Better 1 on 1s for engineering managers

The default 1:1 degrades quickly.

It becomes a status ritual, then a calendar obligation, then a source of quiet frustration. Status belongs in the planning system. If a ticket board can answer it, the hour is being spent on the wrong layer.

I run 1:1s as a working session. Their job is to produce information that would not appear otherwise — and to turn that information into a next move.

What the hour is for

I try to move engineers through a progression: task ownership, project ownership, technical judgment, organizational ownership. The 1:1 is where that path gets specific.

That usually means four things:

• uncovering ambiguity before it becomes delivery risk
• coaching on judgment, not only on the current ticket
• understanding energy, confidence, and whether the stretch is too small or too large
• making sure context that would otherwise stay in my head actually reaches the person who needs it

I lead Integrations and Platform. A lot of the work is high-context: native integrations, platform primitives, review load, stakeholder paths. None of that shows up cleanly as a green ticket. If I only discuss board state, I will miss the engineer who is stuck on an architecture call they do not feel allowed to make.

Status is a system failure, not a 1:1 topic

If the only place state is visible is a weekly conversation with me, we do not have a 1:1 problem. We have a missing operating system.

On efforts like Legal Intake, written specs, milestones, and visible risks were the planning surface. The 1:1 then had room for the human version: is this stretch too big, is the owner actually the owner, what am I still deciding that they should decide.

Useful prompts tend to be specific:

• What feels more complicated than it should?
• Which decision are you waiting on me for that you could own?
• What are you not saying in the larger group?
• What should I stop doing so you can run this?

Design it for the person, not a template

A newer engineer may need help turning a vague project into a spec they can defend. A stronger engineer may need a larger decision space and a manager who will not rewrite the design in the comments. A technical lead may need time on review load, influence, and which problems should become a platform.

The format is not the point. Consistency of value is.

I have helped three engineers progress from SDE1 to SDE2. The 1:1 was not the promotion mechanism. The mechanism was stretch ownership plus evidence. The 1:1 was where we named the next-level bar in language they could use the rest of the week.

Signals that it is working

Good signs:

• I leave knowing something I did not know from the dashboard
• issues show up before they become escalations
• both of us have a next move with an owner
• the conversation changes as the person’s decision space grows

Bad signs:

• repetition without movement
• coaching that never lands in behavior
• the meeting survives mostly by habit
• I am still the person who will make the hard call after we “align”

Managers should redesign 1:1s the same way they would redesign any other high-value system. If the hour could be replaced by a dashboard, I am using it wrong. If it is only coaching from me and no signal back, I am using it wrong in a different way.