This is meant to be a getting started guide to working with me for my direct reports and the engineers in the Projects org. I hope that it will be a living document and continue to change and evolve over time as I do the same 😄

You can call me Eric or EJ 👋

• I am a self-taught engineer and management nerd with a liberal arts background (Political Science and History).
• I live with my family — wife Erica and kids Zoey (6), Phoebe (3), and Everett (born Dec '23) — in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• In my free time, I try to balance my indoor Octocat tendencies and interests (playing/listening to music, reading, video games, and photography) with being active and in trying to stay in shape (hockey, tennis, cycling, and keeping up with Zoey and Phoebe).
• I arrived at GitHub with six years of management experience, most recently at Wirecutter where I was a engineering manager and eventually a director responsible for their user-facing engineering teams.

My family in December, 2023

Values matter! Our values determine how we show up every day at work. Here are some of mine:

We are all works in progress — including me! Here are a few of of things that I'm thinking about as I settle into my new role as a director at GitHub.

I don’t have the context and organizational insight that other directors do, not yet! I am focusing on talking to people throughout my org and learning as much as I can as quickly as I can.

I am working on using less words to say more.

By default, I generally listen and learn first before speaking or acting. After working with a leadership coach for the past two years (his name is Hector, and I will probably talk about him every so often), I've realized that I need to (kindly and humbly) speak up sooner rather than later with confidence and curiosity.

I find it incredibly awkward to speak to groups of people on Zoom 😬 This means that sometimes I miss or shy away from opportunities to have larger conversations or send messages to a larger group. I am consistently pushing myself to grow in choosing the right venues for communication, but I could use your help and feedback along the way.

This is the flipside of the area of growth I described above — I generally won’t rush into action based on one conversation. I’ll gather additional context and information (likely from multiple sources) as time allows to ensure that I truly understand what’s going on.

I really appreciate it when people disagree with me and I especially appreciate it when people share constructive feedback with me. Constructive feedback is a gift!

I don’t play games, I don’t try to manipulate situations or people, and I won’t lie to you. You can also count on me to give you feedback when I see areas where you can improve.

Further, I am not closely monitoring you on a day-to-day basis. I trust you to the do the job we’ve hired you to do and be accountable to the team.

I got into management because I love coaching and helping people get the most out of their jobs and their careers, not to go on a power trip. To get the most out of our time together, I ask you to be honest with me about what you want and need from me. I will, in turn, be honest about what I want and need from you.

Your job as an engineer is pretty straightforward but challenging (and hopefully incredibly rewarding):

• Ship code that moves our business forward, balancing trade-offs between speed, quality, and features (I can help with that).
• Support your teammates in their career journey with mentorship, pairing, code review, etc.
• Engage actively and continuously with the team, be it on Slack, in GitHub, or team meetings on video.

• Partner with Product to own your team's roadmap and success, using whatever process or structure works best for the team
• Communicate risks and concerns proactively, ideally having thought about potentially solutions and a preferred path forward
• Support your team in their career growth, giving them positive and constructive feedback to help them achieve their goals and do their best work for GitHub
• Partner with me and other managers to drive initiatives across the team

• Build and maintain a team and organizational culture that allows us to attract, retain, and support top-class talent (that’s you!) who do amazing things for our custmers and GitHub.
• Set context and provide high level direction for the engineering teams working on Projects.
• Give feedback and provide coaching to help managers grow in their careers and achieve their goals.
• Work closing with Product and Design leads to ensure that we are working on the most important thing.
• Set teams up for success to ship with momentum and quality.

• Be generous with your unique gifts — teams are strongest when people contribute the work of the team without ego or comparison to the contributions of others
• Communicate and document frequently in whatever medium is most comfortable for you (e.g. Slack, GitHub, etc.).
• Hold yourself, your teammates, and me accountable to being the best team possible. (Credit to Chiedo John for this one)

I am not an authoritarian boss; I want to make sure you have the skills, space, and context to do your job in the best possible way and achieve your career goals. Your time at GitHub and in this group is one stop in your career path, and I want to make sure that you get the most out of our time working together.

I default to high autonomy; my preferred management mode is to trust you to handle your day-to-day work without much guidance or direction from me. We hired you because you are smart and capable. I trust you to know your own limits and ask for support when needed. I may provide suggestions and raise concerns, but I will generally not force a solution.

Everyone is different, and I realize some people need more guidance than others. If you need more direction from me, please let me know as soon as possible. I will get better at finding the right balance as we get to know each other better!

• I try to keep strict hours of availability for meetings by blocking out time on my calendar. I encourage you to do the same!
• I will almost never contact you off-hours, but in the rare chance I do, take it as a note for later unless it's an emergency
• I view it as part of my job to be available when you need me. If you want to reach me outside of work hours, please call, text, email, Slack, etc. at any time. I mean it.

As a child of AIM (screen name: guitarer1c2 🖥️), I love chatting on Slack! DMs are always open. That said, I believe that it is also important that we talk regularly face-to-face (okay, over video chat) as well. At minimum, I do weekly synchronous 1:1s with my direct reports. I also do skip-levels with all engineers in the org every couple of months at minimum. You can also schedule a skip with me any time you'd like.

The bottom line: if you want to talk, we’ll talk! My 📆 is public — you can and should schedule time with me whenever you want/need to.

I mentioned this above, but I'll say it again: I love feedback! Feedback is critical to your success at GitHub — and mine as well. You would be doing me a huge favor if you give me constructive feedback to help me do my job better 🙇

Let's build something amazing together! ✨