I have a reddish-brown fur, a long, shaggy tail, and a waddling gait due to my shorter front legs; I’m roughly the size of a domestic cat, though with a longer body.

Things I like

• 🎮 Some of my favourite games were/are Overwatch, Guild Wars, anything by Supergiant Games, It Takes Two, Destiny 2, a few Mario games… there’s a lot of great games! I’m looking forward to playing a bunch of stuff on Xbox Games Pass for PC
• 📖 “Graphic novels” (comics) are my go-to reading material. I recommend Saga, The Best we Could Do, and Asterios Polyp. Text and images can be very expressive and also let you digest at your own page. There’s major educational potential too: the “Peterloo” historical graphic novel is one to read if you like Manchester!
• ♨ Cooking is tasty and interesting, and I like quality equipment (Vitamix, non-non-stick oven trays, etc.) - but it can be a chore at the end of a long day. Do let me know if you have any meal prep tips!
• 📊 Noting down information (such as comparisons on blenders, coffee machines, oven trays… most stuff I need to buy that I’ll use a lot) to make sure I make a good decision
• 🍚 wagamama’s menu & website - it’s all in lower case; do you need captial letters when you use space well?

Things I don’t like

• 💥 Sudden, loud noises - dogs/fireworks/balloons
• ☀ Being woken up too early by the sun, or birdsong
• 🏟️ Crowded, busy places - home & lonely nature is preferable

Interesting facts

• ⛩ After graduating I taught in Shanghai, China for one year; I then spent all my money travelling China, South Korea, and Japan
• 💬 When learning Mandarin as an adult, I got more interested in second language acquisition / how to learn languages. This led to me making my first original piece of code (a “graded reader” book builder), and now I’m a software engineer
• ✏ This website uses the font called “Comic Neue” - and so does my phone. My IDE has “Comic Mono”, a monospaced variant. It might get some hate being based on “Comic Sans” - but it’s meant to be easier to read (especially for people with dyslexia), and I like it
• 🎹 I recently taught myself how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, and now I’m playing some (basic) piano again

How I work / how to communicate with me

• 📝 I like to have information written down - it can be revisited, shared, and quoted/referenced. I’m probably writing my own notes in meetings when I feel there’s something important to capture!
  • Notion is my main tool to capture information.
  • I prefer bullet-points over paragraphs, to keep ideas focused
• 🗺 Even better than having text written down, I like to see visuals. Pictures speak a thousand words. Multiple pictures give an intuitive demonstrate of change over time. As I said: I like comics. I appreciate the irony that there are not many pictures here.
  • tldraw helps me sketch out ideas. It has a collaborative mode. Miro and Lucid are good too.
  • mermaid is a tool I want to use more - Diagrams as Code sound amazing
• 🤫 Quiet environments with minimal distractions are ideal
• 👥 Pair programming/mobbing is my preferred way of working. Social knowledge share and discussion in the comfort of your own home is a great combination

Ways I like to receive feedback

• 🎉 I like to see everyone praise each other when things go well
• 🏺 Keep it specific / evidence-based, and give me the context you have in mind.
  • 💥 What happened?
  • ✨ How did it make you feel?
• ⏳ Let me know in a timely manner if I could do something better.
  • 👌 If I agree, I will try to pivot!
  • 😕 If you bring it up too late, I won’t remember and can’t action it as easily :)
• 🎬 Keep it actionable, with helpful suggestions
• 🎤 As a conversation - let’s dive into it

Conditions I like to work in

• 👹 A Quiet Place
• 🧍 With a standing desk
  • ⚖ … and maybe a balance board!
• 🪑 With a nice chair
• 🖥️ & a nice screen
• 👀 With a view (nature is best 🌲)
• ^ That’s all stuff (that I have at home… I like WFH/remote work ;)) … I also like:
• 🫂 no-blame culture
• 🗪 pairing/mobbing; the easier to access/see the better

Other things I’m good at

• 🪣 making lists
• ✔ being prepared

Things I struggle with

• 🎶 Having many ideas, writing them down somewhere so that I can come back to them, and not taking so long that it detracts from my top priority
  • ✍ I use Notion & Todoist, and briefly tried Obsidian. It takes me a short while to capture ideas in a structured way
  • ❗ Ideas generate ideas, and you can only do one at a time
• 🔊 Noisy environments, like pubs. I can’t hear people well, so it’s very tiring to talk

You (also) may not know

• I studied Mandarin Chines for a while, but became more interested in Second Language Acquisition (and tooling for learning languages)
  • This was my pivotal path to becoming a software engineer
  • “Graded Reader” builder
  • “Hanzi To Anki” - generate flashcards from any text

Other topics/questions to expand on

• What motivates me?
• What qualities do I value in people?
• What makes me laugh?