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💡 This is a living document and should be interpreted as such. Things will change 🎲!
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My name is Dimitrie Hoekstra (with an “e” at the end and pronounced correctly with emphasis on any 🙌 syllable).
I am a technical Sr. Product Designer working on DevOps-related products, Design Systems, and Open Source projects. — Startup Founder (TBA). Previously, working on Design Systems at Postman, CI/CD Product Designer at GitLab.
I am Dutch 🇳🇱, currently live in Spain, Barcelona 🇪🇸, and frequent Amsterdam 🇳🇱 and Berlin 🇩🇪.
This document is my personal README, a place for you to get to know me — how I think, work, and communicate. Reading this will make it easier for us to work together efficiently!
Links
Ideal work conditions
- A good co-working provides an ideal space to be productive in. A place to focus, separate from home but close by, with people to talk to.
- A clear understanding of commitments and responsibilities towards others, both in terms of calendars and product management. Ideally, transparent for everyone. This transparency plus a “single source of truth” prevents double work.
- A playful and free working environment with a positive culture:
- Room for experimentation and mistakes.
- Assume good intentions. Read more at ”assuming positive intent”.
- Exploration of self-driven and -initiated projects for the greater good.
- Flexibility and generosity with time allocation so things can move around.
- Minimal bureaucracy and capacity to change collaboration.
- Diversity; open-minded, playful, inclusive, and diverse people to interact with. #ally
- Authenticity and ethicality - I value honest and human interaction. Think for yourself, see what is truly right, and act upon that.
- Responsibility and ownership with a bias towards action.
- A close group of people that ground you into the company.
- A remote working environment including its processes. This enables flexibility with time and location when necessary.
- Consideration for work/life balance. “Life is the pillar on which work balances.”
Ideal work scheduling
- Generally, I work a standard time block of 8 hours a day. This might differ based on location or work requirements. Regardless, I like to be flexible with my time, shifting it around, and incorporating personal or social needs into my day. Read more about a non-linear workday.
- I prefer 24-hour time notation. For example, I write 8 pm as 20:00.
- From time to time, I travel in changing time zones. When this happens I will try my best to make it work and move any appointments if required. My available time on Google Calendar should automatically adjust accordingly 🤗.
- Timezones are best written with the standardized format GMT+[insert number]. This makes efficient and successful communication of time easier.
- Ideally, when communicating time within the same day, we do so in relative terms; e.g. “4 hours from now” as this circumvents timezones altogether.
- I can be considered more of a night owl 🦉 than a morning person. The rhythm is different, output isn’t.
- Generally, 20:00 should mark the end of a normal workday including any potential meetings. Because of my work/life balance, I try to avoid working late into the night, but it might still happen occasionally.
- During weekends or when I am Out Of Office I tend not to be available. However, you can always try reaching out to me.
- My work calendar is open and accessible. This way everyone can see my availability.
- Some unobstructed time to do deep work is important for productivity. I try to keep this in mind when scheduling meetings.
- Anyone should feel free to be able to put something directly on my calendar. This takes into account a “bias towards action”. Assume an appointment is possible if scheduled enough time in advance. Please reach out if in doubt. In case I am not able to make the meeting, I’ll make sure to reach out and reschedule.
- Guests can edit their created events by default making adjustments easier.
- I appreciate meetings scheduled relatively close to each other rather than occasionally throughout the day. A day not broken up by meetings enables me to have a hybrid maker/manager schedule with less context switching. Preferably I have a minimum of 10-15 min between meetings.
- Meetings should happen punctually and should not overextend. If more time is necessary, a follow-up meeting can be scheduled. When meetings frequently overextend, a review of their purpose, contents, or social dynamics is needed. Consider using the “speedy meetings” setting in your Google Calendar and following these extended tips for remote meetings.
- Scheduling meetings at least a day in advance prevents disrupting focus time and enables me to prepare if needed. Ad-hoc meetings are certainly possible but less preferred.
- Ad-hoc meetings, when working remotely with people in different timezones, can have the side-effect of unintentionally pushing people outside of their normal working hours.
- Consider if something has to be a meeting at all. Often issues can be resolved asynchronously. For example, through a written message or a (Loom) screen recording. A good guide as to when something should be a meeting is described in https://remote.com/blog/how-to-run-remote-meetings.
My spoken languages
Feel free to speak to me in any of the following languages, though I prefer English for professional topics!
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🇺🇸 English (Full Professional / C)
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🇳🇱 Dutch (Native)
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🇪🇸 Spanish (B)
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🇩🇪 German (A)
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Ideal communication
- I prefer asynchronous communication as it allows us to communicate without obstructing the flow of the other. Regardless, the most effective channel of communication might need to be synchronous, based on the task at hand. Consider notification overload, time requirements, and existing commitments of both parties.
- Communication channel considerations:
- Slack/IM: Active throughout most of the day. I appreciate this channel for semi- and non-urgent messages, both formal and informal. I prefer to use open channels for most of my communication here! This ensures additional stakeholders can freely read and contribute to the conversation when needed.
- Direct messages: I try to stay up to date on these throughout the day. I appreciate this channel for “urgent and formal” or “non-urgent and informal” messages.
- Email: Checked a few times a day. I appreciate this channel for non-urgent and formal messages only.
- Issues/epics: Checked a few times a day. I appreciate this channel for non-urgent and formal messages only.
- Google Calendar and video meetings: I appreciate this for important matters, when quick discussions are beneficial, or for an informal catch-up.
- Phone: Calling is mostly reserved for personal matters or emergencies!
- Whatsapp: Again for personal matters or less extreme emergencies only 🙃. (There is a link to reach me on my personal website).
- Twitter: I mostly use my Twitter for my professional life. Feel free to reach out to me on there anytime for non-urgent matters.
- My communication style [1] is spirited, direct, and considerate when I am relaxed. When stressed, it can shift to a more direct and systematic approach. Because of this, I like to focus on the bigger picture, be inspired by big goals, have a structured framework and healthy discussions that reinforce me.
- I appreciate a bit of casual conversation at the beginning of a meeting, though I appreciate directness. Say it like it is, honest and to the point so we can work together.
- For 1:1s, I prefer a bi-weekly or weekly cadence as it allows for a genuine connection.
- I occasionally leave a message on the weekend. Feel free to read it on Monday!
- Generally, I like to avoid acronyms when possible. They have the effect of excluding people from conversation if they are not familiar with the terminology. If used, expand them at least once throughout the conversation or document. Also, see https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/
- Don’t just say “hi” when opening a written conversation. Instead, immediately let me know what you are looking for even if it's just a bit of conversation! I’ll try to do the same! It will save us both time.
Communicating feedback
- I like to give and receive personal feedback in 1:1’s so that the discussion flows freely and we can dive into how to improve. I appreciate when these discussions are honest, human, and authentic.
- Generally, it is good to give praise in public, where it can be seen and acknowledged by others. I will try my best to follow this rule when I see something good is done that deserves more attention 🙌.
- For design feedback, timeliness helps with iteration frequency and effectiveness.
- In my opinion, understanding the broader purpose is key for correct management and all stakeholders. “Say why, not just what”.
- For continued feedback, three dimensions should apply:
- Safety should be high (no fear of retaliation)
- Effort should be low (easy and healthy discussions)
- Benefit should be high (positive results)
Things I love
- Meeting people in person, attending meet-ups, events, and conferences. Remote work is great, but not without meeting and sharing time with people in person. I look forward to a great and inspiring night out 😉.
- I love introducing change that creates value for others and myself. Ideation is a prime example of this.
- Being an eternal optimist.
- I am always on the lookout to become more consistent in input and output 👀.
- https://paulgraham.com/ds.html is an amazing reminder to embrace limitations and that efforts often benefit from starting small. However, with well-known constructs, I love to make them DRY and work well over time. My .dotfiles and my "knowledge base over time" in Notion are examples of this.
- https://www.home-assistant.io/ is a great project of mine that I spend time on and that benefits my daily life.
Work setup
Working remotely can be done from one place or while on the move. My default setup works in any place and is optimized for remote meetings.
Other things to know about me
- Huge on travel! Don’t believe me? Check out my Nomad profile.
- I am a cat person 🐱!
- I love reading books, especially science fiction, novels, and biographies.
- I am big on card and board games, especially older ones such as Mahjong 🀄️.
- I like to listen to electronic music while I work and go to live performances.
- +1 on traveling and camping 🏕.
- Mixing classic drinks done well is 💯.
- Once every so often, I get lost in the world of typography.
Drivers licenses
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🚗 Car (B)
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🏍️ Motor (A1, A2, A)
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👌 Inspired by the article Hackernoon: 12 Manager READMEs (from some of the best cultures in tech and similar Readme's from colleagues found in the GitLab UX handbook.
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