I look forward to a long and productive working relationship with you. To hopefully accelerate the process, this document is meant to give you some idea of how I operate and my personal values.
My role is to make Engineering successful. What that requires changes frequently. Regardless, my underlying mission is to make our people and practices ever stronger and more capable of thriving in our fast-paced business.
I care about the small things. Well-written code, pixel alignment, a groomed backlog, useful system logs.... I believe a strong, professional, software engineering team does everything well. Let's be proud of the external and internal quality.
We need to be very focused. I believe in applying the Kanban approach of minimizing WIP at all levels (company, team, individual). We need to be highly selective about projects / tasks we undertake, and work to complete them ASAP.
I like to debate ideas. But just because I argue against something, doesn't mean I'm against it. I often play devil's advocate. Chewing through an idea is my way of testing and understanding it.
I'm obsessed with getting feedback quickly. Whether it's introducing a new feature, or change to the organization, I always look for ways to get user feedback and eliminate major risks ASAP. When it comes to people, I aim to provide honest, timely views on performance. I hope you'll do the same with me.
I may message/email you late at night or on weekends. I do not expect a response outside normal business hours. If there is something urgent I will call you instead. Feel free to message me at anytime.
I try to have faith in people, process and projects. Healthy skepticism is fine, but I can't stand cynicism (although I'm guilty of it occasionally). When we decide to do something, when we decide to work with people, we must have total commitment to a positive outcome.
I do my best to be clear and honest. If I can't provide a straight answer, for reasons such as insufficient information or ethical obligations, I will state as such. If you sense me indirectly avoiding difficult questions, or bs'ing in general, feel free to call me out on it (I'll do the same with you).
Books that have shaped my thinking
- "Antifragile" by Nassim Taleb
- "Clean Code" and "Clean Coder" by Robert Martin
- "Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests" by Steve Freeman, Nat Pryce
- "Drive" by Daniel Pink