How to Work With Me

Introduction

Hi 👋

Welcome to Kevin's user manual. If you're reading this, we'll likely collaborate on something soon. I'm looking forward to working and learning from one another!

This guide is meant to give you a quick overview of my particular quirks, communication styles, and values. This is to help us develop a strong working relationship and collaborate more effectively! If this inspires you to write your own user manual, please forward that to me so that I can take the time to know you better!

This manual was largely inspired by Julie Zhuo's User Manual

How I view success

As an individual contributor, success is creating significant business impact. I like to understand what the most important problems and/or opportunities are and work on the projects where my particular skills can make the most impact
As a manager, success is enabling the team to work and grow effectively. This means matching or helping people identify the right work, helping them grow in their careers, and making sure everyone is clear on the "why" behind the work we are doing
Constantly learning from both successes and failures
Setting ambitious goals and occasionally failing (vs only setting easy-to-achieve targets)

How I communicate

I prefer async and written word for most updates
I prefer face-to-face when we need to make a decision, brainstorm, or deep dive on something that benefits from a high bandwidth discussion
I tend to batch my async communication at set times of the day
I appreciate overcommunicating on how things are going (both in receiving information as well as giving)

Things I do that may annoy you

I might not respond instantly (see batch my async communications) to slack or email. I generally have a 4h SLA unless urgency is needed (eg. oncall, active conversation, project deadline, extenuating circumstances, etc)
I like to understand the broader business impact of any work we take on and will challenge priorities if I think there is more important work to be done
I tend to ask a lot of questions and probe for details
I have high expectations of myself and others

What gains and loses my trust

gains: Clear communication. Being transparent about what you think is going well or not well. Timely updates of both good and bad news. Asking for feedback and also comfortable giving constructive feedback.
gains: Strong Ownership. If you've identified a problem, also coming up with a fix (or having a proposal).
gains: Punctuality when showing up for meetings.
loses: Not delivering on what was agreed upon (and not communicating about it).
loses: Having issues with people/work/direction but not voicing it directly.
loses: Low-quality work.

My strengths

Ownership. If I take something on, nothing is not my problem.
Communication. I will let you know what's on my mind and where things are at all times. Nothing should come as a "surprise".
Deliver results. I will deliver what I say I will do.
Prioritizing. I zero in on the most high-leverage outcome I can affect.
Fire fighting. I've cut my teeth at on-call at AWS as well as solo founding an infra startup and tend to keep a level head when everything is on fire.

My growth areas

Working on delegation. I can take on too much which can alienate other people or result in things slipping through the cracks.
Keep it simple. I can fall into the trap of thinking that everything needs hyperscalar like scaling/availability/reliability/etc when the situation doesn't warrant it.

Created 2024-07-30T01:30:18.154000, updated 2024-08-10T18:09:54.965000 · History · Edit