We were good friends. He knew every one of my strengths and what I could accomplish if given the freedom. And he gave me it in spades, enough to see a shared vision into a very successful end product.

He helped evangelize my work and got people excited about it, and had as much a part in the success as anything because of the barriers he removed, the air cover he gave me to allow the time to fix the biggest issues of it, all while helping me triage bugs and provide end-user support.

He was highly technical, and understood my code. He didn’t step on my toes or try to force any technical direction in any way, he knew well enough to delegate, and trusted my decisions. But provided amazing advice when I needed it.

Eventually he had too many people on his team and needed help managing, and I ended up getting promoted to a manager (still under him) mostly out of a favor to help him out.

That was the beginning of the end though, because eventually a reorg moved my new team to a different side of the larger org. And everything kinda went to shit after that and I left the company.

Lesson learned: Don’t become a manager as a favor to someone if you’re not ready for it.