I recently transitioned from the role of Principal Engineer to Head of Engineering. Since I am a fan of radical transparency, I wrote a personal README to accelerate the process for my new team to get to know me and how I work. My main objectives were to i) help others understand me better; ii) clarify my expectations of myself, others and my new role; and iii) contribute to an environment of psychological safety by being vulnerable.
This was a first for me, and it was with mixed feelings I shared it with the engineering managers and the staff+ engineers. Am I being too open? Am I full of myself writing something like this? Luckily, the feedback I got from everyone was positive and appreciative. So, world, here it is.
Context and random facts 🔗
that might make it easier to get to know and understand me.
I grew up in a tiny village in a rural area in the north of Sweden. During childhood, I spent most of my time outdoors and taking care of a wide range of animals together with my grandmother. That upbringing brought me a love of nature and wildlife and taught me empathy.
Sweden has a non-confrontational and emotionally unexpressive culture which has shaped me and how I make decisions. I tend to have mix of i and S styles, using the terminology from the DiSC model.
My journey with computers started as a kid playing games on my friend’s Commodore 64. My interest grew after I inherited a Macintosh 128K from my uncle’s car dealership business and the relationship came to full fruition when I built my first computer around the age of 13. My passion for the art of coding was fully lit thanks to an enthusiastic and dedicated computer science teacher in high school.
After a detour in university (studying theoretical physics and economics) I returned to computer science for my master’s and have worked with technology ever since.
The area of Sweden where I grew up is dominated by a working-class culture with few qualified jobs (one of my first jobs was as a lumberjack) and a strong sense of community. I believe this instilled a sense of solidarity in me and contributed to an interest in global development, human rights, and international relations. This interest led me to work at Amnesty, Gapminder, and a stint for the UNDP in Khartoum and New York.
I’m introverted and prefer to recharge with some quiet time. Please don’t mistake my quiet for lack of interest. I typically like to observe and reflect.
One of my favorite places on earth is a tiny cabin of mine located where I grew up. It’s not accessible by car and has no electricity, internet connection or running water. It sits right next to a lake and has a lovely wood-fired sauna.
I enjoy doing sports. It’s an important lever for me to stay productive and improve my mental health. Occasionally, I like doing endurance challenges like Vasaloppet.
Music is important to me and I play a bit of trumpet. I grew up as a metalhead, and it’s still what I listen to the most, but I frequently indulge in jazz and classical music too. Recent years have sparked an interest in opera.
The most expensive hobby I have is food & wine.
I consider myself a lifelong learner and joy of learning is my top character strength. Therefore, I spend a lot of time reading and learning from smart people, to gain new insights and upskill myself.
What I value 🔗
from myself and others.
Giving my best. I hold a high bar for myself, and I take great pride in always doing my best work and getting shit done.
Transparency. I think an organization is much better off when there is transparency around the work being done, decisions, processes, data, whatever. I apply this to my work and appreciate it from others. Moreover, transparency is a necessity for autonomy.
Agency. Action beats reaction. Autonomy is important for motivation and to do great work. To make autonomy work agency is key. I like to take matters into my own hands and drive execution, perhaps sometimes too much. Combining agency with radical transparency mitigates the risk conflicts and misalignments.
Accountability. When I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it.
Kindness. I always try to assume good intentions and everyone is fighting their own battle. Kindness sometimes mean having tough discussions or making tough decisions.
Relationships. I’m a strong believer in the power of meaningful relationships to create an effective team. Doing hard stuff and achieving great things with people you like is amazing.
Play. Work is hard enough as it is, so having fun together and finding joy in what we do is important to make it sustainable.
Growth mindset. It is possible to learn and achieve incredible things through dedication and hard work. There are always caveats, unexpected events, and various imperfections, and we inevitably mess up from time to time, but we can do so much more than we think.
Feedback. I consider both the act of receiving and giving feedback a gift. Feel free to provide direct feedback to me in whatever format you prefer (sync or async), whenever you want. You don’t need to ask for permission and be direct, but not mean. It doesn’t have to be big or perfect. On the contrary, timely, actionable and, continuous feedback is the best approach. I take great pleasure in providing feedback as well, so if you want my input on anything, just let me know.
Things I enjoy or do well 🔗
and that I’m happy to help with if I can.
Continuous improvement. As mentioned above, I love learning and I work hard to continuously improve myself. 1% better every day.
Composure. In feedback, composure frequently comes up as a spike. I’m the kind of person who can find peace in chaos and crisis.
Relationships. I value kindness and humility, and meaningful relationships in the workplace. I think this helps me build trust and strong relationships.
Strategizing. I like observing and debugging situations and systems. I get into flow trying to piece various bits of information together, do some pattern matching, and craft a coherent response to a particular challenge.
Communication. I enjoy crafting messages, written as well as spoken. So if you want feedback on something you wrote or do a dry run of a presentation, hit me up.
Execution. I like getting shit done, and I happily indulge in breaking gnarly problems into executable chunks. I consider myself to have a bias to action and a strong sense of urgency.
Structure. I’m a structured person and I thrive on structure. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always loved writing documentation as an engineer. It excites me to debug a gnarly situation, process, or product to figure out its inherent structure and create clarity around it.
Stuff that’s hard for me 🔗
and that I’d like to improve, so I’m grateful for any feedback that can help me do that.
I’m introverted with mild social anxiety that sometimes makes big-room meetings stressful for me. I’m usually not at my best in such situations. To mitigate this, I’m continuously working on my public speaking skills and I tend to also write things down to bring my points across.
I prefer to reflect for a while over thinking on my feet.
I’m sometimes too slow to ask for help.
Being assertive and candid is something that originally didn’t come naturally to me. I’ve actively worked on this for many years and I’ve made progress. Nevertheless, it requires constant and continuous practice to fully embrace and live the concept of radical candor.
How I communicate 🔗
Synchronous meetings are great for connecting and building relationships, and for alignment and decision-making (assuming participants have a high degree of context). For almost everything else, I have a bias toward asynchronous communication, especially in remote settings.
If I want to convey a concept or give a status update, I prefer to summarise my thoughts in a document or a chat post.
I prefer chat over email.
When I work 🔗
- I aim to keep my working hours between 9-18.
How I view my job 🔗
and what I hold myself accountable for.
Driving measurable business outcomes through technology investments and engineering excellence.
Aligning engineering with company goals by owning technology strategy and roadmap execution.
Building and scaling a high-performance organization and culture grounded in psychological safety, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Fostering a product-engineering mindset focused on value, while elevating quality, reliability, security, and performance.
Championing developer experience as a key lever to unlock productivity through short feedback loops and reduced friction.
Attracting, developing, and retaining top talent, while continually raising the bar.
Acting as a trusted partner to other functions and fostering strong collaboration within engineering and across the company.