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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • I’m no where near the CEO level, but I am a mid level manager. There are enough different things going on in my org that there is no way I could know how to do everything. However, I view my role as empowering and supporting those who do. I understand I can’t do the things, so I spend most of my time listening to those who can. The problems come when people start thinking they know better than those doing the work. I strongly believe I work for my team, and if that ever gets me out of alignment with upper management, I’ve accepted that means I’ll be let go. But this model has gotten me great success.



  • I’m in the situation you’re talking about right now. There’s an upcoming restructuring and on paper, I’ve been able to reposition my teams so there’s no job elimination and I’ve found homes for everyone. I’m actually excited about the plan. But I’ve been around the block enough to know that my plan on paper might not be accepted, and that this is just phase one. The funding to contract externally needs to come from somewhere. Laying off entire teams might be what causes me to finally put my own job on the chopping block to save a few others. I could go back to being a staff dev and it’s potentially not even much of a pay cut. But damn do I love everything else about my job, but mental load of these decisions, even when I know they’re the best ones I could make, is a lot.






  • I manage a team of about 50. I’ve been in management for about the past decade. Prior to that, I was a technical lead heavily involved in hiring. I’ve also run multiple intern programs that hire by the dozen each summer. I’ve hired hundreds and been in thousands of interviews.

    Ive never once seen someone hired because of the color of their skin.

    I do however aggressively look for people from different backgrounds to be in my candidate pools when hiring. That can really mean anything. Mono culture is a huge detriment to the org because then everyone ends up thinking the same way. I look for people willing to challenge the status quo and bring unique perspectives while still being a great teammate.

    There are probably people I’ve hired who normally wouldn’t have gotten an interview based on their background but then were the best candidate. When I’ve had candidates that are equal, I’ve occasionally hired the one who is most dissimilar in skills/thought process/goals to my current team because that helps us grow. The decision was never someone’s skin color, but their background certainly could have influenced the items I chose as my hiring decisions.

    DEI is not just hiring. DEI is creating a culture where people of different backgrounds can succeed. There are so many different ways to be successful at the vast majority of the roles I hire. It’s my job to make sure my org is setup so that people can be successful through as many approaches as possible. This is the part I see most often missed. If your culture only allows the loud, brash to lead, I would have missed many of my best hires over the years who led in varied ways.







  • Communication is a two way street. It’s both about the message the sender is trying to convey, but also the way the receiver interprets it. As a (mostly) neurotypical thinker, this is even hard for many of us to get right.

    An example for clarity is the response your getting in the comments to your friends comments. Various people are disagreeing and agreeing to different levels. Conversation is navigating the complicated dynamics to as the sender, sending your message in a way the receiver will get the impression you are trying to give, and as a receiver, trying to understand the intent of the message the sender is trying to show.

    There aren’t many hard or fast rules. In different online communities, different styles and patterns can conotate different things. There are patterns and styles I use here on Lemmy for example, I would never use in a sports online community because they would be interpreted differently there.

    My advice is don’t beat yourself up about it. If you’re not getting the type of interactions you’re expecting in a particular community, that might be the time to ask for feedback or see if your communication style is different than the local group there. But the ephemeral nature of these online conversations make it the perfect place to experiment and find a communication style that works for you and gets the response from others you are looking for.