Work Review

“Paul’s direct, brutally honest feedback is one of his greatest strengths. He doesn’t sugarcoat weaknesses and offers clear, practical guidance on improvement. I truly cherish our relationship and hope to continue it in …” “Paul’s direct, brutally honest feedback is one of his greatest strengths. He doesn’t sugarcoat weaknesses and offers clear, practical guidance on improvement. I truly cherish our relationship and hope to continue it in the future when I need it.” Read more Show less

Tinh

Lite Plan · 11 months

“A few years ago, I was promoted to lead an org of roughly 60 people, including managers, staff engineers, and TLs. Despite the team size and scale, I was operating like an IC (heavily involved in system design and tried…” “A few years ago, I was promoted to lead an org of roughly 60 people, including managers, staff engineers, and TLs. Despite the team size and scale, I was operating like an IC (heavily involved in system design and tried to solve every technical problems). Reading books, getting company provided coach, and working with internal mentor wasn't working for me I wanted to be an effective leader and scale my management style to run my org effectively I reached out to a few mentors on MentorCruise and Paul was the right fit after our intro session. There are a few things I learned under his mentorship 1. Patience: Initially, he let me bring him simple problems and gave me answers. After a few months, he pointed out that I wasn't spending enough time to think through my problem because I knew he was my safety net. That hit me hard since it's true yet I did not feel upset. Paul's patience and humanity made me feel like he wanted me to grow 2. 90% of the problems are solvable by having a backbone. Paul acted as a sounding board, giving me the confidence to have a backbone to have tough conversation with my manager, stakeholders, and direct reports 3. Engineering management mechanism: Paul shared mechanisms like weekly reviews, owner with date, set goal, let them figure out. These are simple yet effective framework to run the team at my scale The change is so big - I re-read my old notes and I would fire my two-year-ago self from asking those questions or taking/not taking actions to manage my team. By applying these frameworks and having Paul as my sounding board, my org has delivered outsized results including a conversion optimization that's equivalent to 12 months of a/b testings. We also stabilized our infra, moving from the least stable team in the company to one of the most reliable I am very lucky to have Paul as my mentor for the past few years” Read more Show less

Ekk

Standard Plan · 2 years

“Paul is a great mentor with a strong understanding of career progression through driving impact in software teams. If you're looking for principled decision making, effective promotion plan building, and being shown you…” “Paul is a great mentor with a strong understanding of career progression through driving impact in software teams. If you're looking for principled decision making, effective promotion plan building, and being shown your blind spots, look no further than sessions with Paul.” Read more Show less

Sean

Standard Plan · 4 months

“Paul was very kind and easy to talk to, and I appreciate the time I spent with him. After two sessions, though, I realized he wasn't quite the right fit for what I was looking for in a mentor. I felt that a lot of the a…” “Paul was very kind and easy to talk to, and I appreciate the time I spent with him. After two sessions, though, I realized he wasn't quite the right fit for what I was looking for in a mentor. I felt that a lot of the advice centered around needing to give up many other commitments, which I understand can be necessary at times. However, I didn't feel like my personal situation or the specific challenges I was facing were fully understood. I left feeling that my concerns weren't really being heard, so I don't think it was the right match for me. I can definitely see how his approach could work well for others—it just wasn't the best fit for my needs. ” Read more Show less

Sailesh

Standard Plan · 1 month