👨🏻🦲 README.md
The idea of this README is inspired by others who have shared personal READMEs. Hopefully, this document will serve to be an honest portrait of who I am and how I work.
📚 Table of Contents
💁♂️ Me
Greatest strength / Greatest Weakness
I like saying that for many people, their greatest strength can also be their greatest weakness. For me, I think that is my passion. I'm a very passionate person, which is what motivates me to succeed, keep my commitments and strive for excellence. However, this can also narrow my focus, make me less accepting of change and more prone to “anger” at obstacles (or things I perceive as obstacles) to success.
Emotional Intelligence
If you're into personality tests, I've taken quite a few over the years. You can check out all of the various results I have from them here .
👨💻 Work - Practical
Communication
- I might send you a Slack message outside of your working hours. I value asynchronous communication, so please respond when you are next working.
- Similarly, if you Slack me outside of my working hours, I may not respond immediately. If you need an urgent response, please text or WhatsApp me.
1:1
- Our 1:1 meetings should focus on your professional development and addressing any challenges you are facing. These meetings are not meant for task updates, which should be handled async.
-
I value our 1:1 time and want to ensure it is beneficial for
both of us. This might mean adjusting the meeting schedule
to better suit our needs, such as:
- Changing the meeting time for this week
- Permanently rescheduling the meeting time
- Moving from weekly to bi-weekly meetings, or vice versa
- Canceling meetings when they are not needed
- I like to use this 1:1 template and fill it out before our meeting. I recommend adding items to the template throughout the week to avoid last-minute rushes. Additionally, I schedule time before my 1:1 to organize my thoughts and ensure a productive discussion.
This Document
-
I am not
prefect, so this document is as much for me as it is for you. - I expect that if I'm not acting by the ideals here, you'll constructively point that out to me.
- Furthermore, I expect that if you do that, I will say thank you. If I don't – send me the link to this document.
- If something needs to change about this document, please submit a merge request to it .
🖖 In between practice and theory
- Family and friends FIRST. Work second.
-
I believe in:
- Writing everything down
- Giving & accepting ownership
- Being transparent with a low level of shame
- Negative feedback is always 1:1.
- We not they: Saying "they" is a cop out, espeically when talking about a team inside your own company. We succeed or fail together. There is no "they".
- Measure impact, not activity I care about what we achieve: the code we ship, the impact we make, the users we satisfy, the teammates we support—not the hours we work or the time we take off.
- Move fast by shipping the minimal valuable change .
- Bias towards asynchronous communication Reserve synchronous time for collaboration and connection; handle everything else asynchronously for efficiency and flexibility.
🧐 Work - Theory & Philosophy
Values/Manifesto
'Manifesto' is a big fancy word, but I use it here for those who are familiar with the Agile Manifesto , and its style of not excluding anything but instead valuing certain things over others. Everything I value here is changeable and challengeable.
The key to good decision-making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.
— Malcolm Gladwell
Tough and Competent
I like to think of myself as tough and competent, much like Gene Kranz of Apollo fame—big shoes to fill. After the tragedy of Apollo 1, Gene had everyone on his team at Mission Control write these words on their blackboards.
They resonate with my desire and tendency to feel responsible for being both the expert and the one accountable for my team's results. However, in relation to my notes on emotional intelligence, this mindset can sometimes lead to conflicts and cause my passion to manifest in less-than-ideal ways.
Service before Self
I strive in everything I do to embody a servant leader. That doesn't mean I always succeed, but I do know that it is still my desire to put the team before myself. If my team is successful, my success will follow. In that sense, the score takes care of itself .
Be the change you seek
As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ...We need not wait to see what others do.
Complaining about the existing state of affairs only serves to reinforce it. And the act of complaining dissipates the energy you had to impact the problem positively. Always have a bias to action over words.
Children, let us love not in word or speech, but in deed and truth.
Pain is temporary; suck is forever
If something will be painful to fix, fix it. Otherwise, it will suck - and suck forever.
📚 Books & Authors
See https://boleary.dev/books/ for more information.
👶🏼 Personal
- I have four kids. This can make late afternoon/early evening calls (east coast of the US) hard to make work. However, if we're off time zones I'm happy to do a “night” call after the kids are in bed 😀
- I fancy myself a woodworker, but to even call that a hobby might be a stretch.
- I enjoy technical theater - specifically lighting design and running. It's like programming...but with lights! Moreover, this is how I met my wife, so theater is always close to my heart. The difference is she can sing and act. I only sing when I'm in my car...by myself.