Transcript



Ashley:

What's going on y’all! This is Culture and Code, a podcast brought to you by Render Atlanta. If you're not already familiar with what Render Atlanta is, we are an organization dedicated to increasing the presence of black and brown people in all stages of the tech pipeline. We do so with different events and at experiences focused on not just tech, but also culture and how it brings people together. Our main experience, which I am personally super excited about, is our annual Render Atlanta conference held in Atlanta. Our next conference will be June 1st through fourth in 2022. It is super exciting. We have a ton of great speakers lined up some amazing food, and even an after party music festival, it's going to be incredible. And I absolutely cannot wait for y'all to experience it. You have got to get in on it if you haven't already. To learn more about us and keep up with our events, you can visit our website renderatl.com. You can also follow us on Twitter or Instagram @renderATL and join the conversation on our Discord at renderatl.com/discord.



Hey, y'all. You're tuning into an episode of Culture and Code brought to you by Render-Atlanta. My name is Ashley. I am a Dev advocate for Render and today I'm here with Raven Covington, who is currently an engineering manager at Twitter. We're going to be chatting a little bit about transitioning from an IC, which is an individual contributor, to management in the tech space. And just in general, I'm super excited to have Raven on today because we worked together a couple years ago at Mailchimp. And I just really enjoyed having her as my colleague. And I learned a lot from her, like a whole lot. So yeah, it's been a while since we caught up. How's it going, Raven?



Raven:

Awesome. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me.



Ashley:

Of course. Thank you for taking the time to be here. So I just wanted to start a little bit with your background, how you got into tech, and how you got to where you are today.



Raven:

Yes. So how did I get into tech? So this is a funny story. I'll try to be brief as possible, but basically I studied political science in school and when I came out of school, I could not find a job at all. No one wanted to hire me at the time. And I had a lot of internships. I had a lot of unpaid internships, had a lot of experience, and I have a Google sheet somewhere where I had applied to about 200 jobs. Just could not get hired. This is 2013, right? So I finally got a job as a technical recruiter, did that for about a year. I was not good at it. I worked at an agency, so it was more of like a sales job. I was not very good at, but what I did learn was there were so many people who got into tech with different backgrounds.

And I got interested in it. I also did a lot of networking at that time and I met a lot of people. So that's kind of what sparked my interest. Oh, I could possibly do this. And this is something not a lot of people know about me, but I actually got fired from this job because this is how bad I was at this job. So I got fired right before Christmas, which was the best thing. I was so happy. I was so pleased. I was like, "Thank you, Jesus, for firing me from this job." So I got fired and you get fired right before Christmas, that sounds kind of horrible. I didn't really know what I was doing. I think I was 25 or something at a time. I really kind of felt like a failure. So I went to a bootcamp and I kind of had to start over and just really worked hard. Just learned how to code, networked, and I got into tech that way. So yeah, I kind of had ups and downs from there, but yeah. Kind of how it started.



Ashley:

That's a really great journey. You've definitely told me before, but it's still just really nice to be able to hear it again. So you ended up becoming a software engineer, which is how we worked together on the same team. What made you decide to transition into being a manager from there?



Raven:

Yeah, you spoke, we were at Mailchimp together and I was at Mailchimp, I just left this summer. I was there for about five years and I was on this team where I was on this project and I had been working in kind of a lead role and I really enjoyed it. It was a pretty stressful project, but I really enjoyed this role that I'd been taking on, doing a lot of collaboration with product, a lot of collaboration with my manager and design. And just working really deeply with process and just trying to get things done because we had a very hard deadline. We had a marketing deadline, we had to get this thing done.

And from there I had a really great manager at the time who I still talk with now named Shanna Terry. And I just said, "I think I would like to do what you're doing." So from there she just really helped me transition. She got me a copy of this book I think it's called The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier. Yeah. And she was like, "Okay, if you want to do this, read it." And I did. And she helped me find an opportunity within the company to transition into a management role.



Ashley:

That's awesome. With the transition, was there anything that really surprised you about transitioning to management?



Raven:

Actually, I don't miss coding as much as I thought I would. But one thing that I think people do need to be aware of, and this is funny, I was literally just saying this to someone the other day is you do need to be... I say I don't miss coding, but honestly, if you spoke to some of my direct reports, they'd probably say, "Raven, do you not remember you mentioning...?" One thing I think I do miss in some ways is the quick wins that you get from coding sometimes. Sometimes if you're having a day that's not the best day and you could just pick up a ticket and you're like, "Okay. I can fix this thing. I can just put this up. I can put up a PR and fix this thing."

Okay. And you have this win. There aren't wins like that so much in manager world. Right? In manager world, it may take a couple months for you to even know the thing that you were trying to get done or that when you don't even know if it happened. What I'm trying to say to this person, the way I'm trying to coach them, I don't know if they're even actually listening. And sometimes it does happen. Three months later something happens and you see where it clicks and you see where the realization comes over and you're like, "Hell yeah. Thank you. This worked." But you don't get those quick wins. So I think that delayed satisfaction, you really have to understand. You have to have a good sense of why you're doing what you're doing. Because if you don't, then you'll get really lost and not getting those quick wins.



Ashley:

With management, I often think of, for example, the process of ICs switching managers and getting to know them, getting to know their management style and philosophy. Do you feel like you have your management philosophy and style figured out yet? And if so, how would you describe that?



Raven:

Yes, I do. I think that's actually really important. I think that you should figure that out before you become a manager, you should know why you're doing this. And specifically anyone who goes into it should realize that this is not a promotion. Yeah, I do. And it's the first thing that I like to share with people in my first one on one. Basically it's kind of corny, but I like to tell folks, "I am kind of the Scottie Pippen to your Michael Jordan." I'm the one on the sideline who you tell me which way you want to go. And I'm here to help you with guidance, advice. I'm here to be a sounding board, right? But I think I like to empower the people I work with, the people I manage, to be in the driver's seat of their career. Even maybe the time that we're working together at that particular company, right?

I still have conversations with people who I managed at Mailchimp, people who I no longer manage because I care about them as people. And I care about them for their career as a whole, right? It's like you're going to be working for a long time. So I encourage people to think about their career holistically and think about how can I help them do whatever it is that they want to do. Right? And so my manager philosophy is largely if people focus on themselves and getting what's good for them and taking care of themselves, I generally believe talented people are going to put out good work. In my experience, I don't believe that we need to really push people to like work crazy hours or do all this wild things. If we can set up good processes, sounds like people are going to do good work.

You just have to give them the space to do that, right? And get out of their way. So that's kind have largely been the way in which I handle my people management. For a team and if I'm managing a team, my philosophy is largely around I don't have a real... I'm not really married to any ideology of how a team should be run versus a scrum or whatever. However, we're trying to solve a problem. I don't care. As long as the problem is being solved, the tool that we use, and this is largely how I was as an IC, the tool that we use, I don't care what that tool is. Let's just solve the problem.

And so if we focus on solving the problem and making sure that we are doing that, then I find that that gives us the best results. And the teams normally are pretty receptive to that, right? So if the team says, "We want to stand up every day." Sure. Let's do stand up every day. Then sometimes I have a team we want stand up every other day. Whatever, as long as I'm getting the end result of, I know what's going on, people are [inaudible]. I don't really particularly care what the details are.



Ashley:

I love that philosophy. And I love that you included both the team and the individual philosophies as well. Thank you.



Raven:

Yeah.



Ashley:

What's going on y'all? If you're loving this episode so far, we'd love to invite you to join the conversation about it by hopping into our discord at renderatl.com/discord. We'd also love to have you at our upcoming conference this year, June 1st through 4th in Atlanta. You can visit renderatl.com for more information. You can also find us and our updates on Instagram and Twitter at @renderATL



In terms of like team health, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I have noticed sometimes, especially on product engineering teams, there are an imbalance of maybe hierarchy or team structure when it comes to engineers. So for example, a team might be more senior heavy, or it might be more junior heavy and that can kind of create some weird dynamics where some people feel more empowered to speak over others and those even plan to other kinds of demographics on the team as well. Right? So how do you as a manager try to make sure that everyone's voices are included or that you include everyone's perspective when you're considering team health?



Raven:

Oh, man. I could talk about team health all day, especially as a manager. So much I've learned. But to answer your specific question first, let's go there. I work really closely with, regardless of whatever, I've always worked in products. So I can only really speak around product. And as a manager, I've always worked really closely with my product manager to have a very intimate understanding of our strategy and roadmap. And I think as a manager, you kind of have to do that. In order to be able to help set up your team, you kind of have this superpower, right? Because you have this like 10,000 foot view of what everyone on your team is good at. Some people may be better at this particular thing. Some people may be wanting to work on this particular thing. Some people you might want to... This person, Joe Smith, might need a project to kind of set them up for a promotion.

So as a manager, you kind of have this superpower to kind of help organize some of those things. This is not something that I've done so far at Twitter, but at Mailchimp, I set up this thing called a feature owner, which is kind of a... Well you're familiar with feature owner, but it's similar to a tech lead, but it's actually more focused on individual. You can do simultaneous projects at once on a team. And I think that that, especially on the most recent team that I managed, mobile team at MailChimp, it worked super well because it gave everybody the opportunity, regardless of their level, to get to lead a project. And we were doing simultaneous projects and there wasn't any... The way in which it was set up on mobile was it didn't matter if you were junior or mid or senior staff, everyone had the opportunity.

And then I worked, it was just two managers on that team at the time. So I worked with the other manager and we had a little spreadsheet to make sure that everyone got the opportunity. Okay. So Joe Smith was feature owner on this project and we just wrote everybody's name so we could make sure that everyone got the opportunity. So there's ways to kind of do that. But yeah, I mean, it's important for me to kind of ensure that there is work shared among people.

On the current project I'm working on now, there isn't so much space to have these multiple projects, but it is also really important to see within one large project, how can we break it down? Right? And that's where you have to be a little bit more creative. So I try to do something kind of similar there. So that's from a high level, giving everyone a kind of a piece of the pie. On a smaller level, it's important to... Senior engineers on [inaudible], right? So finding ways to mentor folks and finding ways to get your staff and senior to not just go trouncing around the code base, but also find ways to mentor folks on the team is really important to me as well. I could talk more about any of that. Sorry.



Ashley:

No, it's okay. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. I love the feature owner thing as well, while I was at Mailchimp. As someone that was more junior there, it really helped build that mutual trust I think between the people supporting you and your team and yourself. So yeah, I think that's just a really great system over.



Raven:

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It should be more of a standard industry thing, I think, because everyone knows tech lead, but feature owner is an incredible thing that you can do in multiple projects.



Ashley:

For sure. Yeah. And it takes the onus off of any one person to always have to take it on. So it's really good. 10 out of 10.



Raven:

Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Love it.



Ashley:

I did want to ask also, I feel like sometimes ICs, as an IC, might not always understand management roles and vice versa. Is there something that you wish that individual contributors knew or understood about the management side of things?



Raven:

That's a great question. I think something that I was actually thinking about this the other day. As a manager, I think I wish the ICs kind of knew that, and maybe some ICS do, right? That management and depending on the organization you're at, so managers have a little bit more power and sometimes you don't. Right? There are times where it's like I can do this thing and then sometimes I cannot. Right? And I think kind of understanding... Just also understanding that your manager is also a person I think goes a long way. I think sometimes it's something in general, this always happens. It's breakdown a silo. It's something I could always be better at. I think something I see all the time on teams that people could be better at is... Something that I try to get to avoid on my teams is communicating what I'm doing to avoid this.

Right? So I don't think my team thinks this, but it's like, "Well, what is my manager actually doing? What are they doing all day? I look at their calendar, it looks like they just do meetings."

So something that I try to do to avoid that, just like say, "Oh, actually today I'm working on hiring and I'm working on strategizing and I'm working on collaborating with our product manager and I'm working on X, Y, Z," to try to show them these are actually the things that I'm doing. So it doesn't just seem I'm... Especially since everyone's remote, it doesn't seem like I'm just out doing nothing or I just pop up on their screen every once in a while. Right? And I think that's an important thing. But I think if you're looking to kind of move into management, you need to think a lot about how do you set up that? How do you communicate with your team about that? So, yeah. I think my team is probably pretty aware of like what I'm up to, but I think yeah, in general, a blanket statement. Yeah. And that just goes for everyone you work with. Just remember folks are people and be kind.



Ashley:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think I'm definitely guilty of just misunderstanding the managerial role in general. So that was really helpful for me as well. I think that's really good advice because even saying, "Oh, this manager is strategizing," can feel really abstract to me as an IC because I'm like, "I have no idea what that means. What is the strategy? I don't know." I think that including those details and stuff is super helpful.



Raven:

Yeah. I think that does sound vague. But what does that mean? But yeah, sometimes that means some of the things we just spoke about. Right? Sometimes that means trying to figure out how do I ensure everyone gets an equal work and how do I work with product to ensure that this person is able to grow? Sometimes not all just writing reviews or something like that. Right? And then sometimes your manager can't tell you what they're doing. Sometimes it's confidential. So you have to understand that as well.



Ashley:

Yeah. Awesome. Well, kind of switching gears a little bit. With the holidays coming up, we're all thinking about seeing our family and heading home. I'd love to know what food reminds you the most of home?



Raven:

Oh, what food reminds me most of home? Definitely, my grandmother's collard greens. For sure.



Ashley:

Describe it to me. Make me feel like I'm there.



Raven:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She always gets a big ham bone, ham hocks, and she cleans the greens. And man, they're just delicious. I don't know. I'm sure she'll bring some up for Christmas this year. I am super, super looking forward to them. We've always had them Sunday dinner. Yeah. I'm very much looking forward to some collard greens. I love the greens.



Ashley:

That's amazing.



Raven:

Oh, man. Now I'm so hungry.



Ashley:

I could hear like the passion in your voice describing it. It sounds awesome.



Raven:

It's one of those things where it's like, I should learn how to cook this, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to make them as good as she makes them. And it's like one of those things that I cannot eat collard greens anywhere because they're disgusting. Anyone that aren't my grandmother's greens are not good.



Ashley:

That's such a high bar too. Because I've definitely had some really good collard greens, but I haven't had your grandmother's. So I can't even begin to imagine how good they are.



Raven:

Sorry. They're disgusting. They can't... No, there's nowhere.



Ashley:

Nothing compares.



Raven:

Nowhere you can go.



Ashley:

So we're right at time and I just wanted to say of course, thank you so, so much for taking the time out of your day to chat especially while you're on PTO right now. I really enjoyed chatting and it's just been nice to see your face in general after not seeing it for so long.



Raven:

Yeah. Yeah.



Ashley:

And to close it out, I just wanted to see if there's anything that you'd like to plug. It can be something personal. It can be a cause or organization you support or even just a fun meme or a fun account that you've been really in to lately.



Raven:

Yeah. So one org that my husband and I have been trying to support and we always try to drop off some food here, especially now around the holidays in Atlanta is Free99Fridge. They have refrigerators all around the community for unhoused people who just need something to eat. So definitely check them out. I think their socials are all just free99fridge. So you can donate money or if you're going to the grocery store and you have some extra food that you've picked up, you can drop it off.



Ashley:

That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I've heard of them before and it seems like such an Atlanta staple. So yeah. Thank you so much for that. And thank you so much, everyone for tuning into this episode of Culture and Code, we'll see you next time. And of course don't forget to stay looped in on all things Render, especially with our conference coming up in June 2022 in Atlanta. You can find us on Twitter @renderATL and you can hop in on our Discord and join the conversation at renderatl.com/discord. You can also find me on Twitter @ashley_in_tech. Thanks so much for listening y'all. See y'all next time.



Raven:

Thanks. Bye.