mergeconflict388
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[00:00:00] James: Before we get started on this week's pod, I got to do a special shout out to our good friends over at Syncfusion, the sponsor of this week's merge conflict. Listen, Syncfusion builds the world's best UI component suite for building apps or anything, whether it's web. Desktop, mobile or more whatever you're building.

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com for such merge conflict. And thanks to Syncfusion for sponsoring this week's pod. Welcome back everyone to merge conflict. I am one of your hosts, James Montemagno, and I'm really excited because this week we have something special for all of you. Um. Which is something we don't do very often, which is a guest.

That's right. It's just me and someone super special that I'm really excited to have. Someone that you've heard about 5 billion times on this podcast, Heather Wallachy. She is a long time NET developer and the engineering manager at Geocaching HQ, specifically focused on their mobile applications that maybe some of you use.

I've been using for about ever and. A day, I would say, including today. Uh, Heather, how's it going? 

[00:01:42] Heather: It's going great. Thanks. It's good to be here. I'm certainly no Frank, but I hope to do him justice 

[00:01:47] James: today. Yeah, you have probably seen me on this microphone about a billion times. And now we are actually not recording.

Directly right next to each other, but we are in our work setup because we are both remote workers and you are on the other side of two doors. So you're two doors across. Like, but, but actually what about, was that like 10 feet perhaps? 

[00:02:09] Heather: Yeah. Not very far away, but um, we have some good sound barriers in between, so I'm only hearing you through my earbuds right now, which is great.

[00:02:17] James: Yeah, we were talking earlier today about soundproofing doors and barriers. And the one thing that we did early on was made sure we, we, there's a gap under, underneath the doors and we wanted to make sure that we had that completely sealed because I'm sure our listeners know, but. My voice can get elevated, would you say?

[00:02:36] Heather: Yes, absolutely. Sometimes despite the sound barriers, I will still hear you getting really excited or passionate on a work call. And so it doesn't completely drown it out, but, um, I'm glad that you have the passion and excitement over at your work 

[00:02:51] James: day to day. Yeah. And I wanted to have you on because one, as I said, our listeners have probably heard the name Heather, probably about.

I don't know, bajillion times, I'm probably always talking about you. You didn't know that. I don't know if you listened to the pod. I think you've listened to a few episodes here and there, but there's about 5 billion of them now. So it might be a little bit much, but we do often our Patreon subscribers know that we're often talking about life stuff on the pod.

We kind of keep it more work y stuff. You know what I mean? More NET y, mobile y type of, you know, iOS y, Android y type of stuff. But on the Patreon stuff, we, we, we get a little bit like talking about. The decking situation or termite damage, who knows potential termite damage that might just be kitty litter.

Um, but, um, what was great about this and having you on stepping in for Frank is that, you know, you're a long time NET developer. You're literally an engineering manager at Geocaching HQ and have been for, or has it been like seven, eight years at this point. And we both made the transition from, um, developers into engineering managers.

And I think that'd be a really great topic for us to talk about. And we'll get into others. Spaces. So I kind of want to talk about that, you know, in general, did I miss any of your background? I know you've had a lot of other things in there too, that might be relevant. Um, I 

[00:04:04] Heather: think it's the most relevant.

So there's certainly a lot of kind of background in my history, but, uh, in terms of probably what applies to some of the topics that your listeners like to listen to, I would say, yeah, working in the NET space for many, many years and being a manager working with mobile teams is something that, um, You know, I care passionately about, cause it's what I currently do.

So let's talk about management. Um, what do you got for me? Yeah. 

[00:04:29] James: So the first thing that I really want to talk about is that space, uh, which we both went through ourselves. Now the difference, of course, that on the flip of it, you're an engineering manager, I'm a PM manager. Although we are both engineers, um, we both still kind of engineer on occasion, but I wanted to talk a little bit about this transition to manager because different companies do things differently.

Obviously Microsoft is going to be doing stuff different than geocaching via the one I worked at Canon and then other companies that are out there. However, I think as an individual, it's. Important to kind of understand what that transition looks like, how that applies to you and what that actually means, you know, for your career, you know, going from an IC or an individual contributor into a manager role, I guess my first question for you that I would have, and I, you know, and we'll go back and forth on this a little bit, you know, is why did you want to become a manager in general, because you were an IC, just, you know, some people just are managers, I guess.

[00:05:37] Heather: I think that's a really great question. So a lot of times there, you know, we can, we can talk about this too, but there are obviously negatives and positives of becoming a manager because you lose some of the great things that you love about being in IC. And so, uh, it's a big decision to make in some cases.

Spaces, I would definitely argue that people can make that decision and then back out of that decision, right. And, and go back to doing an IC, like hopefully there's a lot of different paths and they don't have to all be in a specific linear direction. But certainly for me, I felt compelled to become an engineering manager because at one point in my career, I worked somewhere where I had a manager who managed 40 different software engineers.

Ooh, that's 

[00:06:19] James: wild. 

[00:06:20] Heather: And, uh, quite a few people. And so they weren't very able to like really know engineers on a very individual basis and, um, really help them shepherd their career forward. And, and that time there weren't a lot of other people who wanted to become an engineering manager, right? It's almost a little uncool.

It's like, if I'm good at coding, I don't want to be a manager. I just want to keep coding. And so, uh, oftentimes people who are really Deep into the code, don't have any interest in becoming a manager. And that's totally fine. I would say if you don't have an interest, definitely don't do it. But I've also seen effects of people who are kind of forced to be a manager just because there aren't anybody, there isn't anybody at the company who wants to become a manager.

And that certainly kind of ends up being the worst for everybody involved. It's like you have a person who doesn't want to be in that role. You have people who aren't being properly supported because they don't have someone Who knows how to do that or wants to spend time doing that because their manager just wants to spend time writing code.

And, uh, when you have a lack of people who are interested in that part of the track in our industry, it can really hurt other engineers at scale sometimes when you have multiple engineers working for a manager like that. And so I think because I saw a dearth really of. of good engineers becoming engineering managers in the industry.

I felt like that was something that I wanted to try my hat at and, and hopefully do better. Not that I've had horrible managers in the past, but just that I see that in a lot of coworkers and colleagues that I've had where, you know, people are sometimes forced in that position and that's not great for anybody involved.

And so I wanted to. Be an example of not that 

[00:08:04] James: when you are going through this transition from IC into manager role. I think you sort of hinted on, you know, it's a different job, right? Like it's a literally a different job, a different role, a different title. Your day to day is completely different. What were like the ups and downs of that transition, right?

Not of like your, your day to day today, but in that first three months, six months year, like, and what would you tell people about that transition? Cause I have to imagine there's a lot of people in this. Space today, I think you gave amazing advice, which was same advice given to me, which is like, you know, don't become a manager if you don't want to become a manager or ask ahead of time, if you can go back to being an IC, which is like pro tip, which now Microsoft, you can as well.

Like it's, it's an option. It's they're at the same level, like IC and manager role. It's just a different type of job. But in that three months, six month year, I mean, we all have different struggles all the time, but what are those initial early onsets? Um, I'm, I'm actually fascinated by the way, because I became a manager before I did.

So I sort of followed in her footsteps and learned from everything, um, that, that she does. Yeah. 

[00:09:10] Heather: I mean, it's, it's been a bit, so it's hard to remember maybe all the pros and cons of that initial transition. But I would say that one thing that also helps is, you know, a asking yourself, it's something, if it's something you actually are interested in or have some, uh, desire for versus like, if you think it's just the only career track that you can take.

Um, but also if you are in a position where you're able to just manage one person or a couple of people that can be helpful so that you kind of get exposed to what management looks like. So before I actually became an engineering manager, I even managed someone, uh, as a senior. Software engineer, I was leading a project and they put a contract person underneath me.

And so that was a really good intro to like what it would be like to manage someone. And it was very kind of like temporary because it was project based, but it gave me a small taste of that. And then when I first became an engineering manager, I only had a few direct reports. So not every organization is going to, you know, have a structure to allow you to be flexible and have a few reports.

And certainly some engineering managers might be just thrown into the mix with a bunch of reports at once. And that is really going to feel like you're swimming upstream. And that is just kind of the name of the game. But I think that, just like you said, it's a completely different career in some ways.

So one of the biggest fears is like you're taking this thing that you got really good at, which is writing code and being, uh, technically strategic and then changing it into now supporting other people who want to write code and hopefully still continuing to be technically strategic and on a higher level.

But that like coding 80 percent of your day to now supporting other people, you know, maybe 50 to 80 percent of your day is a really big change. And so I think with that comes a lot of that feeling of swimming upstream, but that means that you're being challenged too. And so part of that is just embrace it a little bit as much as it might be uncomfortable and it might not be fun, uh, knowing that it will get better just like anything that you're learning any new technology that you're brushing up on or trying to dive into.

You're going to not be great at it at first and you'll get it. Better as you go and you'll find your way of managing other people or your way of interacting with other people and you'll kind of find your footing and improve at it. So I definitely remember, especially when I moved to managing many more people, I remember that feeling of swimming upstream a little bit.

Um, but if you can start with a few people just so that you know whether or not it's something that you actually want to dive into and, uh, take your career in that direction, that is 

[00:11:42] James: certainly helpful. I, I love that. And I think that I was just in Seattle last week for work and I was talking to my, my buddy, uh, Glenn, who's a manager on the ASP.

NET core team. We're talking about this transition to manager and what helps folks be successful or maybe what can help them through some of the struggles. And even though I'm. Well, I guess almost four years. Yeah. Four years now ish into my journey. I actually started, like you said, with just two reports.

So it was sort of a trial run, Joseph, my current manager at the time. And I was intrigued at becoming a manager because I had, Learn so much from Joseph and admired, and I've had some really great managers. I think, I dunno, I don't, for me, at least I've had pretty amazing managers my entire life. So I've always sort of looked up.

I'm like, wow, I would love to be an amazing manager and to talk to other people, all managers are also not awesome. And. You know, pointing things, but at different companies I've worked at everybody at Microsoft's amazing. But, you know, I think that I've heard, I've heard that and everyone has different management approaches, but one thing that, um, Glenn told me, which was great now, though, four years later, I could have used this a few years ago was.

Something that would probably apply to like a larger company or a mid to two larger companies leveraging like mentorships as well. I'm not saying mentor somebody as a trial run for management. Although that could kind of work. I mean, if you, if you're like, is it really good for me who tends still knowledge and communicate on an ongoing cadence, right.

That could be something great, but it's very different than I think manager. But one thing that Glenn told me was actually doing like a mini. Management mentorship circle, where you basically have a small group, maybe another two or three managers, uh, that you can confide in that you are able to meet together on a regular occurrence to talk through some of those early struggles or even ongoing struggles that, uh, a manager might have.

And I think for me, one of those early struggles I had was balancing and I'm interested here on yours, like balancing being a manager. And still having the responsibility of being an IC. So, you know, I not only want to write code, right. And I do on occasion, but I think as I was just an IC yesterday, for example, and tomorrow I'm a manager, well, it's not like my IC responsibility just goes away.

Did you have that same struggle? I, I still struggle with this by the way. Um, but did you have that struggle at all? Or was it like a overnight switch? 

[00:14:25] Heather: Um, yeah, I absolutely also have that struggle and I think that is a common struggle. Like you said, where, uh, you're kind of transitioning away from that. I see work as you become more and more of a manager if you're managing more and more people, but you also.

There's probably a part of you that doesn't want to transition away from the IC work, right? So it'd be different if it was like, Oh, great. Now I don't have to do this anymore. Um, but of course your heart is with that work a little bit. If it was something that you were already working hard on or you were leading projects on, right?

You're having to find people to hand that off to. And, uh, hopefully those people are ones that you trust and, um, kind of letting go of that is definitely hard. And then finding, I think, especially when you are in that space where maybe 50 percent of your job is. expected to be an IC and 50 percent is a manager, that's almost a little harder in some ways to just find how you allocate that time properly and how you switch your brain really from one mode to another.

Because again, they're kind of different jobs in many ways. And I also still write code, but it's a much smaller part of my job than it used to be. And I try to kind of segment that time when I'm able to write code into like a very specific part of my week. And so, um, doing that Helps me transition my brain into code writing mode, but most of my week, I no longer am able to kind of be in that focused heads down mentality.

And when you're kind of in that 50 50 place, that's a really hard 

[00:15:52] James: one. Any, any big wins or success or like fulfillment. I think, you know, we talk a lot about sometimes the struggles of being a manager, but it's always sometimes talk about the good parts of being a manager and I have my own, but for you being a manager, you've now been.

I guess, um, an engineering manager at this point, cause you've been longer than me. So it must've been almost five years, I think at this point, four and a half, five years, or something like the rewarding aspects of it. Right. I think we talk about like, Oh no, like I would, you know, people come to me. I'm just like, do I go home thinking about becoming a manager?

I'm like. Don't do that as a mistake. You know what I mean? I say it in jest. I'm like, like, don't be a lawyer. You know what I mean? Like, don't be a lawyer. That seems like a mistake. You know? Uh, but you know, I say it in jest because to me it is really rewarding. You know? I, I, I, I share in my team's success.

I also share, and I, my team's failures as, you know, it hits me hard in both, in both aspects of it. Um, but you know, for you, what have been some of the most rewarding aspects of moving into this role and moving forward in this role? 

[00:16:54] Heather: Yeah, no, I think you're right that a lot of times people look at management as something that isn't fun or, um.

There's, there's connotations associated with it, but you know, those of us who are engineering managers, there, there's a reason that we do it. And certainly for me, the positives include really being able to affect other people's careers, hopefully positively, kind of like I mentioned up front is like having the ability to care about other people and their careers and see their growth is.

Awesome to be able to do and to help them grow and kind of find their footing and find their voice and to see someone grow from, you know, someone who barely has been in the industry or really doesn't know, um, how they're going to speak up in a meeting or how they're going to contribute to the team to like, you know, a solid contributor or even beyond that is a really fulfilling Feeling.

So experiencing that as a manager is one of the best feelings. Like the success of your direct reports becomes your success in a small way where you're just like very proud of them. And, um, there's a lot of. beauty to that in some way. Um, and along those lines, I would also say like advocating for people and projects in the role that I'm in.

I get more of an ability to do that. And again, I have a lot of pride in, in the work that my direct reports are doing. So being able to advocate for that, being able to be in spaces and speak on their behalf and say like, Oh, did you know this cool thing that this person is doing? Or like this person did an amazing job at XYZ.

Having the ability to kind of like share that. Awesomeness with other people throughout the company is really great. And it's awesome that I get to be in a role that helps to do that and helps recognize their work. And then I would also say that lastly, the one thing that does kind of span the directory role and the management role a little bit is the strategy aspect.

So um, being able to Be a part of our technical strategy and lead it on a much broader level and also be a little bit more of a part of the company's strategy and the OKRs and, um, looking at like where our product is going is something that feels really empowering to be able to help affect that on a, you know, higher scale than I was as an IC where it's mostly a project or maybe sometimes even a few tickets, not even a project, right?

So being able to really like help push the company in the direction that I think could be great. Um, is, is an exciting part of the role. Absolutely. How about for you? What's like one of one of some of the most fulfilling parts of being a manager? 

[00:19:29] James: I think that everything that you said resonates with me deeply.

And I think when I talk about me as an individual and as a manager, am I like objectives and my mission and what I want, like, you know, my mission, I pulled it up as you were talking about it, you know, just kind of going through it. Yes, so cute. Um, she's like, Oh, you both are talking to the dog. And you know, my mission is to, you know, empower my team to enable, grow and nurture diverse and inclusive developer communities.

Like that's what my team does at all up inside of our developer division. And that's my, my mission and my team's mission is to. Help build those diverse and inclusive developer communities where everyone feels like they belong, that they can learn our technologies and they can grow in their career. But my actual first objective is something I wouldn't have had.

As an ICU, it'd be something that'd be part of, you know, my main objective, like my thing that I'm Truly deeply passionate about beyond just NET and mobile technologies. My, our listeners knows is to foster a collaborative team culture where team members can be their true selves and feel empowered to do their best work.

And that to me has its own challenge, its own reward, its own learning journey. You know, a lot of these concepts of not just being a manager, but talking about belonging, talking about inclusivity or things that I've, you know, You and I've talked about that. I've done training on that. I've been working on myself, but I think as I apply that to my team, um, and, uh, and to, uh, working with other managers on their journeys as well, it's something that's really rewarding.

I think that it's rewarding to see success, but it's also rewarding to work through failures, right? And actually say this didn't have the impact that it needed. How are we going to. Look at this, analyze that. And actually the hardest part to me is giving that feedback, um, when it's needed, but when you give that feedback, the rewarding part is working through that feedback, it's not just a runway sweeper.

It's like, you did something wrong, right? It's like, no, it's, it's not that it's like, let's talk about not just what happened, but what we could have done and how we can go forward and then see that cycle go, because again, you're a partner with your team, right? You talked about like the success of your team members and their career journey is your success too.

Um, so to me, that's, was really rewarding about it. And it is a challenge, right? It's, it's, it's a job. It's a challenge, um, that can be really fun. Um, can be. Um, aggravating at times. Um, just like any job though. I think that's, that's the interesting part about it is I think as an IC. I still have the same ups and downs at Abdenflow and, you know, rollercoaster sometimes, but just in a different way.

[00:22:18] Heather: That's all. Yeah, I definitely agree. And in, in my opinion, people are more complicated than computers. So, you know, there's, there's, I think you feel those emotions one way or the other, a little bit more with management, uh, in that, like. If there are those challenges that you work through, and I really liked the way you worded it of like you're kind of working through the problems together and like working through the failures, um, you feel that more like, you know, you go to bed at the end of the night and you feel that maybe a little bit more than a coding problem that you're banging your head against because it's, you know, a person and a life on the other.

Side of something that you're helping to try to work through. Um, but you also feel those successes in other ways too. And, and like the happiness with that success in a much bigger way than writing a code and complete a piece of code that completes a ticket. So, uh, there's definitely ups and downs and I would say there's just a little bit more extreme as a manager, in my opinion, in my experience now, 

[00:23:14] James: we both became managers and then.

We're immediately struck with a pandemic and work from home. Now I've worked from home for over a decade and I did do some hybrid work at Microsoft early on. However. I'm not a huge fan of driving across the 520 bridge or the 405 very often, as I have to do on occasion, or even the bus, depending on where we lived in Seattle, that bus was either shorter or longer, but, you know, my entire team was remote.

Even when I was hybrid and was going into the office, my entire team that I worked with is all over the world, right now it's a little bit different for you because. Your entire team was in person, and when everything went remote, some people moved away. And we now have all these challenges in hybrid, and you and I were talking about today, it seems like every other day, who knows what is happening in the industry.

It's everybody's hybrid. Nobody's hybrid. There's backdoor hybrid, there's everyone. Like the office is dead, the office is alive. The who? Who knows, right? But I think that what, at least you and I know, and you can, you can say not that you don't agree with this, but I think like, at least for us in our, in our, in our lives, and I think other people, and obviously Frank's life too, is, you know, hybrid and remote work is like here to stay, right?

I don't think there's any going back at all or anything like that. And it's just a whole different world that we're in. You and I have approached these in very different ways, just because of how. We were doing things before and during and after the pandemic, right? Obviously myself being someone that already had a remote team, right?

I have employees in Spain and India and in all the different regions in the U S a different complication besides between like, Hey, everyone's on the Pacific time zone and we're all two hours, you know, within two hours from each other. Um. How was that transition going into hybrid and what were things as a manager steps that you are taking to ensure that hybrid success, um, not only when things started, but, but going forward because, and I think this is really interesting because I just basically stole all the things that you did that were successful.

So big, thank you to, um, to you, uh, for that. Um, 

[00:25:34] Heather: no, I mean, I don't know what all was successful or not, but certainly, yeah, I think a lot of us, myself included, we're just kind of thrown into the remote world. So I did not work remotely before the pandemic started. And then we kind of overnight went into this, like, remote only place for a very long time.

And so many of us, Kind of learned a lot of remote working strategies on the fly. And to your point, you probably had some of those strategies already under your belt, having worked across time zones and with various team members, but for us, it was kind of like, learn as you go. And I think that the eras have certainly shifted and I agree with you that right now, it feels like we're in this era where There's certainly a catchphrase every, every week in some headline about what remote work is or isn't.

Uh, and they're always kind of melodramatic headlines about everyone's quiet quitting, and then no one's quitting and managers want them to quit. You were just telling me some other new phrase that was in a headline the other day. And so I don't know who's writing those articles, but I feel like someone out there is like getting really creative with the terms that they're coming up with.

Um, but yeah, I would say, you know, right now, as we're going into 2024, we're in a pretty hybrid space in my workplace, and I agree that the hybrid, at least, aspect of things is here to stay, and so we're in a really different space than maybe we were in 2020, so I won't maybe go back and speak to that too much, but right now, still supporting hybrid is, has its challenges, right?

Like a lot of us have gotten used to the remote work. And then there was a time period where like some people were going back to the office and others weren't. And so figuring out just even like the technical issues in the office was a big part. And so I think now we have like a lot of our, uh, road paved in terms of just like how to get on a call and how to work with like a conference room to get on a call, et cetera, in the office or, or outside of the office.

But there's still kind of remains a different approach for every individual. And that's what I try to keep in mind. Cause I certainly have my preferences of like how often I'm seeing coworkers or in the office versus how often I'm working from home, but. Recognizing that people are different than me is also a really important part of being a manager and I think being any sort of hybrid worker or remote worker that like you may have co workers who want to work in the office a lot and love that socialization and, or you may be that co worker and you may have a co worker who's like never coming into the office and loves being remote and you're like, man, I want to see you in person.

So, um, you know, everyone's going to have a little bit of a different tolerance for each given thing. And that is totally okay as long as your company or your organization is supporting that. But as a manager, if you have an ability to kind of help see that and support that, you know, and kind of help find other people who might be in the office to connect with that really social coworker who wants to be in the office and like build that social aspect in the office, that's great.

Um, I certainly think there are some generalizations that, you know, if someone is like, newer in their career, out of college, like, those are going to generally be people who want to be in the office more. They want to be building that social connection. They maybe want more of the perks of the office, right?

And so finding other people who might match that vibe and helping connect them, even if they're not on your team, can be something that you can do to kind of help encouraging that. And then for those who Maybe kind of like have been in their role for a long time, or they live further from the office.

You know, you see some of those people are like, I know what I'm doing. I'm more effective and efficient when I'm doing it just at home without any distractions, without people coming up to me in the office. Just let me, you know, be at home and like crank on my work for eight to 10 hours a day and I'll be great.

Right. So also being able to support that and, and knowing that people might want to be heads down, even if others want to be social. So I think that that's kind of where we're at and kind of. Supporting multiple different styles. I will say that despite that, still having a few moments a few times a year where everyone's, you know, intentionally meeting to come together really goes a distance.

And I know that's become more of a norm or more of a intentional moment for a lot of organizations who are hybrid. But even if you're hybrid and a lot of people are working near your office, like having a week. You know, again, once or twice a year where everyone's like, okay, we're going to make the time to come in that can really go a far distance and just kind of strengthening those connections with one another.

[00:30:08] James: Yeah. I also found that too, that, you know, there's different types of conversations that you end up having in person versus remote. Right. You know, I think that. We're not just hanging around the office or hanging around campus and bumping into people. And then, you know, when you go in, uh, to the office, sometimes often I'll come up to Seattle as well and go into Microsoft and I bump into different people if they are coming there, sometimes I tell people I'm coming in, sometimes I don't.

Cause I just want different natural connections, which are great. Um, and I think, you know, you make a really great point that, you know, those types of experiences are really important. I think sometimes. People can get caught up in the remote work that it's just, oh, it's a 100 percent remote, but you're right.

I mean, everyone works different, learns different. And I think that sense of that inclusion part and that belonging part is really important that I found and actually just giving people space. I think because I've always been a remote employee and not always, but for the last decade, I've been a remote employee and doesn't mean that people's.

I've interacted with have always been remote employees. Some of them did go into the office previously or their life's changed in different ways. So one thing that I found is a manager, at least is to really make sure. That people know that I'm 100 percent flexible. And what I mean by that is I understand that people have lives.

People have to go to the doctors. People have to go to the dentist, people's cars break down, right? Like we're not in the office. So I can't physically see you, right. That you're there or not. If I have a one on one with you, there's that. So it's this, Hey, everything is movable. Everything is flexible. I understand.

Oh, you're running five minutes late. Like, let's talk about that. Oh, I can kind of read the room. I can kind of. Ask a little bit ahead of time. And that's one thing that is really, I'm hoping I'm building that culture. My teammates can call me out and I don't know, but I feel like that's one thing that's, you know, I've been trying to build that culture with, um, in, in general.

And I think obviously, you know, coming into the office and meeting up is, is really important. One thing that is happening between those meetups, right. And. Is those connections, when everyone is remote, um, has your team found some way of bridging that gap in a way of like, what have you found to be successful there or a struggle there is that in between time is, you know, of, of making sure people feel connected, whether they're early in career or later in career or mid career.

Like, I think all of that's pretty important. 

[00:32:43] Heather: Uh, we certainly have been pretty intentional and again, not all this we did right off the bat, or we're perfect about. at the get go but we've been pretty intentional about trying to still build that team culture and team community, even while remote. And so we, at the start of team meetings, we usually say, Hey, it's okay.

We'll take takes a few to five minutes to kind of talk about our weekends or talk about personal stuff that anyone wants to share of like, Oh, I, I did this cool thing today. Right. So it doesn't, it's not a requirement, but if people do have that small banter that you might actually have, you know, it comes a little bit easier when you're in person, right.

When you were in a conference room with a bunch of people, you probably likely did have some small banter. with them before a meeting started, even if it's just about the coffee machine or the water in the building or whatever, um, you're having these small kind of conversations about the weather, et cetera.

So we kind of have as a part of our working agreements that we allow one another to have that, you know, it doesn't need to be like we dive right into it. Yes, we are more efficient, frankly, when we are just in meetings. remotely because we all gathered there. So we're like, let's get to the agenda and let's really make the most of this time together.

But in the beginning, having a little bit of banter, at least leaving space for it is a is a great part to kind of help just grow and maintain that connection that you have. with coworkers in a little bit more of a holistic sense of like, we're whole humans who are coming to work every day. And then we also do kind of optional, like we have a Slack channel where we put some, you know, anything fun that people want to share that's like, Hey, if you aren't into the kind of random channel style stuff, you can mute this channel.

But if you are, and you have some fun meme to share or something about your weekend, et cetera. That people are putting things in that Slack channel, uh, from time to time. And then every few weeks we try to do a little bit of a virtual games time as well. So we're having some intentional time where we're meeting up and doing something fun together.

And so we are, you know, we do a virtual meetup or a virtual lunch once in a while as well. So we're looking for those spaces that we can build some of that community also. And, uh, you know, I think that will change from company or organization to organization. But there's certainly probably spaces where you can see, okay, this is what people are interested in.

Let's try to find, you know, a time where we can all do a virtual lunch or a time where we can just have a little catch up about people's weekends, etc. Those are things that people naturally do want to talk about with one another a little bit, even the most introverted amongst us. And so having space for that in a virtual and remote environment is still 

[00:35:24] James: really important.

You know, one thing that was a great recommendation from one of my team members specifically was, you know, we are a really diverse set of individuals from across the globe and making those connections, we seem to have done successful as a team when actually one of the things that I wanted to do as a manager coming in was break down barriers and make it easier for team members to work closer together.

And through that, she had this amazing suggestion, which was how to strengthen the actual connections and bonds between individual team members. And what that led to is, um, I didn't like require it, but optionally out there was for all intents and purposes, having team members. Do one on ones with other team members, a.

k. a like you would go get a coffee with your team member full ear or have lunch with somebody. Right? Those are the things you have to know because you're jumping into a team while you're doing the game time, you're doing whatever. We do AMAs, for example, um, a S a leadership, uh, me and Scott, um, and Jeff, the three, the three managers on the team, like we do, like an AMA with, with the whole team, all the teams.

Together, which is quite fun. Microsoft loves AMAs. Um, but this was the other aspect of it was sometimes removing myself from the equation was equally as important. You know what I mean? Uh, because while I love being everywhere all the time, also, it's really important for team members individually to connect with other team.

[00:36:55] Heather: I really like that suggestion because it's true as a manager, you often have a lot of the information because you are meeting with all of your team members and you're also meeting as a, as a group. And so, um, you sometimes I, I sometimes make the mistake of assuming that other people have the information I have.

Right? And when I realized that they don't it. Often can be a failure on my part of like, okay, I need to share this a little bit more broadly than I maybe am sharing, but also just having even that personal conversation that, you know, let's grab a lunch together. Let's grab a coffee together, even if it's virtual.

I think that's really great. 

[00:37:29] James: Oh, I have one more topic before we get out of here, which I think kind of builds upon. Everything that we've talked about today, you know, that transition, the work from IC into manager, being a manager and, and B trying to be successful in that space, trying to be successful in the hybrid space.

And something that you and I talk about actively, I would say every single day. And I think this topic kind of serves up in two places, both individually for ourselves, but also for our teams, which is really trying to figure out not only in the hybrid space, but. Not in the hybrid space too, which is how we kind of increase this capacity for ourselves and for our team to innovate.

And this is something that, you know, defining innovation, defining capacity is super important, but also something that I struggle with as, as a manager, it's myself trying to even just keep up with technology, but I think in. You know, I would talk about the AI moment that we're in currently, at least from a Microsoft perspective is very important and very complex and lots of new things happening really fast, but that's just like one thing of innovation.

To me, innovation can be fixing a specific bug. It could be adding a feature. It could be anything really right inside of there, but. As we move towards this and have moved towards this hybrid space, or we think about our teams, you know, how do we kind of keep moving forward to make sure that we're innovating and not getting stuck in our pattern?

And that's something I've been thinking about more recently, very heavily. Um, especially in this AI moment that me and my team are, have entered into. Uh, but I'm really interested from your perspective, like what are some of the things. That you see in that space that you're doing, your team's doing, or you're just thinking about as a manager or even just you outside of work, um, which is equally as important in the innovation space.

Right. I think that you and I talk about all these different topics all the time, but I'm really interested in this. I don't get to be this Frank, I guess, sometimes in, uh, some of our conversations, you know, at the house, but, you know, I'd be interested to get your perspective on that. 

[00:39:36] Heather: Yeah, I'm definitely a huge advocate of innovation and specifically of kind of engineer's abilities to be creative and to bring creativity and innovation to the space, because often as software engineers, we're kind of told what to work on or given a project by our product counterparts.

And, of course, they're doing a ton of work and, uh, hopefully great work to help guide that. That is, you know, work that takes time that we don't have time to put in as engineers since we're writing the code towards that. Nonetheless, I always believe that there are things that, I mean, we've all seen it, right?

There's There's a ticket that product or design is like, Oh, this is going to take so long. And then a dev looks at it and is like, Oh, actually, this is like built into my framework. And it would take me half a day, it would take me an hour, right? And so sometimes there's space where. Product counterpart is surprised by that.

Other times, and maybe more often than not, the opposite will also happen, right? Where it's like, Oh, this is going to be so easy, right? Let's just fix this. This sounds completely easy because to a user or to someone in product, it seems like this is just a small change that we need to make. But maybe under that iceberg is, you know, a lot more going on and the technical issues that might kind of come our way if we were to work on that might be massive, especially if there's tech debt involved.

And so there's often this disconnect. And that's why we have a lot of good communication, hopefully, and strong communication with our product counterparts to say this is what we can do. This is what we can't do. It's always a trade off, right? My answer is always, Yes, we can do that. It's just the amount of time it might take us to do that thing.

And so I think that. kind of interaction is a great example of the fact that devs have some knowledge in what could be done and what could be done relatively easily. And so for devs to have some space to be able to bring their ideas to the table and be able to kind of, uh, help innovate alongside their organization is a really powerful thing because they have some knowledge of what is going on that not everyone may realize.

So we have our program at our company that's called 10 percent Time. I think it is a play on a Google initiative at one point where they had like a 10 or 20 percent time. And the whole aspect is that you take half of your Friday afternoon. It's completely optional, but you can take a Friday afternoon and.

work towards a project of your choice, right? And it has to be for the company and it has to be something that will hopefully help, you know, move things along. Um, but that is a great space for devs to be innovative. So if you work in an organization that allows for something like that, that is definitely something that's awesome.

Many organizations may not have that. And so at minimum, having some sort of learning and development. either program at your company or, you know, initiative to help have developers get to go and go to a conference once a year or watch an online tutorial of a new technology, right? And have like that heads down time to really soak up what's going on in the industry, what a new technology is and how they might apply it to their work.

Those are things that can pay off many fold because a developer can come back and really apply that knowledge and it can Immensely help the company. And so at minimum, having some sort of learning and development, but there are also other spaces where, you know, you can do much more with innovation, but generally a big, a big advocate over here of, of engineering innovation.

[00:43:12] James: Yeah, I think lunch and learns are super good. Um, we, we do that quite a lot. I think obviously all the educational aspects of things out there, I think often it's, you know, we do no meeting Fridays, for example, to try to give space for learning and also for. You know, I tell my team 10 percent of them, because I know you all do 10 percent time, but you know, it's like, for example, sometimes if people see me stream on a Friday, it's actually because I'm using my 10 percent time and I'm usually trying to learn something new.

I'm kind of, you know, taking that and applying it in a different way. Uh, one thing, uh, that has been really cool is that we do a lot of internal conferences too, so a lot of like, uh, lunch and learns, but elevated at a large level, like, oh, here's eight hours of a learning day type of thing. One thing that's, you know, I've talked to a lot of PMs and engineering managers and PM managers at different companies and.

Think about 10 percent time. How do you look at that as a manager? Right? Because I think often we're in this world now, like KPIs, we get OKRs and we, you know, everyone needs, no one has enough time. You go, we'll give this, give people on the team four hours a week, which doesn't seem like a lot, but actually 10 percent time is.

10, that's 10 percent of people's time, right? That's quite a lot. Um, in general, when an average developer is only coding three hours a day, right. Or something like that, four hours a day. I forget what the stat is, you know, so everyone needs a GitHub co pilot to help them code faster, but, um, not endorsed, not sponsored by GitHub co pilot.

So anyway, that's great. So how do you look at that as a manager though? Because obviously not every 10 percent project I can, I couldn't imagine that all of them come to fruition. For product hubs, right? How do you balance that as a manager, even just communicating that with your team members? Yeah, 

[00:44:57] Heather: absolutely.

Um, so I would say for me, uh, the number one way to help my direct reports utilize their 10 percent time, because even companies who have something like that, it is. Um, it's definitely easier said than done. I think that's something you alluded to when you were just talking. And, um, it is like, Oh, it's nice to have, but you have to like literally carve out the time for it.

And you have so many other demands on your time and the time is definitely precious. And so it's very easy to just skip that and do your normal work. And, and for me personally, it's even easy. Right? So it. Is something that I intentionally put that time on my calendar for and even then I sometimes just use my Friday afternoon to catch up on stuff, right?

It's like, I need to write some emails. I need to follow up on some stuff. This is just things that I need to get done and I know I don't have meetings in this time. And so that's like my time to kind of catch up on things. But I found that what is most successful in getting the engineers that I managed to take advantage of 10 percent time is to set the example.

So I set the example for them, just like, you know, encouraging other people to take time off or behave in certain ways, like behavior is so learned from the people around you and created in the spaces that you're in, you know, with other people that, uh, it's important to kind of set that example of saying, okay, I set this time on my calendar.

aside on my calendar and you should too. And I'm going to actually work on a project and I'm, I tell my teammates what I'm working on, right? This is the thing I'm working on, even though I'm your manager and I don't write code really outside of this 10 percent space. I'm working on a thing and I've worked on some successful things, even as a manager in that space.

And so for them to be able to see that as an example can be really helpful to say, okay, this can be a time where I can go after that too, because if my manager can do it. Then I'm allowed to do it. It's like giving permission. I can give permission verbally all I want, but if the culture is to just put your head down and work on normal work during that time, that it doesn't mean anything.

So I need to give permission in, uh. Exemplar, exampling way. Right. Um, and so that is definitely one of the things that I try to do the most, because I find that that is the most helpful, actually. Yeah. 

[00:47:17] James: Microsoft, when you've heard me say before, maybe our listeners to have heard me mention this once or twice in the manager space, we have a framework called model coach care, and that's a lot of our training around that.

We have different aspects of each of those different things, but that's the modeling aspect, which I think is so true of, of one of the most important things. Even when it comes to like. Taking time off, right. You know, or, you know, how will you manage your time or how you manage your calendar, that modeling is important because I'm interacting with my team members so often.

Right. And ideally if you're creating that space, oh, wow, like James did go on holiday and this is what James is doing for this thing or X, Y, Z like. Not that i'm giving them permission to do that, but I think it's easier to give yourself permission sometimes. Like Scott is my manager. I lead by example.

Right. And then we were, when I was in the startup space, you know, you hear stories about startups. seven. It's the culture of it. Right. I mean, it is, I mean, in a way. I mean, I was, I was more, by younger, more vulnerable years. Um, I, I thrived off of that, right. It was, it was awesome as what I wanted, uh, at the time.

is also just how we, we worked and just how everyone worked and you create that culture and you leave by example, you model that behavior and that's the one thing like I tell my team members, like I'm modeled by like having a separate work phone. And like, when we went on our recent holiday, like, I'm like, I don't have, I don't have any, I don't not have, I have zero ways of getting in contact to do any work things and I don't.

Right. Which is like, I'm on holiday. I shouldn't be working at all. Right. I'm like, my manager can, my manager can handle it for anybody. Right. And, um, there's, there's mechanisms. I think sometimes we. And get caught up in this, um, trying to take ourselves out of, out of work and give ourselves permission to do that thing, but it can be really healthy for our team in the long run.

[00:49:10] Heather: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is hard no matter who you are to, to try to set those like boundaries for yourself of like, I am going to take this time to do something creative, or I am going to. take holiday and not be communicating with my team. And so even as managers, it's a difficult thing to do sometimes because we feel like we want to be helpful.

We want to be there. And we've maybe been modeled by other people in the past that that's, you know, it's bad to not be in connection with your company while you're on holiday. Right. So we have to kind of unlearn that a little bit, but I think the more that we're able to do that for other people, the more we can help shepherd in an era of like trusting one another more and co creating a culture that we want in our teams.

And that's really important. 

[00:49:54] James: All right. Last question for you, Heather. Um, you read books. I very rarely do. I have to imagine there's probably something on your desk on your side thing right now. If you're like, Hey. If there wasn't a book recommendation or you can do off the top of your head, hey, I'm really interested in being a manager.

I am a manager of successful best practices. Is there something in the space there? Is there a recommendation that you may have in general that's you that's that you're like, Hey, this is something that I would. Want to share with the listeners today and for our listeners that are listening can't see this but heather is actively going and grabbing a book off the shelf offer for many books um that are there what you got for us um 

[00:50:40] Heather: yeah so as you were speaking i I pulled away because I didn't want to name either book wrong, but I actually have two books that I quite enjoyed when I was becoming a manager.

The one I would recommend the most maybe is called Resilient Management by a woman named Lara Hogan. And it's a pretty small book, but it has some really tactical, um, engineering management kind of takeaways. And so I am a very. NET MAUI, James Montemagno, Xamarin Forms, Xamarin Forms, Spotlight on Machine Learning, Machine Learning, Dot Net Maui, James Montemagno, Xamarin Forms, Xamarin Forms, Spotlight on Machine Learning, Xamarin Forms, O'Reilly set of books is pretty good.

I recently have been reading the staff engineering book from O'Reilly, and that one's actually pretty good. If you're a manager who's been in that space for a while, or you have staff engineers, or you're thinking about having staff engineers, there's some overlap there with engineering management and the strategy part of engineering management.

But generally the O'Reilly books are, uh, pretty good ones. And so there's one specific for managers called the manager's path, and that one's quite good as well. So I would recommend both of those. 

[00:51:49] James: Awesome. I will put links in the show notes for both of those as well. Well, Heather, thank you so much for coming on, filling in for Frank.

I really appreciate and give your insight into this management path. I think this was a really great conversation because all Frank manages himself, uh, in general, um, you know, I think that there are probably a lot of people and a lot of people listening that are either thinking about becoming a manager, have recently become a manager or.

And you have been a manager for a few years, but are always looking to improve. So so much for coming on and sharing your insights. I really appreciate it. 

[00:52:23] Heather: Thank you so much for having me. I know Frank will be back soon. I have not been quite as charismatic and amazing as he is, but I hope that it was still a good conversation and it was great to chat with you.

So 

[00:52:36] James: awesome. Well, I'm excited to eat dinner. After this podcast in just a few minutes. So that is going to do it for this week's podcast. Again, thanks Heather, for coming on. Now, of course you can follow us everywhere on the internet. Uh, we have a YouTube, youtube. com forward slash at merge conflict. Fm merge conflict.

If I'm on. X of course, you can email us by going to merge conflict. fm. You see a pattern here. Um, and there's a contact button. You can literally write us an email. That'd be so rad. You can listen to all the podcasts. You can subscribe to the podcast. You're probably already subscribed, but share this with a friend, a family member, or just a random person that you meet on the street.

We'd really appreciate that. It helps the show grow, but that is going to do it for this week's merge conflict. So until next time, I'm James Heather's over there. Thank you so much.

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