The Standard 1-on-1 Agenda Template for Senior Engineers

Published on April 9, 2026

Managing senior developers requires a different framework than managing junior hires. You aren't mentoring them on syntax or reviewing their pull requests. Your job is to align them with business goals and get out of their way.

A good 1-on-1 with a senior engineer should feel less like a status update and more like a strategy session.

Here is a standard, reliable agenda template you can use with experienced developers, along with exact instructions on how to construct it.

1. The Human Check-In

It is easy to jump directly into the codebase or Jira board. Don't. Start by understanding their current headspace, energy levels, and overall bandwidth.

How to build it in Accordia: Drop a Pulse Check element at the top of your agenda.

• Configure it with a 1-5 emoji scale (ranging from happy to sad).
• Add a long text module after the pulse check.
• This gives you a fast, visual read on the room. If they log a low score, talk about and spend some time in the meeting figuring out why they are burning out and log it in the long text module.

2. High-Level Priorities

Senior engineers are usually juggling complex, multi-week projects. Do not ask them for a laundry list of what they did yesterday. Ask them what matters most right now.

How to build it in Accordia: Add a Short Text element.

• Set the prompt to: "What is your primary focus this week?"
• This forces clarity. It requires the engineer to distill their workload into a single, high-impact goal before the meeting even starts.

3. Roadblocks & Friction

This is where an Engineering Manager earns their salary. You need to uncover what is slowing your senior team members down. Often, it isn't the code—it's organizational drag, slow CI/CD pipelines, or vague product requirements.

How to build it in Accordia: Combine a Long Text element and a Checkbox element.

• Use the Long Text field so they can write out the context of their blocker.
• Underneath it, add a multi-select Checkbox element. Add options like: "Cross-team dependency," "Technical debt," "Unclear requirements," and "Tooling issues."
• This allows you to track systemic friction points across your engineering org over time.

4. Closing the Loop

A 1-on-1 without a clear outcome is just a venting session. You must capture who is doing what before the call ends. More often than not, the action items from a senior 1-on-1 belong to the manager.

How to build it in Accordia: Add the Action Item Checklist element at the very bottom of each slide.

• During your meeting, while in Accordia's distraction-free Slideshow Mode, log the next steps directly into this checklist in real-time.
• When the meeting wraps, the loop is closed. Nothing is lost in an infinite-scrolling document and each action item will be viewable in the overview and respective dashboards.