MSFT Engineering Manager Reacts - Discuss Your Career Expectations

so I'm going to be reacting to a tick tock video from a creator that I've seen put out some questionable content when it comes to some of the technical pieces I I certainly can't speak to some of his domain expertise so I'm not going to be touching on that but some of the management and Leadership philosophy pieces I've historically just really not agreed with so we're gonna be checking out this video together I'm gonna be reacting to it and then giving you my sort of summary I have to be totally transparent I've only gone through a couple of parts of this video I've certainly not watched the whole thing the whole way through so you will be getting a bit of genuine reaction from me so yeah let's jump over to it so before I press play here I just want to say that I mean nothing personal against this person I just want to talk about the topics that we see in here and that means if I agree with it great if I don't I'm just giving you my opinion it's nothing personal to this Creator so let's have a look leaders in HR departments almost seem to stack the deck against you so here's what you can do about it okay quick pause um yeah that seems a little interesting um I have to see more what he has to say but it kind of seems like the framing of this already is looking like you know you're you're put on your own like your management in HR is not there for you um I hope that's not the message here if it is I would just tell people please find somewhere else to work that's not a good spot to be let's see what he has to say most companies have role guidelines that give specific thresholds that you need to hit in order to be considered performing at or above your current level however what's really crazy about that whole thing is it's rarely shared with employees this means okay that's interesting um first of all I would I say yes to the first part um something like a rubric a talent guide a career guide something that helps sort of share expectations with employees between employees and managers so ICS individual contributors and managers or managers and managers having something like a talent guide or a rubric I think is incredibly important um one of the biggest things is like you know having clear expectations between an employee and a manager so something like a talent guide in this case I think is critical if you're working at a place that doesn't have this it's a I would say like it's startups and stuff especially it's actually pretty common you don't really have this because the business itself is seemingly just so focused on trying to move forward to get the business going um I would say don't worry too much if you're at something like a startup but definitely keep your eye on it and I would say that it's something you should try to encourage to have because as you're growing your career yes something like a startup you're going to have these other experiences and stuff that are really valuable but when it comes to career progression in general you don't want to be in a situation where you're unsure asking questions just to even understand like are you doing the right things to be considered um so I think that's really important his second Point here I think is really interesting that it's often not shared with employees um not in my not in my experience and I say that because as a manager at the places I've worked or and even as an employee it was like I I always had this stuff shared with me as a manager I use these Talent guides and rubrics whatever you'd like to call them I literally use them in conversations and one-on-ones and like performance review time so let's let's go ahead and see what he has to say means that when people are going into their annual reviews they think that they're doing a great job but the employer or the manager seems to think differently same thing happens when it comes to Promotions people are promised to promotion or maybe to believe that they're going to get promoted but they're not necessarily performing what's needed at the role at the next level yeah so exactly that his premise so far is that that stuff's not shared with employees again that's where you're working then I would say like try to do something about having that change try to influence having that changed um because of exactly this reason I totally agree surprisingly I totally agree with uh with this gentleman on this point um it's I think the number one reason why you need this kind of stuff the I feel like as a manager I would be failing my employees if it came to performance review time and we had a conversation and I shared with them kind of like here's your rewards your compensation changes all that kind of stuff if they're surprised and I say surprise even if they're surprised that they're getting promoted versus not getting a promotion or the rewards maybe aren't where they expect having surprises at that point in time tells me as a manager that I didn't do everything I could to be transparent about their progress now yes some people will be happy that they're getting promoted but I would hope that at that point they're like I feel deserving of this it might feel surprising like in the moment that it's happening but they should feel like I I've worked and deserved this than the conversations we've been having between me and the IC you know indicate that that's the case so let's keep going I find this to be completely ridiculous and that lack of transparency isn't helping anyone out in the process so what you want to do is make sure that you're having those weekly one-on-ones with your manager and those monthly Career Development meetings that I talk about and during those meetings you need to make sure that you're getting the information on what success looks like at your level and what success looks like at the next level with those okay yeah 100 percent I'm shocked actually that I that I'm totally agreeing with this guy that that's spot on I 100 agree with that um I like leaving one-on-ones open for for my team to be able to talk about whatever they'd like to talk about for some folks that kind of turns into um status updates on the projects they're doing and things like that and that's okay um because not I find like it's it almost feels forced um if every time if every week we meet and it's like how am I doing in my career how am I doing my career feels a little forced but I like leaving it open and giving like I've had people kind of say in their one-on-ones like hey like I'm kind of curious like am I doing the right things we talked about maybe this project opportunity that hasn't really happened like is that affecting me um so that's good there's some people though that that I've managed that that sort of never lean into that and I need to make space on purpose like purposefully make space for them to be able to kind of bring that up in those conversations so yeah I totally agree with everything this guy's saying about this part those thresholds and those guidelines in front of you now you can start matching up where you need to be performing versus how you are performing and you can create a plan to get to that level that you're trying to get to this is something that I encourage all of my team members and my clients to do because your manager is probably not going to offer up that information on their own and it's absolutely necessary in order for you to succeed and grow in your career interesting oh I guess we're at the end of the video so yeah I mean to summarize that last part for sure um those conversations that you have in your one-on-one leveraging Talent guides career guides and just being able to talk about your career progression your growth opportunities your challenges and not just um not just status updates on projects and stuff um it's a huge opportunity for you to align as an individual contributor or if you're a manager watching this if you're a manager aligning to your manager's expectations um if you're doing weekly bi-weekly every three weeks whatever the Cadence is you want to take those opportunities to synchronize on expectations I do a podcast called Dude where's my code with a good friend and former colleague of mine both engineering managers and it's it's interesting almost every single episode we do it comes back to at some point level setting expectations trust that kind of stuff but like fundamentally I think that um you know level setting expectations around your career is something that I expect other managers to do if they're being good managers but I also expect you as an individual contributor or manager to be bringing that up with your manager as well it needs to work both ways um as as this Creator was saying um I think he takes the stance more that like you're you're often on your own like you gotta fend for yourself um if that's the case where he's worked then I'm like I'm sorry right I I think that that's a bad experience for employees and I can't speak to where he's worked I've never worked with the guy I don't know um but that's like the bar I set for other managers is like that's an expectation you need to be having those conversations with your employees because as a manager you're managing people if you're not doing that with your employees you're not doing your job like that's it so um yeah the part that I I guess like I personally disagree with him on is that this kind of stuff is held back from employees because I haven't had that experience and I don't have that sort of expectation that other managers are doing that um I do I do Mentor like early in career folks outside of my teams which is great uh awesome opportunity and because they're early in career fresh at a college University whatever it happens to be that conversation is usually something that comes up in like I don't know the first couple of months it's really like you need to be having Open Candid conversations with your manager some of them um yeah I will admit some in some cases like they're maybe their manager isn't bringing it up but um certainly by coaching these people on it I've heard from them like months later when we're touching base on this kind of stuff like yes once I brought it up to my manager that I was curious about you know aligning expectations and that kind of stuff then their managers like oh like cool like let me let me make sure I'm doing that and in a lot of cases um people have told me their managers appreciated that so yes managers we're not perfect like I said I do have the expectation that managers do that for people but like everyone if you're managing people and you have projects and stuff like we're human um sometimes it feels like things maybe kind of fall behind it it would be unfortunate for for people on the team if they're kind of being a little bit left behind on on level setting expectations like that's a pretty bad a pretty bad experience um so I don't think that managers purposefully withhold that kind of stuff can it happen like because they're getting busy yes that's really crappy so um disagree and I I also agree with them that yes you should be taking responsibility to be level setting expectations of your manager so um yeah there's a pretty short video that's my reaction to it those are my my thoughts and to just quickly summarize um Talent guides are important rubrics whatever you want to call them they are important you should be using them with your manager to level set expectations you should be having these conversations regularly you should not be in a position where you're constantly feeling surprised about promotions or not getting promoted that's not a good spot to be in and if you're a manager watching this please take those things into mind because those are things that you can help influence and improve so thanks for watching and we'll see you next time