Readme

Hey, I’m Maxence. You can also call me Max if you want. The following contains a user guide for me and how I like to work. This is also what people call “Personal README”.

North Star Principles

• Humans come first.
• Diversity and inclusion.
• Work-life balance.
• “Actions speak louder than words”.

My Work Preferences*

* As mentioned above, this list sums up the way I like to work. It is absolutely not here to set expectations.

• Asynchronous communication. Notifications are my productivity killer. They are always switched off. That’s why I am more “offline” than the average. It allows me to do deep work sessions, free of distractions.
• Home office. My work setup is very minimalistic and nomad-friendly. It’s common to see me with different backgrounds during remote meetings. I find myself more productive working from different places (co-working space, cafe, library…).
• Direct vs. Indirect communication: Some people do their best to avoid disagreements and prefer a more indirect form of communication. I don’t. I believe “healthy disagreements” are a normal part of relating to others.
• Emails. I’m not good at checking my emails. If I’m too slow to respond, please reach me on Slack.
• Meetings. I like when they are timeboxed and organised beforehand. That means, I appreciate knowing before the meeting what it is about and if something is expected from me.
• Transparency. I’m very transparent about my activities. There are days where I’m less productive and I’m perfectly fine with that. I don’t like to feel the need to fake my online activity.
• Words matter. I believe words like “simple”, “just”, “of course”, “everyone knows” and “easy” should stay out of technical conversations. They can often be perceived as offensive. Also, I don’t think they provide much value.

Oddities

• OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder): I have an eye to spot unnecessary things like a paragraph with 2 different fonts. The same goes for technical stuff (irregularities in variables name casing, etc.). When it happens I usually do a sneaky fix and no one notices.
• Language: English is not my mother tongue. I may say the exact opposite of what I think at the moment. I also love expressions which I learn outside work (films, blogs…). If I use something offensive or inappropriate, please let me know. It’s probably unintentional.
• Bullet list: I tend to overuse bullet lists. It’s the perfect way to communicate with me (as long as it’s not an endless list). If it’s a trigger for you, please let me know.

I forgot one point: Feedback. I love to receiving feedback so I can improve. If you have to give me feedback, please go straight to the point.