What My Final Review as a Manager Revealed About Me (and the Company) 🧾

Leadership didn’t burn me out. Everything around it did.

I didn’t step down from management because I wasn’t cut out for it. I stepped down because I couldn’t keep doing it the right way in an environment that didn’t make it sustainable. My final review didn’t surprise me, but it gave me a lot to think about. Some of it rang true. Some of it missed the point. All of it pushed me to reflect — not just on myself, but on how we structure leadership, growth, and expectations in tech.

Here’s what the review said — and what I really think about it.

1. “Peter struggled to accept the added background/administrative tasks…” 🗂️

Let’s be clear: I didn’t struggle with the tasks themselves. I struggled with the strategy that created them.

A flood of administrative work landed in our laps in 2023 — new systems, new expectations, new reporting layers — and none of it was acknowledged in planning or resourcing. These weren’t just background tasks. They were real time sinks that pulled people away from meaningful work.

So I adapted.

I reduced our team’s allocation for feature work from the standard 75% to 50%, accounting for the spike in meetings, administrative overhead, and onboarding new tools. I adjusted our quarterly planning from fixed scope to a range, based on the team’s historical low-to-high median velocity — giving us more flexibility to deliver value without burning out.

I accounted for it with my team.
I just wish upper management had done the same for mine.

2. “Peter didn’t value the work and output that managers provide…” 🤝

I value the role. Deeply.

I loved managing my team. I found joy in supporting people, building trust, and making space for others to succeed. But the environment made it exhausting. The role was overloaded. The systems meant to support us just added more friction. Direction was handed down, not co-created. And too often, I had no say in what my team worked on, or how.

We had agile training. I embraced it. Most others didn’t. I tried to reverse waterfall. Others doubled down. My team had four managers in a year, and sometimes they were working outside the sprint without me even knowing.

My feedback came off like frustration. But it wasn’t complaining — it was radical candor in a system that wasn’t ready to hear it.

3. “Peter struggled to identify goals and growth areas…” 🌱

That one stings because it’s partially true — but it’s not because I lacked ambition or clarity. It’s because growth at CG felt directionless.

I’ve had six managers in a relatively short span. One’s now a Senior Manager. Two became Directors. One’s a VP. And one, I personally recommended to take over after I stepped down. There’s been a lot of upward movement — for those around me.

I’ve been on four different teams. I was promoted to Principal — not for a milestone or impact, but as a consolation after I declined my initial management role offer. A “vanity title,” without a clear definition or pathway.

I moved to DevX because I couldn’t secure the UI Architect role my team needed. If I couldn’t improve developer experience in one org, I figured I’d try doing it company-wide. I dig into tech, systems, and process wherever I can. But there’s a big difference between effort and growth — and some days it feels like CG is getting more out of me than I’m getting out of it.

4. “Peter didn’t show a bias for action to foster leadership change…” 🔄

Disagree.

I pushed for change every day — I just didn’t pretend it was easy. And I learned that I could push better as an IC than a manager. Less red tape. More bandwidth. More candid conversations without navigating the politics of the role.

At HubSpot, we had someone dedicated to developer happiness — not a manager, not a director, just someone focused on making things better. He helped me solve one of the hardest personnel issues of my career. I still think about that.

The best tech companies I’ve worked at put people first. Everything else followed. It’s hard to watch leadership forget that.

5. “Peter took too long to manage someone out…” 🧠💔

I completely agree.

I held out hope longer than I should have. I gave too much benefit of the doubt. I let empathy delay action. And in the end, it made things harder for everyone — for the individual, for me, and for the team.

But I’m not alone in that. The company struggles with this too. I’ve seen underperformance persist for years. I’ve watched engineers get promoted into roles they weren’t ready for. I’ve seen teams carry dead weight because the cost of confrontation seemed too high.

I don’t say that to deflect blame — I say it to highlight a pattern. We talk about operational excellence, but we don’t act on what we already know: you can’t build high-performing teams if you won’t deal with low performance.

Final Thoughts ✍️

What I did as a manager — the late nights, the 1:1s, the documentation, the planning, the quiet emotional labor — I did to protect the team. That was always the goal. But leadership only works when it’s paired with support, autonomy, and the ability to steer.

What I learned through that review wasn’t just about my growth areas — it was about how our systems flatten people, suppress momentum, and reward those who go with the flow over those who challenge it.

If we want to retain good leaders, we need to create space for their growth, too.
If we want managers to succeed, we need to stop asking them to compensate for broken systems.
If we want teams to thrive, we need to stop settling for “better than nothing.”

Because once you burn out the people who care — all you’re left with are the ones who don’t. 🕯️