Authority Issues

Episode 6: Matt Newkirk (Etsy)

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In this episode Kendall, rachel, and Matt Newkirk discuss:

  • What's it like being the Babel Fish of Etsy?
  • Matt's humble beginnings as a programmer in Mordor (working on a text-based Lord of the Rings game :))
  • How are projects managed in a multi-user dungeon (MUD)?
  • Understanding your job as a manager is not just creating a checklist of "No's"
  • Matt's circuitous route through various roles that ultimately brought him to management
  • Finding cross-team synergies and ways to leverage common data and goals
  • Making it a mission to be visible at cross-functional meetings and casual get-togethers
  • Being loud as a way to connect various teams and information across the company
  • Debriefing your partner as post-work therapy
  • What it's like to manage a team when you don't share their technical skills
  • How, shockingly, no one likes being ordered to use processes they didn't get to help develop
  • The value of networking and connecting with others within your company, making sure you're not building the same wheel as another department
  • A senior manager is thinking about how to improve the output and happiness of their team as well as how their team's productivity impacts the company overall.
  • Paths through failure as an accelerator to leadership skill
  • How leadership and delegation experience helped with being a good partner when his wife was giving birth ;)
  • "Just Talk To People"(tm)

    • Find Matt at www.matthewnewkirk.com

    Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

    ...more
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    Authority IssuesBy Rachel Perkins and Kendall Miller
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