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Journal 2025-04-29

Working on a job mission, and had a great conversation with JB.

Goals

  • RESUME: Solution/Sales Engineer Job
    • Other jobs:
      • Developer team lead
      • CTO / Tech partner
      • Tech problem solver
  • RESUME: CTO
  • RESUME: Makerspace
  • Confident Resume-CV, ready to share.

Companies I'm exploring

  • Red Hat / IBM
  • Hardware companies - Software components
    • Programming
    • Maker space
    • Industrial design / programmer

Ideal client/partner/employeer

  • Put together a tiger team
    • Find someone looking to build a lab

Roles I serve

  • Tech team lead
  • Tech partner
  • Design / Builder / coder
  • Problem solver - "Tech plumber"

Resume-CV

  • Each CV is custom to the company & role
  • Focus on relevant parts of role
  • Evidence of success

People say...

  • "THIS is our guy!

Powerful Questions

Sales

  • How does it benefit others?
  • How did you bring success to them?
  • How did you get the lead, did you do the presentation, who did you speak to?
  • Working with a team? what was your involvement?
  • How does this bring value to company?
    • Increase revenue
    • Cut costs
    • Attractive features
  • How does this apply to my company X?
  • What can you show us?

Project Show & Tell

Languages I know well

  • English, Spanish
  • Python

Tech

  • How did you use X? Why did you use? What problem did it solve?
  • What have you made with X?
  • What decisions were yours vs theirs?
  • How much did you get involved?
  • Tell me about yourself...
    • Talk about what they can relate to
  • How can you sell yourself to me?
  • What did YOU do?
  • What did you learn?
  • "In solving the problem, I used (TOOL/TECH)"
  • Why did you choose?

JRO Value Delivered

  • Modernized businesses
    • Offline, to modern age
    • Take ideas, bring them to life
  • Security
    • Protect reputation
  • Database design
  • Prototypes

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

  • Ship velocity: Weekly

Apps

  • CRUD application, designs, mockups, inspiration, user interviews

Coaching

  • Quality through Test-driven development (TDD), pair-programming, automated deployment pipelines & retrospectives.

Sales Presentations

  • Speaking Notes
  • Research
  • Proposed solution
  • Specification document / Blueprint / Mission
  • Evaluated existing systems, proposed solutions
  • Metrics to achieve
  • Accomplishments: Migrated off datacenter, 50%+ cost savings

Notes

  • Avoid lists of tech/tools - Instead, describe what I did, then include Tech
  • We --> I
    • "As part of the team, I did X"
  • Use name of Fortune 500 clients as permitted (example: Citibank)
  • Generating leads, following up, landing the sale
    • Details
  • "I'm the best person for that role"
  • What types of prototypes?
  • I help protect company's reputation
  • Type of enterpreneurs & investors worked with, their industry, what they achieved after working with them
    • Raised money after a demo of the prototype
    • Secured big contracts

CV Structure Ideas

  • Name / Email / Phone / Photo
  • Website / Code repo
  • Mission / Persona / Industry
    • Role types / CTO
  • Problems I can solve
  • Accomplishments / Impact
  • Experience
    • Situation / Action / Result
  • Evidence
    • Links
  • Call to action

When Joining a Team

  • Ask designers, what are you working on?
  • Elevator pitch
    • What problems
    • Top of mind, pushing toward
  • Are you having retrospectives?
  • Look at backlog.
  • "Design brought in as an Umpire" - looking for sign-off from design, don't get it, slows down. Tie breakers.

Design

  • Figma Prototype mode
  • Test & Feedback
  • Great for Executive presentations
  • Point of reference
    • Instructional design & documentation
  • Training
  • Screenshots of User interface
  • Focus on interaction & flow
  • Design language
  • Design systems
  • Core of prototype
  • Graphic design - surface level (most understood, because visible)
  • Functional CV
    • Jobs to be done
    • What are they looking for
    • History
    • Captabilities
    • What am I shopping for?
  • Metaphor
    • "Nutrition information without a standard"
    • No standard of resume - wayfinding, familiar
  • Photo
  • Talk about business interest
  • What is CTO looking for? Business? Tech expertise? Team? Fingers on keys? Objectives? how to connect with it?
  • Buyer persona
  • Super power
    • "Building connective tissue"
    • High-level strategy --> Tactical work
    • Distill that down
    • Internal communication - assumed to be heard, takes a long time
  • Strategic level
  • Roles
    • Tech Lead/Staff
    • Dig into the tech stack
    • Techincal Project Manager
    • Problems
      • Team in disarray
  • Challenges
    • Grow organically - "Rose bush, never pruned" opinionated in different directions
      • Start-up
      • Maturity: Solidfies that
    • Opinionated way of working
      • Agile
      • Apple is very waterfall
  • Authors
    • Michael Lewis - "The Big Short" book
      • The Fifth Risk - presidency, preparedness, example: tech people brought in to navigate pandemic. The person on the ground knows that's happening. Bring order to the chaos. Capture documentation. Sense-making.
      • Who's the expert - FIND the expert? Make sense of chaos: Bring Calmness.
  • Design embedded in Engineers
    • Embedded - close to delivery as possible
    • Strategic
      • Publicy traded
      • Performance - big picture
      • Strategy office for organization
      • How does your work tie into that?
    • Tactically
      • Where should documentation be?
        • Obsidian?
      • Data driven
  • Data (Key value pair) import into Figma
    • Examples: 40 different form fields, form-set to structure them, XML in the page. Address, put into a spreadsheet, import into Figma, builds with design system. Driven by a data source
  • Perfect design system
    • Automatic Consistency
    • Easy to change
  • Fiverr
  • User Testing - Tie breaker
    • Ask CUSTOMERS the right way to go
    • Design as tie breaker? Recipe for infighting
  • Sales
    • Time to value < 3 days
      • Plugged in
      • Work to show you
      • What I need
  • Developers
  • Problem: Product Manager only person talking to customers
  • CEO - First Product manager, Founder, talking to customers
  • Research & Development
    • Talk to customers, present to them, listen to challenge
  • How did you get this idea? What drove this decision making
  • Operating like Pivots, "Tiger team" (LOVE IT)
    • Build/bring own playbook - got their face on it
    • My pet project team, get things done, small footprint
    • Urgent Problems
    • Tactical
      • Diagnost the problem, actually help solve them
      • Consultant: "Provides a report"
      • "Can help you Ship better"
      • Translation layer - powerful
  • Think of SELF as a product
    • Unique value
      • Connect strategy to tactical
      • Build curiosity
      • Articulate the Why
      • Find out what's important
  • Pivotal-style practices
    • LEAN star-up
    • Hypothesis-based design
    • Feels good to ship... often (weekly is good)
    • Get feedback, get something out the door
    • Opinionated to action - Get in hands of people
    • Sell what's available today - even as a beta
    • Behavioral design
    • Create positive habit-forming loops
    • Make quick decisions & review them
  • Quality Assurance
    • Dev Tooling
    • Obsessed with quality
    • Build autoamted testing
    • Test Driven Development (TDD)
    • Behavior testing (BDD)
  • Ideal customer
    • Drowning in bugs
    • Quality control - Build tests
    • Quality job #1 - Ship product we are proud of
    • Reliability
    • Confidence: "Take that to the bank" (marketing message)
    • CTO space, struggling
      • Be "information bloodhound"
    • Looking at Volitilty
      • How reliable is your team? They say they are going to ship. Do they deliver? Does the work bleed across sprints. Operationalize Quality. Cost savings. Efficiency.
    • Engineering - Focused on the engineering stuff, shipped, make organization efficient, save money, big ideas, "give us more of the money" . Understand what is a good idea. Efficiency gains. QA automation. Test engineer.
    • Python (PyTest)
    • BDD - Dig into it, similar to TDD
      • Test cases: If / Given / Then. Ally for TDD. Focus on acceptance criteria. Similar to user story.
      • Build Unit Tests. Gerkin language, acceptance criteria (vs Design).
      • "Make better use of the funding you have." Do more with less - have the key to the lock.
      • Tailor CV to quality - satisfying

Tools

  • Postman - used for automated testing; API automation tool. How can it work with Python? QA primary team. Many layers of QA. Consumer facing.

Notes

  • Align with TOP LINE GROWTH.
  • "We need a Staging environment" - have confidence in the system
  • "It's all QA - with a side of engineering"
  • Be the bridge between engineering and QA.
  • Flexible - Operate as lead, work both sides of a problem - leadership needs coaching
  • Leaders: Work up, former engineers; Managers - career path. Don't know how to commuicate with team to move forward.
  • Resource: Value Proposoition Canvas
    • Download it
  • 4 minute video from Strategizer
  • CTO is a customer - build for them
  • Pain points - "on fire"
  • Gains - what drives their happiness?
    • Empathy-mapping
    • The Mom Test strategy
  • Plot biggest pain & gain
  • What are their jobs they need done?
    • Communicate with team
    • Ship software
    • Quality
  • Pain reliever
  • Services
  • Gain creators
    • Makes me happy
    • dashbaord with green lights
    • Answer to the dopamine hook
  • "Ideal client and what you can do"
  • Effective persona

Job Conversation track

  • Cold call, LinkedIn - Connection point. "We're in the same area, same field, same time zone."
    • See Linked in to see if there's connection.
    • Both worked at X. Introduction from someone else.
    • Shared background.
    • Idea: Reach out to inspiring presenter. Ice breaker. - - Timebox it
  • Have a Problem List - What you think.
    • I'm researching this - do you know someone ? who can validate
  • Doing user research: validate the problems
  • This appears to be the biggest challenges: Are you experiencing that?
  • Interview questions
    • Are you moving fast & breaking things, or moving slow and fixing things?
    • Tell the Vision - We're doing X, but we could be going faster. / Shipping
    • "If that were working well, what would that day look like?"
    • What are 3 biggest challenges facing your business in 6 months. What about 6 months after that?
    • Ask tough questions.
    • What 3 pieces of of product are most valuable, and most need of an update? (Un-releazed value.)
    • What's your dedicated budget?

Notes

  • UX Engineer role - Design orientation, programmer
  • Design technology
  • Tiger Team - Unique value prop
    • Put together a tiger team
    • Find someone looking to build a lab
    • Return to office
    • What does space need to look like
      • Rolling whiteboards
    • Playbook
    • Help teams acclimate to that
  • Unique value propotion
  • Free badass resources
  • Product minded - business mind
  • How did it work?
    • Operate as a researcher, turn the table
    • "I've been a hiring manager, I'm going to ask tough questions."
    • I want to cool build shit, iteratively, good idea to some place great.
    • "Turned out wrong thing to build"
  • Problem: Product turns into a Junk Drawer, check a box, ship it
  • How partnered? How to sell it to engineering team? Value to our customers
  • Quarterly planning -> action plan. Worked on it that afternoon. Pointed / estimated it. Cleared up questions. What we're doing. Why were doing it. Orient along our best How.
  • Leadership - Explore.
  • KPI - "What are your Key Performance Indicators"
    • Ask the question
    • Engineers know them
    • Sales, Customer support
      • Time on a call
  • DevOps - Engineering
  • "1 week washing machine"
  • Ship frequency? "6 week process?" - "My bar is week"
  • "What do you want? What do you need? What are you willing to give up" - Budget, salary
    • What you like to have?
    • Give up: Stock options, bonuses, salary
    • Want: More time off
  • Tactically
    • Understand environment
    • How long does it take to get idea on board, ship? How many people are involved? Sign off?
    • Big bang release (airbnb 2 releases a year)
      • System shock
    • Bug fixes
    • Design sprints
  • Discovery of role, structure of organization, right level of runway, blocked or "just shipping stuff", quality vs get things out the door
  • Shipping - so valuable to "close out" with value, budgets change, closure, organization can sell
  • Talk to executive directors, senior VPs, marketing directors

Tools

  • HubSpot, marketing layer, like SalesForce, campaigns, managing website, AB/Testing versions of the site, loops; contribute to Top Line Growth;
    • Problem: Analysis paralysis; all quant, no quall
    • Problem: Just execute, with no lookback, validation of right direction; seeing the LIFT you're looking for
    • Ship quickly, see how well its done

JB Problems

  • Vision: Help people, servant leader, "Team: Labor", non-profit, re-training people into design - very effective. 2 / 60 --> 38 / 60 people. Teaching. Operationalize it. How to get business off the ground. System for Deep work
  • Problems: Life Admin, chasing what's shiny, interests & creative outlets
  • Marketing
  • Checking Email
  • Context switching - painful
  • Dinner
  • Calendaring, Scheduling
  • Writing is a chore
  • Admin (taxes, invoices)

JB Dream Goals

  • Build tiger team, creative studio, creative direction, head of design
  • Do the work - Creative way, that can be shipped/viable
  • Music: Ambient, no vocal
  • Idea: App Parchment, metallic textures, webGL, follows your mouse
  • Public benefit corporation
  • Practices: 87% Adopted & continued practices (my success rates), typical is 25%.
    • Bringing value prop canvas - it will work, sell the team on it
    • I come back, still doing retros 6 months later - see the value
    • How we're working well, balanced with shipping the
    • Pairing

Ideas

  • UX design - Formal certification
  • https://www.strategyzer.com/library/the-value-proposition-canvas

Thoughts

  • Drawing is the universal tool of creativity

Resume-CV

  • Value prop canvas, put pieces together
  • Narrative

CV-Structure

  • Make it scannable, automated filtering.
  • CV Audiences
  • Accolades & Awards, Books
  • Education

Experiences / Work History

  • Companies, Skills, dates
  • Title

Structure

  • Situation / Complication / Resolutions - good for executives to read it. 2-3 lines
  • Case study

Conversation structure

  • What working on / Where we at / What's next
  • Who what when where why - story telling structure

PORTFOLIO

  • Who / Contact
  • history
  • Title, company, what I did there
  • Case studies
    • 5 pages
  • "Results baked in"
  • "Improved performance"
  • "Reduced annual spend"
  • "Reduced Time to market delivery 60%"
  • Core competiences & skill set - things I can do
  • Tools / Techniques / Practics
  • PORTFOLIO - 19 pages
  • Measureable results & Learning
  • Understand business goals
  • Make decisions and move forward
  • Before & after - lifting up results
  • End: Contact me
  • LOGOS
  • Value: Weave narrative, visuals, functional design (holistic); surface + content
  • Practice, leadership, share techniques, extend reach, take to other people, exponential value, perpetuate great practices, behund my life on the planet, help people do this kind of world
  • Talk about ideal, striving toard
  • Get others to the Promised Land

JB Working on

  • Make icons
  • Intro guide to starting a business

JB Challenges

  • Portfolio - NDA

ACTIONS

  • Keep track of what's helpful

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