Biggest Challenges Faced By A Firmware Manager At Zoox
Ryan, a Firmware Manager at Zoox, identifies the biggest challenge in the role as "effectively...understanding and meeting people where they're at," emphasizing the importance of understanding individual differences in abilities, workflows, and motivations amongst engineers. This highlights the nuanced, human element of leadership, surpassing purely technical challenges in a complex engineering environment.
Communication, Teamwork, Leadership, Empathy, Management
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Ryan Gleim
Firmware Manager
Zoox
California Polytechnic State University
California Polytechnic State University
Computer Science
Technology
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
Video Highlights
1. Effective communication and understanding diverse team members are crucial.
2. Empathy and considering individual strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and backgrounds are essential for team management.
3. Navigating the undefined aspects of project management and working with people presents more challenges than strictly technical problems.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
My biggest challenge in my current role is effectively understanding and meeting people where they're at. This goes back to effective communication skills, as everybody is different. Everybody has different abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and most people have a slightly different workflow.
I'm very fortunate that I work with a bunch of engineers, and I was and still am an engineer. Those personalities tend to blend fairly well, but everybody has different motivations, different concerns, and different personal backgrounds. Really trying to understand those, empathize with those, and meet people where they're at, I would say, is the biggest overall challenge.
I think a lot of times people want to talk about the biggest challenge from a technical standpoint, like we're making this great product that's really hard to do. But those things are already defined problems. It's the undefined world that brings the most challenges in respect to just people working with people and how people are.
Advizer Personal Links