Skip to content

Balance 💼/🏡

Balance doesn't mean doing everything; it means doing the right thing.

The following are my work-life balance preferences. They are subject to change and may be out of date.

⚖️ TL;DR Message me anytime, anywhere, anyhow. Don’t use send laters with me, I’ll check and message back appropriately. Please avoid meetings. My reply times can vary, especially in crunch time. I have a unique work style — such as sending emails/messages at all times of the day — but I can accommodate anyone. I appreciate directness and candor, I value honesty over diplomacy.

Communication

My preferred communication channels are as follows.

  1. 💬 Chat
  2. 📩 Email
  3. 📅 Meeting

💬 Chat

  • It’s okay to message me during a meeting, PTO, or outside working hour
  • It’s okay to not use send later services, I prefer lower ping times and I manage messages accordingly
    • I will use send later for anything non-work relevant, but I will opt to not use send later services to reduce ping times
  • Unless critical, I don’t expect a reply for a week
    • I usually expect to reply within a week
    • If I am in focus mode, my reply time can wain into two weeks-one month
    • I will leave messages marked as unread if there is an action item
  • I prefer messages that don’t just say “hello”.

📩 Email

  • I don’t check email outside working hours
    • I do send emails outside working hours
  • I prefer a TL;DR

📅 Calendar

Core working hours as follows (PST).

From To
Monday 10:00 17:00
Tuesday 10:00 17:00
Wednesday 10:00 17:00
Thursday 10:00 17:00
Friday 10:00 17:00
  • a 5 minute break between meetings
  • a 12-hour notice before scheduling a meeting
  • please include permission to modify the event
  • prefer walking meetings
  • encouraged to use #hashtags for metadata:
    • #moveable for meetings that can easily be moved (i.e., 1:1s)

Working

  • I prefer plain, direct communication. I sometimes have a tendency to speak too plainly about things, which may be course but it’s just my nature. I don’t always pick up on context cues and subtlety. Don’t hesitate to use plain language around me, I think it’ll ensure everyone is on the same page.

    • I value honesty over diplomacy. Don’t worry about how to talk to me, focus on what to talk about.

  • I have a short attention span. This doesn’t mean I can’t code for prolonged periods of time. I have learned to harness it and it makes me a great engineer. It does mean some considerations in topics such as:

    • communicating, such as going off on tangents and sometimes trouble sticking to original points
    • writing, where you will see me write half-complete sentences and paragraphs when creating a doc, but it will slowly grow into a full body
    • coding, where if I know I have a bit of time on a project I may dive deeper into a stack to break up mundane coding

  • I prefer high-fidelity world models. Unfortunately this usually means I probe on technical topics.

  • I have irregular work hours from time to time. If the timing of my chats or emails isn’t working for please let me know!

Interviewing

  • I expect to complete initial interview ratings within 24 hours, full feedback within 48 hours.

  • I use TC as an acronym for The Candidate, to not include names and any bias.

  • The bullet points I use for grading a candidate:

    • + positive trait
    • - negative trait
    • -+ mixture of negative and positive
    • * generate comment/note
    • Example would be:
+ Correctly identified the correct data structure 
	and algorithm
+ Was able to weight pros and cons of algorithm X.

- Got the runtime incorrect,
	+ but was to get the memory complexity correct
	
-+ Got 75% of the unit tests cases correct, 
	which is average for this problem

* We had internet issues for 5 minutes in the
	beginning, granted candidate 5 extra minutes
	for problem (with their permisson)

Miscellaneous

  • I expect to complete code reviews finished 24 hours.