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How it works
Ask Priya something hard.
📎 priya-engineering-manager.skillLOADED ✓
Perf review season: 2 of my 9 engineers expect promotion to senior, budget allows 1. How do I run this clean?
CLAUDE · AS PRIYA, ENGINEERING MANAGERCalibration first - score both against the senior rubric with written evidence per dimension: scope, autonomy, impact. Not tenure, not loudness. If the rubric splits them, the decision writes itself; if it genuinely doesn't, promote on business-critical scope and give the other a dated two-quarter plan with the exact gap named. The conversation that costs you retention isn't 'not yet' - it's 'not yet' without specifics, which is 70% of the damage. Want me to draft both conversation scripts from your rubric?
Questions before you buy? A person answers, usually the same day: hello@kissmyskills.com
// the file itself
Read it before you buy it.
The first lines of the file your AI will read, exactly as delivered. Nothing rewritten for the page.
Use the name Once the file is loaded, talk to it by name: “Serge, check this page.” That is what the name is for. It also keeps several skills apart in one chat.
// the skill your AI runs on
You are Priya, an Engineering Manager with 10+ years leading teams and 500+ performance reviews written. You have been activated to run the 1:1s, the hiring loop and the capacity plan, and to read DORA metrics as a systems signal.
· People-first. Your job is to make your engineers successful — everything else follows from that. · You shield the team from organizational noise. Your calendar absorbs meetings so theirs don't. · You communicate upward in outcomes, not activities. "We shipped X, which unblocked Y" not "We had 12 meetings." · You make the hard calls: underperformance conversations, headcount decisions, saying no to stakeholders. · You never weaponize metrics against individuals. Metrics reveal systems problems, not people problems. 1:1 structure (not status updates — those belong in standups) · Weekly 1:1 agenda framework: career development (long-term goals, skill growth), current work blockers (what's frustrating or stuck), feedback exchange (bidirectional — you give AND receive), relationship building (how are they doing as a person, not just an employee) · Quarterly career check-in: "Where do you want to be in 12 months? What skills need to develop? What stretch opportunities would help? What's blocking your growth?" · Rotating focus: week 1 = career/growth, week 2 = current work/blockers, week 3 = team/process feedback, week 4 = open agenda (their choice) Performance reviews · Writing effective reviews: specific examples with dates ("In the March release, you led the migration that reduced query latency by 40%"), measurable impact statements, growth areas with concrete action items (not "improve communication" but "present technical decisions to stakeholders in the next 2 sprint demos") · Calibration-ready language: maps to leveling rubrics, uses consistent terminology across the team, avoids recency bias by tracking wins/growth areas throughout the year · Rating distribution: understands forced curves vs calibration, advocates for fair assessment, documents evidence to defend ratings · Difficult reviews: underperformance documentation (specific examples, clear expectations, measurable improvement criteria, timeline), links to PIP if needed
SKILL.md · 194 lines · instant download
// what's inside
What's inside this skill
Calibration-ready reviews with measurable impact statements
Structured interview loops with consistent scorecards
Roadmaps balancing features, tech debt, and reliability
DORA metrics for improvement, not to weaponise
Engineering managers and tech leads stepping into people leadership.
// two ways to get it
Use it inside your AI, or download it once.
Library plan
This skill and 2,500+ others, inside your chat
$9/mocancel anytime, or $59 a year
All 2,500+ skills, prompt packs and agents, loaded the moment you ask
Nothing to download or paste: connect once in Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code or Cursor
New skills every week and 10 catalog files a month to download
Trademarks of their respective owners. KissMySkills is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
// ask your assistant
Or let your AI set up this skill for you.
Go to kissmyskills.com/pages/connector and set up the "Priya - Engineering Manager AI Skill" skill (handle: priya-engineering-manager) for me
Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor or Codex. Your AI walks you through connecting KissMySkills (about 3 minutes, 7-day free trial) and loads the skill. What your AI will read →
What you're actually buying
Drop Priya into Claude and get a Senior Engineering Manager who writes performance reviews, structures hiring loops, builds team roadmaps, and shields your devs from meeting hell - people leadership backed by engineering fluency.
No management theory without execution. Priya produces calibration-ready performance reviews with measurable impact statements, designs interview loops with consistent scorecards, and tracks DORA metrics for improvement - not to weaponise them against individuals.
What you get
→People management - 1:1 agendas, performance reviews with impact statements, Individual Development Plans, PIP documentation, and difficult conversation frameworks
→Hiring and team building - job descriptions, structured interview loops with scorecards, take-home rubrics, 30/60/90 onboarding plans, and retention strategies
→Delivery execution - sprint capacity planning with real utilisation, DORA metrics tracking, cross-team dependency management, and risk escalation with mitigations
→Technical strategy - engineering roadmap balancing features, tech debt and reliability, build vs buy analysis, AI tool adoption evaluation, and technical due diligence
→Cross-functional partnership - executive status updates, product alignment, scope negotiation, stakeholder expectation management, and upward communication without jargon
→Process and culture - sprint ceremony design, incident management with blameless postmortems, psychological safety, and documentation culture (ADRs, runbooks)
→Career growth and levelling - IC and management career ladders, promotion packets with evidence, compensation benchmarking, and team structure design
CTO Advisory Mode
For founders without a technical co-founder and first-time CTOs, Priya switches to a CTO advisor role: she frames the engineering decision, lays out the options and recommends one.
Technology strategy one-pager: 12-month goal, up to three bets, what you are not doing, hires by quarter, budget lines and risks
Priorities by stage: what engineering should focus on from pre-product to scaling, and the mistakes to avoid at each stage
Technical due diligence: architecture, delivery, IP and licences, security, key-person risk and cost, each rated with evidence
Board update: a one-page engineering section with outcomes, trends, team, risks, spend and asks
// how to install
Under 2 minutes
Four steps. Any AI chat.
01
Download the file
After checkout, the download link lands in your inbox. Save the .skill file: Claude takes it as it is.
02
Open your AI chat
Any AI chat you already use: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Copilot or another.
03
Add it to your AI
Claude: Settings → Capabilities → Skills, upload the .skill file. ChatGPT, Gemini and others: open the .skill file like a .zip archive and paste SKILL.md into custom instructions or Project instructions.
04
Start working
Your AI is now configured as a specialist. Ask it anything inside its domain.
No technical knowledge required.
With Library there is nothing to download. Connect your AI once, then just ask: "Load Priya from KissMySkills."
Priya writes performance reviews, structures hiring loops, builds team roadmaps, and handles the management work that keeps engineering teams running well and growing. Load once into Claude Projects and get a configured Engineering Manager without explaining context at the start of every session.
Can Priya act as a CTO advisor for a startup founder?+
Yes. Priya has a CTO advisory mode for founders and first-time CTOs: stage-based engineering priorities, a technology strategy one-pager, hire sequencing, a security baseline, a technical due diligence checklist and a one-page board update. She frames options and recommends; legal, audit and compliance questions go to qualified specialists.
How do I install this skill file?+
Download the .skill package (it contains SKILL.md), paste the contents into Claude Projects Instructions or your AI's system prompt, add your own context and start your first session. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI chat that accepts system prompts.
Which AI tools does this skill work with?+
Works with Claude (recommended), ChatGPT, and any AI chat accepting system prompts. Claude Projects gives the best results - the skill is optimised for Claude's instruction-following capabilities.
Ready to give your AI a specialist?
This one and 2,500+ others, inside Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex or Cursor. Cancel anytime.