Hi there!
If you’re reading this, then you probably already have some idea of who I am. The goal of this README is to describe myself, my likes & dislikes, my working styles, and hopefully make it a bit easier to get to know me!
I borrowed this cool idea from Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab. Darren describes this idea exceptionally well, so I’ll just quote him below.
This page is intended to help others understand what it might be like to work with me, especially people who haven’t worked with me before. It’s also a well-intentioned effort at building some trust by being intentionally vulnerable, and to share my ideas of a good working relationship to reduce the anxiety of people who might be on my team.
Darren Murph, Head of Remote at Gitlab
That said, let’s get started!
Who is Isaac?
That’s a great place to start! I’m Isaac (he/him), Knowledge Manager, dad, and husband. I’ve worked in tech, in some capacity, for over 10 years now. My first job out of college was working in the Project Management Office as a contractor for the Department of Veterans Affairs. We were given the herculean task of helping the VA move away from Waterfall to a more Agile method of developing/managing projects. I didn’t love this job, but I learned so many lessons that I still hold on to today.
After a few years as a contractor, I made the jump into digital marketing at Merkle, specifically, Search Engine Optimization. SEO was an exciting opportunity for me to merge my technical interests in web development and my client management experience.
After a few years as an SEOer, I discovered my true calling. I wanted to get into product. I’d worked with our product teams during my time in digital marketing and I quickly fell in love with the rapid pace of development, the smart engineers, the challenging problems, and the opportunity to build software that helped people. It just made sense. I changed teams internally and joined one of our product teams as a technical liaison/partnership manager. It’s hard to describe exactly what this role was, but think of it as a bit of a hybrid developer & product manager. We described our team as the MacGyvers. When something broke and the product team didn’t have the space to fix it, we showed up, hacked something together, and then worked with the product manager to get a proper fix detailed and spec’d out.
After a year of that, I came across an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I joined an organization (Elo Entertainment) in the esports and gaming industry as a product owner. During my time there, I got to build and launch two properties from scratch. The first was our first ever Valorant stats and analytics website called Valorbuff. The second was our first ever League of Legends esports site, TrackLoL. Both properties were incredible opportunities to lead and manage. We tackled challenging data, scale, and processing problems and launched properties that I will always be proud of.
In 2021, I joined Lumin as a product manager. After about a year, I had an incredible opportunity presented to me by our leadership. I was asked to take on reigns as our resident knowledge manager. And so that brings us to today. I’m a knowledge manager who loves working with smart people, tackling challenging problems, and enabling our employees to do their best work. On top of my day job, I’m also the dad of a hilarious 3-year-old and a smiley 5-month-old and the husband to my wonderful, talented, and caring wife.
Recently, I’ve decided to start up a side gig in career coaching. Through my career, I’ve found that I love helping people get into jobs that bring them joy. As I’ve detailed above, my career has been anything but linear and each step of the way has shaped me into the person I am today. If you’re interested in taking the next step in your career but aren’t sure which way to go, let’s chat. I’d love to help.
How you can help me
- Assume the best in me and in others. I truly believe assuming the best in those around us can make a myriad of situations exponentially better.
- I like explicit requests. Asking me to “take a look at X” tends to leave me spinning my wheels a bit. Instead, say “I need input on X and Y, and let me know by Z” and you’ll get a much more thorough answer.
- Tend to over-communicate. Ambiguity, in my experience, leads to unmet expectations and frustration. If you’re unsure, ask. If I’m unclear, ask. If you think I’m not understanding, keep explaining. I assume silence means everything is okay.
- Leave your ego at the door, I promise I will do the same. We are working towards the same goal and as a team, we can achieve anything we set out to do.
- Laugh. I love laughing. Sometimes all we can do is laugh–don’t be afraid to do it!
My working style
- I am an Enneagram Type 7. The Enneagram Institute describes the Type 7 as The Enthusiast. I think that’s a perfect description of me. I thrive with variety and I love fun. I love possibilities and feel trapped by rigid process. I tend to be a bit scattered and will occasionally get off topic. You won’t offend me if you ask me to refocus.
- I am an ENTJ-A on the 16 Personalities test. They describe this as The Commander. I don’t think I’m nearly as ruthless as described here, but I do value reason over feelings (though, becoming a husband and father has shown me feelings are very important and have value!).
- I love remote work. I love having a 10 second commute down to my office in our basement. I love seeing my daughter throughout the day. I love being able to start a load of laundry when I need a mental break.
- I value asynchronous work. My previous team had engineers in Europe and South America. It was imperative that we could function asynchronously. This means communicating clearly, setting expectations, and giving people space to do their best work.
- I tend to work in bursts of energy rather than consistent and methodical efforts.
- I like deadlines. If I’m given a task and no definitive due date, I will likely prioritize other tasks ahead of it.
- I like clear feedback. If something I’ve done or delivered was not satisfactory, I want to know why and what I can do better next time.
- I don’t like meetings without a specific purpose or goal. The best meetings are the ones that are efficient, purposeful, and leave the attendees feeling energized.
- I believe in empowered teams. I’ll probably have a post or two that goes into more detail, but I highly value teams that feel empowered. Nothing stifles innovation and leads to burnout faster than teams that are merely checking off tasks given to them from on high. Teams that are empowered build the best products.
What I assume about others
- I assume the best in others! I assume that you will do the same with me.
- That you’re better at your job than I am at your job. If you’re an engineer, I assume you know more about the code than me and I will need your expertise. If you’re leadership, I assume you know how to run the business better than me. If you’re a designer, I assume you know more about best practices and techniques than me.
- That if I’m unclear, you’ll ask clarifying questions. If there’s no questions, I assume everything is all good.
- That what I’m asking you to do is unlikely the only thing you’re working on right now.
- That work is not the most important thing. We work to live. We don’t live to work. We’re not saving lives or running countries. Nights and weekends should be the exception and not the norm.
What I want to earn
- Your trust. Few things can harm a relationship (working or personal) more than broken trust.
- Your time. We’re all busy and pulled in a myriad of different directions. I hope that by getting to know one another, I can earn your time when it is needed. I promise to respect it.
- Your vulnerability. I value input and feedback. I value knowing what others are thinking. I’m not the best at intuiting feelings, and so I greatly value when others share their feelings with me.
Communicating with me
- I sometimes talk in circles. If I’ve made my point clear and I keep talking about it, feel free to interrupt and let me know everything’s clear.
- I interpret silence as everything’s fine.
- I try to express my thankfulness and gratitude in the moment. It’s genuine and if I say “thank you” I mean it.
- I like text conversations and verbal conversations. If you prefer one over the other, let me know and I’ll try to accommodate.
- Unless a message or a request has a deadline, I assume that it’s not critical and I can get to it when I have the time and space to do so. I will try to reciprocate this expectation.
Hobbies and fun
I like to joke that my hobby is collecting hobbies. In reality though, I love learning new things. This in itself can be a hobby. Lately, I’ve enjoyed spending my leisure time:
- Watching Formula 1. I got hooked after watching Drive to Survive on Netflix. I highly recommend it!
- Building mechanical keyboards. I just finished building my 3rd board (I’m typing on it now).
- Playing video games. I’ve been a PC gamer since I was a kid. My recent favorites have been Overwatch 2, Minecraft, and League of Legends.
- Riding our Peloton. I got into cycling in college and while I don’t ride moving bikes much anymore, I love exercising on our Peloton. Find me on the leaderboard as isaachulvey.
- BBQing. I have a pellet smoker and a gas grill (and if our deck was bigger, I’d probably have even more grills). I love cooking up tasty food and trying out new recipes.
- Playing pretend with my daughter. I absolutely love pretend play. I wish we did it more as adults. Recently, she’s loved building rocket ships out of blankets and chairs in our living room. We blast off and go to space. Maybe she’ll be an astronaut or aerospace engineer someday!
Keyboards
I love mechanical keyboards. To me, they represent a fascinating combination of creativity, function, and personal expression. There are truly an infinite number of combinations of parts and components and I’ve loved finding what switches, layouts, and colorways I enjoy. To date I have: