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 strong culture of consensus which has certainly influenced how I make decisions. I tend to prefer an extra round of discussions whenever there are disagreements.
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 and human rights. This interest led me to work at Amnesty, Gapminder, and a short stint for the UNDP in Sudan.
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 also like doing endurance challenges.
I consider myself a lifelong learner and spend a lot of time reading and listening to smart people, to gain new insights and upskill myself.
What I value 🔗
from myself and others.
Giving my best. I hold myself to high expectations, 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. 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 (sometimes too much). Combining agency with radical transparency is how to mitigate conflicts and misalignments.
Accountability. When I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it.
Kindness. I always try to assume good intentions and I know everyone is fighting their own battle, so why would we ever want to be anything but kind to each other?
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 an amazing thing.
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 🔗
and that I’m happy to help with if I can.
Relationships. I value kindness and humility, and I care deeply about people. I think this helps me build trust and strong relationships.
Strategizing. I like observing and debugging situations and systems. I get into a flow state trying to piece various bits of information together and do some pattern matching, to plan out 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 toward action and a constant sense of urgency.
Technical decisions. I love discussing the intricate tradeoffs of a technical decision.
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 have some social anxiety that sometimes makes big room meetings stressful for me. In such situations, I usually feel that I struggle to express my thoughts clearly. To mitigate this, I have a bias toward writing things down to bring my points across.
I prefer to reflect for a while over thinking on my feet.
I’m not great at asking for help or delegating.
While I’ve led people in the past, I acknowledge that many of the engineering managers I’m now leading have more experience in that role than I have. I look forward to diving deeper into the role myself as well as learning from all of you.
Being assertive and candid is something that originally didn’t come naturally to me. I’ve actively worked on this for many years and have made progress, however, there is still much to learn and improve 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 Teams/Slack post.
I prefer Teams/Slack over email.
When I work 🔗
I start work around 9 and finish around 18 CET.
I’m generally available on Teams whenever I’m awake and I don’t mind if someone reaches out to me after working hours. I like to respond as quickly as I can.
It happens that I work late and sometimes I work a bit on the weekend. It’s a choice I’m making. I do not expect anyone else to do that.
If I write a message outside office hours I schedule it to be within office hours. Sometimes I forget or accidentally send it anyway.
How I view my job 🔗
and what I hold myself accountable for.
Aligning the engineering organization with company objectives.
Empowering the engineering organization with direction and context.
Attracting, developing, and retaining engineering talent.
Fostering an engineering culture of care and excellence.
Nurturing great collaboration within engineering and beyond.
Ultimately, I want engineers to come for the technology and stay for the culture.