From Accidental Leader to Netflix Engineering Manager: How to Build High-Trust Remote Teams Without Daily Standups, With Manny de Souza

Manny is currently an Engineering Leader at Netflix and previously Director of Engineering at Carta, with almost 20 years of experience in gaming, development, and platform engineering. He also writes a newsletter called "The Monday Manager."

What was your path into Engineering Leadership?

I don't feel like I chose this path—I think the path chose me. Looking back 15 years ago to my first leadership role, I was accidentally promoted to management. The company hired me as a staff engineer, and I was leading some projects in a casino company, which was a subsidiary of a London company. I was working remotely from Brazil at the time.

Within my first month, my manager was let go, which was shocking for our team. Since we were a small subsidiary of about 70 people, the CTO came directly to me and said, "We're growing, but we don't have anyone to immediately take the manager role. I think you're the most suitable person."

I politely disagreed at first, thinking people wouldn't be happy with this decision. I was told, "Hold on, we'll find another manager." But then I got promoted to Director, then to VP, and stayed with the company for four years.

When I left, I joined a content marketing startup with friends because I was passionate about startups. On my first day, the CTO told me, "Great you're here—by the way, I'm leaving in two days!" History repeated itself, and I became CTO of this small company of four or five engineers. Later, I got into 500 Startups in San Francisco for acceleration and wore both the PM and CTO hats.

After that experience, I wanted to move to the Bay Area permanently. I had offers from Amazon for a senior manager role in Ireland, but I chose a very small startup called e-Shares (now Carta). I joined as a regular engineer, doing tech lead work and coding. Soon after, the CTO approached me saying, "You're doing such a fantastic job—congratulations, you're going to be the second manager in the company!"

By this point, I wondered if I even remembered how to code after doing management for so long. I stayed at Carta until leaving for Netflix. When interviewing for new roles, I realized maybe the universe was sending me a message to stay in management. My PM at Carta even said, "For the sake of the universe, stay as a manager—there are way too many bad managers compared to bad engineers, and you're a good one."

How do you navigate between startups vs. large companies like Netflix?

The challenges are similar but at completely different scales. At Carta, we had limited ammunition to hit targets. At a bigger company like Netflix, there's more wiggle room to invest in goals and double down on initiatives.

In startups, especially at Series A/B stage, you're in survival mode until you break even. You're "selling lunch to have dinner." At Netflix, though financially responsible, we can make strategic investments with more confidence.

Conversely, you can move faster in smaller startups. In a large company, when something impacts multiple areas, you need to involve many teams across different organizations, which becomes complex. My team at Netflix has 13 stakeholder groups, each with different subgroups. Managing the ingestion of content for Netflix involves numerous vendors and internal and external teams. It feels more complicated being a manager here than being a director elsewhere.

The job itself isn't very different—it's how close I can be to problems. At Carta, my domain was more focused and self-contained. At Netflix, it's more horizontal, which can feel overwhelming. I have to be more selective about what I focus on, with leads and engineers helping to divide and conquer.

When I was onboarding at Netflix, my director warned me, "You're going to feel like you're drinking water from a fire hose." Despite my experience at Carta, he was right—the amount of information flowing freely is massive. You have to prioritize what's important to absorb.

Another difference is how product management works. At Netflix, product people are very strategic—they don't get into the weeds of daily standup meetings. You typically get a strategic document rather than a detailed PRD with specific requirements. As an engineering leader here, I also play a tactical execution role, which I love.

What does a typical day look like for you, and how do you keep morale up in a remote team?

Managers don't have typical days—every day is different. It's like an inverted "dinosaur chart." At the start of each quarter, there's a massive amount of work: wrapping up plans, reassessing, aligning with other teams, and coordinating roadmaps. As things kick off, my focus narrows to actual hands-on work with teams. At the end of the quarter, it gets complex again with retros and assessments.

At Netflix, I spend roughly equal time across four areas: people, product, business, and platform. At Carta, it was 90% with my team making sure work got done, and 10% reporting and alignment.

I typically meet weekly with all my leads and monthly with ICs. I spend significant time reading drafts and memos since Netflix has a heavy memo culture. I usually PM most of the technical work with other leads, especially when we have a well-defined strategy but ambiguity in delivery details.

Regarding engineering processes, the big tech companies don't follow rigid agile frameworks. You need to be flexible—things pivot and change. We have brilliant people here—just trust them. We're not running daily standups asking about completed tasks. Instead, I provide context about problems and let engineers bring recommendations on how to solve them.

To keep morale high in a remote environment, we follow a cycle of education and practice. We have at least one off-site per quarter where we focus on team building and education. For example, I've invited my PM to join our off-sites, and together we created a "Product for Engineers" program. Engineers love learning how to interview stakeholders, prioritize work, and think like PMs.

The key is aligning your team's work to important company initiatives so ICs can see their impact. Not all projects will be glamorous—there's tech debt and migrations too. We joke that we're like birds, always migrating. But if you align people with work that makes sense for their career growth, they'll be excited.

We also build connections at a personal level through activities during off-sites—playing bocce or golf together helps create team bonding beyond just talking about projects in meeting rooms. This makes working together easier, especially in a remote environment where you don't know anyone personally.

While it's not mandatory to attend all in-person gatherings, there is an expectation that people join occasionally. I'm blessed with a team that has 100% attendance during these events—they love hanging out together.

What's your favorite clothing brand?

I love the way I dress because it's simple and clean. I don't want to impress anyone—I just want to reduce my cognitive load when making decisions. Vince is amazing—I love their t-shirts and jackets. AG for jeans is super comfortable, as is Paige.

I went through a phase of being into designer brands, but most are uncomfortable. The only one I fell in love with (which my wife introduced me to) is Loro Piana. I don't recommend it to anyone because there's no turning back—it's incredibly comfortable, like wearing a cloud, but it's a 10-year goal kind of brand. It's extremely high quality and lasts a lifetime. When my wife and I travel to Brazil, which can be a 24-hour journey with layovers, I'll wear Loro Piana for comfort.

You were a stay-at-home dad for two years before returning to the workforce. Which was harder, and was it tough to get offers after your career break?

Both roles are hard, just in different ways. I wouldn't change our decision. When my wife got pregnant, I realized I could work from home as a software engineer and freelance. I left my job intentionally to stay with her during pregnancy. After she delivered, I stayed home until her maternity leave ended. It made more sense for her to keep her job while I stayed home, as it would be easier for me as a software developer to find work later.

When my daughter reached daycare age around two, I returned to the workforce. It was a fantastic experience, though challenging. As first-time parents, we over-prepared, but nothing went as expected—there's no manual! With our second child, my wife stayed home, but we felt more prepared and didn't panic.

This experience gave me tremendous empathy for single parents, especially mothers, with all the expectations placed on them.

Returning to the workforce was difficult, particularly in Brazil, where the culture questioned why a man would raise a child. During interviews, people asked why I was freelancing, and when I explained I stayed home with my child so my wife could keep her job, few believed me. It's similar to how people react to layoffs today—they don't believe it's not performance-related.

I had to heavily leverage my network and referrals to get back in. Unfortunately, I returned to the workforce as a game developer right before the 2008 financial crisis hit, and I was laid off. With the economy crashing, game developers weren't being hired, so I pivoted to general software development. Eventually, I found a position developing an operating system for games through a friend's referral.

As a parent, there's no option to fail—you have a family to take care of, and every penny matters.