Alan (Maciej) Paruszewski's README

Manager, Software Engineering, Security Risk Management: Security Policies

My Interactive README

Curious to learn more in a fun, retro-RPG style? Take a walk through a pixelated version of Sopot, Poland, where you can interact with the town to discover different aspects of my personal and professional life.

Related pages

• GitLab
• LinkedIn

About me

• I was born and raised in Wroclaw, Poland.
• I live with my wife, 2 kids, and our dog in Sopot, Poland.
• I value transparency, honesty, and trust and I believe that the best ideas are a result of the discussion.
• I enjoy traveling, learning new languages and cultures, brewing specialty coffee, playing video games and riding my gravel and mountain bikes in forests around my home.
• I love learning new things.

Workstyle

• I believe that my success is defined as the success of my team and that the leader is to serve the team to achieve their goals.
• I have a Logistician personality on 16 Personalities.
• I believe that 1:1s are very important meetings, this is the time for my team members to share concerns, and ideas and help solve blockers. To efficiently use the time we have scheduled, I encourage you to prepare the agenda (agenda template) before the meeting to help us prepare.
• I want to be transparent with my work and priorities, I aim to regularly inform my team members about my progress and share with them opportunities and important information as soon as possible.
• I will encourage you to think about your mental health and work-life balance and will remind you to take your time off.
• I am looking for opportunities to automate repetitive tasks.
• I believe in bias towards action
• I use SRM: Security Policies Group Priorities to plan next milestones.

Work patterns

• I live in the Central European Time.
• I believe in and embrace non-linear workday routine:
  • I wake up around 7:00 AM and start my workday by checking To Do's and messages to plan my day.
  • To maximize daylight hours I spend time with my family between 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM and I am typically not available during these times.
  • Around 7:00 PM I get back to work.
• I prefer to have meetings during my evenings (after 7:00 PM).

My dashboards

• Product Priorities
• My board
• Current Milestone Board
• EM Board
• Planning Board
• Frontend/Backend Board
• Deliverable/Stretch Board
• Group Bugs by Severity

Communicating with me

• I prefer asynchronous communication, it helps me prepare better answers and plan my workday.
• Slack:
  • You can send me a message on Slack at any time and I will respond during my working hours.
  • To be transparent with my team members I prefer keeping the conversation in our group channel (#g_srm_security_policies).
  • I may send you a message on Slack outside your working hours, however, I do not expect you to respond immediately.
• GitLab:
  • To make sure I will see your message, please mention me (@alan) as it will automatically create a To-Do item for me.
  • When your message is related to our teamwork, consider mentioning our group handles (@gitlab-org/security-risk-management/security-policies/backend or @gitlab-org/security-risk-management/security-policies/frontend).
• Meetings:
  • I treat meeting attendance optional.
  • I am preparing the agenda for the meeting at least 24 hours before the meeting and I expect the same from attendees, this helps me collaborate before the meeting starts and better prepare for the meeting.
  • On video meetings I use emojis to express my feedback.
  • I enjoy informal coffee chats, feel free to schedule one so we can meet and understand each other better.

Feedback

• Please send feedback to me in private and mark it as such. It will be most effective if you are clear and direct.
• I appreciate all feedback and see it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
• I aim to provide my feedback to you regularly in private during 1:1s and celebrate your achievements in public, let me know if this is uncomfortable for you.
• If you want to share feedback with me anonymously you can use this form to do it: https://forms.gle/Fk6PcJcaNyN8zZLS6. Thank you!
• Remember that you are not your work, I want to give you feedback to help you grow and I'd love to hear "radical candor" from you as well:

The most important thing I think you can do for someone who’s really good and who’s really being counted on is to point out to them when they’re not - when their work isn’t good enough. And to do it very clearly and to articulate why... and to get them back on track.

-- Steve Jobs