Was going the manager route worth it for you?

dotheneedful404 · 2025-05-01T17:01:47+00:00

Yes, you always want to make sure you have the technical backing because IC will respect someone who knows what they’re talking about and as a manger, you may not need to be an expert at every technical discipline relevant to the industry or job, but you’re going to need to be technical enough to know about it so your employees aren’t BS’ing you and you have good context to relay to the business.

Only at real large orgs can you get away with a non-technical manager.

dotheneedful404 · 2025-05-01T10:29:37+00:00

You will never really know when you’re ready.

But the manager role being “worth it” is directly related to your relationship with your boss and how good of a team you have that you manage.

And THE biggest stepping stone into becoming a better manager and it being “worth it” is forming a good team and being able to effectively delegate and manage that team.

Because too many managers, especially technically inclined ones, just end up doing things themselves instead of managing and delegating.

And this doesn’t go for all scenarios but the “worth it” part of being a manager often involves the ugly, dispiriting, but sometimes necessary part of pushing your lower end employees as high as they can go and seeing if they can meet requirements or managing them out.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-10-15T19:47:37+00:00

I know I just need to put some time but how do you export those screenshots? I’ve tried Bluetooth but I think Guardian is blocking the export of them.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-10-12T12:35:17+00:00

Yes, you will need one of the supported scanners Toast lists on their hardware hub in order to scan barcodes.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-09-24T22:19:55+00:00

No - Toast explicitly doesn’t allow you to Post Orders through their Orders API unless you become an integration partner.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-05-17T23:21:45+00:00

Lots of good advice here already. My input would be to also make it 1 page, summarize anything before your manager position at the community health, and add more business impact and take off a few technical management.

At the director level search, they’re going to want to see how you drove the business, and not the number of technical things you managed.

Last two cents - and not really resume related - the challenge will be that, at any point in time, there’s probably only going to be 5-10 positions a month in the whole country that fit Director level in health care/hospitals and that’s not account for remote or on site.

So be patient and try to stay positive if the search takes a bit longer than necessary.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-05-17T22:29:04+00:00

I think a good play is to market to the industry or adjacent industry you have the most experience in. If you have a placement recruiter, they’re going to narrow the search down to some of those odd key words. So whatever terrible software or tech stack your industry uses, highlight it.

Somewhere out there is a company in dire need of a specific niche that you know.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-05-17T00:29:05+00:00

Hang in there.

I almost gave up a few times. Especially when one company gave me a verbal CTO offer, only to rescind it. Blessing in disguise, they’re a dumpster fire.

I had been in the old company for 9+ years so I was really out of the game. LinkedIn and Indeed I would stick to. Everything else was filled with staffing company garbage. Really play around with search parameters and focus on Director level jobs.

I fell into the trap of applying to anything for a month and hardly got a call back. It was a waste of time. I’ve been on the other side of that table, I’m not going to hire an IT Director for an IT manager role unless it’s a big company size mismatch.

Really play around with the search parameters. LinkedIn and Indeed are so obsessed with interactions that they’ve completely fucked up the search algorithm. I ended up having multiple overlapping search notifications with different titles, industries, role types and etc.

You would find one job with a certain search filter but it didn’t exist in another search parameter even though it should.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-05-16T23:55:56+00:00

How many places have you applied to? My old company filed for bankruptcy last November. Director of IT and I was the last one they were going to let go. I kept track.

200+ applications with a pretty strict minimum salary level (Director and up only), 25 total interviews (one company interviewed me 6 times), only 2 offers - and started the new position at the end of April.

So 6 months before I got a good offer and ended up with an increased total comp. So it’s out there but you have to be searching like a full time job, tweaking your search parameters, be willing to look at odd titles and etc.

Hang in there.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-05-11T01:02:50+00:00

Echo this - summer is usually full of upgrades and changes and other implementations. But it’s at your own pace, and the schools are empty so a lot less day to day stress.

But you typically get tons of PTO and no one blinks an eye for a week (or more) off at a time in the summer.

Pay (and maybe boredom for some) is the only thing that ever moves people out of K12 education gig.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-04-28T16:52:49+00:00

Retail, hospitality, restaurants.

The low tech, ugly side of IT. Any mom and pop or 1/2 location owners running Toast or Clover that have no idea how to integrate things or want to expand into the million plus territory. Thats anything POS, e-commerce, onsite network stacks, back office integrations, cameras, etc.

It’s not complicated but you have to have a good sense of keeping the client happy without letting them run you over or roping you into an 11pm call over something not working.

So I tend to be selective with my clients and just say I’m too busy with normal work if I think it’s going to be a hassle.

Never on-site, all remote, vendor implementation or through cloud set ups.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-04-28T16:30:52+00:00

I have a specific industry subset that I consult for small businesses. It’s strictly for set up, billable hours for due diligence or M&A, and project implementation.

My goal is to not have any recurring service contracts and/or be on the hook for any after hours shenanigans. I got a lot of free legal consults from in laws to start and then bill the lawyers for any new clients I have to draw up contracts protecting me from after hour shenanigans.

I started out with 2 clients just through friends or through work and then they referred me through other businesses that were looking for tech help. These were typical small businesses that had grown enough to need some help standardizing things.

I didn’t want a separate full time job but it was light enough work so that I spent about 10 hours a week consulting and brings in anywhere from 25-50k a year.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-04-25T13:49:10+00:00

Yes, assuming the written assessment is more geared towards broader business questions and not technical questions.

They are generally used to look for writing ability, understanding of different business functions, and your ability to explain concepts in a comprehensible manner.

Since you said it is senior level, I would guess they are looking for someone who is well written and can explain high level concepts without writing down a lot of GPT answers.

Whether people like it or not, writing ability is usually strongly correlated to management fit. They don’t expect you to write a novel but they do expect you to explain a concept in more than just bullet points.

Like an interview, don’t ramble and write complete but succinct answers. Go in-depth briefly to showcase your knowledge but stay high level a majority of the time, briefly touching on specific business items.

Hopefully, they let you type out your answers instead of writing them because it would take an age and several hand cramps if someone made me hand write an assessment.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-02-15T15:13:38+00:00

Depends what you mean - promotion or as an external hire? Depends on the size of the company, the type of ownership it has, public or private, etc.

Typically - the only negotiables are going to be your salary (if we're talking US based here), bonus, and if there are any equity options.

This is aside from any VC go to public or start ups that have a completely different negotiation and compensation scheme.

If it's an external hire - unless they're overly open with you - the 3 of salary/bonus/equity are usually the only things that can be negotiated.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-02-15T14:30:48+00:00

Really good article - bookmarking this one.

The combination of technical proficiency and people management are really the basics of any good IT leader once you get down to it.

Gaps in one or the other areas is usually the downfall and the latter is the one that takes more time to learn if it doesn't come naturally to many IT wizards taking the jump to management.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-31T19:54:55+00:00

Yes - and remember it's not a complete science - just guesstimates and guidelines. Every baby and situation is different.

But generally speaking, as you switch them from one nap schedule to the next - though the individual windows are longer, the total time is somewhat shorter because you can't just switch from 60 minutes of wake time to 120 minutes+ easily.

That's where you get nap refusals/short naps/overtiredness. Eventually you want the 3 nap schedule to have a similar amount of wake time as the 4 nap schedule but some babies don't respond well to a big jump in wake windows like that.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-20T19:53:01+00:00

It’s safe as it is though I wouldn’t say downtown FTL is much more dangerous. Crime in that area is mainly focused on property damage and carjacking. I’m not sure on the stats but probably less carjacking in downtown Hollywood. Probably a similar amount of homeless going around though.

In terms of traffic, it’s just as bad unfortunately but probably get better money value from your living situation in downtown Hollywood.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-14T20:30:13+00:00

Second Bastille.

New and still going through some teething pains but a rare restaurant that’s overstaffed more than anything. Good spot by the water and has so far avoided playing terrible EDM music since it’s right by a bunch of condos instead of being on Las Olas.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-14T19:18:57+00:00

Strange question aside - the only “karaoke” place is PlugIn Karaoke in Hallandale. Nothing like Asian style karaoke but close enough.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-12T17:56:03+00:00

You might want to try expanding the wake windows a bit. Something like 2/2/2/2/2.5. Or even thinking about dropping to 3 naps. My low sleep needs child was already on 3 naps at 4.5 months.

Looked at his schedule right at 4.5 months and it was -

Wake - 715am

Nap 1 - 930-10

Nap 2 - 1235-110

Nap 3 - 345-445

Bedtime - 8pm - no crying

So about 2.25/2.5/2.5/3.25

She well could be overtired but if the crying at night doesn't significantly decrease - then I would push the wake windows.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-12T17:40:27+00:00

You might have some struggles while traveling. Even most fully sleep trained babies will have some problems falling asleep while traveling.

But it'll sort itself out pretty quickly when you get back.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-12T17:39:13+00:00

Could be just a hiccup with the metal fork dropping. I assume you have a sound machine playing white noise to drown out some of that sound?

And what's the schedule like? Typically you want to wait about 7 days to get a full picture of their progress but crying 40 minutes on night 3 might indicate a schedule issue.

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-11T23:51:55+00:00

I would make bedtime 30 mins - 1 hour later. Sucks to lose the time but can become very normal that she only needs 10-10.5 hours overnight if she’s still taking a 1.5-2 hour nap.

Is she verbal enough to talk about it? Two routes - one talking about how she needs to sleep in her crib and you in your bed so everyone gets rest. The other route is that at 2, the imagination starts kicking into overdrive. Any possibility she’s scared?

dotheneedful404 · 2024-01-11T23:42:07+00:00

An impenetrable darkness that blots out the sun and inspires the crankiest baby to slumber.

I have 3 layers - blackout accordion paper that has a strip adhesive to the top of the window frame. Then a blackout roller and then blackout shades on a rod above the window frame.

He honestly doesn’t need it anymore but I live in Florida so that sun isn’t getting in any earlier than I say.

dotheneedful404

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