[beebs93]

Not a manager, but I meet with my engineering manager once a week.

We set the ground rules early on that we'd avoid the two extremes of the topic spectrum: project status updates and venting about issues that neither of us can take action on to address.

I'm given free reign to choose a topic and drive the meeting. Unless there's some pressing matter, I fallback to reviewing the work I did the past week and how I feel it helps (or doesn't) my career goals.

I try to give good examples of gaps I'd like to address so he can look for such opportunities in future projects, conferences, or in-house training.

My goal is that my manager will have a good understanding of the type of specific tasks I like to do and/or that will better help my future.