Question
He's a great guy but isn't at the senior engineering level he was hired for. Other engineers have to rewrite his code, he takes 5x as long to get things done and it's just hard on all of us so I need to let him go, but he's off this weekend for a week going away for a wedding.
Is it better to "pull the bandaid" and get it done before he goes or wait until he comes back? He's in an at-will state so all legal/HR issues have been covered.
Answer
Performance issues need to be addressed as soon as they are identified. I would not wait. They also need to be carefully documented.
I would have all supporting documentation in hand before you have this discussion.