Tag: Manager

Why an Engineering Manager Should Not Review Code

When discussing team organization, I am often asked: “Why don’t you have the tech lead manage the team?” My response is to hiss like a vampire exposed to holy water. When the follow-up question is: “Given you want managers on your teams, can the manager still perform code rev...

Four ways to say NO as a Product Manager

“I’m working on getting better at saying no.” Sound familiar? It should: Being a product manager means saying “no” 90% of the time. Between competing stakeholder demands, tight resources, and let’s face it — plenty of terrible ideas — you ...

My Engineering Manager Origin Story

I always had a negative view of a management role. I didn’t think it was for me. I had trouble understanding what managers even did and how they created value. Above all, I saw a manager role as a threat to what I love most: writing code. But today, I became an engineering manager! ...

How To Give Feedback To Your Manager

Giving feedback to your manager can be tricky. What if they don’t like what you say? What if they take it the wrong way? What if they turn against you? People refuse to give candid feedback to their managers because they don’t want to put their jobs at risk. This prevents ...

Debugging My Life as an Engineering Manager With ADHD

I was always a software engineer first and never planned (or wanted) to become a manager. Dealing with software seemed much easier than dealing with people. Working on hard technical problems felt natural, but dealing with emotional matters and nuances in communication always bothered me. However...

Interviewing for Product Manager roles in 2023

I have interviewed 500+ Product Managers (to be honest I lost count) and in this article I will cover how the most successful candidates have changed their interviewing strategy in 2023, how an interviewer can tell immediately that you’re a strong candidate, and how adaptability is now a core ...

1–on-1 with your manager will be more effective after reading this post

Recently, I read Chapter 1 of the book “The Manager’s Path” which describes the basics of being managed and what to expect from a manager. I am going to share some of the things I learned from this book with you so that you can communicate more effectively with your manager. ...

How to Become the Type of Manager You Would Want to Work For

I started at the very bottom rung of Amazon. I was known as a Seasonal Tier 1 (aka a “White Badge”). When I started, I didn’t even officially work for Amazon — I was only hired for Peak 2017 through a temp agency. I had to apply to become a Tier 1 at Amazon (a “Blu...

Four ways to say NO as a Product Manager

From Product Manager to Chief Product Officer: Navigating the Transition

Hey there! I’m Ksenia, and today we’re delving into the realm of the Chief Product Officer (CPO) role. If you’ve recently stepped into this position, you might have realized that it’s a whole new ball game. This article is a guiding light for those aspiring to take on this r...

1–on-1 with your manager will be more effective after reading this post

The Effective Manager — How I Lead My Teams in Only 36 Hours a Week

The responsibility to lead 45 direct reports inspires me to continually improve my effectiveness as their manager through learning and experimentation. I am grateful to live in a day and age where I can read any book on leadership on my Kindle and discover insightful articles here on Me...

Task Manager Apps: Why People Stop Using Them

Task manager apps claim to help us stay organized and productive, but many users end up ditching them for better alternatives. Let’s uncover why these apps often fall short and why people stop using them. And see how we want to change that with Clew — landing.clew.app 1. Too Comp...

Getting Things Done as a Product Manager

In this article, I will share some tips for remaining organized, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks, and prioritizing the most important work. Product managers are notoriously busy. Between discovery work, delivery work, stakeholder management, and collecting inputs and feedback from acros...

How to Become the Type of Manager You Would Want to Work For

How To Give Feedback To Your Manager

Here’s What It’s Really Like to Be a Manager

In many organizations, job roles can be divided into two distinct categories — Individual Contributors (ICs) and Managers. ICs are dedicated to executing their designed function (whether it be writing code, improving performance, building tools, etc.). Managers, on the other hand, are responsi...

The 12 Signs: How to know when you’re slowly but surely becoming a bad manager

No one sets out to become a bad boss. Yet, slowly but surely, it’s easy to become the bad manager we all dread. Times are stressful. You’re trying to make things happen. You notice your team isn’t as engaged as they should be. You can feel your patience getting shorter and short...

Becoming a Leader: Going from Individual Contributor to Manager

As Recruiters, we often speak with candidates seeking to advance from individual contributor to manager. This is a great and ambitious goal that will certainly take your career to the next level! But here is something to keep in mind: Transitioning into a leadership role can be more challenging i...

Why Your Design System Needs a Product Manager

Does the Design System you engage have a PM? Are you a PM in charge of a Design System? Are you a designer / an engineer on a Design System team but have been playing the role of missing PM? If you search for Design Systems, you’ll find a rabbit hole of amazing articles. Here, we only ...

How to keep optimistic as a Product Manager?

How to keep energetic and optimistic when so many things can go wrong for Product Manager? Those include: 1) Too many stakeholders wanting too much too fast 2) The new release being a disaster 3) Getting sick/needing to take some time off 4) Your team getting sick or needing to take time off ...

How to Become the Type of Manager You Would Want to Work For

7 lessons learned in my painful transition from IC to manager

8 years ago, I was unaware that my life was about to take an unexpected turn. I never aspired to become a manager. It wasn’t in my career path. But as fate would have it, I found myself becoming one. You could say I was either at the wrong place at the wrong time or, perhaps, at the right plac...

How to Be a Manager Everyone Wants to Work for

Sometimes what you really want is the opposite of what you think you want. My first boss was a jerk. We all felt it. And yet he was our jerk. People stuck with the company for years because he used his general jerkiness to make our lives pretty simple. His demeanour meant nobody mess...

Here’s What It’s Really Like to Be a Manager

The Manager Trinity: Create Company Value

A manager’s role extends beyond overseeing individuals. I’ve observed many managers who missed opportunities to create value, both for their team members and their company, by neglecting the other tenets of the job: building effective teams and generating company value. I’m convinc...

What’s the value of a manager?

I recently read in a job description for a VP-level role: “You must be an outstanding individual contributor. You’re not here just to tell other people what to do.” That’s right — according to this company, a Vice President, who will have 8–10 direct reports in...

If You’re a Manager, Dealing with Drama Is Your Job

&zwj;This is another one of my articles that you’ll want your manager to read but will probably have to send anonymously. I meet so many employees who have workplace conflicts with co-workers but get no support from their managers. The source of workplace conflicts is varied. Politics tops ...

What’s the Difference Between a Leader and a Manager?

“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” — Seth Godin, an American author, businessman, marketer, and public speaker What makes up a leader? How about a manager? How are they different? The terms “leader” and &ldq...

8 Behaviors That Lead to Loss of Trust As a Manager

What’s the most important factor that impacts an employee’s motivation at work? The level of trust they feel towards their manager. High levels of trust make them feel valued, energizes them to work harder, and make them persist through difficulties and setbacks. Knowing that the...

How to Boost Productivity and Confidence as a Project Manager

With nearly two decades of experience as a project manager, I have worked alongside many talented professionals in the field. However, it's become evident over the years that some project managers, particularly those who are relatively inexperienced, often misconstrue the essence of their rol...

My Engineering Manager Origin Story

1:1 Meeting Mastery: How Smart Scheduling Improved My Productivity as an Engineering Manager

As an Engineering Manager, I have always found it challenging to schedule and manage 1:1 meetings with my colleagues. After struggling with recurring meeting invites, I decided to develop a more efficient and flexible approach to scheduling these meetings. In this article, I will share how I enhance...

What I have learned in a month in my first job as a product manager

It has already been a month since I joined my job as a product manager. It is indeed a dream come true. I worked hard and prepared for this role when I was in campus. I started from my city to join my company on my first flight. It was the first time that I went to new city. From being nervous to ge...

Regain meeting time to get work done, Product Manager!

Having too many meetings can leave you with no time to do actual work. Here are 10 ways to regain your time, skip some of the meetings, and optimize your productivity: 1) Realize, that you are the master of your time — as much as people cancel/reschedule their meeting with you, you can do t...

EM — How to run your one-on-ones as a manager

One of the main tools of an engineering manager, and of a manager in general, is a well run one-on-one meeting. It allows managers to keep close with their team, to share useful information to the team members (top-down communication) or to get feedback and possibly escalate information (bottom-up c...

Game Manager.. One Manager to Rule them All.

So we are getting to a point in our game where there are stats and bits of information that many of the other scripts need to know about. But it would be a waste of space and resources to go through and make sure that all those scripts have the needed variable to handle the information and that it i...

Using Secrets Manager in Terraform

Terraform is a powerful infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that helps you build, change, and version infrastructure. It does have pros and cons like anything else, but a major benefit is that it is cloud-agnostic, meaning it can be used with multiple cloud providers. In this lab, we’ll use A...

AWS: Implementation of EC2 instances using Terraform and AWS Systems Manager

In this post, you will read how I implemented a set of EC2 instances using Terraform and AWS Systems Manager configuration with AWS SNS for automated installation of security officers. Implementation of the day In this real-world project, I took on the role of a DevSecOps Engineer an...

Work Manager — Android Interview Question

What is WorkManager, and what problem does it solve in Android development? WorkManager is a part of Android Jetpack that simplifies and manages background tasks in Android applications. It provides a consistent and efficient way to schedule and execute tasks in the background, ensuring t...

Basic Of Windows Task Manager

Task Manager is a built-in GUI-based Windows utility that allows users to see what is running on the Windows system. It also provides information on resource usage, such as how much each process utilizes CPU and memory. When a program is not responding, Task Manager is used to end (kill) the pr...

We’re hiring: Second Home Country Manager, Portugal

Second Home’s mission is to nurture creativity and entrepreneurship — and we do this by bringing together the most diverse community of different industries, disciplines and ideas, and then stirring the pot to spark new collaborations and innovations. Second Home is a fast-growing, pr...

Why did I, a tech manager, get an MBA?

In this story, I’ll share with you what led me to seek an MBA program, which data I based my decision on and how I chose the structure of the program. My background is in Software Engineering, I have spent the first 8 years of my professional life serving in an elite computer unit in the mi...

Navigating US immigration as a high-skilled immigrant — my experience with EB1A as a Product Manager

I came to the USA in 2014 for a master’s program. My entry into the US was based on an F1 visa. I later moved to an H1-B visa when I started working in the industry. My H1B was picked in the lottery at the first attempt and I knew we typically get it for six years. My plan back then was to nev...

Marketing Manager — HYBRID

The Marketing Manager will be responsible for the day-to-day strategy and execution of both organic and paid marketing channels for velvet-tees.com. Reporting to the Director of Ecommerce, this role will manage revenue targets, operational efficiency, and project/campaign launches. The Marketing Man...

COOL FACES OF BASTET NOIR: Meet Aydha Mehnaz, Celebrity and Media manager at Mugler

Our latest Cool Face of Bastet Noir knows more than enough about working under very tight deadlines. Aydha Mehnaz is a highly accomplished creative consultant with over 7+ years of experience in luxury and fashion communications. Based between Paris and Dhaka, Aydha brings a uniq...