11 One-On-One Questions Software Engineers Should Ask Their Managers
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As a software engineer, you may feel like you’re not using your weekly 1:1 with your engineering manager or boss effectively.
To get more out of your 1:1s (and to impress your boss), here are some questions you can ask:
What are the biggest challenges you see for the dev team in the next 6 months? How can I help?
What keeps you up at night?
Which software engineers do you think are good role models? What makes them special?
What’s the one skill that the best software engineers have but most don’t?
Have you had a software engineering mentor? What’s the one thing you learned from them that you’ll never forget?
What are some software engineering best practices that our team should implement, but we don’t currently do today?
What specific skills do you think our team needs to be successful? Do we have them on the team? Do we need to hire or otherwise develop them?
What makes our team good? What are your thoughts on how we can apply this to the rest of the organization? What do you think our team is not doing so well?
What are your career goals? Where do you see yourself in the next 3-5 years? (Yes, ask your boss this question to see what they say.)
What growth areas do you see for yourself in the next year? What are your goals for this year, not only from a delivery perspective but also from a career development perspective?
What’s your favorite accomplishment from our dev team in the last 12 months?
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