What could transpire within a week _outside of_ weekly work or tasks that could influence your reports' career trajectory or force them to re-evaluate it? To put this in context, I'm attending such meetings but really see them as a noblesse oblige type of ritual that serves to reinforce our rapport (we don't see each other much otherwise), but otherwise a waste of my time from my standpoint.
Agreed. I find 1:1s to be rather useless along with engineering managers in general if I may be honest, they are simply paper pushers and approve expense reports here and there. You are the one in control of your career and you have to put in work yourself to make it to the next level, the EM is there just to submit your promotion packet and act like they provide value to the company (they don't do any real "work" per say, and at the end of the week if you ask them what have they accomplished, pretty much all they can say is attended a bunch of meetings).
*maybe I am being a bit harsh, they do provide some value in that they would be trying to guide me and provide feedback about how I can make it to the next level, but usually that is spelled out in a eng career ladder, and you would know what skills you need to work on from peer feedback, not your EM since your EM does not work with you everyday nor review your code.
I think maybe consider one of the following could be true
1) You have worked with bad managers
2) You don't appreciate what a manager has to deal with. I have often felt that one of my roles as a manager is to protect the team from the board. The board waste a lot of my time while the team get to keep working. Equally the board prefer to deal with me because I have learned how to put things in their terms.
Maybe you should use your one on one to ask what they have been doing recently.
I have a good friend who is a senior engineer who is always complaining about managers, but hates dealing with other stakeholders in the business. Maybe you are under-appreciating them because you don't like what they have to do.
In terms of career progression, yes a manager can't do that for you. However a manager can recognise that you are driven and allocate work that gives you the experience they want.
I spend a lot of time doing PR for my team. The board don't really understand what they do and it is hard for them to tell who is good and who is not. I'm currently moving out of a position, and my best direct report is replacing me (in a reorganised role, doing more tech and less management). They got the job because of my advocacy, and because I allocated them work that would prepare them for the role over the past couple of years. They have been nervously learning the ropes whilst constantly commenting that, 'I remember this!'.
Not sure what are you talking about. The best moment to speak about anything is ASAP. I am not going to wait until next 1-on-1 meeting day because that's the procedure. I am not going to track the bullets of interesting topic throughout a week and wait either because I have many better ways to spend my time at office, like contributing to the project. If I have anything that needs a discussion I go to manager and talk, or I go out for a lunch with him. It works both ways. A 1-on-1, to me, is an artificial construct created so the organization can mark a goal completed "we are trying to foster a better culture and growth environment, blah blah blah." What are you talking about when there is nothing to talk about? Not because of hostility - just everything has been already discussed. Don't get me wrong here. I am on very good terms with my manager and we have not always easy but honest communication channel for few years, now. We just cancelled our 1-on-1 and I couldn't be more happy about it. None of us lost anything.
> Not sure what are you talking about. The best moment to speak about anything is ASAP. I am not going to wait until next 1-on-1 meeting day because that's the procedure.
But then all of your conversations are about operational matters.
When can you talk about careers? When should I talk to my employees about the 'boiling a frog' stuff? A steady increase in workload, the new x is causing anxiety with y. Or even that person x is concerned about person y's welfare. All huddled in our open plan office, it is hard to have those conversations. The 1 to 1 allows that.
As I said - ASAP. I come to my manager and ask "hey, can you spare N minutes for me?" If he can't, which obviously may happen, then I ask for convenient but close enough time when he's available. The form is up to me and him - we're having lunch quite often. For you a separate room might work better. Case by case, I guess. But again, it doesn't change anything I said - I am talking with him because there is a reason, so the meeting actually is meaningful, not because it's scheduled or because other companies doing it.
AS someone that recently transitioned from engineer to engineering manager, I don't feel like I'm doing less. Quite the opposite. Is the work as worthwhile? It is mandated by the company. So no real engineering would happen without it. Is the work as rewarding? Not yet and that makes it feel more like "work" than my previous job. I hope that changes as time goes on.
