Maria is an Engineering Manager who loves capoeira, improv, teaching, and taking on lots of exciting personal challenges. She shares what it’s like to work in an engineering management role at Monzo, the UK-based fintech going through hypergrowth.
What did you do before Monzo?
Before Monzo, I was active in the startup scene of London; I took part in the 3rd cohort of Entrepreneur First, started and failed a couple of startups, worked as an analyst for Beacon Capital, taught web development with a couple of academies, and in the last year before Monzo I worked as a software engineer in a series A tech startup that went through a merger during my work there.
What does your typical day look like?
That’s a catch 22 question. Tools & processes: I use my calendar to structure my day, Slack to communicate and Notion to write my notes, and keep track of the engineers I manage, and other ongoing projects I’m involved in. I’ve built a pretty sophisticated template in Notion to structure everything I collect for my reports; 1–1s note-taking, performance reviews, OKRs, promotions proposals.
A typical day starts and ends with self-time; At the start, I set clear goals for the day and at the end, I reflect on what I achieved and what I’ve learned in the day. The rest of the day isn’t that typical. I usually spend a big part on 1–1s with my engineers, including time for preparing and taking actions before and after those 1–1s. I try to block a 2-hour block per day to do solo work (writing a performance review, promotion nomination, or working on a project). And I’m trying to have some open time for anything urgent or unexpected that comes up last minute.
What does your role as Engineering Manager involve?
Being an Engineering Manager at Monzo is like being a personal coach for engineers. I’m their ally, their support to set and reach their goals, build on their strengths and help them work on the feedback they receive. I’m here to support them growing into the roles they aspire to be and have impact that touches the whole company and our millions of customers.
On a wider level, Engineering Managers get involved with forming engineering teams by blending the company’s strategic goals and the engineers’ personal goals. It’s hard work, challenging and equally rewarding.
What do you love about being an Engineering Manager?
My previous answer pretty much sums it up. If I would add something more specific that would be; The most rewarding bit of being an engineering manager is the moment you reflect and realise an engineer you manage has surpassed their previous biggest personal challenge; from being mentally blocked in doing something, to getting comfortable working on problems that were overwhelming in the past. Witnessing the progress and how their problems change over time, is what makes me curious for my next day.
What you love about working at Monzo?
I got interested in Monzo because of the transparent and friendly way Monzo communicates to its audience.
I chose to join because of the way the teams are structured, because of the support employees have and because there are people at Monzo who are constantly working towards improving the way the company scales.
Since I joined, every day I am making an active choice to stay at Monzo; to invest my energy, my day, my ideas, thoughts, and self to my work in this company.
I choose to stay because the teams take decisions by asking “What’s the best for our customers?” and “how can we give them more visibility and control of their financials?”
I choose to stay because what I saw from the outside is even better on the inside. It’s cheesy to say, yet so difficult to grasp its essence. The little things that make the big difference; the fact that I don’t need to fight with the management for the “should’s” and “must’s”, the fact that we can and we do talk about our mental health every day, the fact that good practices are reinforced by the executive team and by processes across the company.
I choose to stay because the starting point of every conversation is that we all have good intentions, and people are open to be vulnerable, share their mistakes and keep looking towards our goals as a collective.
What are the qualities you think make a good Engineering Manager?
- The ability to actively listen to your engineers
- Being humble and trustworthy; it’s important your engineers can feel they can trust you and reach out to you, no matter of the time or reason.
- The ability to empathise; and if empathy doesn’t come natural, a big drive to practice empathy.
- Approaching every challenge from a place of care; feeling rewarded when your engineers succeed.
- Understanding and prioritising self-care; working with people is an emotional challenging work. Therefore, building a personal toolset for off-loading, self-pampering and switching off is as vital as sleep is.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?
To be myself. I often doubted my own self and tried to fit into an image imposed by my own biases. I’m now learning to be myself under all circumstances and that has rewarded me with the most genuine relationships so far. ✨
What is your most useful resource (book, blog, newsletter)?
“The Artist Way” by Julia Cameron. This is a 12-week workbook of self-discovery that has helped me re-define my motivations and express my creativity in different forms. It was also the primary tool that opened my eyes and enabled me to make the transition to engineering management
What’s one thing you’d like to learn, develop or work on in 2019?
Self-resilience. I started 2019 setting the intention to “own my journey” and I’m moving towards learning how to be resilient in this journey; that includes experimenting with different rituals, and habits and taking ideas from others’ successes and lessons.
Are there any specific roles you’re hiring for at the moment?
If you like the sound of my role, come and work with me! We’re looking for empathetic Engineering Managers with a technical background to support and coach our engineers and help drive technical initiatives that improve our engineering practices. We’re particularly looking for people who would love to grow and develop high-performing engineers in our Financial Crime, Security, Payments or Platform teams. Check out our open roles here: https://monzo.com/careers.
