Fun Fact: This is based on a true story 🙂
TL;DR:
As an EM, it's your responsibility to spot performance dips – even in senior engineers – and have candid, supportive conversations to help them get back on track. This is especially critical in projects shifting toward maintenance, where motivation can dip. Be factual, empathetic, and solution-oriented. Your goal isn't to confront, but to coach and course-correct.
DETAILS:
What if you come to notice that the most senior person of your team, the Senior Principal Engineer (we’ll call him Mr. X) is not working up to the mark? How do you talk to him?
A] Things that may go through your mind:
“He’s a very senior person, deeply knowledgeable about the product, platform, and people.”
“You might hesitate to have this ‘difficult’ conversation because of his influence.”
“You may worry he could get defensive or even politically align against you.”
”The project has moved into a maintenance phase — does that justify lower output?”
Important Note:
If you're in this situation – you're not alone. It’s happened before, it's happening now, and it’ll happen again. What matters is how you navigate it.
B] Thoughts that you should have in your mind:
Your goal as an EM is to ensure every team member is delivering at or above their expected level – both by company standards and their individual potential.
When this doesn’t happen, your team’s overall output takes a hit. It’s your responsibility to address this quickly – while remaining empathetic and humane in your approach.
C] Steps you can take as an EM in such scenarios:
Gather facts:
Why do you think Mr. X is slipping and not performing properly? What facts can you gather?
It’s always better to prepare yourself well while speaking with a senior person in the team – not to defend yourself (remember, it’s not a fight – hence there aren’t any defenders or attackers), but to prepare yourself well so that you can help him with focused points to work on. Remember, your and your team member’s time is valuable – so, use it vigilantly and fruitfully.
Talk to the testing team. Ask for any quantitative numbers they can provide for example, number of re-opened bugs, delivery time and quality, responsiveness of their queries. Do the same with others (both internal and external stakeholders).
Talk to him with an open mind and the clear intention to support his success.
Your number one goal in this conversation should be to help him get back to performing at his potential.
You share the facts and express your concern about his delivery. You also must mention that since the project has been shifted to more of a maintenance project, you understand that the visibility of the work might have reduced but then explain that the quality of the work shouldn’t get reduced here.
You need to listen to what your engineer is saying about all these.
It’s natural for them to offer reasons for the delay or dip in quality. Try not to judge, rather try to understand if those points are genuine or not and whether he is open to improving or not.
Fixing Plan
Next, you both should come up with an action plan for this.
Note that this is NOT an official performance improvement plan or PIP.
At this stage, you need to act as a mentor who is trying to help a mentee to improve in his work – that’s all.
You, as a manager will have more idea about how to improve his delivery – do this mental plan before you talk to him.
Agree on an informal timeline and specific areas he’ll focus on to improve.
Support him in every reasonable way you can – coaching, mentoring, removing blockers, or offering perspective.
If you see he is trying to improve, that’s good – eventually he will. If he’s not then talk to him and try to find the root cause. Depending on the root cause, your next steps will be decided.
Now, lemme give you a snapshot of what had happened actually in the true story:
The manager approached Mr. X with an open mind. He asked about his health and well-being, and subtly inquired whether he was enjoying the shift in the project’s direction (from being actively enhancement-oriented to maintenance-oriented).
The Sr. Principal Engineer (Mr. X) mentioned that the shift was likely to happen (as the PMs have been indicating) but still somehow he’s not able to go with this shift.
The EM acknowledged that for any developer just fixing bugs isn’t very exciting.
But the EM also emphasized that Mr. X still needed to stay engaged and deliver. The important point is, the EM didn’t just emphasize that, he also came up with a little plan.
The EM then suggested areas where Mr. X might find renewed interest, such as:
Refactor legacy code and mentor junior engineers on the process
Write a series of internal technical blogs on the project’s architecture and patterns
Identify and fix critical bugs – whether documented or previously overlooked
Mr. X appreciated that the EM was genuinely trying to help him get back on track and took all that feedback positively.
Over the next few weeks, the engineer fixed most of the remaining critical bugs and released updates with zero P0 issues. He also published technical documentation, gave internal talks, and re-engaged deeply with the project. His involvement and enthusiasm noticeably increased.
His renewed energy had a ripple effect: other senior and junior engineers – and even Product Managers – began thinking more critically about productivity and user experience. The overall sincerity and ownership across the team improved.
Seeing this turnaround and positive influence, the EM was happy to reward him with a strong performance bonus.
You see – things don’t happen without a reason. I’ve seen managers who listen only at the surface level and avoid digging into the underlying why. This often happens when they become too attached to the authority that comes with the title of “manager” – or any role with power, really.
This is a trap – and one that often hurts the manager more than anyone else, eroding trust, credibility, and influence over time. When you cling to authority instead of embracing humility and curiosity, you lose effectiveness and growth.
The sooner you step out of that mindset, the better leader and human you’ll become. Of course, there will be times when curiosity, kindness, and empathy don’t lead to improvement. In those moments, you may need to lean on authority – but use it judiciously. Power and authority are two-sided swords.