Hello, I’m Juan 👋 Link to heading
You’re here because you’re my colleague and want to know how we can best work together.
This site is inspired by Manual of Me, and aims to be a guide for colleagues in how to best work with me.
My Working Hours Link to heading
Working in a Remote role, I like and enjoy the flexibility of not always being immediately available for response. That said you will very likely find me online between the following hours.
Timezone: Europe/London
Monday 09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 17:00
Structure of my day Link to heading
I like have lunch at a fix time each day, so I can coordinate with my wife and daughter, if she is not on nursery on the day, so I’ll usually have 1300-1400.
I’m neurospicy Link to heading
I’m very public with the fact I have ADHD. I’m working to better understand + work with it, but that does mean there’s a few areas for you to be aware of.
Executive dysfunction: think procrastination, but your body being physically unable to “do the thing” and even for things I very much want to do
Sidequests:
- Sometimes trying to “do the thing” leads to “I need to refactor this code to make the change I need to make easy” and then “if I’m doing that, I may as well fix that flaky test I keep seeing from time to to time” and then “I’m am already looking a flaky test in CI I may as well tidy up the CI pipeline so that it will show errors from failing test in a nicer way instead of having to scroll to find the one like you care about”, and it can snowball from there
Tangents: I’ll sometimes lose a train of thought mid-sentence, or be part way through the first half of an answer, and not remember what the next direction I was planning on going, or I’ll start discussing something (related) that’s just popped into my head - please be patient!
Hyper(focus): I’ll sometimes get very focussed on a given problem, wanting to “get to a stopping point”, ignoring what my body tells me
Explicit over implicit: I prefer having additional context for the “why” as well as having expectations clear and documented
Eye contact: you won’t see me meeting your eye contact (even on video call), in particular when I’m thinking. I find eye contact quite hard.
Meeting notes please: not just so I know what we’re talking about ahead-of-time, but as I find it very useful to asynchronously add items to the agenda as I think about them - even while in the meeting! I’ll also add contextual information while talking i.e. to Slack, emails
Processing time please: it can take me some time to process my feelings, in particular when giving or receiving feedback, or working out an emotional response - please bare with!
- This will also show up after team meetings or technical discussing where I won’t finish process all of it until some time later and only then will I come up with an answer or idea that I would like to share with the team. Having a place where I can post dose later after I done the processing so they don’t get lost or forgotten and I know they will be seen and discus by the rest of the team is quiet useful to me
Sensory issues: I do get sensory overload at times, especially with some high pitch noises and some high pitch voices
In all these cases, I actively work to manage them, but sometimes you may need to give me a nudge if you’re noticing one of the behaviours.
I work best when … Link to heading
I can work remotely. I find office environments quiet distracting and sometimes they may also trigger sensory overloads. That said, I also see value in getting together as team from time to time so I’m happy to stop by the office every ones in a while or for company events. I have found that about ones a month works well for me.
I can use Linux on as my work environment on my work machine. Over the years I have build a computing environment on top of Linux, mostly Arch, that works with my brain and not against it and that allows me molded to my needed and the needs of my brain as the tech landscape changes which I find makes me more productive then using other systems. I will often request Linux as reasonable accommodation (I will probably write a post on this at some point to expand on this point). That said I do understand that some place are not well setup to run Linux so if all you support is a Mac I’ll probably just run Linux in VM and work from within the VM.
I can get my headphones on, mute notifications and get down to the task at hand
I can build for the “right solution”, with the right level of test coverage and a good architecture. However, I do realise the value in pragmatism, and am happy to cut corners where necessary, as part of a healthy technical debt conversation
I can break down work into the why this is important to the business, as well as the what that is needed to be delivered
I have a supportive team
I am empowered to work towards optimising process improvements (technical and sociotechnical)
I’m able to build atop of Open Source, regularly contribute back upstream (during working hours) and even better, completely work in the Open
I work in a team with accountability, but no hint of blame
My preferred channels of communication are … Link to heading
In priority order:
Slack / instant messaging Link to heading
Give me context for what you would like - see nohello.net for a bit more info - if you fancy just a general catchup, say so!
If messages are urgent/time sensitive, it’d be good to know!
Async is ideal for me, although I generally focus on “inbox zero”, at least for Slack
If we are discussing synchronously already, and it could benefit from a high-bandwidth (“in person”) discussion, let’s jump on a video call
Video/Voice Chat Link to heading
Written communication is awkward and prone to error and misinterpretation - if we’re finding we’re tripping over our words, let’s move to a video/audio call to discuss things
If we’re already chatting synchronously, and are both able to, let’s chat “in person”, as it may be quicker
Email Link to heading
Need a paper trail?
Need to be able to add folks - who aren’t necessarily available on i.e. Slack - throughout the conversation?
Longer form discussion?
I add value to a team by… Link to heading
Focussing on individual and wider self-improvement, based on learnings from others inside the company, as well as looking at improvements across the Software Engineering across the industry
Focussing on improvements to team ways of working, to deliver better as a team, whether they are “how do we better refine our work?” through to “how can we make this code review comment enforced automagically?”
Prioritising unblocking others with code review or working through problems, with the focus on overall, rather than individual, delivery
A heavy focus on improving the collaborative, inclusive and blameless culture
Being a cheerleader for the awesome stuff we’re doing, being willing to raise individuals, and the team as a whole, up to stakeholders as doing excellent work
Being driven to support production services, ensuring that downtime is minimised, and that we perform blame-free learning reviews after the fact to learn what went wrong, and how we can prevent it in the future
Being empathetic to my team’s differing experiences, working to help unblock others, provide valuable code review feedback, and work towards improving team processes
Feedback is best given … Link to heading
Written, so I can refer back to it, as well as share it with my manager and use it for performance reviews
If nuance of the point is required, or if we’re discussing something sensitive, such as an interpersonal concern, let’s discuss it in-person, and then (most likely) share the feedback in a written form so I have a record
With my manager CC’d, if possible, so they can hear about what good things I’m doing, or where I can improve
Honestly. I know I have areas to improve, and I’d like to be aware of them so I can improve
In small quantities, regularly - I’d love to get microfeedback i.e. every few weeks. It’s never really worked across the teams I’ve been part of, but it’d be great to get regular feedback to see trends, check I’m improving, as well as shouting about good things I’m doing!
What motivates me to come into work each day is … Link to heading
Being invested in the mission for what we as a team, and/or we as a company, are trying to deliver
Having interesting problems to solve
Being able to deliver value to internal/external customers
Being able to help grow myself and others, to improve ourselves technically and otherwise
Some other things you should know about me are … Link to heading
I’m a very big fan of automation and improvement, opting to deep dive into tools like git, understanding the framework we’re using works, and removing as many keystrokes as possible
I absolutely prefer using Slack threads - please don’t make me have top-level conversations 😅
I will use “we” as the primary pronoun when talking about work things, which I use to generally refer to the team, instead of centering myself
I’d prefer you tag me in Slack, even if it’s out-of-hours of I’m out-of-office - I’d prefer to have a notification than to need to go searching for references to me!
I try very hard to avoid gendered words like “guys” and actively work to remove other insensitive language from my vocabulary, and will nudge folks I work with accordingly, and recommend you let me know if I’m doing / saying things that should be stopped
I think through writing, and often err on the side of “oh god why did you write so much” to “that’s lovely and concise”, but have found that my thorough approach can be a net positive, albeit I am actively working on drawing the right balance