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LeadershipProcess4 min read
Office hours for engineers
Engineers don't want a meeting on their calendar. They might appreciate a recurring slot where they can drop in if needed — a quietly different shape.
Recurring 1:1s feel mandatory and rigid. Skip-level meetings can feel performative. "My door is always open" is a sentence engineers nod at and ignore. Office hours — a specific recurring time where the leader is available, no agenda required — fill a useful gap.
Why office hours work
- Lower-stakes than a calendared meeting — drop in or don't.
- Predictable — engineers know when they can find you.
- Self-selecting — the people who come actually have something on their mind.
- Cumulative — you build relationships over time, organically.
How to run them
30 to 60 minutes, weekly. Same time every week. Open invite. No agenda. You sit in the room (or stay in the Zoom) regardless of whether anyone shows. After a few weeks, people start showing up. Once they do, the conversations are more useful than scheduled 1:1s usually are.
The best 1:1 you'll have this quarter is probably the one nobody scheduled.