What does Chuck actually _do_

Summary

What does Chuck actually do?

I talk to a lot of people on slack and zoom, I read and comment on a lot of CDDs and DACIs, and I try to pair with folks as often as I have the free time.

@mention me on Slack when you want to plan, need DACI/CDD review, or need support/escalation/intros.

Also, I want to come to your demo to celebrate your hard work!

The non-bite-sized version

Hello everyone! I’m Chuck and I’m a new architect in your group!

But what does that even mean? Don’t we already have an architect? And how is this guy even going to help since he doesn’t know about x?

The short answer is: I don’t know, but I’m a quick study, and I believe that we can figure it out pretty much anything if we work together.

A chart describing the differences between the roles of IC, feature captain, tech lead, technical product manager, and architect. In the IC column, all of the boxes are related to closing tickets. The captain column adds in some planning work before the IC boxes and some wrapup work after the IC boxes. Compared to the captain column, the architect column has a stack of boxes at the very beginning and end and nothing in between indicating that the architect wants to be involved primarily up front and at the very end of a project

When should I pull Chuck in and how?

You can contact me on Slack any time, day or night because I almost always have notifications turned off (so I can focus on one problem at a time).

If you need me immediately, text me at 503-367-6226. I’m serious. It’s really okay.

I would like to be @mentioned on Slack:

  • If you want to plan something out together or need a second opinion
  • If you need me to support your decision (especially if some VP is getting in your business)
  • If you need someone to escalate something that is grinding to a halt
  • If you need an intro or need to find someone on another team

I would like to come to your meeting:

  • If you know you’re going to be discussing strategy (I know, we don’t always know)
  • If it’s a demo or celebration
  • If you’re onboarding someone

I generally don’t go to standups, kickoffs, retros (not because I don’t want to, but because I need to focus on other things).

Escalation

I have another nugget planned out to cover how much fuel to add to a fire, so I’m not going to go over that here, but if you do need escalation, I can help with that.

I am present in weekly meetings all the way up to our CTO, so I’m happy to help you present your idea or figure out where to escalate to for the right impact.

What is Chuck passionate about?

Okay, so if you want to make me smile, here are some things that pretty much always work:

  • Unabashed positivity
  • Pictures of your animals
  • Pictures of someone else’s animals (preferably doing silly things)
  • Pictures of llamas (pretty much everything they do looks silly)
  • Pictures of ferrets (which are really just tiny llamas or even tinier giraffes)
  • Memes
  • Sharing things that you love
  • Talking about mechanical keyboards, laser cutting, video games, psychology
  • Sharing your vulnerability
  • Sharing your knowledge
  • Kittens