Hey, I’m Griffin! I’m incredibly excited to work with you all. Please check this out as a quick primer for working with me. I’d love to discuss any parts of it, or just meet up for a coffee chat to get to know each other.

What I could talk about for 30 minutes

• Video Games (Roguelikes, tactics), Board Games
• Painting miniatures (most recently Warhammer)
• 3D modeling, rendering engines
• Cooking! Or food in general
• Everything I like about my wife and my dog

My Management Style

• I’m very colloquial and informal, and often use humor as a communication style. It doesn’t mean I’m taking anything less seriously, I just find it the best tool I have to run a team.
• I believe that a given process can be an excellent starting point, and there’s a lot to learn from processes designed by smart people, but I think any actively engaged manager needs to regularly evaluate what’s working and what’s not, and be willing to change and try new things.
• I come from an Engineering background, and I’m happy to dive into details.
• My top priority is to “protect” my team, I think this takes a variety of different forms.
  • Manage incoming work and make sure it’s triaged appropriately.
  • Helping my engineers get to the next promotion level, by giving them the right opportunities, helping them work on their goals, and increasing their org-wide visibility.
  • Making sure engineers deliver with success, to ensure things work out for themselves, and the team as a whole.
  • Make sure my engineers are happy - interesting work, healthy work life balance.
  • I believe these all lead to minimizing attrition and helping deliver successfully, best serving the company’s goals as well.
• Mental health is just as important as physical health - don't hesitate to take a sick day for either, both are equally valid.

How you can help me

• I believe in asking questions by leading with what you already know / what you’ve already tried / your best guess. “Hey, how do I do X” vs “Hey, I’m looking for how to do X, I’ve tried reading the code here, and it seems to me that it’s probably Y, but wanted to confirm”. I find this helps present yourself to others in the best possible light, and makes it easier to be helped.
• Related, I find that coworkers are often eager and happy to help you, and it’s your job to outline the context, problem, and what you’re looking for as clearly as possible.
• Overcommunicate - proactively raise risks and issues, and let me know what’s going on. The more information I have, the more I can help you, whether it’s in management of a project, removing roadblocks, managing expectations, or making your case at promotion time.
• Proactive responsibility and ownership - take ownership of as much as you can. Own the requirements for your tickets, and make sure they best serve our goals. Own your release notes, your testing plan. To put it simply, the longer I can go without thinking about your work, the more of a successful engineer you’re being. I’ve heard it said that developers just take tickets, but engineers own systems, be engineers.