very challenging times of low morale and kept the team together, motivated, engaged and productive.  

Each team member’s career path and goals should be well defined and discussed at regular intervals.  This should be coupled with a list of milestones and obstacles to keep expectations aligned. 

I treat everyone with respect but don’t necessarily believe in “treating everyone equally”.  You need to understand everyone’s individual personality, quirks, motivators, weaknesses and strengths to best guide their success. 

Engineers should be more than mere “coders”.  As their careers progress, skills other than technical competency come into focus.   Obviously, technical skills are important but the best Engineers are able to use their soft skills to make an impact, influence, impress and mentor.  A great manager can help Engineers grow into leaders by refining these skills.  

Though managers may not always “contribute code”, I believe it is still important to be able to understand key technical concepts and “talk the talk” to help facilitate solutions to technical problems.  A manager should have deep product and workflow knowledge, domain expertise and an understanding of the daily challenges that face the team.  

As a manager, I consider myself an advocate for the welfare of my teams AND the company.  It is important to balance Engineering’s interest in working on interesting technology with the needs of the product and company.  We need to find harmony between technical debt and the pace of innovation, learning, quality and support.  

I have an exceptional eye for detail, ask probing questions and push my teams to develop innovative solutions.