1 on 1 Meetings Q&A and Videos

I started my career in a mid-level startup that was on the verge of IPO. I contributed a lot. Learnt a lot in terms of how to deliver big scale features relatively quickly, work within sharp deadlines, owning features and products. I was a high performer.

After 2 years of working in that company, I decided to switch to Big Tech for better compensation. While Snap is not exactly a Big Tech company, this is what I had in mind when switching.

I immediately started adding value in terms of delivering features and owning products. However, since I come from a mid-level startup, my soft skills are very weak. I am an excellent programmer, but I struggle writing Technical Design Docs. I deliver features quickly, but I don't know how to contribute to the spec sheets and writing launch emails, holding engineering sessions, efficiently using 1:1s. It feels like in my previous company, delivering features on time, writing quality code was enough to be a high performer, but seems like Big Tech requires a lot more. My manager's ex-Amazon, so he values tech docs a lot, and I feel like I am missing a huge opportunity here by not being good at them.

How do I adapt better to this work environment ?

I recently joined a startup (just finished my third week about to start my fourth) and I set up a one-on-one last week with my manager to hopefully create a mentor-mentee relationship. That went well and now I’m looking to create a growth plan and a way to measure my performance. We’ll be checking in on a weekly basis so I can get a sense of my performance and how I am growing as a engineer.

Given that it is a Series B startup with ~25 people, our goals will be shifting a lot which makes long-term growth plans hard to create. For context, since I joined, my 60 day and 90 day projects have shifted somewhat. So how do I create a growth plan that is flexible and what should it include (Concrete goals vs. more behavior orientated goals)?? Should the growth plan be used separately from judging my performance or would it be the measuring stick for performance?

Would really appreciate some insight on this.

Hi all,

I joined my current company (known in our industry for not-so-good WLB) 6 months ago as a Senior Software Engineer and have been doing side hustle in the evening and weekends over past 6 months beside my main job. This means I still completed the 9am to 6pm work schedule before doing my side hustle.

Now my manager is saying I have low bug fix count and my team consists of some weekends workaholics which I suspect I’m being benchmarked against. My upcoming performance review is due end of December 2023 (1 month away). The expectation for my level is ramping up in 3 months which means the last 3 months are no longer considered ramp-up period.

What should I do in this last 1 month leading to the performance review? Should I go all in on the weekends too or should I keep the pace I’m working (I’ve started working in the evening from 7PM to 10PM since receiving this feedback 2-3 weeks ago but on weekends I still hustle). Was I wrong in doing side gigs / projects while ramping up for my full time job and should have instead pushed weekends to ramp up? What could have I done better in the past 6 months and moving forward in 1 month ahead?

I know Rahul talked about doing side contract gigs and Alex talked about doing side projects while both are still at Meta (a very demanding big tech company). How did you guys handle the pressure and what are your schedules like? (Wake up @ 4AM, work on side hustle till 6-7AM, then go to sleep at night around 12AM LOL)? I'm curious about how people organize their side gigs schedule.

Thank you for your advices. I really appreciate it.

I am nearing the end of my 6 months probation. My manager feels that I'm going towards an Approaching rating (like Meets Most) rather than a Thriving rating (Meets All). He feels that I lack in contribution to group level engineering discussions and being technically strong enough to mentor other engineers, which he expects from a senior engineer like me.

He keeps going through the growth and development framework and highlights he is concerned I don't meet B3 senior expectations. He increased the frequency of 1:1s to twice a week.

He didn't mention the word PIP but gave me to do a project with a very tight deadline to assess my coding and implementation skills. Now that I'm making good progress in it after a lot of effort, he brought up weaknesses in the engineering direction and discussion points.

My other team members think I am doing ok and my performance isn't too bad, though there are things I can work on.

It sometimes feels like my manager already made up his mind to make me fail probation and is finding weaknesses even if I complete this stressful project.

He even talked about downlevelling if that's a possibility and being asked to leave. He said extension of probation is not possible due to legal reasons.

What do you recommend I do?

I have a 1:1 with the director of my engineering org in the next couple of weeks and it's a rare opportunity. I'd love to make a great impression and learn about insights that I wouldn't be able to get from just talking to my manager or teammates. I'm relatively junior and new to his org. Any advice on what to talk about?

Hi Taro Community,

I am a new hire for my company and I will have an amazing opportunity to chat with a tech lead.

I wonder from a more senior engineer perspective, what some important information or questions are essential to ask or tackle during the opportunity coffee chat?

Thanks a lot for the help :)

I'm an incoming SDE intern and will be joining the team at the end of this month. I'm eager to get started and make the most of this opportunity. Last summer, I feel like I didn't perform up to my own expectations and left some room for improvement. I was fortunately to have a return offer but I think I don't really deserve it. This summer, I am committed to learning from my past experiences and striving to do my best. As part of my preparation, I'm planning to have a meeting with our manager to discuss my goals for this summer.

1. Are there any key topics or questions you recommend I should raise in this initial meeting?
2. How can I best communicate my summer goals to our manager?
3. Is there anything you wish you had known or asked when you first joined the team?

Right now I have 25 min per week in our 1:1 and after quick top of mind exchange it is usually 15 min left. So I am getting only one hour per month of quality time to discuss what is important. I feel it is not enough, and my manager has 11 reports.

I joined SAP as a Data Strategy intern. I have one - one calls scheduled with my manager and the rest of the team. One of my team members advised me to have goals, and expectations of the internship ready before going on to 1:1's.

Questions:

1. How can I be realistic and not desperate in explaining my goals and expectations as an intern?
2. Is there any video of the first 1:1 meeting with the manager and team regarding setting goals and expectations out of the internship?

Hey Taro members,

Since in most companies, I believe the 1:1 with Managers is biweekly or weekly I was thinking about what to communicate in every meeting. At times, I run out of things to discuss. We cover topics related to how tasks are going, feedback if any, and after that, there's not really anything else. Given the fact these meetings are recurring, I want the communication to be more natural. Any advice for that since I do realize the importance of 1:1's and would like to make the most of it?

Also, any other topics besides the ones mentioned above that should be discussed in 1:1 something I can initiate a discussion about as an Entry Level Engineer and make the most out of these 1:1s?

Thanks.

Context: I work as a Entry Level SWE at Series B Startup with 25 people; the SWE team is 7 people total. I am the only person currently under my manager & my coworkers are fairly clear about what I am building & why. Also, the SWE team morale is strong and productivity seems to be at a sustainable rate.

In general, I think my manager & mentor is an incredible engineer & empathetic person open to feedback/trying new things. He’s personable, highly knowledgable, is available to answer my questions, & answers all my noobie questions. While I love these aspects, I do feel he is a bit reactive as a manager. When I asked him if he wanted to be my mentor, he agreed but I think he interprets it as being available to answering more of my questions. I don't think he is used to being a mentor or a manager and would like to see a more proactive effort from his side to help me level up as a engineer (right now I am mostly bringing up the ideas for 1:1 meetings, and creating a growth plan, etc).

So how do I help him?

I'm in the process of transferring teams right now.

What topics should I discuss with my new manager in our first 2-4 1-on-1s?

Topics that come to my mind:

• Working styles
• Strengths, weaknesses, interests
• Career goals
• Onboarding expectations (30/60/90 days)
• The team's mission / goals / KPIs
• Things on the manager's top of mind
• People to meet with / get to know

Hello.

I have a busy senior/manager. We used to have 1-1s twice a week, and now I'm lucky if I even get a single 1-1 every other week. I understand that it's because he has a lot of responsibilities (e.g., coding, managing, scrum'ing) and end-of-year deadlines.

Here are some things I've done to make up for the lack of 1-1's:

• I over-communicate via IMs (even if he doesn't respond) to let him know how I'm progressing so he can "smoke test" my theories if I'm heading the wrong way.
• I present high-level overviews of the code (<15 bullet points) I'm working on to avoid doing deep dives into the implementation.
• I deliver short standup updates with easy-to-remember keywords that my manager has mentioned before.
• I try to offload some of his managerial tasks (e.g., onboarding new engineers) to free up some of his time.

Does anyone else have a busy senior? Should I be doing anything else? Thanks!