Scenarios

Take the hit here first

One scenario is live right now. New ones go up most weeks.

Free pack

The First-Time EM Emergency Kit

The conversations that catch new engineering managers off guard in their first months — starting with the 1:1 that's quietly going nowhere.

- First-Time EM Kit · 01
- Weight class: hard
- 6–8 exchanges
- 12–18 min
I don't see the point in our 1:1s
An experienced engineer gives you one-word answers and finally says he'd rather be working on his tickets. Win the 1:1 back without defending the meeting, pulling rank, or turning it into a status report.
Open scenario →

Coming soon

Pack

The Performance & Accountability Pack

When the work or the conduct isn't meeting the bar — the rating, the behaviour, the last day.

7 scenarios planned for this pack

You're not meeting the bar for your level
Your work is the best on the team. How you treat people isn't.
Today is your last day
Putting someone on a performance improvement plan without it reading as the end
The deadline that keeps slipping and the engineer who keeps promising
Telling a coaster what everyone else already sees
Why they got promoted and you didn't

Pack

The Compensation & Promotion Pack

Pay and promotion: the raise that isn't coming, the title that didn't land, the counter-offer you didn't expect.

7 scenarios planned for this pack

There's no budget for your raise
They have a competing offer and want you to match it
I got the promotion — so why didn't my pay change?
The promo committee said not this cycle
You're asking for more than your level pays
The market moved and half your team is now underpaid
A retention bump for one, and the team that will find out

Pack

The Executive & Product Pushback Pack

Holding your ground upward: saying no to a VP, defending the roadmap, pushing back on a deadline you didn't set.

7 scenarios planned for this pack

Saying no to the deadline your Product manager already promised
Defending the roadmap to an exec who wants it all now
Your boss overruled you in front of the team
Pushing back on a feature you think is a mistake
The reorg you were told to sell but don't agree with
Asking for headcount you probably won't get
When product and engineering want opposite things

Pack

The Morale & Crisis Management Pack

Steadying a team through the bad weeks: a reorg, an outage, a resignation, a room that's lost trust.

7 scenarios planned for this pack

The team heard about layoffs before you told them
A key engineer just handed in their notice
The blameless postmortem after a public outage
Morale cratered after the reorg
Someone's burning out and won't say so
Rallying the team after a launch that flopped
The star hire who's quietly checked out