David Dieulivol's README

• About Me 👋
• Books I loved (in no particular order)
• How I work
  • Workflow
    • How do you start your working day?
    • How do you work with emails? (cadence, moments in the day, ...)
    • When do you check slack? (open all the time, open just sometimes, on your phone, channels you check most often, ...)
    • Do you rely on GitLab TODOs, emails, or another page to know what work you have on your plate?
    • How do you prepare for meetings?
    • How do you make async work happen in practice?
  • Tools
    • What tools do you use to keep track of the stuff that cannot be in a GitLab issue (paper, TODO lists, apps, ...)
    • What are the tools installed on your mac that you cannot live without?
    • Do you have workflows that you are proud of and/or relying on constantly
  • Web browser
    • What are important pages to bookmark?
    • What are the browser extensions that you cannot live without?
    • What are other workflows/tips you have with your browser?
  • Text editor
    • What is your text editor, and why did you choose this one?
    • What are tips you feel everybody using your editor should know about? (e.g. multi-line edit in textmate/sublime/vscode)
    • What are your favorite extensions?
• Team member profile
  • Communication Style
  • Working Style
  • Working Style Summary
  • Feedback
  • Are there any accomodations that can be made to help with you working environment

About Me 👋

Hi! I'm David and I am a Senior Backend Engineer on the Engineering Productivity team at GitLab. I live in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland (GMT+1).

• 🇨🇭 I grew up near Bordeaux, France, and spent the last 15+ years in Switzerland. I have both nationalities, and I now feel more Swiss 🇨🇭
• 👨‍👩‍👧 Husband and soon-to-be daddy
• 🏋🏼 Crossfitter
• 🌎 I lived on three continents so far
• 📏 I am 1m95 (6 4')
• 🍷 Wine over beer if I have to choose, but I hope I'll never have to
• 📖 I love to learn new things, particularly to improve my skillset
• 🎸 🥁
• 🏫 I did my masters degree 6 years after my bachelor degree 🙈
• 🐶 I have a very good contact with animals (and I love them!)

Books I loved (in no particular order)

• Atomic Habits
• Why we sleep
• The personal MBA
• Thinking, fast and slow
• Remote & Rework
• The Phoenix project
• Les misérables
• Extreme Ownership

How I work

Workflow

How do you start your working day?

• I do a first pass in my emails: I keep the ones that are actionable for me, and archive/delete the others.
• I check Slack and do the same thing as for emails
• I then try to empty my mailbox
• I set the priorities for the day (I quite like the 3 tasks system)
• I go grab a coffee
• I start working on the most important task on the list

How do you work with emails? (cadence, moments in the day, ...)

I generally close emails/slack when I'm working on a task, and I open/close them every hour or so.

When do you check slack? (open all the time, open just sometimes, on your phone, channels you check most often, ...)

I generally close emails/slack when I'm working on a task, and I open/close them every hour or so.

Do you rely on GitLab TODOs, emails, or another page to know what work you have on your plate?

I generally clean GitLab TODOs, but I get all of the notifications I should have by email already, which is my primary source of feedback.

How do you prepare for meetings?

Pretty standard: I have reminders a day before (or on Friday if the meeting is on Monday) my 1:1 and the EP weekly team meeting to add some notes in there.

I generally add items as I think of them during the week.

I finally read the agenda ~10 minutes before.

How do you make async work happen in practice?

• Closing slack and emails regularly help me become less distracted (and less reactive by design), and more focused on async communication.
• I write as much context as I can in my written communication
• I favor writing in an issue than in Slack

Tools

What tools do you use to keep track of the stuff that cannot be in a GitLab issue (paper, TODO lists, apps, ...)

I use Trello for my personal TODO list (got inspired by the Personal Kanban book). I have setup the following columns:

• Recurring: I use the card repeater power-up for those tasks. Example of tasks are Write into the EP weekly agenda a day before the meeting, Review 1:1 notes and create tasks accordingly a day after the meeting, Do the IT burnout index every 3 months, ... Ask me for the up-to-date list!
• To Keep: Documentation/snippets I'm not sure where else to put. I'll try to move them as much as possible to a public space.
• Backlog: The big list of things I need to work on.
• Ready: What I'll focus on today/this week.
• In progress: What I'm working on (generally one task)
• Waiting: when the task is waiting for feedback (email reply, comment in issue, review, slack message, ...)
• Done

What are the tools installed on your mac that you cannot live without?

• VSCode
• Time Out
• Trello
• Spotify
• Evernote
• ProtonVPN
• Docker (I use Rancher Desktop)
• Timer (very useful for timeboxed experiments)
• Kap (for GIFs)
• Unsplash wallpapers: to keep my Desktop fresh
• IM: Signal, Whatsapp, Telegram

Do you have workflows that you are proud of and/or relying on constantly

• macOS keyboard shortcuts for reviews
• User snippet in vscode to add byebug (I just type debug and it will add require "byebug"; byebug)
• Using git almost exclusively from VSCode (the exception being interactive rebases)
• A well-configured terminal
• The GitLab vscode extension, in particular for those workflows:
  • GitLab: Open Active File on GitLab
  • GitLab: Create New Merge Request on Current Project

Web browser

What are important pages to bookmark?

Have a look at my bookmarks (2022-04-29).

What are the browser extensions that you cannot live without?

• Conventional comments
• 1password
• Adblock
• JSON formatter
• Okta

What are other workflows/tips you have with your browser?

I started using Chrome for work, and having profiles separate profiles for work and personal sessions are great.

I use the CMD+SHIFT+M shortcut followed by ENTER to go into my personal session (e.g. when I need to check my personal mailbox), and I close it as soon as I'm done. I reopen it when I need to: the sessions are persisted 🎉.

Text editor

What is your text editor, and why did you choose this one?

I use VSCode for most of my development work (if I work in say Scala, I'll use one of the IntelliJ editors). I made the following progression:

• Eclipse (Java)
• TextMate (Ruby/RoR)
• Sublime Text 2
• Sublime Text 3
• Atom
• (very) brief stop at Vim
• VSCode

I fell in love with multi-line editing, the main reason why I switched to Textmate in the first place.

What are tips you feel everybody using your editor should know about? (e.g. multi-line edit in textmate/sublime/vscode)

• Anything on the VSCode Code Basics page

What are your favorite extensions?

• Alignment to align code the way I want it.
• The GitLab vscode extension, in particular for those workflows:
  • GitLab: Open Active File on GitLab
  • GitLab: Create New Merge Request on Current Project
• Markdown All in One to create table of contents automatically
• Project manager to * Project manager to open a new project in a VSCode tab with CMD+Shift+N, followed by CMD+Option+P
• ShellCheck, shell-format and shellman for shell autocompletion/linting.
• Text Transformer for VS Code to uppercase/lowercase text.
• TODO Highlight to highlight TODO: in your code.

Team member profile

Comes from this template, which itself comes from the Autism Education Trust.

This template can be used by team members and managers to build a profile to enable more personalisation in the team member & manager relationship. This is particularly important for neurodiverse team members both diagnosed and undiagnosed, as they may have unique needs and accomodations that need to be made to ensure they are successful at GitLab. By focussing on styles rather than diagnosis it ensure that everyone has the opportunity to express individual needs without disclosing there neurodiversity if they do not wish too.

Communication Style

• I prefer to communicate verbally
• I prefer to communicate through written communications
• I do not communicate well in large groups
• I can communicate well in large groups
• I can struggle with traditional social cues such as eye contact
• I can struggle with talking about non-work related topics whilst at work
• Other: (Insert)

Working Style

• I benefit from work tasks being written or backed up with written communication
• I prefer visual information such as videos, charts, graphics and diagrams
• I prefer to record zoom meetings so I can review them later
• I can handle multiple questions or instructions put to me at one time
• I prefer not to have multiple questions or instructions put to me at one time
• I tend to need time to process information before providing answers
• I prefer to have information or questions prior to meetings or discussions
• I can struggle with deadlines, I appreciate more communication on tasks and deadlines
• I don't perform well with constant change, advanced notice to significant changes is preferred
• I work best when I can concentrate on a small number of tasks at one time
• Other: (Insert as many of your own statements as you see fit)

Working Style Summary

I prefer a work environment with lots of communication. I enjoy synchronous interactions, but I would lean heavily into asynchronous communication. I can deal with ambiguity well and thrive when I have multiple tasks that I am working on.

Feedback

• I prefer verbal feedback
• I prefer written feedback
• I prefer verbal feedback, followed up in writing
• I prefer written feedback, followed up with a verbal conversation

Are there any accomodations that can be made to help with you working environment

Not for now.