- I love pairing, especially in areas of a codebase I am unfamiliar with. I tend to use pairing as a learning opportunity or if I am stuck (and vice versa, if someone wants that learning opportunity or if they are stuck). Otherwise I am more likely to spend more of my time solo.
- I prefer meetings bunched together during the day but when adding a meeting to my calendar I would appreciate if there was at least a five minute gap.
- I am much more likely to be productive on a given task if I have the context of the task in the issue. Often what that looks like is having a well defined deliverable.
- I think my guiding principe is kindness.
- It is important to me not to use ableist | sexist | classist | racist language and to create inclusive safe spaces. Please call me out if I fail and if you are not comfortable telling me directly please raise it with someone who you feel safe with for them to tell me.
- Directness. I want to avoid misunderstand and I sometimes find it difficult to figure out intention. I will try ask clarifying questions if there is ambiguity but definitely find it easier if there is no ambiguity to begin with.
- There are likely many things I value in a codebase but top of mind are readability, simplicity, and consistency.
- Slack: I prefer to keep conversations in public channels so that if something is learned it can be searched later. I find it super valuable when I search for an error or an issue in slack and I find what I am looking for without having to ask the question again.
- Slack: I try to use threads because I like having collapsable conversations. One benefit is searchability, another benefit is that conversations tend not to overlap and are easier to follow.
- Email: I read my email and I am a strong advocate of Inbox Zero. I feel like email is a "formal" means of communication so tend to avoid using it unless absolutely necessary. It is a great tool for external communication and mass communication.
- Pull Requests: I use PRs as a conversation tool to both learn and teach.
- I think I work the best when I have a clear understanding of how the projects I am working on impact the team and the company. I think knowing why we are doing what we are doing is really important.
- I also find it helpful to understand the context of things.
- I might forget to do something so please remind me! I will almost definitely feel bad if I am asked to do something more than once because I do not like when I fail to do something I say I am going to do.
- I dislike meetings without a clear agenda. Meetings get more expensive the more people go to them so I find it very valuable having an outline of desired expectations and outcomes.
- I dislike short deadlines. Deadlines are not the most fun to begin with but having something come up and need immediate attention is both disruptive and stressful.
- Ambiguous pronouns drive me crazy. For example: "Bob and Dan grabbed a bag of apples. They fell." What fell? Bob and Dan? The apples?
- If I am in teaching mode I will ask questions that I know the answer to. I am using the questions to help the other person build the same mental model. If this is annoying please let me know and I will stop.
- I tend to be quiet in meetings. Know that if I want to say something I will but also that I do not mind being asked for my thoughts. If I do not have anything to add I will say so.
- I have a matter-of-fact nature and sometimes fail to do social niceties. That might look like me wearing a blank facial expression or me failing to sugar coat what I think in favor of directness.
- I love getting to see the impact the features we build.
- It makes me super happy when internal tools we built or scripts we run save other departments time.
- Puns! I try to have a good sense of humor and love being silly.
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