Overview
I felt it was important to write about my experience as the Development Manager at Purple Rock Scissors (PRPL) as it explains how a majority of my work weeks were spent over the past two years.
PRPL is a fast-paced digital strategic agency based in Orlando, FL. They focus on building web and creative experiences that are informed by research and thoughtful planning. They retain clients such as Facebook, LEGO, NASA, Siemens, and many more.
Execution
Becoming Dev Manager at PRPL was my first real foray into a leadership role. I worked my way up from a mid-level engineer, to senior, and then to manager. I oversaw a team of ten engineers on projects that typically were Wordpress, Drupal, or Node & React applications.
While I was a devloper I had the opportunity to work on-site at Facebook's HQ in Menlo Park for a couple of two-week stints. While there I was embedded on the Oculus Market Engineering team learning the whole Facebook web stack. This experience opened the door to many different types of projects on the FB stack over the following years.
When I became a manager, my biggest priority was to ensure that the FB stack knowledge was spread throughout the company as much as was reasonable. During my time at PRPL I personally trained three engineers on this stack and ensured we'd be able to properly serve one of our biggest clients.
Most of my management responsibilities included:
- Enable the success of the engineering team through mentorship, training, and servant leadership tactics
- Provide technical planning for projects and assist project teams when needed
- Provide engineering effort estimates for new client contracts and change orders
- Write technical content for RFP responses and assist the sales team with technical disussions
- Facilitate the weekly engineering meeting
- Run fortnightly one on ones with all engineers
- Provide roadmap guidance to DevOps engineers
- Conduct hiring and termination discussions when applicable
- Do department level planning and performance reviews to distribute raises
Outcome
I think my time as Dev Manager at PRPL was well spent and I think I was well liked and respected by the fantastic team there. I had a hand in nearly every single engineering project at PRPL from mid 2018 onward, and there are some really great outcomes along the way I can be proud of. I continue to work with PRPL on a contract basis to assist them with technical planning and development for particular key initiatives while I look for my next adventure!