Tour of Duty

Like software, people are never “done”

The premise of this whole series is that: Your job is no longer your personal productivity but, rather the performance of your team whatever the size.

The people you are managing and mentoring today will one day move on to other jobs and likely get big raises in the process. Unless much has changed between the time I write this and the time you read it, a software engineer can expect to be able to change jobs every 2 years or so without being seen as a “job hopper” and also expect to see a 10% pay bump at each change.

Give yourself over to the idea that the person you are training will only be with you for 2 years. With that as a framework what are the things that are going to be most beneficial for both of you? Once we accept the fact that everyone is temporary there is a freedom in the kind of focus that gives.

Learning Fast and Slow

This is where an investment mindset will be helpful. If I assume a 2 year horizon with a given average increase in skill; Anything I do to get my people learning and more marketable faster than that average is a win for me and my team performance.

We have a list of three things. Three skills that we agree will increase a direct reports’ marketability. Why their marketability? Because, marketable skills are useful skills. Having a person acquire and refine useful skills improves the performance of the team.

I assume that one on one meetings are a given when managing engineers. In our one on one meetings I always ask, - “What did you learn this week?” - “Are the tasks you’re working on supporting your growth goals?” - “What can I do for you?” - “What problems are you running into?”

At least once a quarter we re-evaluate the goals and shift them as needed. I also ask, “Is your job supporting your life beyond just the paycheck?” People who have good lives and challenging work are more likely to stick around and be enjoyable to work with.

I also have a hypothesis that this will make it easier to recruit over time but, I don’t have any data to back that up yet.

Immutable Objects

There is a cognitive bias that we are immutable objects moving through space time. It is hard for humans to grasp that if we believe something now we may not have believed it in the past. If you find yourself getting frustrated bring to mind all of the dumb mistakes you’ve ever made big and small and all the things you didn’t know when you were junior. Having that perspective makes it easier to know how to help, you’ve gone from where they are now to where you are now. That’s at least one path forward.