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Yes, I am an hands on engineering manager

- It all depends on the task and how open ended it is plus which engineers I have eg

If task is open ended all my senior, staff engineers are busy, I will get  clarity on prioritisation eg whats the priority based on eg what benefit it will have? more revenue, customer satisfaction, decreased tech debt etc. Accordingly I will prioritise.

If it requires immediate prioritisation and I cant get my senior folks in this, but I see that this problem can challenge a junior dev, I will try to create clarity for them and assign it to them post clarity.

If none can be done, I will negotiate with senior leadership on prioritisation and compare with all the other items on my teams plate. I will also check if somebody wants to challenge themselves and volunteer for this problem.

I recently took over a team from a different tribe, my approach was to observe what the team was doing and how I could best help them. 

One of the observations was that a team member was not contributing as much as was expected and ultimately was underperforming. I raised this with the previous line manager and he validated my concerns and said that he will likely get another developing in performance review and be put on a PIP. 

After some initial conversation with the individual, discussing what I've observed and how his not meeting expectations, I was pretty sure, this person was checked out and was likely heading for a difficult performance review

However, after some further discussion and people a relationship with that individual, they opened up and start to share their difficulties they were having. This then allowed me reach out the necessary teams to get them the support they needed. 

Utlimately, they proved me wrong, as due the the hard work with both put in, his on track for a good performance review 

I

Situation: During the first calibration of Non-Maturity Deposit (NMD) models, I was working with a senior colleague and a consultancy firm to implement these models. At that time, market rates were rising, and the consultancy firm suggested calibrating a key parameter, the "beta," to be highly sensitive to market rates. My manager agreed, but I disagreed, as I believed this high sensitivity could lead to inaccurate estimations in future calibrations.

Action: I engaged in discussions with my manager and the consultancy firm to fully understand their reasoning. They argued that a more sensitive beta could improve management of metrics like Delta EVE and Delta NII, which was valid. However, I pointed out that we lacked sufficient evidence to support such a high beta and that it might cause issues in future estimations. To address the disagreement, I conducted a sensitivity analysis, testing the model under various market rate scenarios.

Result: The sensitivity analysis helped us reach a compromise. We agreed to lower the beta, ensuring more stability in the model's performance. This adjustment allowed for a smoother transition of the parameter, ultimately improving the model's reliability while maintaining good risk management practices.

During the development of our Serving Unit Testing (SUT) framework, we encountered a significant challenge related to tenant configuration. Initially, we aimed to provide flexibility by allowing each team (indexing and serving) to manage their own tenant configurations within the testing environment.

However, this approach quickly proved problematic. We received critical feedback from other teams, highlighting the potential for inconsistencies and increased complexity in maintaining multiple configurations. They expressed concerns about the potential for configuration drift and the difficulty of troubleshooting issues arising from conflicting configurations.

This feedback was initially challenging to accept, as we had invested significant effort in designing a flexible system. However, I recognized the validity of these concerns. We realized that allowing each team to manage their own configurations could lead to increased maintenance burden, potential for errors, and difficulties in troubleshooting.

To address these concerns, we shifted our approach. We collaborated closely with the Configuration team, exploring their ongoing efforts to develop Astro Views and Zone Director, a system for managing production configurations. We proposed a collaborative solution: leverage Astro Views and Zone Director as the source of truth for tenant configurations within the SUT framework.

This collaboration proved highly successful. By aligning with the Configuration team's efforts, we:

• Reduced the complexity of tenant configuration management within SUT.
• Improved the accuracy and consistency of test environments.
• Enhanced the overall reliability and maintainability of the SUT framework.
• Strengthened our relationship with the Configuration team, fostering a collaborative and mutually beneficial partnership.

This experience reinforced the importance of:

• Actively seeking and incorporating feedback: Even when initial plans seem sound, it's crucial to actively seek feedback from stakeholders and be open to adjusting course.
• Collaboration and cross-team alignment: Working closely with other teams can lead to more robust and sustainable solutions.
• Prioritizing long-term maintainability: Considering the long-term implications of design decisions is essential for building scalable and sustainable systems.

By embracing this critical feedback and adapting our approach, we were able to deliver a more robust and user-friendly SUT framework that has become a valuable asset for the entire organization.

So for my current role we move in a very fast paced environment, and we brainstorm new ideas everyday on how to make our workflow more efficient and more reliable, which can definitely get overwhelming over time. So I would first assess projects' urgency and impact, and then for each project, I break it down into small milestones. After that I track them on project management tools like Jira to ensure I allocate my time effectively and communicate proactively with stakeholders

Have a curious mind and approach with understanding. Talk to the person 1x1, see what's up and go from there.