I find half an hour every fortnight is a better schedule, and the quality of the meeting has depended on the quality of the manager and my willingness to prepar

I find half an hour every fortnight is a better schedule, and the quality of the meeting has depended on the quality of the manager and my willingness to prepare and engage. When done right, it's a place to talk about my goals within the company and in my career, how they're going, how the company can help me, etc. It's a great place to show what you're interested in and what you want to do in the future, because hopefully the manager has a broader idea of what's happening at the company/team on a higher level, so they can talk to people to help you get where you want to be. E.g. want to talk at conferences? Your manager can ask around at their meetings, maybe someone knows someone looking to get company representation at a conference. Want to use and improve your architectural skills? Maybe there's a round of cross-Team engineers discussing and sharing tips regularly.