David Witherspoon

In layperson terms, what do you actually do at work?

I manage 3 teams of developers, with each team working on a different product. My job entails a number of things: - I set the bar on quality of what the development team delivers. So if my people do shoddy work, we need to talk. - I work with the product architect to ensure we're building it the right way. I need to understand how the architect sees our product being built, much like a house. I need to understand that vision so that I can help guide my team to realize that vision. - I work with the product owner to make sure we understand what features s/he wants in the product. If the product owner asks for features that aren't feasible, we discuss that. But mostly, it's about understanding the features s/he is asking for. - I work with others across the organization to provide help for things I know about and to acquire help on things I need help with. I need to know others in other parts of the company, and they need to know me. That helps to share knowledge. - I hire, train, and mentor one intern on one of my teams per quarter. I love having an intern on my team! - I volunteer to be a mentor for interns in Elavon and USBank. I like working with students to help them get the most out of their internship. - I communicate up, down and sideways. I need to let my management know about areas where things are going well, and where it's not going well (and I could use their help). Other teams need to know what we're doing, in case they can learn from that (or vice versa). And I need to communicate down to my people so that they know what I know. - I try to ensure all my people know where they are on their career path, and what it takes to reach the next level. I'd like to see all of my people reach their highest potential, either in my team or another. - I protect my teams from unreasonable external pressure. It's easy for a company to demand that work get done faster than it can be done (and done well). So part of my job is to protect the team from that.