GPT as Manager

How to measure competency for remote workers

• Set Clear Expectations: Establishing clear expectations for remote workers is essential for measuring competency. This includes setting expectations for the quality of work, deadlines, communication, and other job-related tasks.
• Track Performance: Tracking performance is an important way to measure competency for remote workers. This can be done by tracking the number of tasks completed, the quality of work, and the timeliness of work.
• Monitor Communication: Monitoring communication is another way to measure competency for remote workers. This can be done by tracking the frequency and quality of communication between the remote worker and their manager.
• Provide Feedback: Providing feedback is an important way to measure competency

How to give feedback to poor-performing employee but feels competent:

• Start by acknowledging the employee's efforts and hard work. Let them know that you recognize their efforts and appreciate them.
• Explain the areas where improvement is needed. Be specific and provide examples of what needs to be improved.
• Offer support and resources. Let the employee know that you are willing to help them improve their performance.
• Set goals and expectations. Make sure that the employee understands what is expected of them and what the consequences are if they do not meet those expectations.
• Provide feedback regularly. Make sure to provide regular feedback and encouragement to the employee so they know they are on the right track.
• Be positive and encouraging. Let the employee know

How to give feedback to no follow-up employee in 50 words:

Focus on the behavior, not the person. Be specific and provide examples. Offer solutions and provide support. Encourage open communication and ask questions. Be constructive and provide clear expectations.

What is difference between communication vs competency, How to spot access in employee

Communication vs Competency:

• Communication is the exchange of information between two or more people. It is the process of conveying messages, ideas, and feelings to others. Communication is a key skill in any workplace, as it helps to ensure that tasks are completed efficiently and effectively.
• Competency is the ability to perform a task or job to a certain standard. It is the combination of knowledge, skills, and abilities that an individual needs to be successful in their job. Competency is often measured through assessments, interviews, and other evaluation methods.

Keep Exploring!!!

Questions about my Work ?

Do you code? Are u a Coder / Non-coding manager?

I code whenever I have to do a POC, Evaluating an approach. In a distributed work, when someone is struck if it's Vision / Model Training Code / Clustering / Approach / DB / Design I review/debug. If it's for algo I reuse my past domain inputs to see what are alternatives. 

Can you write code and demonstrate capability?

Mind visualizes in a different way, not as methods and packages :)

• For string search, c/c++ for loop comes to mind
• There is regex in python
• semicolon for java statements
• I only remember logic / I StackOverflow it and put syntax
• Do i remember syntax heavily, No
• SQL Server I had spent a considerable time I can write about it anytime

Do you know how Transformer works, can u rewrite it?

• Get back to basics, 1st cut - LSTM you have attention, cell state, memory, forget gate
• Build your blocks - 2nd cut - A bit of encoder (encode input), and a set of decoders added, from a given list pick where attention is maximum
• Code up basics, 3rd cut - Rework / check similar simpler examples/paper on the transformer
• Customize examples - 4th cut - logic/approach/code / keep iterating/building from other repo / customize/working to see if a prototype helps, Still coding / experiment.

Do you know about product management/program management / Data engineering?

Over years I have moved across several roles. You have to collaborate/influence big initiatives/projects. Deep domain knowledge gives us clarity on what solution works and is relevant to our problem statement. I may not have those titles but I have collaborated/delivered with partners in each domain. For bigger initiatives it's Teamwork. 

How often do you code?

Out of 10 git codes, I experiment / 1~2 work and for the rest I end up with environmental issues. You keep changing tabs reading products/code/experiments. It's never fixed but it's more about a solution to build and the rest is part of solving the problem.

Everything does not contribute immediately but every type of error adds up to a backlog of 'Oh I have seen it, ' This could be due to this'

Learned knowledge / applied knowledge / inferred knowledge / connected knowledge.

Domain vs Data vs Code vs product balancing all the aspects.

Seniority in software engineering is more than money and promotions.

It's about taking on more responsibilities:

• make the right trade-offs
• add value to the business
• give reasonable estimations
• mentor and share knowledgehttps://t.co/ziIiIxWVOr

— Fernando 🇮🇹🇨🇭 (@Franc0Fernand0) December 30, 2022

Why do we Change Roles / Jobs?

• Experiment with different roles/projects
• Impact / Change of Environment
• Learn new things
• Change of place/people
• Growth / Financial benefits
• Money, Work-Life, Win / Failures, Impact, Learning everything matters but at the end of the day pick and choose battles

It's one life, learning never ends, and Nothing comes for free. Keep learning, aware and aligned.

With Covid, I do feel age catching up in my 40s. Pick and choose your battles in Life :). Keep going!!! 

• How to Build a Strong Career in Tech
• Sharing Our Engineering Ladder

How do I learn as a Manager?

• As a manager, if you manage people who can manage themselves then you have time to learn
• As a manager, if you manage people you have to manage then your focus and attention will be divided
• The most painful thing is making someone understand and aware of their weakness
• It's difficult to see other's points of view if we defend, Consulting is all about the right tradeoff time vs effort vs impact.

What are opportunities to Learn / Create Impact?

• Code to prototype solution feasibility
• Learn to review other's domain use cases
• Bridge product vs tech wherever possible
• The lookout where you can resell solutions
• Collaborate for success, Success needs credits shared, and Failure needs credits owned up

We always keep refining our 'best-fit' architecture

Learning is an endless process like layers of an onion, Same approach / never-ending

• Know what you speak
• Code what you speak
• Speak what you code
• Improve on the feedback you hear
• Improve every time when you get an idea

Knowledge is a reflection of your questions, opinions, the code that you deliver, and the design you put on the table. Communication vs Competency vs Consistency all are different skills that you can discover over time.

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Manager / Mentor / Guide

The daily tasks of a mentor/manager/architect are - how you unblock your Team, the Quality of ideas, and the ability to foresee risks before it actually happens.

Knowledge management as a mentor has a lot of learning curve both ongoing, past lessons

• Read / Learn to collect ideas
• Learn to unblock when your Team is Struck
• Learn to understand trends/markets/offerings
• Code and share working solutions :)
• Do not just forward links but read, code, try and share

There is no work-life balance. After 20 years still ideas, and inspirations come after work, driving, and sleeping :)

Like in FightClub "You are never really asleep, You are never really awake, feels like insomnia"

Keep Thinking!!!

Guide / Mentor / Manager - Discussions, Deliverables, Alignment, Vision

Taking inspiration from link

Adding my perspectives/answers for the questions

1. First question is always: “What do you think?”

• Get all perspectives

2. Frequently called upon to be coach, sounding board, or devil’s advocate.

• Data-Driven Decisions

3. Has shipped code with different development processes.

• Waterfall
• Weekly Sprint
• 3 Week Sprint
• 3 Month Cycle
• Customer-focused releases

4. Has examples of things that have failed but they’ll try again.

• Data Issues
• Lack of coordination between Teams

5. Has strong opinions but is willing to change their mind.

• Data Driven
• Referenced Answers not opinions
• Tried opinions vs Read Opinions

6. Unblocks all issues (not just engineering ones).

• Need to be a Review / Idea provider
• Ask first principles deep questions

7. Regularly identifies and destroys time wasters.

• Pick priority items from a list of priorities

8. Says things like “This will take three weeks, but if we make this change we can test in two days.”

• In consulting its all hacking work, So yes time vs delivery is a key

9. Lets the customer own the problem but take ownership of the solution.

• Think of a long term cascade effect not a short term fix

10. Takes all of the blame and none of the credit.

• Failure teaches more, It's ok to fail

11. Available during a crisis.

• Consistent connect to explore / discuss options

12. Can dive deep into a few things per quarter.

• Build on your core interests and deliver quality ideas/patents

13. Can try solutions to problems they’ve never encountered before.

• Many times had to stretch its ok to try new avenues

From Link 

Liked this key definition

• Process: What occurs when?
• People: Who’s involved and how are they motivated?
• Technology: What will we use to get there?

Career = Sum of Multiple Perspectives

• Career as Dev - Managing XBOX supply Chain DB. 1TB database 15 years back. Building Warranty Engine, Touchpoint integration
• Support - Application Support Analyst for Nestle handling 100+ Enterprise Apps
• Testing/performance - Load Testing for Holiday Season, API Testing, DB Blocking / Perf Tuning
• Data Science - Recommendations, Feature Lake, Vision, Retail, Multiple MVP
• Domains - Retail, Ecom, SupplyChain

Build your portfolio across multiple perspectives. Taking knowledge vs Field knowledge vs Willing to deep dive and solve all are different skills :)

I didn't build a career with Tools knowledge :)

Be Curious, Unlearn, Relearn and Be open to keep yourself learning new things. Be better everyday :)

Keep Exploring!!!