DEV Community: David Kyle Choe

How to respond when someone on your team quits

David Kyle Choe — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 16:26:55 +0000

Really excited to share this week's episode with y'all. It's a topic that not many people talk about. We see and celebrate people's "quitting stories", but we rarely, if ever, hear the manager's side of the story. It's a hard reality of the job, and we need more thinking and resources around the topic.

Eric Gong, former VP of Engineering and technical recruiter, and I go deep into the emotional, mental, cultural, and career impacts of someone leaving your team.
Here are the 3 top takeaways:
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🏆 Give a Grand Exit: Send off the team member with positivity and high remarks. Specifically list out ways that team member has contributed to the team and the organization, and speak highly of them. This is likely not most people's first instinct, but this will have extremely positive and long-lasting effects down the line. It'll signal the kind of leader you are and more importantly how your team should respond in these situations.
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😨 Accept the Unfair Feedback: Unfortunately, there is really no such thing as unfair feedback for managers. Even though things may be completely out of your control, it's up to you to listen, triage, solve, and advocate for your team. There's something to learn in even the most unfair feedback.
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☝🏻 Manage Up: Your bosses and your bosses' bosses will be looking out for your reaction. It's most important to have a clear, simple plan for when someone leaves the organization. Depending on the frequency of resignations, this may also be a good time to bring up more foundational issues such as pay, benefits, or culture that haven't been addressed.

Full Episode Link: https://hubs.li/H0KJ9y00

Uncovering Motivation In Engineering Interviews

David Kyle Choe — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 16:11:00 +0000

Hey y'all! It's been a while. I've been doing an ongoing series called Technically Human where engineering leaders and I talk about the most human elements of managing technical people. I have a few episodes to share, but I thought this episode with Eric Gong, former VP of Engineering and currently a technical recruiter was a great place to start.

Eric and I talk about why understanding candidate motivation is absolutely key to successful hiring. Here are the 4 top takeaways, but links to the full episode are below:

📍 Define the culture: Understand, write down, & codify the culture of the company and the team. Know what you want‍, so you know what to look for.

🎩 Use the "Magic Wand" question: "If you had a magic wand, describe for me how you'd create your next role". Quickly uncover motivations behind the search & what's on the top of their list of requirements.‍

🧅 Peel back the onion: Dig into their answers. Ask for specific examples or situations they were in that illustrate their answers and contextualize them. You're looking for pieces of the puzzle, & the only way to find them is to ask.‍

🚩 Know your red flags: Whether it be talking poorly about previous companies or coming off as arrogant & ego-centric - be on the lookout for potential red flags & determine in advance your team's non-negotiables.

https://hubs.li/H0Kc_WL0

Everyday Heroes: Rethinking Developer Motivation

David Kyle Choe — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 14:06:17 +0000

"Wiefling says, 'Never reward firefighters. Don't encourage them! Reward is a double-edged sword: what gets rewarded is what gets done...Firefighting, diving catches, and heroics are symptoms of a problem, not signs of a cure. Don't spread this disease by rewarding the carriers. Find the person who is planning ahead, preventing disaster, executing with excellence, and recovering from setbacks without setting their hair on fire, and without glitz or fanfare. Whip out a Starbucks gift certificate for this everyday hero and send them home at 3 p.m. to enjoy some time with their kids."

"Firefighters who get rewarded carry matches."

-Kimberly Wiefling

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We started Staat with a base hypothesis: there had to be a better way to manage engineering projects and teams.In the process of proving this hypothesis, we did not expect to also uncover that there was a fundamental disconnect in engineering cultures.

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There's a natural impulse to reward what Kimberly Wiefling refers to as "firefighters". These are the ones on your team who take out the fires, jump headfirst into the hairiest problems, and welcome chaos. Although we all appreciate these members, we've come to realize their "heroics" wouldn't be necessary if there was a better planning culture.
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As motivated, determined, and self-sufficient as most engineers are, they're like the rest of us; they aren't their work. They want a life (even if it's a life of more coding) outside of work. How do we create engineering teams and cultures that are optimized for a full life and not just a full work life? How do we get people to do the best work of their lives with the least amount of stress and anxiety?

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Better planning. Clearer communication. Stronger management.
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All of this seems obvious, maybe even antiquated. But the lack of proper implementation is a real problem.
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Wiefling unpacks this issue further.

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"...We were discussing the motivations for companies who routinely work on almost twice as many projects as they have the resources to efficiently staff. Key projects are routinely understaffed, and many individuals multi-task among various projects, resulting in task-switching inefficiencies known to decrease productivity by as much as 60%.

Lack of planning and lack of focus routinely lead to predictable delays in product launches as well as server quality problems with those products that do manage to launch.”
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This is not news to anyone in product development. In our own development lifecycle, we've discovered this to be true. Our core challenge shifted from "what features should we prioritize" to "how do we focus?"

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Focus is the golden egg. Focus comes when technologies talk to one another. When teams are in sync. When managers feel ahead and on top, not behind and sinking. When IC's are confident. When companies are restrained and disciplined.

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Enabling focus, enables progress.