Omar Martinosa

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Manager README

•Omar•7 min read
work

Omar’s Working Principles

Hello

My name is Omar, I'm an engineering lead. I've software engineer with over 20 years of professional experience.

TL;DR

  • I’m here to remove roadblocks, clarify priorities, seek truth and help you grow - while shipping excellent work at a sustainable pace.
  • I prefer clear, direct communication and well-structured thinking (TL; DR > bullets > essays, examples > abstractions).
  • I care a lot about consistency, accountability and follow-through - but I’m not precious about "my way."
  • If you’re stuck, escalate early. I’d rather help at minute 20 than learn about it on day 9.
  • My default vibe: pragmatic, calm, patient, curious, candid, and practical.

My role as your manager

My job is to create the conditions for you to do your best work. That means:

  • Clarity: priorities, success criteria, filter our distractions, tradeoffs, and "what good looks like."
  • Momentum: unblock decisions, reduce unnecessary threading, protect focus time.
  • Craft: raise the bar in engineering quality and product thinking.
  • Growth: help you build skills, confidence, visibility, and scope over time.
  • Collaboration: you are not alone, I'm here to help and bounce ideas to.

How I measure success

  • You know what matters this week and why.
  • You take ownership of your work.
  • We ship meaningful outcomes - not just activity.
  • Quality improves (reliability, maintainability, UX polish, operational health).
  • You think about what's best for the customer. If something feels off, work towards making it right.
  • You’re growing in scope/impact and can clearly articulate your wins.

My operating principles (what I optimize for)

  • Pursue the truth. Reality over vibes. Evidence over certainty.
  • Quality over quantity Fewer things, done well, over doing many things.
  • Strong opinions, loosely held. I’ll push for a direction, but I’ll change my mind with better info.
  • No hero culture. Sustainable pace and healthy systems > last-minute rescues.
  • Make it easy to do the right thing. Good defaults, automation, templates, documentation.
  • Help when needed. Have an impetus to help your colleagues.
  • Progress over process. Focus on moving forward while circumventing processes that hinder the delivery of work

What you can expect from me

  • I will be direct, constructive and honest, and I’ll do it with respect.
  • I’ll help you cut through ambiguity (requirements, scope, sequencing).
  • I’ll advocate for you-your impact, your growth, and your visibility.
  • I’ll push for high standards (engineering and collaboration), and I’ll help you meet them.

What I expect from you

  • Ownership: bring problems + proposed paths, not just problems. Drive work to the finish line.
  • Transparency: risks early, bad news early, unclear requirements early. Known unknowns, unknown unknowns.
  • Craft & pragmatism: quality matters, but we choose the right level of quality for the moment.
  • Documentation habits: decisions, tradeoffs, and "how to operate this thing" should live somewhere durable.
  • Consistency: progress every week beats occasional sprints.

Communication: how to work with me

Defaults

  • Async by default. Most things don’t need immediate responses.
  • Clarity > volume. Short updates, clear asks, crisp context.

The best way to message me

When you message, include:

  1. What you need
  2. By when
  3. The smallest useful context
  4. Your recommendation (if you have one)
  5. Tip: if your thoughts are unclear, follow the SBAR:
    1. Situation
    2. Background
    3. Assessment
    4. Recommendation

Example:

  • "Need decision on A vs B today. Background: X constraint. A has limitations. I recommend B because Y."

Meetings

  • I love an agenda-even 3 bullets.
  • If a meeting has no goal, it probably shouldn’t exist.
  • I’ll interrupt (politely) to regain clarity if we’re drifting.
  • Please be patient with me, as I may be eager to jump-in and interrupt your train of thought

1:1s (these are for you)

Your 1:1 is your time. We can cover:

  • What’s going well / what’s not
  • What’s draining you or slowing you down
  • Feedback (both directions)
  • Growth goals + current opportunities
  • Bigger-picture career strategy and positioning

If you’re not sure what to bring, use this template:

  • Wins
  • Stucks
  • Risks
  • Energy level
  • Growth / next step
  • Housekeeping items

Feedback (giving and receiving)

How I give feedback

  • Direct, specific, timely, and grounded in examples.
  • I’ll focus on behavior + impact + next time.
  • I'll try to provide constructive feedback, and suggestions on next steps.

How I like to receive feedback

  • Tell me quickly and clearly-especially if something I did created confusion or friction.
  • If it’s sensitive, I prefer synchronous (so we don’t misread tone).
  • I love honest feedback, especially critical feedback. I want to keep growing and improve. Help me by providing clarity so I can better help you.

Decision-making & disagreement

  • I value debate-not debate-as-performance.
  • Disagree openly; align fully once we decide.
  • If we’re stuck: we’ll timebox, define what we need to learn, and pick a reversible path when possible.

A phrase I use a lot:

  • "What can we do with this information?"
    If the discussion isn’t leading to action, we tighten it up.

Execution style (how I like work to flow)

  • Define success criteria early (what does "done" mean?)
  • Prefer small, shippable increments over giant launches.
  • Working ahead as much as possible, avoid surprises.
  • Reduce uncertainty fast: spikes, prototypes, proofs, quick user validation.
  • If you’re spinning your wheels: pause, summarize what you tried, propose 2–3 next moves, and ping me.

Career growth & performance

I’m proactive about growth. Expect me to ask:

  • What scope do you want next?
  • What skills are you trying to build this quarter?
  • What work will create measurable impact and visibility?

I’ll help you translate your work into:

  • outcomes, metrics, narratives, and promotion-ready artifacts.

My quirks & pet peeves (so you don’t have to guess)

  • I don’t love vague updates like "working on it." Tell me what, what’s left, and what’s blocked.
  • I dislike surprise deadlines. If timelines are at risk, I want to know early.
  • I’d rather you ask "dumb" questions than silently guess wrong for a week.
  • I’m allergic to performative busyness. Outcomes > activity.

How to get the best out of me

Bring me:

  • Decisions that need unblocking
  • Hard prioritization calls
  • Ambiguous problems
  • Career strategy questions
  • Reviews of impact writeups / promos / resumes / narratives

If you want fast help, send:

  • Current state
  • Goal
  • Constraints
  • What you tried
  • Your best next step

About me (human stuff)

  • Born and raised in Puerto Rico
  • I’m a Jack of all Trades - I've done many skill areas in my career, where my curiosity drives me to learn many topics, at the sacrifice at becoming an expert at one.
  • I'm not a serious person. I inject humor in my day-to-day. I'm making jokes at meetings and find opportunities to break any tension in discussions.
  • I like structured learning, productivity hacks, consistent habits, game theory, and continuous improvement.
  • Outside work:
    • I have a 7 year old daughter
    • I’m into music/DJ-ing, creative projects (art, creative coding)
    • Play basketball
    • Enjoy traveling to warm locations

Living document

This README will evolve. If something here doesn’t match your experience of working with me, I want to know-tell me and we’ll fix either the README or the behavior.

You can find the README on Github