Name: DRI-ing Your Career
Uploaded: 2026-10-13T18:31:55.274Z
Duration: 50 min 32 s
Description: DRI-ing Your Career

Transcript for "DRI-ing Your Career": Irish. Yeah. Alright. Alright. I think it's time to get started. Feel free to pop in your country flag wherever you're tuning in from. It's always fun to see those pop up. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the third and final session of our guest lecture series on leadership and engineering. My name is Peter. I work on content and digital programs for developers and engineering leadership at Anthropic, and I will be moderating today's session. If you've caught one one or more of this... The lessons in this series, thank you so much for joining. Welcome back. If you're new here, it's so great to have you on. We've kicked off the series last month. I believe it was September 21. Yes. It was with Will Larson. He shared his methods for road mapping with decisions rather than dates. And last Tuesday, we had Jean Anne... Ane, excuse me, head of engineering for capital product at Stripe, and he presented practical ways to use AI as a leadership multiplier. Both were fantastic sessions. They are available to view on demand if you missed them. Today's session is a very different type of approach. I think I speak for many of you on the line that the future of engineering is as uncertain as it's ever been, and we feel far less in control of where our careers are heading. This session is for you. It's gonna give you the tools to feel not only more empowered with your own career, but more excited about the future. And before we get started and I hand it off to today's presenters, we have, of course, a few quick housekeeping notes. Always one of the most popular questions, will a recording be available? Yes. Absolutely. The session is being recorded, and we'll be distributing the content via email within twenty four hours. If you have any questions, we've disabled the chat, but the question bar is open. It... Believe it's to the left of your screen. You're still in there. Pop questions. We'll be doing a Q&A at the end of the session. You have both Jean and Cate on the line. They have done many sessions on this. This is your opportunity to ask whatever you can. Any question, please use this opportunity. And finally, please give us feedback. At the end of this, session, we're gonna be sending you a survey. We wanna keep keep doing the guest lecture series. We wanna keep the great content coming. It is so important that you provide feedback. So please, once we send that out, drop in some of your feedback. We really appreciate it. And with that, without further ado, I'd like... I am so excited, so honored to introduce today's presenters. We have Cate Huston, who is the fractional CTO at Twill, and Jean Hsu, which is VPE at Circuit & Chisel, to share their approach to DRI-ing your career in a refreshingly colorful way. And, yes, I am hinting at your slides. They are so unique, so much fun. I first heard Jean and Cate on the engineering leadership podcast hosted by Jerry Lee and Patrick Gallagher. If you have not checked that out, it is an amazing series. I believe we dropped in the link to that in the docs. I was struck both... By both of you how thoughtful you spoke on the very human challenges of navigating this new tech world as engineers. And so I'm beyond honored to have you both on to share your insights with the the Claude community. And so without further ado, I'm gonna hand it off to both of you to present. Thank. you so much, you. Peter. Yeah. We're so happy to be here. So, yes, I am a Fractal CTO. I'm also the author of the engineering leader. And Jean is a VP of engineering, the VP of engineering, there's only one, at Circuit & Chisel working on unbiased AI. Yeah. We're so excited to be here. Combined, Cate and I have many, many years of engineering leadership and leadership coaching experience. So we're both trained coaches, through the Co Active Institute. And outside of our engineering leadership roles, we work together on courses for engineers looking for support navigating their careers at this honestly very weird time in the tech industry. And this talk is based on our flagship course called unsurprisingly DRI Your Career. So can we get some emoji reactions if you have had a good manager? Oh, a laughing emoji. That's... Okay. Good. Some people. Yes. More... Okay. The laughing emojis are freaking me out, honestly. More emoji reactions if you currently have a good manager. Okay. This is great. This is great. Lots of emojis. I love it. Keep them coming. So let me guess what these managers did. They gave you feedback. They supported you. They found you opportunities. It is really nice when you have somebody who does that for you. Right? Write that person a note later and tell them the impact they had. But this talk is about when you don't have somebody like that, when your manager is busy or distracted or just doesn't really know how to do these things. Maybe they do some of them, but you know that there are things that you're missing. And maybe you are not getting what you want and you're not sure why. Maybe you don't know what you want. So we're really happy for all the... I'm gonna say the heart emojis probably have good managers and the laughing emojis have really bad managers. This is what I'm taking from the emoji. We're we're happy for all the heart emojis, but we are really focused on the laughing emoji people here. But let's first take a quick and universally applicable detour and talk about raccoons. There is this subculture on Instagram, absolutely the main reason why I still have Instagram, of people who have raccoons as pets. Now these raccoons are so pampered. They live a life of utmost raccoon luxury. So there's one, her name is Melanie, and she rode a trike. And there's another, her name is Piper, and she paints. And there's another raccoon, and his name is Tamar. And I don't really understand it because it's all in Russian, but he appears to have a lucrative career in advertising, mainly pet and cleaning products. Now compare and contrast this with the Toronto raccoon subculture. In Toronto, the local government has been on a quest to make a raccoon proof garbage bin. They've failed, of course, because raccoons are smarter and more motivated than the average bureaucrat. But the inspiring thing about Toronto raccoons is that these raccoons thrive even in adverse conditions. They have to be more strategic, more determined, and more resilient. Now this is not a random sec interlude about raccoons. If it was, I would tell you that raccoons have the neuron density of a cat and a brain the size of a dog and possibly, definitely show you a picture of the time I had a raccoon on my head, like, truly a great day. It is a metaphor. We, tech workers, we have been like the pampered raccoons that fill my Instagram feed. But in this market, the current times when we're seeing all these layoffs and efficiency drives, friends, I have to tell you, in this metaphor, we now live in Toronto. So in this market, it's easy to think that we have no power to shape our careers and to feel at the mercy of the market. Cate and I really wanna reframe this for you in this talk. So in this market, we think it's all the more important to be deliberate with the power we do have and try and use it well. So being the DRI or directly responsible individual is all about your ownership of your career. So if you have a good manager, again, we're happy for you, but your career really transcends the time that you spend with them, and no one will ever care more about your career than you. So, oops, did we go back? Alright. Here we go. Yeah. Cate and I have been running our course DRI your career for over a year now, and this talk covers just some of the material that we cover in the course. You won't magically become the DRI of your career, in these thirty minutes, but we do hope it gets you thinking about what that would look like and leave with some concrete steps to getting there. We've split the talk into three learning objectives. One is how to set a career goal that's in your control, how to get more out of feedback, and everyone's favorite, knowing when to move on from a job. So number one, setting a career goal. So we're actually gonna reframe career goals because, to be honest, I I kind of hate the term career goals. I've never really had one or I feel like I've never really had one. It sounds like... It sounds very daunting like a five or a ten year plan or, something you make up in per review when you... That you think your manager wants to hear so that you seem really ambitious. Career dreams can feel so far from our current realities. So first, we're gonna talk about how to set yourself up for success. It's nice to have career dreams, right, to think about how our lives will be once we have the job title we want or hold in our hands the book we think we wanna write, but we don't achieve these things by dreaming about them. We need to develop a strategy, we need to break them down into proximate objectives, and we need to execute. So as coaches, Cate and I have noticed that this is where people most often get stuck in the smaller steps that move them closer to the work and life that they want. So approximate objective is just the next achievable goal for the career in life that you want, and your strategy is how you connect your approximate objectives to your dreams. You want to identify the gaps between where you are and where you wanna be and come up with small ideas that will help you get there. And you don't have to have it all figured out. You just need enough clarity to help you make decisions at each step. So approximate objectives. What makes a good approximate objective? So four things, and we'll have this in the docs and the the worksheet we'll send out later. So it should challenge you but feel possible. You should learn something doing it. You should actually want to do it, and it should be something within your control. So for some people, figuring out what you want can actually be quite challenging, and we encourage you to just get curious about what piques your interest, what energizes you, and what drains you. It may require quite a bit of self reflection to filter out the noise of societal shoulds to get to what you actually want. And if you know exactly what you want next, you might be more in a execution mode where you have clarity and you're just working towards it. That might look something like, you know, raising your hand to lead a lot... Large project at work. But you might actually be in a more exploratory mode where you don't know what your strategy should be, and that's totally fine. That can just be a sign that you need a little bit of space for exploration. So your next proximate objective could be talking to five people who you think are working on interesting things. And we really love this framing of proximate objectives instead of the daunting career goals because it creates more space for exploration and not knowing exactly what's next. Alright. So you have some approximate objectives. Now we have a very simple framework to work towards them. So number one is just what is the goal? A good what is specific enough that you know what you've achieved when when you've achieved it, but broad enough that reaching for it demonstrates, real expansion of your capabilities. Then we have why the goal is important to you. The why is your underlying motivation, and it's a critical counterpoint to the what. When you read it, it should remind you why it's worth the struggle and the work to take on the what. And then we've got resources. What resources do you have available to help you achieve it? And then what support you have that you can lean on? And then what opportunities you have or can create in pursuit of it. So out of this list, the first three bullets are pretty straightforward. So we're gonna talk a little bit more about support and opportunities, and Cate gonna kick us off with support. So at the start of this talk, we talk about what good managers are and what they do. But core to the problem with relying too much on your manager is it's just unrealistic to get all your needs met by one person. The more you can build your raccoon squad, your support system, the more resilient you'll be. Toronto is a hard place to be a raccoon. Don't go alone. Now think about. who you need to support your strategy. Obviously, your manager is part of your support system, but your skip level manager, like your manager's manager, can have a lot more influence than you might expect, especially in terms of finding opportunities because they normally have a broader part of you and more information than your manager does. Great peer relationships can be so helpful. They can get you contacts, provide information you're missing, and help you move things along. They can also be a rich source of feedback. Mentors and sponsors aren't necessarily part of your org chart, but they can be people you time to for advice and, even more importantly, advocate for you when you're not in the room. Coaches can be really helpful because they can be one of the few people in your life who show up just invested in you without the baggage that comes from being part of the same organization or social circle. And finally, shout out to the work BFF. Data shows that our work life is better when we have one. Alright. I love this slide. It's my favorite raccoon illustration because this is in fact my career goal is to lay in a field of flowers not working. But oftentimes people think of opportunities as things that happen to you, not something that you have control over. Cate and I like to think of opportunities as flowers, so sometimes people give us flowers, sometimes we pick flowers or buy them for ourselves, and if we wanna have flowers later in the next season, we better start planning them now. So take this talk for example, We were so delighted when Peter reached out to us and asked us to give this talk. Turns out he had watched our ELC podcast and messaged me on LinkedIn. Now we didn't have any control over who heard our ELC podcast, but we did have clarity that we wanted to give more talks about DRI ing your career, and we had reached out to ELC about being on their podcast. And so in a way, we planted those seeds, and then those seeds grew into something that we couldn't even have expected, but we were more than ready to accept the flower when it was offered. So thank you very much, Peter. When opportunity feels scarce, we can also feel like we have to say yes to everything. But you have to be really careful here because you can easily fill your time and opportunities you don't wanna do. This is also why we help people think about how to create opportunities for themselves and how to put themselves out there in a way that is generative. We always encourage people to do the thing that they actually like, not what they feel like they should do. So do you like to write? Do you like to talk? Do you like to meet people? Or do you like to organize things? Or do you like to, you know, be by your... By yourself and debug things that no one no one on your team really understands. Right? So figure out what you really enjoy and create and look for the opportunities that align with what you actually want. Alright. So this is, time to reflect. We're gonna have one of these at the end of each of the learning objectives. So you can jot it down for yourself, pick something that's, you know, approximate objective, and make sure it's actually in your control. Figure out what are you actually planting now to have those opportunities in the future. Just note whatever is in your head. Don't overthink it. You can spend more time with the worksheet later if this is something that you want to get deeper into. Now a second learning objective is how to get more out of feedback. Because once you have an idea of what you want from your career, feedback, whether that's implicit or explicit feedback, is gonna be so important for you to get there faster. We're also gonna talk about how to become more coachable. Because when you're more coachable, you're more open to change, taking available support, consciously expanding your perspective, and turning feedback into something actionable. Constructive feedback, given at the right time, can really help us grow. However, it can be really hard to come by. So having a better relationship with feedback, understanding how to get it, how to make the most of what you obtain can unlock more opportunities by making you a more rewarding person to help. The goal is to understand and maximize the context in which you can get the most actionable input and to know when to let things go. Feedback can feel very threatening, but you can shift your mindset such that feedback is just information. Sometimes it's information you can use to improve. Sometimes it's information about somebody else, like how they like to operate or what they value, and sometimes it's information you can use to make informed decisions about where you should be spending forty hours a week. Now in terms of approaching growth, coachability is made up of two factors, receptionless... Receptiveness to feedback and how highly actionable you are, so what you do with the feedback. What makes somebody highly receptive to feedback is listening and working through what the feedback is, being self aware and prepared so you can fit the feedback into your mental model and adjust it accordingly, and believing you can learn from anyone. Similarly, people who are highly actionable in response to feedback, they experiment, iterate, and change their behavior both in response to explicit feedback and also implicit feedback because they're continually looking to try things and improve. And they also return to those who are interested the things that they're trying or have tried and solicit impact... Input on how it's working, and they seek out other perspectives and and information to learn more. Alright. So here's our five step plan for becoming more coachable so that you can make the most of feedback and get to where you want to go faster. So the first is just to build your own self awareness. So this really just means starting to be curious about yourself. So when someone annoys you, look at what is... What in yourself is triggered by them. Look at people around you and think about what they do better than you. And, also, build curiosity around what it is that excites you, what you are motivated by, and what it is that you dread. Second, we need to get a broader perspective. So look outside your team or your organization or industry and see what you can learn or apply. Tech is really not that special, and there's plenty that we can learn from other industries. The third is to shed your defensiveness. Try not to defend yourself in response to feedback and instead get really curious. So this is kind of going back to the self awareness piece. Fourth, if you screwed up, admit it. Right? Start with what you think can go better and ask people to add to it. It's much easier for people to give you constructive feedback on something when you give them a starting point. And the last one is just to ask for advice. So if you ask for feedback and you don't get it, try asking for advice instead. So when you ask someone, hey. What would be the most help... What would be most helpful to the team for me to work on? That's probably a lot easier to answer and lands very differently than asking, do you have any feedback for me? We're unfortunately normalized to think of feedback as being quite critical, and so people much prefer being asked for advice and having the opportunity to be helpful to you. Now seeking out feedback is a lot less threatening when you know when to put it in the bin. You know how they say that feedback is a gift? Sometimes it is a gift that you want to return or donate. When somebody gives you feedback, they give it you from their perspective. And at a minimum, you can learn what that perspective is. Mining for gold and bad feedback can be worth it in some situations, but not all of them. Sometimes there is something useful there. I got feedback for years about my voice and accent, and, honestly, it just seemed super sexist. And, eventually, I figured out what to take from it, to work on my pacing and talk less quickly. The rest went in the bin. You may be thinking right now I have more work to do there, and you will be right. I'm trying. Bad feedback ignores the broader context. It's feedback given in isolation that misses the bigger picture. When somebody tells me my voice is annoying and they miss the broader context of misogyny, I need to put that in the bin for my own emotional well-being. Bad feedback negates your input. Like, if your boss doesn't define what he wants properly and then complains you didn't guess correctly, Well, there's feedback for both of you in that, and it's most effective if it's a discussion, not one way. And finally, bad feedback undermines rather than helps you succeed. There is a lot written about the feedback culture at Netflix, in the no rules rules book. And honestly, it can seem quite shocking, but there is one core thing in it that I think makes it work, which is direct feedback at the time that helps the person be successful. Now you've surely seen feedback from people that is about making the feedback receiver smaller and putting them down. When the motivation is bad, maybe that's what you learn. Put the comments in the bin. So sometimes the feedback you need to learn to throw out is actually your own, and this comes back to self awareness. Right? You wanna start recognizing your own inner critic voice, and it might be one that says something like, oh, you could never do that, or a much less mean one that says, you need to do x and y first before you do z. So you wanna ask yourself, is it ignoring the broader context of what you've already proven and the reality of your situation, and is it undermining you rather than helping you succeed? You have a lot of control in how much you listen to that inner critic voice versus thanking it for its input and turning down the volume. So here's another prompt for you. What's one piece of feedback to mine for gold, and what's one piece of feedback to put in the bin? Again, don't overthink it. Just write down what's top of mind. You can always come back to it later. Again, we have a worksheet for this. Now this is our third learning objective, when to move on. In my coaching practice, I somehow became the quit your job coach. So many clients would show up thinking that that was what they wanted from me, to help them quit their job and find another one. And, of course, some of them did. Right? But not all of them. And I think there is a huge difference between quitting your job because you don't know how to change it or get what you want from it and quitting from a place of power where you know what you want and have deliberately gone after it. And honestly, I think it's good to think about quitting your job regularly. I try and do that around annually. Like, really think about where I am, what I'm doing, and what I might do instead. So let's talk about things to pay attention to when it comes to thinking about quitting your current job. The first thing is learning. Now this is something I really hate as a hiring manager is when I'm interviewing somebody and their resume says they have five years of experience. But when I talk to them, I can see that they have one year of experience five times over. In this industry, you need to be continually expanding your skills in order to stay current. And if you realize you're really not learning, especially if you're at a time and space in your career where you want to be learning a lot, it's time to think about how to change that. There are so many options here. You may not need to quit to address it, but you should get clear about how you are going to. The second thing is coping mechanisms. So when you're learning elaborate political dances or how to manage stress before you grind out all your teeth, maybe it's time to think about whether that energy is being well spent. Coping mechanisms won't help you in a better environment and may actually be quite harmful. When you feel morally conflicted about hiring, it's a sign to pay attention. If you think other people deserve better than this organization, could it could it be the case that you do too? And then when our job affects our confidence and we feel ourselves getting smaller rather than better, that can be really, really corrosive. And this is how abusive environments keep people. They make them think that they can't do anything else, and they should just be grateful for the job that they have. Finally, when your job affects you physically, you need to pay attention. The goal of capitalism is maximal utilization. And not only will your job not love you back, it won't take care of you if you get sick. You need to take care of yourself. In this market, we have to ask these additional questions. How hard will it be to find another job, and will that new job be any better? The market is hard, and it's possible that some of the things frustrating you at work right now are generally the case in many places. This is why it's worth interviewing regularly, understanding what's out there, how the market is. If you think you're underleveled and underpaid, the first thing to do is check the market. The core thing is you need to bring that information back and use it to stop being so frustrated if you find out that the market disagrees with you. On bad days at work, I find it very helpful to be able to tell myself that I have a good deal under capitalism. Alright. I have, another slightly different but also very related framing that I wanna offer regarding quitting jobs. So years ago, when I was about to go through a divorce, I was working with a coach who told me, you know, Jean, the real question isn't if you should get a divorce. It's, who do you wanna be in relationships? Because if you don't figure that out, the patterns from this relationship are just gonna keep on showing up in the next one and the one after that. And so this really carries over to jobs where a lot of people think that it's their job that has all the problems, and leaving the job and getting a new job will fix all their problems. But in this market, there's actually a pretty high cost to that, as Cate mentioned, and there's usually a lot more in your control than you think in the job that you already have. So in our course, we really do encourage people to look at their values, how they wanna show up at work, how they want work to fit into their lives, and then to really get creative to try to get as much of that as possible in their current situations. So we have one last prompt for you. If you imagine quitting today, what would you be leaving behind, and what would you be carrying with you to your next role? And, again, don't overthink it. Write down what's top of mind. You're welcome to come back to it later. Alright. So that was all three learning objectives, and here are your core takeaways. So number one, break down your career goal into proximate objectives that are actually in your control. Make sure it's something you actually want. Capitalism tells us a lot of things, and it's easy to go along with them, but take some time to think critically about what is actually true for you and your situation. Build a simple strategy and your raccoon crew. Don't be alone in Toronto. And, again, there's gonna be more in-depth about this in the worksheet. Learn how to get more out of feedback and how to be more coachable. This will help get where you want to go faster. And line one to mine feedback for nuggets of gold and what to put in the bin. We also have a worksheet for this. And the third is knowing when to move on. Right? It's a really rough market out there, and so separate out what is actually the job and what you're projecting onto the job. Do the most with what's in your control and keep an eye out for signs that it is time to leave. Thank you so much. There was a link in the docs where you can find everything about us all over social media, and you can find the worksheets we mentioned. Yeah. We would... Yeah. Thank you so much for having us. We we hope you stay in touch. Awesome. That was that was an excellent presentation. So, again, not only is the design style so refreshing to see the bright... The colors and the raccoons. And thank you for answering. There was one question about what... You know, how did you. generate this? This is... These are hand drawn. Pretty pretty incredible. But, you know, honestly, we talk so much about technology and how technology is changing and, you know, different different ways in which, engineering is evolving. So it's really refreshing to hear about, you know, understanding, like, how you're feeling at work and and when are the signs to move on, you know, what are the some of the signs that maybe it's not the right situation for you. So I I think I I... By the emojis, a lot of people on the line can relate. So really appreciate both of you, Jean and and Cate, for jumping on and sharing your perspective. I I think it was seriously appreciated by me and I think the the rest of the folks who are on the line. We do have a few great questions in. I'm I'm gonna ask one and then kinda piggyback on it because I I kinda had one of my own questions, but, I think the start was... It was Philippe. How does one, truly determine if moving on to a different company is realistically better or worse culturally than the current employer without actually changing? I mean, you you can't know. Right? But you can definitely make a more informed decision. So I think a couple of things. One is understanding not just what's annoying you in your current job, but also structurally why that is. Right? So if, for example, you're really annoyed because nobody's getting promoted anymore, well, some of that's market. Some of that might be the company being low on money. Right? And so kind of understand which is which. The second thing is when you go and interview elsewhere, you have to ask the right questions. So this is something I would often see as an interviewer. So, like, one example was I have... I was interviewing somebody once, and they really wanted to know if we had ever delayed our review cycle. Like, when would that happen? How would it look like? What... And and, you know, I I understand, like, why this person was asking asking this because they had been in a place where the review cycle had been canceled, and it had created more inequity, whatever. But that's not... Like, that is a pure trauma question. It's not a useful question. Like, reframing that with with the better questions would be, like, how reliable are your company processes? How... What does growth look like there? Things that don't come from, like, I... Like like, people often interview and say, I don't wanna deal with this specific thing one more time. And that specific thing is not the problem. There is something structural around it, and you are better off asking a question that helps you understand what good looks like rather than asking a question of, is this bad thing going to happen again here? Because, honestly, it's probably just gonna be a different bad thing, so you should try and figure out what that is. Yeah. I I would add on that, like, every job is dysfunctional in some way. Right? That there's no perfect job. But getting clear with yourself what are the types of dysfunctions that you are willing to put up with and what are the ones that are absolute deal breakers for you. And, I think a good way to go about that is, yeah, understand... Like, really understanding your own values, what are the principles that you really care about, and then that can kind of lead you to... Okay. Yeah. I'm... Like, for... Personally, like, I need to have a lot of trust in, like, the leadership team and founders. Like, whether or not the, you know, the execution might be a little bit sloppy as, you know, early stage startups grow and scale. But, like, feeling like the the leadership team as the values aligned is, like, super important to me. So that's something that I can look for in an interview process. Yeah. That's that's a great point. I think, like, what really struck me in the talk was you... You're talking about if you're morally conflicted about hiring, and I've been in this position. You know, somebody is... Hey. I see I see a role on your team, and and I'm like, I don't know. And in that particular case, I knew the manager was was was a a little bit, you know, not not the right manager for that fit. And, you know, so how do you discern whether maybe that factor when you're morally conflicted is, you know, something that is is not gonna get better versus something that maybe you should speak up and and say, oh, you know what? This is actually something that I can help sort of, you know, correct or, you know, make sure I I I escalate, you know, why why I'm morally conflicted in this manner. So basically, like, how do you discern whether it's time to move on and find a new, you know, new opportunity or is that fact or something that you... How do you decide whether you wanna take that in your own hand and maybe escalate it internally? I think you should always try something, Yeah. really, but you wanna be careful about how much energy you give trying to fix something that's without your control. Right? So in this situation, you're on a team, your manager doesn't seem to be effective to you. Well, okay. Great. Opportunity to get curious. Like, it's... Like, I I find often with the ICs and their perceptions about their manager is that often it means that the manager is not doing the things that the IC themselves care about. So the manager is not showing up to one on ones or whatever. It's not giving good feedback or or whatever. But, like, the manager is evaluated by somebody above them, and it's a good chance they're doing the things that somebody above them actually does care about. So maybe they're very on top of delivery, and delivery is going really well. Right? And so you wanna kind of not just, like, look in your own perception, but kind of branch out a little bit and be like, okay. I'm unhappy about these things, but what is the bigger picture, and what what is this person's job? Right? And then you can kind of figure out what to do with that information. Right? If the delivery is not going well either and it's, like, possible nobody's happy with this person, well, then maybe it's assigned to wait it out. Right? If the team is, like, seeming to do better than ever, but this person is just not providing the level of emotional availability that you would like, well, then it's a chance to be like, okay. What... What's realistic here? You know? Because this is something that we're seeing a lot with managers right now. They're being put under a lot more pressure. They have a lot more direct reports. And so you may not be getting that emotional energy... Availability everywhere. And do you really need it from your manager? Right? And so all of these things that we talked about in this tool, they're just, like, noticing is just the starting point. You have to get curious about the bigger picture around it, and then you can say, okay. Well, I have control over this. You know, my product manager is really good. They wanna answer all my questions about this. I'm gonna build a stronger relationship with them. And, like, my engineering manager, whatever, they do these things, they don't do these things, and I can make my peace with it. Yeah. I think even when you're kind of on the way out, as I mentioned, you know, like, the the marriage, metaphor, it's still it's still important to spend that time to kind of do some self reflection of, like, okay, what wasn't working here? What, you know, what do I want to be different? How do I wanna show up differently? And honestly, that, like, when you know you're on the way out can also be a very freeing period where you can kind of YOLO a lot of, like, you're like, okay. I'm gonna give the feedback I never gave. And I think for some people, that's actually when people are like, wow. You're you're performing great. Right? They're, like, putting a lot of boundaries in place between, like, work and life. You know, they're saying all the things that need to be said in meetings. They're not just, like, tolerating, you know, this dysfunction and, waste of time. And, yeah. So I think I would embrace that, like, intentionality with which you show up at work. The the on the way out YOLO. I I don't know whether I wish we all had that just so we could be honest and confident or or just be complete chaos, but, it's a it's a great great point there. And and I think there's a couple questions that came in anything you alluded to, which I thought was really interesting because we don't think about our skip level at manager as much as we really overly focus on, you know, our our manager's opinion about our performance. So, a couple questions came in about that. One is how does the skip level manager not undermine the manager? And then the second was, do you have any tips on starting to build a relationship with your skip level? How does the skip level not undermine a manager is like... I mean, I think it's quite difficult. Right? But but the good thing is that most people are pretty overt in what they're asking. And so the way that I would tend to approach it as a skip level is, like, we can have a conversation, but I'm taking everything under advisement, and then I'm gonna align with their manager. Right? So I would never promise anything in that conversation. I would just want to know what they're caring about and and and go that way, because I I do think it's really important, one, not to undermine the manager just because that's, like, a poor behavior as the manager of the manager. But, two, you don't really want to incentivize a situation where everybody goes around their manager and comes to you to get what they want because, like, the whole point of having a layer of management in between you is that you're not one on one managing all these people yourself. Yeah. Right? And then the other question about how to build a skip level relationship, like, honestly, it is really not that hard. Right? I say this as somebody who was until, like, this time a year ago, running a team of, like, like, 80 to a 100 people, most people just didn't wanna talk to me at all. So if you actually, like, pinged me, responded to things I said, asked me questions about things I I won't, like, notice me as a human being, then you would be strides ahead of everyone else. Well, they probably assumed you're too busy. I feel like that's what people assume of their manager and their and their skip level. I think I find it really... Like, some people would assume I was too busy and every ping was an interruption. And some people to assume... Seem to assume I did absolutely nothing, which I'm telling you, as a woman in this industry, you do not get to that position if that is the case. So... Yeah. But but I would always find it... Like, I would get these very apologetic messages like, okay. You must be so busy, but, you know, something. And, like, I'll tell you, like, one, these messages took no time, and, two, they were almost always the highlight of my day. That's great. And, I think there was one... Jean had a few really good questions here, but I'm gonna I'm gonna pull out a recent one. Just... Do you have any recommended, ways in which you're using Claude or any other AI to help in this process? For example, asking Claude to find gaps improvements in your way of working or skill set, recommend where to ask for feedback, just any general best practices for leveraging AI in in any... Anything that you've talked about in this talk today. Yeah. So the worksheets that we have have put up, they also include prompts for you to use with Anthropic, to get it to help you work through them. So just like one note on using AI for coaching, please use it when you have a definition of what's good. And so I use it a lot where I have clarity about this is what good looks like either because I have a lot of data, so I use it to to, coach me on my time management, and I have a very intense spreadsheet for this. I also use it to help me accountable to the goals I've set for myself. But, good is defined by me. Don't let Anthropic define good for you. If you have defined good, then you can use it to help you hold yourself to good. Yeah. It's helpful when you can plug in... I mean, we have people who just are, like, you know, they take the course and they're just like, I copy and pasted the whole... You know, all the reading that you've provided. Just gave it to Anthropic and had it coach me through that. Like, that's great. Right? Because the frameworks and content is provided by us, rather than just have this, like, open ended, like, hey. What should I do in this situation? Because as we all know, you know, AI tools can be very, like, validating whatever you want validated rather than, like, it doesn't... I mean, in some ways, coaching is similar. Like, it only... Coach... Coaches only know what you bring to them, but coaches also do have a lot of training to help you look at the big picture. Totally. I'm sure you have a a whole list of tips to how to kind of, circumnavigate the the sycophancy that's, you know, inherent in a lot of the AI systems. I know I'm sure it's hard to to really get unbiased feedback there. I'm so glad that Sabrine asked this question because I I think it's so interesting today and especially now that we have two, engineering career coach experts on the line here. The question is how do you get a job with no experience as a fresh undergraduate? And maybe I'll add on to that is anything that you see when you're hiring is something that you would wanna avoid and, you know... Yeah. Maybe I'll end there. How do you get a job with no experience? Any tips for for, undergrads or anybody else seeking a new job, and then anything that you would wanna avoid that maybe is a red flag? Yeah. I mean, For the new grads, I'm sorry. it is a it is a rough market. But I think what I've seen is, like, new grads that are really savvy with AI tooling are... That's, like... I I think a lot of companies are partnering, like, more experienced staff engineers with, like, new grads that are really, you know, hungry and have done a lot of experimentation and have a level of, like, AI nativeness that, we as older folks don't necessarily have because we didn't grow up with it. And so as much as possible to develop that, intuition in yourself and, be able to present yourself in that way, whether that's just having, like, an abundance of projects or, yeah. I think in general, systems thinking becomes much more important much earlier. So there is a fantastic book on design patterns, which I think definitely weird. And then the second thing is I don't think there's ever been a better time to build. And so whether or not you can get a job is not entirely within your control, but finding a project that you feel excited about and using that to learn as much as you can and ideally sharing as you go can be a really great way to both build your learning, build your brand, and demonstrate that you're somebody who would be really rewarding to help. I think also just, like, leaning into, like, just scrappiness. Right? If you're sending out a 100, applications just online, like, I can guarantee you're probably not gonna get a response to any of them. But if you are finding people in your community that, you know, may work in the industry and asking them how how they can connect you. Right? Like, I was at a a Frisbee game recently, and this, probably twenty some year old, she she had us do intros, and then she's like, can you also share what you do for work? And it was because she wanted to switch jobs, and she was like, oh, you know, she found all the people that were somewhat related to her work and then just, like, on the field connected with us on LinkedIn. It's like, alright. Kudos to you for being... Just, like, taking the initiative and being scrappy. But, yeah, really finding creative ways to, network with folks. That's amazing. Some people go to network events, and Jean goes to Ultimate Frisbee. It's true. Good. You have to have something that... Outside of of work and networking. You know, I I think it's it's been really interesting advice that you've given on, you know, how to how to seek and how to position yourself for for a job or even, you know, how to relate to your skip level manager. I think John just, you know, a recent question is is really strong kinda from the other perspective is how how as a leader do you cultivate this open work environment, especially when your team cuts across maybe different cultures. Use an example, Western versus Eastern cultures. Yeah. On there. Yeah. That... I mean, that's really interesting. I've always worked in in quite global environments, which personally I really love. But you definitely see, like, the communication differences between Americans and Eastern Europeans are fascinating. You know? And then you kind of end up in a place where you need to coach both sides. So you're like, American, this person wasn't being rude. They were making a factual statement. And then. Eastern European, please do not make career limiting comments to Americans. You know? So I I think in general, there's there's so much stuff about this. I think Jean has a a ton of stuff, like, about ask versus guest culture. But just understanding when you're working with people from different cultures, like, what are the ways in which they communicate and not taking things personally that are not personal. Right? And so I think Eastern Europeans often see them, like, direct to the point of being mean, but really, almost none of them mean it that way. And by contrast, you know, Americans often seem very nice, but it's relatively superficial. And so, you know, like, there's pros and cons to both, and and getting curious, I find, really helpful. Yeah. I think that not getting... Like, approaching it with curiosity rather than assuming some... Someone means a certain thing. So for example, personally, I, you know, grew up with Asian parents and, did not get a lot of effusively positive feedback. Right? So the the most positive thing is probably, like, that was not bad. Like, not bad is, like, super good. And so, like, that's been an adjustment for me as I have direct reports who maybe need a little bit more of that, like, acknowledgement and positive feedback and trying to meet them where they're at or even just, you know, recalibrate with them what they can expect from me and that I'm working on it, but also what I expect from my manager. Like, I I worked with a manager who was he was very upfront, he was like, you know, very terse British guy and he was like, I don't... I'm not good at positive feedback but instead I try to create opportunities for people. I'm like, well that works for me, you know, I'd rather have a sponsor than someone who just gives me, positive feedback but it doesn't go anywhere. Yeah. I mean, what people do also matters a lot more than what they say. You know? I think. I also come from a British culture where I haven't had a lot of positive feedback. Maybe this is why working with Jean goes so well. We we just... But I... I've found ways to try and seem more warm. Like, whenever I see somebody do a good job, I make a point to say it. Because like I mentioned earlier, it's like, you know, you go up the org chart and people become inexplicably terrified of you. And so, like, you need to take every opportunity you have to seem approachable. And, also, it probably still won't work, but at least you tried. Yeah. It's great feedback and advice. I'm from New York. I I like to say that we're we're not we're not nice. We're kind. At least we'll we'll be transparent, which I think is always always appreciated. We're running out of time. I think we have time for two more. And by the way, thank you all for... These these are such incredible thoughtful questions. We'll see what we can do to follow-up with some with some of these answers, but they're they're absolutely amazing. So thank you all for submitting. So we'll get to two more. One is a little bit more, focused on the software engineering practice. For software engineers, how would you recommend we identify goals that factor in the changes happening this software engineering, discipline generally? Well, now is the time to cultivate your growth mindset because whatever you think you know, everything is changing so fast. So, yeah, like, this is and and I I think it's very hard for software engineers. Like, one of the courses that Jean and I built was, we called it navigating the AI shift, and it wasn't like, here's how to use AI tools because, like, engineers can figure that out. It was really a a process to help people fix their relationship with it and be less afraid. So in the first module, it's just about, like, how you feel. You know? So you can feel how you feel, and then you can choose how you want to be effective with it. But, yeah, I think, personally, I don't believe anybody knows the answer right now. I think we're all just figuring things out. And so you can either join in figuring things out, or you can be having a bad time and feeling left behind. And I think Jean and I, we're having a ton of fun with course. You know? I do feel some days like I'm 10 course in a trench coat. And the more I have fun and ship things and learn, the less worried I feel about the shift. And so this is what we try to do in this course with people is to help them find the joy and the fun in it because it is, like I said earlier, a great time to build. Yeah. I think I would I would also encourage folks to just lean into curiosity, adaptability, and initiative taking. Right? Like... And and the joy. It's, like, never been as easy to build ever. And so figuring out, what are the things you want to build for your family, for your community, building these one off tools, I mean, it's incredibly empowering, in time to be an engineer right now. That's great. I think of... It's probably misattributed, but the the Socrates quote, there's great wisdom in knowing that you know nothing. And just to to just to find the the joy in in what's happened... How easy it is to build right now. That's end of time that we have. Cate, Jean, that was fantastic, fantastic discussion. Thank you so much for lending your wisdom and your thoughts. We've dropped in all the the documents that you shared. I think I see in the chat, there were some... Cate just shared the the book that she referenced. We're gonna do our best in the in the fall of being able to share all the the documents that were discussed in today's session. Last, thank you to the presenters. Thank you to the community for asking questions. Everyone, thank you for joining all of the sessions. It was it was super fun, and and we're really hoping, fingers crossed, that we'll be able to extend this series. We have a few more speakers who've reached out, wanting to to jump on and and share a guest lecture. So, you know, we're hoping that we'll be able to to extend this and have a few more sessions in the coming months, and we'll keep you all posted on that. As a final reminder before you go, we are gonna be sending out a survey. Please take a minute. I believe Taylor, has already dropped in the link to the survey. So please, please, please, I urge you to all take that, share any feedback that you have. You know, it really helps us to to to build out the content. With that final thank you, and, have have a great rest of your day or evening or morning, wherever you're tuning in from. Cheers all.