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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 10th, 2023

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  • I agree - I loved art in high school and really wanted to be an illustrator. But I graduated in 08 (recession) and I didn’t have the confidence to try to make it as a freelancer or whatever.

    I ended up choosing a really boring path in office work because I just wanted to make sure I was inside at a computer while I was working. At first it was so depressing - I had built my identity around my artwork. But I eventually found a new field that I loved and transitioned into that thanks to skills and resources from my boring office experience - I’m really happy with it all today and don’t regret anything.

    I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve found happiness/success by disconnecting my identity from my occupation and focusing on the work environment I want instead of the content of the work.






  • Here are some from a text file I keep around for these purposes:

    • What has your team been working on recently? What new changes have you shipped in the last six months?
    • What is the biggest difficulty your team is facing right now?
    • How long has the team existed and how long have you been managing it?
    • Is the team all remote? Are you?
    • How long does it take for code to be deployed after being committed?
    • How often do team members move teams?
    • What kinds of (soft or hard) skills do you need most on the team right now?
    • Do you have a defined onboarding process?
    • How long does it take for people to get up to speed as new hires? How much would a new hire be doing in six months?
    • Does the team maintain deployment infrastructure? Production infrastructure? Is there an on-call rotation?
    • What does your planning cycle look like? Scrum? Kanban? Meetings?
    • What’s one thing you would change or improve on the team if you could snap your fingers?
    • What would you like to be doing less and more of on your team?
    • How does the product representative interact with the eng team?
    • Do you have a career ladder, with levels, and expectations at each of the level defined?
    • What is your performance review cycle like? 1:1s?