Management on Og Maciel's Journal

Not a Pitch

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Not a Pitch

The Best Teams Form Around Truth, Not Persuasion

Not a Pitch

It was February 2019 when I was offered the opportunity to become Director of Quality Engineering for the organization where I worked—a role I had spent nearly eight years working toward. It should have felt triumphant. Instead, it felt complicated.

At the time, Quality Engineering was a pillar of its own, separate from Software Engineering, which had its own pillars, directors, senior directors, and vice presidents. The Quality Engineering organization stood alone, and I was one of four or five directors. Above us was a Senior Director—soon to become a Vice President—overseeing a team of roughly 1,300–1,400 software quality engineers.

Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai: What the World Needs, and What We Miss

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai: What the World Needs, and What We Miss

An Ikigai reflection on people, systems, and wasted potential

Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai: Where I Feel Needed

I’ve been circling four Ikigai questions lately: what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. The framework has four overlapping parts, and I’m writing through them one at a time, in the order they’re actually showing up for me.

Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai: What I'm Good At

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai: What I’m Good At

Lessons from feedback, fire drills, and the quiet work of helping people find clarity

What I’m Good At

I’m officially done with work for the year.

This past Friday wrapped things up cleanly—no loose ends, no unfinished tasks—and I now have two full weeks ahead of me. Some of that time comes from the usual year-end shutdown, some from time off I’d accumulated. All of it feels intentionally quiet.

The Gift You Don't Open Right Away

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Gift You Don’t Open Right Away

Finding the truth inside hard feedback

I’ve noticed a slight increase in the number of people reaching out to me for “one last call” before the end of the year. It wouldn’t quite qualify as a surge, but it’s definitely a shift—not just in volume, but in who is reaching out and why.

My calendar is usually full of the expected things: project meetings, team conversations, or discussions with people interested in using the work we’re building. That’s normal. But lately, more people have been asking to talk about something else entirely.

The Role I Wanted—and the One I Left

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Role I Wanted—and the One I Left

This is a cartoonized rendering of a real photograph. All names and identifying details on the shirts have been removed to respect the privacy of the individuals involved.

It was July 16th, 2019. In the photo above, I’m standing with the quality engineering managers who reported to me at the time. Together, we represented what I believed—earnestly—to be the future of quality engineering at the company.

Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai

Photo by Acy Ian Malimban on Unsplash

The end of the year is quickly approaching, and this is the season when people managers get busy completing performance reviews for the engineers who report to them. Some organizations do this once a year; here, we do it every quarter. As I’ve been having these conversations—talking with my team about what excites them about the year ahead, what their goals might be, and what their aspirations look like—the word Ikigai has surfaced more than once.

The Quiet Side of Management

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Quiet Side of Management

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

April 22nd, 2016.

This was the first time in my career, as a manager of software engineers, that I had to let someone go. Not that I hadn’t dealt with performance issues before—there had been engineers and associates who struggled, and a few who ultimately decided to leave rather than continue on a performance improvement plan—but this was the first time I actually had to make the call to terminate someone’s employment.

Crawl, Walk, Run—Rest

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday was a day of quiet time and reflection for me—a forced slowdown after my body decided it had had enough of my constant multitasking and ignored warnings. This entire year has been a relentless stretch of challenges and tight deadlines. Every time someone said it would be impossible to complete a project by a certain date, my response was always the same: hold my beer. Yes, the chaos was self-inflicted. I own that. But what can I say—I have an almost reckless amount of belief in what can be achieved when a group of capable, autonomous engineers who trust each other come together around a shared purpose.

Why I’m Trading SMART Goals for HEART Goals

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I was having coffee in my kitchen and browsing Substack when I came across a note from Courtney Cunningham, where she declared that she was done with the so-called SMART goals.

SMART, as you probably know, is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-bound — a framework for structuring professional and personal goals. If you’re in a leadership position and responsible for helping others achieve their aspirations or close knowledge or behavioral gaps, chances are you’ve heard of SMART goals.