…or maybe just coming back again This one will be a very personal article, maybe not interesting for those who didn’t work with me in the last few years. But still I wanted to write it because I wanted to express a couple of things that are wandering through my head right now. So… I’m leaving InakaESI , I’m going to be a programmer again… Moving Forward In a way I’m now moving forward. I’m leaving my current job and looking forward to start working on a new one. It’s a new challenge, in a new world, full of amazing things to discover and new stories to write. Going Back But in a way I’m also moving backwards. I’m leaving my CTO role (for the second time in my life) and I’m becoming a programmer once more. just Why? There are many _why_s here… Why am I leaving Inaka? There are a few reasons I can’t disclose, but none of them on its own would’ve been sufficient for me to leave a company I helped build and grow. From the ones I can, I think there are 2 that are the most important ones: The first one is . The flow of projects and work at (particularly within the realms of ) was unpredictable. It’s not the first time such a thing happened to the company, but it was the first time such a situation is sustained over such a long period of time. For more than a year already we were always dealing with people on the bench and projects that were estimated and/or planned but never realized. I don’t think it’s nobody’s fault in particular: everybody was aware of the situation and doing their best to get us out of it, but we simply couldn’t. uncertainty InakaESI Erlang Solutions The second one is more personal and it has to do with , or its lack thereof. I’m a success-driven individual. I love being successful and I’m constantly aiming at that. As a programmer, I felt successful countless times and many of those were working for . I felt successful every time I saw a system I developed working as expected. As a CTO/Tech Lead, I didn’t feel that way often enough. I know it’s not entirely my fault, it depends heavily on the projects, the teams, the clients, the ideas, etc… but still, it didn’t happen. And I want it to happen again. I want to feel successful again. success InakaESI Why am I willing to be a programmer again? Well… the second bullet point above pretty much says it all. I want to build something and see that thing working. I want to be able to tell people I miss that feeling, and I know I can achieve that as a developer. It’s, in a way, a safer bet than being a CTO/manager/tech lead. see that… I developed it! Do I hate the CTO role? I left that role twice, I must hate it, right? Actually I don’t. Over the past 4 years I learned to like this position. I learned a lot from great tech leads, like , , and others. I learned about 1:1s, how to give and receive valuable feedback, how to manage remote teams (and work remotely myself), how not to step in and fix everything on my own, how to lead people that write code in languages I’m not fluent at, etc… Oren Ellenbogen rands Yegor Bugayenko It’s not very popular, but is the result of some of that knowledge. Who knows? Maybe? I still have one or two things worth sharing. Tech Lead Talks Will I keep writing there? Will you be a CTO again? Well… it’s not really likely, at least not in the company I’m joining now. But you never know. It wasn’t likely when created with just me and 3 other people, either. Chad DePue InakaESI So long, and thanks for all the fish! 🐬 And speaking of that… It’s time to say goodbye to all the nice people at and . It certainly was an InakaESI Erlang Solutions AMAZING RIDE! It’s impossible to list all the great things that have happened while working in this company. I can not thank each single colleague individually. But I love lists, so I’ll write a few of them (none of them are in any particular order)… Top 5 Non-Work-y Things These are the 5 best things that I will remember forever from this job: not strictly work-related I draw an arm-less character in a piece of paper in high school and thanks to Germán and , it became the official mascot of the company. Thanks to Martina, now I have him as a sticker on my phone :) The Inako : Chad DePue The creativity and geekiness of the inakos was always unparalleled, even when it comes to sports. Inaka Pong : There were many stages and incarnations of this tradition. Some of them were unforgettably tasty, all of them were accompanied by a proof of friendship and team spirit that will last forever. Friday Lunches : I’ll be one of you people, soon! It’s amazing to see so many ex-colleagues rocking it so hard after spending time with us. I was always so proud of having shared many days at work with you. I always cherished that about our company. X-Inakos: Undoubtably one of the top benefits of being part of . These meetings (both local and at impossible-to-pronounce cities in Poland) were otherworldly! Get Togethers : Erlang Solutions Top 5 Slightly More Work-y Things As companies, and did many things that I personally appreciated a lot: InakaESI Erlang Solutions : From day 0, everything that we created and deemed valuable for others was shared as open-source. We had many projects in many languages for many platforms. That opened many doors for us, in conferences, communities and even clients. Open Source We shared. Not just code, not just style guides or tools. We shared our internal guidelines. We exposed the way we work for all the world to see. That allowed us to tell developers: . That also allowed us to tell our clients: . It was super valuable. Openness : “Here, you don’t need to ask, you know how we work. Do you like it? Come join us!” “Look, there is no secret. This is how we’re going to manage your product.” This job gave me the chance to give a talk at conferences for the first time in my life. And boy did I use it! I also find super valuable that these companies promote this kind of activities internally and externally for all its employees. Everybody was allowed and encouraged to speak and share their knowledge! Conferences/Talks/Tech Days: Since the early days when we spent two days playing Spawnfest with at his place (or a friend’s) until the next August 4th when I’ll be participating in the Inakathon for the last time, we walked a really really long road. helped me out with our first official Inakathon, and Roberto helped on another one, Marcos won every single one of them. Those events were just AMAZING! Hackathons : Chad DePue Marcelo Gornstein Hernán : I wrote my at Inaka’s blog and you’re reading this now here on Medium, right? Without the encouragement from people like and Martina but also like Iñaki and Fede Carrone, I would’ve never done it. I owe them a lot. They shaped me. The Blogs first blog post ever Chad DePue Top 5 Actually Work-y Things : Man, we had some tough ones! But we also had some impressively challenging ones! Not so long ago, Francesco asked me to write a list of all the projects Inaka worked on, what we did there and what we learned from them. That document is , I tell ya. The Projects long, really long The first time called me in for a , I panicked. I didn’t know what to expect, I had never had one of those before. It turned out to be a rewarding experience and I came to expect those meetings every year avidly. Not for the salary adjustment, but for the actual feedback that was thoughtfully exchanged in them. After Chad left, Martina was in charge of them. I’ve never seen anyone more honest, thoughtful and emphatic than her on those meetings. Thank you, Martina, for all that! Yearly Feedback Reviews: Chad DePue feedback meeting Yes, it’s not a typo. Once I became a CTO I had to conduct these meetings myself. And I panicked again. I stressed, I actually physically suffered and came to hate again that time of the year. But, on my second year giving feedback to people (now with more than a year of CTO role), something wonderful happened. I don’t know exactly what clicked in my brain, but I started to enjoy and look forward to these meetings again. I extracted so much value from them. Thank you, all my colleagues at Inaka, for that! Yearly Feedback Reviews: Learning to be a Tech Lead is hard, but it’s much easier when you share the learning curve with other such talented individuals. Thank you TLs, I learned The Tech Lead Talks: a lot! At Inaka, people was the most valuable asset. From vacations to ping-pong tournaments, conferences to just being friendly with those in need. Every inako was always treated as an individual, not a number. That certainly marked a difference between us and every other software company here. The Value of People: 5 Lessons Learned I learned in my years at these companies. These are not the top 5, these are … a lot just 5 Have you ever watched a movie or a soap opera and thought . Happens to me . At Inaka we learned that . Communication is Key: “If you would’ve just told her that, we would’ve avoided 3 entire episodes, you moron!” all the time the hard way With proper guidelines, you don’t have to think about how this other guy wrote the code. You can focus on what he wrote or why he did it. And that’s just one of the many many benefits of good, consistent, open and up-to-date guidelines. Guidelines are Super Important: We worked with startups, lots of them. We learned from them that just having a great idea, even if you get to develop it in its entirety, does not warranty success. You have to publish it, support it, monitor it, etc… And you have to budget for all those activities you start with the development process. A Good Idea is not All: before We were thorough and that used to be one of our most valuable virtues. We used to ask lots of questions and we estimated with high level of detail. And that was awesome… for MVP-sized projects, when the client already knew what the first iteration of their system was going to be and we were only estimating . We ended up using the same level of thoroughness to big projects, totally not MVP-sized, with the expected results. We learned: Estimation is HARD: that iteration If your estimate goes over 2 months of effort… you should be estimating something smaller and leaving the rest of the estimate for a future iteration. I will let Iñaki explain it… Teaching is Learning: Goodbye, now for Realz! This last part goes to all my fellow inakos and erlangers: Thank you very much. It was an honor working with you! I learned so many things and I enjoyed so much working with you. I expect to keep seeing you around and of course: you know where to find me, right? I’m the only in the world :) elbrujohalcon
