M5 Senior Engineering Manager
I manage significant complexity with skill to deliver multiple major workstreams simultaneously in service of the overall business
Scope Area of ownership and level of autonomy / ambiguity | Collaborative Reach Organizational reach and extent of influence | Impact Levers Organizational levers typically exercised to achieve business impact |
- I confidently guide the strategy and execution of one or more teams in my area across multiple projects or workstreams on six to twelve month time horizons.
- I drive impactful outcomes in the face of significant organizational and technical ambiguity and change.
| - I am a strong partner to related teams and cross functional partners within my group/org with the ability to influence without authority.
- I am increasingly optimizing globally for the wider org and driving cross-engineering or cross-functional initiatives to impactful outcomes outside my normal area of scope.
| - I drive business outcomes through expertise in engineering management as well as through strong relationships, sideways management and cross functional influence.
- I guide my teams to impactful results by setting strategy that is aligned with the org and business.
- I create an environment that empowers my teams to deliver at a high level of impact by building, organizing, and motivating well-balanced, diverse teams with a strong sense of belonging.
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Results
Responsibility | Key Behaviors |
Impact | - I plan for and execute on multiple impactful projects, work streams and teams.
- I identify new opportunities for my team to execute that have org/company-wide impact
- I refocus my team's efforts when results aren’t moving the needle for our business/team goals or serving the needs of customers in a meaningful way
- I know which levers to pull to drive meaningful results and understand the wider, cross-functional implications of my team's work
- I am responsible for ensuring that results do not come at the expense of long term growth, retention, or psychological safety
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Ownership | - I have a sense of responsibility and obligation to act on opportunities I see across my org
- I create an environment where my teams can learn from failures to drive better business outcomes
- I unblock myself and team by addressing and eliminating the root cause
- I am accountable for inspection, oversight, and pruning of the portfolio of projects within my domain and hold managers reporting to me accountable for delivering the results needed by the organization
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Decision Making | - I make informed decisions by consulting the right stakeholders and balancing details with the big picture
- I'm able to reach the right decision despite conflicting perspectives and act thoughtfully and decisively
- I ensure that investments are appropriately prioritized across my portfolio of projects
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Operational Excellence | - I set goals and objectives at the right altitude and hold my team accountable to them
- I run efficient processes, while minimizing unnecessary work about work. I ensure that appropriate information is disseminated within my team.
- I drive operational cadences that get to the right outcomes
- I build healthy partnerships with stakeholders and teams with whom my teams have long-lived relationships
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Direction
Responsibility | Key Behaviors |
Agility | - I am a calming influence on my team in times of change and uncertainty
- I coach my team to navigate complexity and ambiguity
- When necessary, I am able to introduce change into the organization and guide my team accordingly
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Innovation | - I champion bold, creative, and productive approaches for my team and lead them to generate solutions that aim to deliver better results
- I set audacious goals for my team, encourage them to take risks, and share lessons learned
- I create psychological safety for my team to promote experimentation and learning
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Strategy | - I define the vision for my team in alignment with company-wide priorities and inspire my team and cross-discipline stakeholders to work toward that vision
- I resolve misalignments with stakeholder teams and cross-discipline partners with differing goals
- I think and articulate strategy over long time horizons. I am able to think broadly and cross-functionally about areas outside of my teams’/org’s primary responsibilities
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Talent
Responsibility | Key Behaviors |
Personal Growth | - I proactively ask for feedback from those I work with and have self-awareness about my strengths and areas for development
- I drive discussions with my manager about aspirational goals and seek out opportunities to learn and grow
- I invest time in being a better manager and leader
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Hiring | - I attract and hire a diverse and talented team with a broad range of experiences and strengths, keeping in mind the long-term health and success of my org and/or teams
- I am actively involved in interviewing and assessing senior candidates and I ensure my team(s) are calibrated and conducting interviews. In addition, I am increasingly getting involved in hiring initiatives and potentially a member of hiring committee.
- I build strong relationships with candidates and can represent Dropbox's mission, strategy, and culture throughout the interview process
- I have a strong pulse on my team's engagement and a proactive retention strategy
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Talent Development | - I foster career growth of my team members by taking into account their career goals and looking for ways to provide meaningful development experiences based on their skills and interest. I give opportunities to work on next-level assignments that demonstrate readiness for promotion when appropriate
- I hold my team accountable for performance expectations and take different approaches to motivating high performers and turning around low performers
- Within my org, I work to ensure that even those not reporting directly to me are well leveraged by leading through other people managers, through cross-team reach, improving processes, or by finding opportunities for those who are under leveraged.
- I can guide and grow both managers and senior ICs, helping them advance their careers by finding them highly-leveraged roles within the organization
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Organizational Planning | - I structure my team so the right people are in the right roles with clearly defined responsibilities. I ensure projects are staffed appropriately to set them up for success, placing my strongest technical leaders where they are the most needed and impactful
- I increasingly think in terms of the broad organization, rather than treating it as a collection of individual teams
- I plan for long-term headcount and recruiting needs to guarantee the long-term success of my organization and/or team(s)
- I create sustainable processes, reward systems, and people practices to ensure my team’s long-term success
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Culture
Responsibility | Key Behaviors |
Collaboration | - I help break down silos within and across functions and influence others to reach the best outcome for Dropbox
- I build deep cross-functional relationships, facilitate the right conversations, and settle disagreements by managing different viewpoints
- I avoid blame and solve the right problems, disagreeing and committing when necessary to move critical priorities forward
- I have a holistic view of the org and Dropbox’s goals that I champion, using my experience and judgment to optimize for the wider org rather than locally to my teams.
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Organizational Health | - I motivate others to bring their authentic selves everyday and contribute to building community at Dropbox
- I remove barriers to inclusion for my team and ensure diverse perspectives are considered and included. I work to elevate existing standards while coaching my reports on how to do the same
- I practice vigilance in surfacing cultural issues that might not be explicitly raised to me. I proactively solicit feedback from my team on culture and leverage tools at hand (e.g. Pulse, Soapbox) to gain deeper insight into my team
- When I become aware of any lapse in my team’s culture, I communicate and work with my leadership team follow through on plans to correct and prevent recurrence of the lapse
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Communication | - I write and speak with clarity, tailor my message to my audience, and listen to understand others
- I proactively share information so the right people are informed and aligned
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M5 Senior Engineering Manager