Welcome to the team! I'm looking forward to getting to know you. I’m Drew. My pronouns are he/they. You can learn more about me here.
What follows is an operating manual for working with me. It lays out what an average week looks like, my guiding principles, and a few things to know about how I work. My goal is to help us quickly establish a foundation for doing meaningful, high-impact work together.
I’ve created a Canvas in our Slack DM for capturing topics we can review during our 1:1s. We’ll meet for 30 minutes every week. This meeting isn’t for status updates—it’s our opportunity to share feedback, raise concerns, and explore opportunities together.
You can Slack me any time. I’ll respond as soon as I can based on the circumstances. I don’t expect you to respond to my non-urgent messages outside of normal working hours. I also don’t expect you to work weekends.
My calendar is public and I use it deliberately to communicate where I am and what I’m working on. If you have a question about something, please reach out. If you need to schedule time with me, share an agenda and the purpose for the meeting so I can come prepared.
Mistakes are opportunities for learning and growth. People reach their highest potential by being challenged in a supportive environment where they can learn from failure. I invest in building learning-oriented, psychologically safe environments, and I expect you to do the same.
I start with trust, and work to earn it in return. I assume positive intent and start from a place of trust with the teams I work with. I build and sustain trust by listening, following through on commitments, and acting with integrity.
The map is not the territory. Our mental models are always incomplete, and reality has a way of diverging from our plans. Part of my role is to build systems that reduce surprises, but surprises will still happen. When they do, I want us to surface issues early so we have room to adapt.
Prioritize outcomes over outputs. A millimeter of progress in a thousand directions rarely leads to meaningful impact. When you propose work, I care most about what outcome it drives and how it connects to our goals. If the intended outcome isn’t clear, expect clarifying questions from me—not as pushback, but to help sharpen focus.
When outcomes are at risk. I don’t need to be involved in everything, but I do want to be involved where I can help remove obstacles, reduce risk, and adjust direction. The earlier risks surface, the more options we have.
When you are uncertain or stuck. Work is often more complex than it appears at the outset. If the path forward is unclear—because of dependencies, ambiguity, or something else—loop me in so I can help you get unstuck.
When trust or clarity is breaking down. Misalignment, conflicting priorities, or communication issues compound when left unaddressed. These signals aren’t always visible, but they’re always important.
When you learn something important. If you learn something that meaningfully changes your understanding of the problem, the system, or the organization, I want to hear about it. Learning is leverage—and sharing it multiplies its impact.
When you’re proud of the work. Pride is a useful signal for impact and growth. I want to celebrate these moments with you and better understand what “good work” looks like from your perspective.
I believe feedback is essential for growth. I try to give feedback that’s timely, specific, and grounded in outcomes. I’ll ask you for your feedback during our 1:1s, but I encourage you to share with me at any time. If something isn’t working for you, I’d rather hear about it early so we can address it together. I’ll do my best to receive feedback openly, and I may ask follow-up questions to make sure I understand.
I default to problem-solving. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it’s not. If you’re not looking for solutions and simply need to be heard, please let me know. While I’m aware of my tendency to jump to fixes, I don’t always catch myself in time.
I don’t always ask for help early. I’m actively working on this one.
I do my best work with clear mental models. Understanding the reasoning and strategy behind projects and high-priority tasks can be a requirement for me. I have a hard time getting my bearings if I don’t have a strong mental model for the big picture. Similarly, I ask a lot of questions about technical systems so that I can represent problems and priorities in those systems fully.
I’m not great at reading between the lines. Subtle or coded messages often fly right over my head. Being direct about what you need or what’s on your mind works best, and I’ll ask clarifying questions when I think I’m missing something.
This is a living document and likely incomplete. If something feels missing, unclear, or inaccurate, I’d appreciate you letting me know.