About me

It would. And I won't pretend otherwise.

It's THE place to be for visibility. And I'm still planning to use the platform to showcase my work in progress and my results.

But I like control: a personal website lets me experiment with original animations and interactive elements, which I can't do on LinkedIn.

It also helps to have a place that isn't competing with the feed. At the time of writing, a study pointed out that 30% of short-form and 41% of long-form content on LinkedIn is fully AI-generated. I'll be honest, I'd rather my writing not be graded on that curve.

Yes, I'm intentional about it.

First, let's address AI! I always write the first draft by hand, often in English, sometimes in French (letting the AI do the draft makes it too generic). Then I ask Claude to do a pass: grammar check, spelling mistakes and the sentiment it thinks I convey in my writing. Claude can suggest improvements, but whether to apply them rests on me. Then I ask it to translate into the other language for convenience. But I always end up rewriting a lot because, though the result is accurate word for word, it usually lacks that "je ne sais quoi" that makes the writing mine.

Segundo, when sharing an opinion, I try to check the primary sources when I can (papers, books, in-person discussions) and build my opinion on those. It's not always easy or convenient. Nonetheless, this website is not just for opinion pieces, it's also very much about sharing my own authentic experience of things in tech.

Third, since I'm not building a gossip site, I'll avoid mentioning issues I had with my previous or current employers where possible. The same applies to the internal issues that people I talk to have with their own employers, unless it's something publicly available (news, company blogs, etc.). Things may slip here and there, so you'll have to forgive me if and when it happens.

A note: I've come to terms with the fact that some of my writings will make me basically unhireable at some companies.

Not much!

I only use it for planning, testing, coding, debugging, ticket updates, log reading, PRs, code reviews and Slack. Wait, did I say not much?

Anyway, I always check the output so I don't shoot myself in the foot. (Rhyme not intended)*

* The French version of this is better, I promise.

A bit of lore about myself: I got wrecked in an interview because I had never taken the time to self-reflect on this. I'm writing this out of the trauma from that interview:

First of all, communication. Nothing dooms a project more than a lack of it. Details in another question below.

Next, good compensation. Another bit of lore: back in my home country, I ran small businesses outside of my day job. I hired people and I always tried to pay everyone more than fairly. I know what it's like to try to minimize expenses to keep a business afloat, so I have empathy for hard-working companies trying to turn a profit. That said, I do get a little down when I feel I'm not being fairly compensated. On my side, I try to be worth it. I keep upskilling, and I don't think it's fair to expect great pay for mediocre work.

Last, responsibility. I thrive most when I'm given responsibility and autonomy. I like to have a little more context and access than my direct line of work strictly requires. For example, if I'm working on the front-end, I think it's within the realm of reasonable for me to have access to the database. That way I don't have to wait on the back-end to find out whether a field exists or how values get saved. From experience, it helps a lot and speeds things up.

There are many other things we could talk about, but if we nail those three, I won't have much to complain about.

French comes from my education back home. English I mostly picked up through natural exposure over the years, then sharpened at Ingedata. These days I switch between the two without thinking much about it.

Good question! I already answered part of it a couple of questions above, but let me be more thorough here:

Communication: I always try to be as clear as possible. If things are unclear, I'll sort them out, and I'll run my approach by you when it needs validation. I always try my best to update the people I report to before they feel the need to ask. If something changes that impacts the deadline, you'd likely want to be informed as soon as possible, not the evening before D-day.

Quality and pragmatism: I write tests wherever I can. I always try to follow the established work policies, but I do question them when something feels inefficient. On a tight deadline, assuming we can't negotiate the scope of the delivery, what I find sensible is to do what works but always create a ticket for a second pass later: refactoring and more tests.

Humanity: I don't believe a company is a family (shocking, I know!). But I do believe, to some extent, that we're teammates. Some of us love our jobs, some of us are just paying the bills. Either way, it helps if kindness is our default state. A little bit of camaraderie doesn't hurt, though everyone has their boundaries. I always try to separate the person from the action, as much as is humanly possible. Though, on rare occasions, it's not possible.

Disagree and commit: I can explain it but I think others already did the work for me. That said, I value a company that lets its employees speak up on a given issue. But once leadership has settled on a direction, I put my hat on and do the work accordingly, even if I don't agree. I'm never the one who'll say "I told you so" when things go wrong because my idea did not get picked up. If it turns out they were wrong, we fix it together. But if something really is crucial and non-negotiable for me, a proper and peaceful departure is better than bitterness.

That's it, I guess. Yes, these are all pretty much standard in the industry, even, dare I say, boring. But boring is good sometimes. It means it has worked for many people for a long time. I came to write those points not by googling workplace best practices but really by getting bitten several times in the past. At some point, you learn.

Well, I'll say I have more nuanced feelings about it than the LinkedIn crowd.

According to a report from Forbes, five days a week in the office burns people out faster. Which I agree with. The same piece also reports that full remote tends to lower productivity by around 8% to 19%. Which I also agree with: there's more coordination overhead and more meetings eating into the actual work time. But beyond that, my opinion is that your setup at home matters, and so does your attitude toward remote.

So hybrid is the best option, at least in my opinion. Apart from the other benefits, seeing your colleagues once in a while is genuinely good for you. Full remote does work when a company is very intentional about it, not when it's just trying to save money (I've seen that happen).

I'm working full time right now, but I'm open to interesting opportunities. If you have something in mind, you can talk to me.

One quirk about my situation, though: this will likely change in the next couple of years, but right now, I can only take permanent positions based in France. My visa doesn't yet allow me to work remotely for companies based outside France. I am open to relocating outside France, though. But remote from outside France and freelance are temporarily a no-go.

Nice ref! Well, my aim is to become VERY good. The definition of "good" varies a lot from person to person, so I might write a blog entry to define what it means for me. But I created this website because I'm curious about a lot of things and I want to experiment with a lot of things. And I also have two products in the pipeline. Follow for more!