Working with me

We often get less time than we’d like to get to know a potential colleague. You may look at their resume or LinkedIn profile, or you may get a 30-minute interview to decide whether you want to spend a decent portion of your life interacting with the person.

But even if it’s someone you’ve already been working with, knowing just a little bit more about their working preferences can have a positive impact on communication.

On this page, you’ll learn more about what it’s like working with me. If you’re more interested in my skill sets or previous work experience, see my Resume instead.

Quickstart

I’m a creative and innovative software professional who enjoys identifying needs, patterns, and trends and driving the necessary changes into production.

I’m a sense-maker who loves to structure and organize information. I absorb knowledge from industry trends, Slack conversations, and user feedback and distill it into structured knowledge.

But more than anything, I enjoy helping others succeed—whether it’s a community member asking for help, or a colleague asking for feedback.

I’m based in Stockholm, Sweden (CET/CEST), but I love traveling for conferences, off-sites, and other events.

My personality profiles are INFJ (MBTI) and Type 5: The Investigator with a Four-Wing (The Iconoclast) (Enneagram).

Values and beliefs

These are the fundamental values I bring to work, and what I expect from the people I work with. If we don’t agree on these, we won’t be working together for very long.

• I believe that we’re a sports team, not a family, and that psychological safety is critical to perform at the highest level.

• I believe that we’re the same person at work and at home and that success should never come at the expense of the well-being of the people who made it happen.

• I believe in transparency and honesty towards team members, users, and partners alike. Deception is choosing short-term gains over long-term success.

How I do my best work

When at my best, you’ll see me:

• Communicate and build relationships with colleagues across teams and departments to address technical knowledge gaps or user experience issues.

• Seek to develop a high-level understanding of an area and then do technical deep-dives into the parts that deserve my attention.

• Identify problems, gaps, and inconsistencies, and create PRs, RFCs, or educational resources where needed. If the task demands support from others, I’ll advocate for it and make myself available.

I thrive when

• I’m given autonomy and freedom to experiment and explore.
• I’m prototyping or working on short-term, innovative, and complex projects.
• I’m able to support and accelerate others.

I struggle when

• I work on the same project for an extended period of time.
• I’m asked to produce at a regular cadence.
• Work takes a long time before it gets published or reaches production.

A note on how my brain works

I’ve been diagnosed with autism and ADHD. These neurological differences shape how I perceive and interact with the world, and have contributed greatly to my success at work and in life.

They also come with a set of challenges, but I’ve learned to cope with the more disruptive symptoms so you should see little impact on my work. However, you may notice a few things:

• I may not be able to join for social activities after an event.
• I may have uneven or “spiky” periods of productivity.
• I may intensely focus on tasks that interest me.

How I make decisions

Whenever possible, I prefer fast iterations of small contributions guided by metrics and user feedback. That means identifying the smallest fix that would address the user’s need, publishing it, and following up to see if it helped.

For changes that have a non-trivial impact or require substantial effort, I believe in slow decision-making followed by fast execution. I prefer collaborating over design documents with a small group of stakeholders who care and making them available for everyone to comment on.

Giving and receiving feedback

As humans, we want to be liked and accepted. And when we give feedback, it may feel like we’re going to lose favor with the person we give it to. Delivering great feedback is a gift—one that takes courage—and essential in helping each other improve.

How I prefer to give feedback

Unless asked otherwise, I prefer to give feedback in the moment rather than waiting for the next performance review cycle.

I prefer to give praise and compliments publicly, and share feedback privately in written form.

How I prefer to receive feedback

Honest, candidly, and written. Please don’t give me feedback in person or during a call unless you’ve given me prior notice in written form.

I want to know how I can improve as well as what I’ve done well. Help me understand how I can do things differently in the future.

Socializing

My favorite way to socialize is through meaningful learning experiences—preferably where we’re both learning!

• Want to learn something new? Let’s start a book club 📖
• Want to practice public speaking? Let’s play some Powerpoint Karaoke 🗣️
• Want help understanding part of the code base? Let’s explore it together 👨‍💻

Things I like to talk about beyond work

My interests vary frequently, so feel free to ask me what I’m passionate about right now. That being said, some things that I always enjoy to talk about are:

• Personal knowledge management (PKM)
• Productivity tools and systems
• Neuroscience, working memory, and learning science
• Psychology and team dynamics
• Privacy and data ethics

Things I enjoy at in-person events

Meeting up with the team for conferences, off-sites, and other events is the highlight of the year. I enjoy getting to know the people I work with outside of the work environment.

Here are a few things I enjoy to do when traveling:

• The first thing I’ll do when traveling to a new place is to check Happy Cow for great vegan food.

• If I have time for sightseeing, I’ll look up the city on Atlas Obscura for the more odd or unconventional experiences. I’m generally not interested in the typical touristy things.

• I enjoy any sport or physical activity, especially racket sports, morning runs, and nature hikes.

I’m particularly sensitive to noise. I wear special earplugs that allow me to participate in most social activities, but I may excuse myself in overly noisy environments.

Final words

I’m constantly striving to improve the way I work, communicate, and collaborate with my team members. This page is intended as a starting point for how we can both do our best work.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to me if you have any questions about my working preferences! 👋