François Rosé

François's README

Hi 👋

This page is intended to help others understand what it might be like to work with me, especially people who haven’t worked with me before.

It’s also a well-intentioned effort at building some trust by being intentionally vulnerable, and to share my ideas of a good working relationship to reduce the anxiety of people who might be on my team.

Please feel free to invite me to a coffee chat! You can also contribute to this page by opening a merge request.

About me

• I live in Berlin, Germany with my wife and son.
• My family is originally from the Bretagne region of France. I've lived in the Netherlands (born and raised there), France, Denmark, Ireland, and Germany.
• I enjoy playing volleyball, video games, watching series/movies, and traveling.
• At GitLab, I'm an Engineering Manager in the Create:Code Review group. Before that, I worked on Editor Extensions, Service Desk and Observability.
• I've worked as a software engineer since 2011, in various fields: computer vision, food science, cryptanalysis, digital music software deployment, audio streaming.
• I became a manager in 2019 as a way to work with people directly, while keeping a foot in the tech world.
• I'm curious about the Engineer/Manager pendulum, and would rather leave the door back to the IC path open for now.

GitLab values and operating principles

The GitLab values are a big reason I work here. The ones that resonate most with me are Transparency, Collaboration, and Efficiency.

The operating principles that stand out to me the most, in no particular order:

• Public by default and Findability - an effective default to work remotely and establish trust
• Family and friends first, work second - work-life balance is very important to me
• Write things down and Bias towards asynchronous communication - this is not only more inclusive, but makes efficiency compound over time
• It's impossible to know everything - that's why we work in teams and Don't let each other fail
• Measure results not hours
• Kindness and Say thanks
• and many more

Communicating and working with me

How to reach me

• To get my attention on a GitLab issue/MR/etc, please mention me with @francoisrose. I may miss your message otherwise, even if I'm subscribed to the issue.
• If you're blocked by me or I'm too slow to respond, don't hesistate to ping me on Slack. I will be thankful for it!

My working style

• I appreciate both written and verbal communication. Talking helps me connect, writing serves to remember.
• I enjoy understanding the bigger picture and how everything fits together (or doesn’t). I prefer to go broad rather than too deep.
• I am very diplomatic by nature. This has benefits and drawbacks. I can serve as a good third party to a discussion, but can sometimes fail to challenge directly.
• I like structure. If something feels sub-optimal or just broken, I will naturally try to fix it.
• I approach my role as a highly mutable one. Think of a puzzle piece that takes whatever shape is needed to complete the picture and support the team.

How to help me

• I work best when I have an understanding of the context, even at a high-level. I ask questions when things are unclear. Help me understand, and my value will increase.
• The more direct you are with me, the easier it'll be for me.

Favorite things to work on

• Anything related to data or number crunching, and visualization of those.
• Talking to people, hearing them out, and seeing their progress over time.
• Optimizing processes and automating things.

Least favorite things to work on

• Tasks whose purpose I don't understand, or disagree with.
• Building long-term visions, mostly because I'm not great at it. I'm more comfortable identifying current constraints and planning short/mid term.