Above all, I'm a human being. I have a variety of strengths and weaknesses, emotional ups and downs, and I make mistakes.
I spend a lot of time thinking about thinking. I'm curious about the World and how it works, which drives me to study things way outside the scope of my career. Currently, I'm into complexity science. In general, personal development is an important part of my life. My personal motto is "always leveling up" because I'm always working on something to level myself up in some way.
Originally I'm from Alameda, California. I grew up in a typical, dysfunctional, middle-class American family. I have two brothers (one older, one younger).
I've been in Berlin since 2012. My German is okay (B2ish), but after more than 10 years in Berlin, I'm embarrassed it's not better. My goal is to get to C1 in 36 months.
I have a daughter. Technically she's my stepdaughter, but I've been raising her as my own since she was 4 (she's turning 16 next year). She's my top priority in life.
In my free time, I like to read 📚, write ✍🏾, run 🏃🏾, do sports 🏋🏾♂️, take pictures 📷, travel 🛫, and socialize with misfits 🤡.
I completed Ray Dalio's Principles You assessment. You can check out my results here to get a sense of how I think, engage people, and apply myself.
Currently, I'm a product manager. Previously, I did a few different things.
I started my career in finance doing Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) for ~4 years. In 2012, I switched to marketing for startups to get my feet on the ground in Berlin. After ~3 years doing growth-oriented marketing, I moved into frontend engineering to set the stage for a vertical move into engineering management or a lateral move into product management.
As a frontend engineer, I worked directly with engineering managers and product managers, which gave me a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the roles every day for ~5 years. Based on my experience seeing both jobs across two companies and over a dozen projects, I felt product management is a better fit for me. I'm not planning on changing careers again, but you never know 🙃.
As a result of my experience across different functional areas, my "superpower" is my conceptual skills 🦸🏾♂️. In other words, I can think about problems from different perspectives and use concepts and ideas from each of them to find more holistic solutions. I'm also pretty good at zooming in and out between the big picture 🖼️ and the minor details 🔍 of a situation / problem.
My weakness is my natural communication style is super direct. I learned the hard way that doesn't work for everyone. Now I'm more sensitive to people's communication styles, and I adapt my style to them. It's a work in progress. So, if you ever feel like I'm being too direct with you, please let me know so I can switch it up 😅.
I'm not a morning person. My preferred working hours are 10:00 to 18:00.
I usually feel the most energized and creative late in the afternoon. It's not uncommon for me to get a burst of energy late at night. Sometimes I use that energy to get work done off-hours. So, don't be surprised if you get a message from me at midnight 🌚 🌃.
I prefer open, honest, super direct communication 😁. You don't need to sugarcoat things for me. You can if you want to, but I don't need it. And, if I feel like you're being too indirect, vague, or ambiguous - I will ask clarifying questions to better understand what you're telling me.
I appreciate positive feedback. But, constructive criticism is welcomed, too! Both are equally important to me.
I prefer to communicate via internal chat tools (e.g. Slack, Teams) for most topics.
I'm not an email person. I rarely check my inbox. I'm always striving for Inbox Zero. If I don't respond to your email, please try me via internal chat. Or, if the issue is urgent, give me a call via my private phone number.
I like to give / receive feedback in real-time (in-person, phone / video call) so people can ask questions and get immediate feedback. The frequency of feedback depends on the relationship. Generally, I like to give / receive feedback at least once every two weeks.
I love purposeful, well-executed, meetings (video or in-person), especially when team-aligning decisions are made and documented. I also love structured 1:1s to discuss progress, share ideas, and exchange feedback. Otherwise, I avoid meetings and focus on Deep Work.
- Apply Continuous Discovery and OOUX to my PM practice 👨🏾🔬
- Complete the Mastering Product Management course via Reforge 👨🏾🎓
- Complete the Software Essentialist Course 💻
- Level Up my SQL data analysis skills via The Applied SQL Data Analytics Workshop 📊
- Formally learn German grammar via the Grammatik aktiv
Deutsch als Fremdsprache series 🇩🇪
- A1 - B1
- B1+
- C2 - C1
- Continuously level up my product management skills 🧑🏾🎓
- Collaborate with talented colleagues to build products people want to buy 🚀
- Get promoted to an IC-track product leadership role again (e.g. Lead / Staff / Principle PM) 👨🏾
✈️ - Keep my technical skills sharp via mentorship, full-stack side projects, and code challenges 👨🏾💻
✅ - Rolling ~1 Year Goal Achievement
- Renewed my PMI-ACP certificate (August 2022) 📜
- Completed Product Managment Foundations on demand via Reforge's Cohort (October 2022) 👨🏾🎓
- Completed the User Insights for Product Decisions course via Reforge's Fall 2022 Cohort (November 2022) 👨🏾🎓
- Got promoted to Product Lead at mobileJob 👨🏾
✈️ - Completed the Finding Product Market Fit course via Reforge's Spring 2023 Cohort (April 2023) 👨🏾🎓
- Useless meetings, especially if they are early in the morning 😒
- Intellectual dishonesty (e.g. ignoring empirical facts, data, and evidence because it doesn't support your opinion) 🤥.
- Repetitive whining and complaining instead of taking direct action or withdrawing from unacceptable situations 😵💫
- 💻 Web development, especially UX/UI engineering, and JavaScript tools like React.
- 🔮 The future, especially emerging technology, and speculating how it will change the way people live.
- 😋 Food, especially grilling / BBQ 🥩, the best Chinese restaurants 🥡, and street food 🌯.
- 🔄 Product management, especially aligning strategy, discovery, delivery, and data analysis.
- 🏦 Economics, especially speculating how significant events, emerging technology, and lifestyle changes will influence markets.
🛠️ - I know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, TypeScript, and basic SQL
🔭 - I'm shopping around for a new programming side project 🤓.
🌱 - I’m learning more React, more TypeScript, algorithmic layout, CSS Grid, fundamental data structures and algorithms
🛣️ - My technical learning roadmap includes a full-stack JavaScript framework (e.g. Blitz, Remix, Sails), full-stack application architecture, AWS via Serverless Framework, PostgreSQL, web animation, data visualization (via D3), and a few GoF design patterns
📝 - In 2020, I published Level Up and Launch, a limited series of articles about my experience leveling up my technical skills full-time to get my first React job.
✍🏾 - I created a blog named Diaminding, but I haven't started publishing yet
🌐 - My personal website is georgebullock.dev
📫 - You can follow me On Twitter @george_bullock
⚡ - Other Fun facts
- I'm an occasional Unsplash contributor. Check out my photos here 📷.
- I briefly worked in theatrical marketing for Lionsgate. I met a handful of celebs and literally got paid to watch movies 🎬.
- Before moving to Germany 🇩🇪 I lived in France 🇫🇷 and Mexico 🇲🇽 for one year each. But, I don't speak French or Spanish 🤷🏾♂️.
- I love Deep House 🎛️, Synthwave 🦄, 90s Hip Hop 🎤, crime dramas 🔫 (especially Heat and Collateral), sci-fi 🛸, BBQ 🍖, and Asian food 🥡
- My favorite restaurant: It's a tie between Doyum Restaurant 🇹🇷 and Good Friends 🇨🇳.
- My favorite baked good: Oatmeal raisin cookies 🍪.
- Pineapple on pizza? Nope 🙅🏾♂️.
- My coffee order: Americano with a bit of whole milk 🐮.
- I mastered the art of making American-style pancakes from scratch 🥞.
- My favorite baked good: Oatmeal raisin cookies 🍪.
- Pineapple on pizza? Nope 🙅🏾♂️.
- My coffee order: Americano with a little whole milk 🐮.