andrewvt/manager-readme

Andrew Rousseau
AVP Engineering
@ Sun Life | Maxwell Health

Introduction

Treat this document as an introduction and ongoing reference, but keep in mind that everyone’s needs are unique so naturally how I can best serve each of you will be unique as well.

My Job

I am a service leader here to help and support you. This may take the form of:

• Setting context for your work
• Advocating for you and the rest of the team to the larger organization
• Ensuring that you experience growth and development

Your needs will change over time and I will always do my best to support you along the way.

Transparency

I will always do my best to provide transparency within the team, department, and organization as a whole and to share knowledge as freely as possible. That communication will always be executed with respect and honesty and I expect everyone else to do the same.

1:1 Meetings

These meetings are an essential part of my ability to help and support you. For the most part it is my preference that you set the agenda and that you come away from the meeting feeling listened to and heard. Topics will vary and may include anything from problems you are facing, needs you have or learning and growth. These meetings establish a rhythm of communication between us, but are just the start of the one on one communication we will have.

Process

I strive for us to strike the balance between people and process. The processes put in place should be the direct result of our learning and should proactively mitigate our risks. However, that process must introduce efficiency and save us time in the long run to be truly valuable. This is likely to start with an agile approach and end with a well refined deployment and rollback process.

My Availability

There will be days and times when my schedule looks very full, but don’t let this stop you from communicating with me. I will make time to help with urgent issues and will respond to non-urgent issues as quickly as I can.

Autonomy

You are here because of your experience and expertise and as such you will be given a high level of autonomy. It is my job to help you succeed and not to dictate how you should act or micromanage your work. That said, I also expect you to be responsible to not fall into rabbit holes that will hurt the team’s ability to meet delivery expectations. When you need to make decisions that have a large impact on other parts of a codebase or will impact those that code after you, it is essential that we move forward with eyes open and consensus as a team. Likewise, if you simply get stuck on a problem for any length of time it is equally important to seek other’s input and doing so will always be viewed as being responsible and not as a reflection of one’s ability.

Remote First

Individually we each know when and how we work best. Working remotely need not be a barrier to building a cohesive and inclusive team. Through strategies like maintaining a 4 hour schedule overlap, utilizing a strong communication infrastructure, setting reasonable expectations around communication responsiveness, and measuring success through results and not presence we can achieve this together.

Work/Life Balance

With a distributed team across several time zones it is important whenever possible to try to preserve a 4 hour overlap of schedules to make sure we have ample time to meet. Outside of that, you are the best judge of when you work best within reason. I generally set an asynchronous expectation around non-urgent communication but tempered with an understanding that we need to be respectful to answer each other within a reasonable timeframe. I or other members of the team may send slack messages or emails to you outside of your normal work hours and as long as it is non-urgent communication I would not expect those messages to be responded to until your next working hours.

Feedback

I believe feedback is essential to building and maintaining a respectful relationship with all members of our team and our organization. Feedback should be given and received in a respectful and honest manner. My goal is that you feel listened to and validated and that you will reciprocate.