readma

readme

[WIP]
# Hi, I'm Jay 

## What is this 
This is a living document to who I am and how I manage my teams. It’s also meant to give you some idea of 
- What you can expect from me , as your manager
- What I expect from you , as my direct reports
- How I think and how I work.

I'm accountable, and bound as promises to everything being written here. Feel free to remind if you're seeing any inconsistencies :)

Disclaimer: This however, not meant to represent any other managers at "be" , nor even mine at my next job :)

## Me 
- Playing with computer since 6th grade, started programming since 7th/8th grade, being competitive programmer since then, and set my path in IT industry
- Fulltime scholarship at NUS, special program graduated. Studied and worked in Singapore for 10 years
- Used to be in games industry, MMORPG, mobile, social ... those trending during 2006-2015 , you named it, mainly doing core game engine, rendering before realized it's either 1) too hard 2) to easy ( as entry bar), damn you flappy bird, 3) too much luck involved 
- The most recent notable job, I head the engineering team at Chotot ( part of the SEA's unicorn), doing transformation of legacy (C , PHP, ...) to cloud native, kubernetes, golang, microservices event driven architecture. What I'm most proud, are those Chotot alumni during my tenure , who either 1) becomes much better self 2) in much better job position , where I somewhat make a difference
- Guitar player, computer games, a bit of piano, roller blading
- Spend most of my time, thinking
- I brew beer by the way, very good one indeed. 

### My Job 
- I'm Engineering Director at "be" , sometimes referred to as Head of Engineering role, scope varies time to time , depends on the upper leadership :). Still I don't normally work by authority, . I respect other's boundary, but never limit myself to what being assigned to, and I encourage you to do the same. I work mainly with engineers, then product team, 
- Joined early since end of Aug-2018. Lasted through the toughest time
- I code ( challenge me ! ), manage ( not always pleasant ), and lead at different time depends on when the team need. Switching context and wear different hat is part of the job.

### My goal:
- Help company/team achieve its goal
- Help you achieve your goals. Yours is always below the team though
- Build one of the best technical team in Viet Nam. Everyone should be proud to be/was here, being part of the team or even help you , either by reputation or experiences gained by being here

All of my values tie to the team, I have no interest in proving I'm better than anyone, I however, have strong interest in proving that my team is kicking ass. I wanna, assemble, an Avenger of engineering team

You can always count I will always have your back. The only thing I'm asking, giving me enough ammunition and reason to fight for you when it comes.

### The team expectations
- Full ownership on your work
- Have each other’s back
- Hold each other accountable
- Expect excellence
- Assume positive intent
- Challenge each other, ask "why"
- Constantly learn
- Have fun together 

### How I work
- I expect excellency, and well-thought DoD ( definition of done)
- I reserved the right to override. I'll try my best to give enough reasons as I can. Sometimes, we just dont know what we dont know, If I'm in this state, which means I can't fully convince you, but we just have to move forward. I rarely do this, when I have to, I need your trust, on me making the best decision for the team, not so much on my personal idea.
- I get temper quickly. In my own words, I have allergic to bullshit. 
- I speak fast, do tell me if you can't follow. 
- I normally provide reason to any arguments I gave. I'm expecting the same.

#### What turn me off
- Bullshit: as mentioned, I have low tolerant
- Low ownership: like, it's never my work, not me, not my responsbility 
- Selfish: who put own convenient, before anything else.

#### On Candor
- The company may require me to not tell you about something
- The company cannot require me to lie to you. I would not abide by such a requirement 
- I bias toward transparency and candor.  You can ask anything.  Most of the time, I'll answer.  Rarely, I won't.  I'm committed to never lying to you

## Communication
- You can approach me, anytime. Please do more often.
- Do NOT email. 
- F2f communication is preferred
- Let me know you wanna talk, I'll prioritize

### Feedback 
I love feedback. On three dimensions required
- Safety should be high (unlikelihood of being punished for giving feedback)
- Effort should be low (The amount of work in order to give feedback, also known as "how much do you argue when people give you feedback?"; 
- Benefit should be high (how likely is it that giving you feedback will materially impact your behavior?)

Let me know if I don't do well on any of these three dimensions

I'll let you know if you don't do well on any of these three dimensions

### 1:1 
While others promote 1:1 culture. I encourage you to come to me as soon as you need, dont wait. Other than that, I prefer some form of asynchronous communication, where I check when I need, and let things much more transparent. 
If you can provide that, we probably need 1:1 weekly catch up. Either is fine. 

I have routine coffee/breakfast at Highland, anytime between 8:45-9:15. I normally read, and casually catch up with team unofficially. You want a coffee talk, you should already know where to find