Skip to content

Office Manager

Role

The Office Manager is a technical team leader that organizes the development team, supports their work, and provides administrative structure.

Responsibilities

  • Mentor development team and resolve conflicts as an impartial party
  • Report the needs and limits of the development team upward
  • Ensure development billable hours are tracked by person and by project
  • Use technical and company knowledge to manage development team priorities
  • Approve vacation requests and enforce use of the calendar
  • Schedule internal meetings with development team resources as necessary
  • Foster open and honest company communication
  • Use knowledge of individual developer skills and workload to assign projects
  • Take on administrative functions required by the company as needed
  • Develop or acquire training or proficiency resources for the company
  • Participate in employee hiring interviews

Description

The Office Manager is a technical position that focuses on the organization of the development team. It is equal parts supervision, program management, and administrative assistant. The Office Manager serves as a focal point for the development team by advocating for their needs with administration, as well as providing mentorship and guidance to the team. Mentorship includes technical and personal advice, as well as emotional support as needed.

This role enforces good practices throughout the company, which include the proper use of the calendar to mark vacations, sick days, and travel, as well as the use of tools to track billable hours by project and by person. If any other tracking, communication, or "structure" needs arise, the Office Manager will develop the rules for these, acquire solutions, and enforce their use.

Projects must be assigned based on developer capabilities and workload, and it is the responsibility of the Office Manager to anticipate new projects and their place in the development team's schedule. This may require advising administration of skill or developer shortages, projects too large for the current bandwidth capability, as well as the opposite: developers that are available for tasks or can handle additional workload. This is accomplished by an understanding of each individual development team member and each project's demands on that person and the team.

How to be successful

  • Get to know the development team. Understand their strengths and weaknesses. Be a friend as well as an impartial and honest conduit to administration.
  • Understand the company's project architecture and capabilities. Push back when project expectations cannot be met by the development team. Spur team members to meet or improve on previous similar project timelines and goals. Encourage innovation when it is safe to do so. Know what the development team has in their toolbox. Stay on top of schedules as they progress and report/troubleshoot any problems or interruptions.
  • Enforce standards and structure. Understanding the needs of the company and the development team will allow you to provide, hype up, and monitor tools and rules that will allow the company to function and improve. Keeping track of billable hours ensures invoices are accurate and timely. Keeping an accurate calendar helps to schedule projects and redirect questions.
  • Report upward honestly and frequently. Keep administration aware of pitfalls and successes. Attempt to accurately forecast the need for work, or the team's inability to take on any more work. Deal with simple problems and schedule issues at the lowest level, but know when to escalate.

Common Tasks

  • Monitor billable hour tracking, remind employees to update and maintain it
  • Attend project or Scrum meetings, as needed
  • Monitor and approve employee off-time, travel, sick days, and maintain the calendar
  • Mentor and guide employees as needed
  • Research training and standards to enhance company performance
  • Conduct employee feedbacks, with at least one feedback session per quarter per employee
  • Ensure employees are on-track for their projects, discover and attempt to remove any roadblocks
  • Find suitable work for employees that have a lighter workload, especially helping others with their projects
  • Advise employees about their priorities

Requirements

  • At least three years working in an IT, programming, web development, engineering, or mathematical environment
  • At least one year in a management role OR one year as an administrative assistant OR one year as human resources or similar
  • Familiarity with web development languages and best practices, particularly Javascript, React, PHP, SQL
  • Knowledge of Scrum or similar Agile framework
  • A demonstrated ability to resolve conflicts and manage priorities

Desired Requirements

  • At least one year as Scrum Master or similar Agile role
  • At least two years of successful team management