Movable Ink Leadership & Management

Developers will always face some difficulties in the workplace, and sometimes these challenges lead to burnout. What warning signs do you look for in your software developers? What actions do you take when you see signs of burnout?

One way I identify burnout is by noticing changes in behavior within otherwise consistent performers. Is my most vocal developer suddenly withdrawn in a meeting? Did someone submit a changeset for review containing multiple regressions when their work usually is much higher quality? In these cases, I make a mental note to follow up with them.

Weekly one-on-one meetings are crucial for building trust with my team, so I can better understand the individual. I use that time to establish that experiencing burnout and feeling overwhelmed is not a failure on the individual. Listening carefully also helps me ask follow-up questions, so I can discover actionable steps to address any concerns. That being said, as a manager, it can be difficult to tackle every root cause of burnout. So, it’s important to supplement with mental wellness strategies like taking time off.

One factor that contributes to developer burnout is observability, or checking that apps and systems are working correctly to prevent bottlenecks or bugs. How do you help developers identify issues at their source as soon as they occur, so that they're not sifting through a slog of information downstream?

On my team, I appreciate the level of developer observability we currently have. Every developer has experienced the feeling of digging through logs only to find that the crucial piece of information that you need isn’t there, which is why we invest in reliable developer observability tools.

As an example, we use Sentry and NewRelic for our RoR application. Developers on my team have saved time by discovering the Sentry event that corresponds with a user experiencing a regression in our platform. These events contain all kinds of helpful information, such as the exact line of code that threw the error along with any provided parameters. This has saved countless hours of developer time.

Of course, observability is something that you have to constantly invest in, and there are plenty of times when we lack coverage. It’s important for me to empower individuals on my team to improve the system’s observability, sometimes working with our DevOps team — which can be itself an opportunity for individuals too.

What sorts of creative stretch projects or meaningful growth opportunities do you offer developers on your team? The more specific, the better.

I’m a huge fan of every developer, regardless of experience or title, having an opportunity to lead a project. It helps individuals develop the skills necessary to advance into senior and staff positions while reinforcing the idea that contributing to a project isn’t solely shipping code. This helps spread the domain knowledge more effectively across an entire team so that no single individual is the sole owner of an area of the platform. This has the added benefit of reducing knowledge silos. The responsibilities of a project lead on our team vary depending on the project. But the most common ones are to collaborate on a solution with stakeholders such as product managers, designers and architects, anticipate roadblocks and proactively address them, and help form the backlog that other developers will implement.

Describe your leadership philosophy as it relates to employee engagement.

For me, engagement is about making sure every team member feels valued, heard and set up to succeed. The business development representative role can be tough, so I focus on connecting their work to the “why” behind what we do and helping them see the bigger impact they’re making. I give my team the trust and autonomy to try new ideas, share their perspectives with the wider group and take ownership of their work while knowing it’s okay to fail and learn along the way. I’m always there to guide and support them when they need it.

What types of resources does your team leverage to keep sellers engaged? How does this engagement directly impact their success and the success of the business?

In addition to weekly one-on-ones focused on pipeline generation, we invest in ongoing enablement and peer learning. Our enablement team provides training on product education, selling techniques and best practices, which helps the team stay up to date and confident. We also pair new team members with senior mentors so they can learn from their peers and ramp up quickly.

My goal isn’t just to drive the pipeline, but also to coach reps for the next step in their careers. When team members feel supported and see a path for growth, they stay motivated which translates into business results.

What advice would you offer to leaders in your field eager to drive greater engagement on their sales teams?

First, be present and truly listen. There’s nothing more demotivating than feeling like your leader isn’t engaged. I make it a priority to stay fully present in one-on-ones so I can understand what each person needs to succeed. Second, understand individual motivators. It’s easy to assume everyone in sales is driven by money, but that’s not always true. Taking the time to learn what motivates each individual helps me tailor my coaching and keep my team engaged.

Finally, be intentional about recognition. Celebrating wins is important, but I also try to recognize effort and creativity. Those moments of acknowledgment can make a huge difference in how connected and valued someone feels.