Manisha Sahni joins to unpack the real challenges of managing global engineering teams—beyond time zones and into the “hidden work” of leadership.

Manisha explains why distributed teams don’t run on autopilot: leaders must intentionally build unity, ownership, and belonging across cultures. She shares how trust is created through consistent connection—not only through work meetings, but also through lightweight social moments that turn “avatars into friends” and reduce friction in daily collaboration.

The conversation dives into practical operating rhythms for multi-time-zone teams: choosing which meetings truly need to be live, leaning heavily on asynchronous communication, and raising the bar for documentation and handoffs. Manisha highlights how explicit written context—assumptions, decisions, and expectations—becomes essential when teams are distributed, and how rotating meeting times can spread the load fairly across regions.

They also explore common cultural mismatches: some engineers may avoid challenging senior leaders in group settings, while others thrive with ambiguity and research-driven ownership. Manisha shares coaching stories showing how leaders can adjust their style to unlock performance—by clarifying expectations, involving engineers in decision-making, and practicing “assume positive intent” with curiosity instead of judgment. Federico adds examples from Latin America about why people sometimes say “yes” to be polite, creating alignment issues unless expectations are validated early.

Finally, Manisha shares what led her to become a fractional engineering leader: she loves learning new domains, helping startups and scale-ups through transitions, and delivering focused outcomes when companies need senior leadership but aren’t ready for a full-time hire. She remains open to both fractional and full-time roles—depending on where she can create the most meaningful impact.

If you lead global teams (or plan to), this episode is a practical reminder: intentional relationships + clear expectations are what make distributed execution actually work.

About Manisha Sahni:

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/manishasahni/

- https://www.manishasahni.com/

- https://www.manishasahni.com/mentorship

About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎

🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers

- 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/

- 🌐 https://densitylabs.io

- ✅ https://prevetted.ai

🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡

- 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast

- 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod

- 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast

00:00 Introduction to Manisha Sahni

01:23 Challenges of Managing Remote Teams

05:46 Effective Operating Rhythms for Distributed Teams

09:03 Building Personal Relationships in Remote Work

10:47 The Importance of Intentional Connections

16:30 Cultural Differences in Engineering Teams

22:47 Understanding Team Dynamics and Cultural Differences

26:06 The Importance of Setting Expectations

28:37 Navigating Change Management in Organizations

32:09 The Role of One-on-Ones in Team Communication

39:19 Transitioning to Fractional Leadership