Manager README

Why This Exists

I've found that the first few months of any working relationship involve a lot of unnecessary friction: figuring out how someone operates, what they value, where they're flexible and where they're not. This document is meant to compress that learning curve.

It's also a tool for holding myself accountable. Writing down how I want to work makes it harder to drift from it. If you see a gap between what's here and what I'm actually doing, call it out.

Disclaimer: This applies only to me. Other managers operate differently.

My Role

I work directly with Product, Design, and Research teams. At the core, my job is to help us build things that actually work for real people: products that capture value for the business while genuinely solving problems for users. That said, shipping products is only part of the job.

The other part is building the team: creating reliable processes that scale, mentoring people to expand their leadership capacity, establishing clear success criteria, and making sure individual growth aligns with what the organization needs. I think of it as tending to two systems simultaneously: the product system and the people system. Both need attention; neglect either and the whole thing drifts.

Philosophy

One on Ones: I structure these as 10-10-10: ten minutes for your priorities, ten for mine, ten for future planning. The focus is development and well-being, not status updates. If you need to report status, there are better async mechanisms.

Feedback: Timely and honest. Critical feedback happens privately; praise happens publicly. I don't store up feedback for quarterly reviews. If something needs to be said, I'll say it soon. I expect the same from you.

Coaching and Delegation: I invest in development because it compounds — better people build better products, and the organization's capacity expands. The question I keep coming back to: "What happens if we don't invest in people, and they stay?"

Core Values

Leadership from everywhere. You don't need to be a manager to lead. I expect people to take ownership of problems regardless of title or reporting structure. If something needs to be done, do it or escalate it. Don't wait for permission.

Action over debate. Starting and learning beats endless planning. I'd rather ship something imperfect and iterate than spend weeks getting alignment on a spec. That said, some decisions warrant more deliberation; judgment about which is which matters.

Extreme ownership. Problems get solved, not passed around. If something breaks, we fix it and figure out how to prevent it. Blame-shifting is a signal that the culture needs work.

Positive intent. Assume good faith until proven otherwise. Most miscommunication comes from context gaps, not bad actors. Start there.

Systems thinking. I tend to break complex problems into flowcharts and processes. If I can't map it, I probably don't understand it yet.

Service orientation. I serve you, not the other way around. My job is to remove obstacles, provide context, and create conditions where you can do your best work.

Continual small fixes. I believe in the compounding power of continually fixing small things. Quality is everyone's responsibility, and there are always improvements to be made.

How to Work with Me

Tell me early if something's off. Bad news doesn't improve with age. I'd rather hear about a problem when it's small than when it's a crisis.

Bring problems and your thinking on solutions. I don't expect you to have the answer, but I do expect you to have thought about it. "Here's what's broken and here's what I've considered" is more useful than "here's what's broken."

Push back when you disagree. I have opinions, but I'm not always right. If you think I'm missing something, say so. I'd rather have the argument now than discover the blind spot later.

Be honest about capacity. Overcommitting helps no one. If the workload isn't sustainable, flag it. We'll figure out what to deprioritize together.

What I'm Working On

I move fast, sometimes too fast. The thing I'm actively working on is slowing down to bring people along: making sure context gets shared, not just decisions. I also notice my impatience with process-for-process's-sake. Not all process is waste, but not all process serves purpose either.