Twenty Twenty-Five

December 30, 2025 - Personal

The last time I did one of these I couldn't outsource a visual aid to LLMs. I didn't do that either this time, since it takes a bit of the fun! So I made this in Figma because some traditions die hard, even when they're inefficient.

But getting into our purpose of gathering today, without any ramble. 2025 was interesting. It was a year of change.

After 8 and a half years I left Transifex. Difficult decision but change was inevitable. I had the urge to join a team with different challenges. Scaling, diversity and overall meeting new people.

Amazing company, people and culture. I will always cherish my moments there. I said my goodbyes to the team as a Head of Engineering. Two exits during my tenure there. Not bad overall for a job that I almost didn't apply because the stack requirements were a bit off my usual one. So never not apply because you don't check all the boxes. Had I done that, I would never have this great time for all these years!

On Changing work

When changing work these are some common patterns that you can only touch or be 100% in the middle of it.

The Newbie. That's right. You get into a new building and you have no idea even where the bathroom is. Everything is new although so familiar from years of experience. Which makes it even more annoying. You mixup Lisa with Liza and you called twice George as Michael.

If you felt comfortable you would ask the junior engineer to tell you how to tie your laces in this company. You don't know where the bodies are buried. You can make assumptions, but taking action with assumptions only will make you look like a fool.

Take a breath, stand up. Shake this thing off. Moment of truth.

The first 90 days is not just a cliche. You need at least three months to understand how the kitchen is built. Up until then, do something silly that might help people. Ask to contribute to something that makes sense. No one is expecting to be your full self in day 1 or day 10. If they do that might be a first "code smell". Maybe things to refactor in the future.

The Lack of Rapport. A few months ago, if the CSO said something unorthodox, you had options. You could raise your hand respectfully. Or you'd catch your manager's eye across the table and they'd handle it. In an emergency, you'd exchange sanity checks with your peers, maybe have an internal chuckle, without others noticing, if someone makes a joke about it.

Now you're in a meeting and someone says something that lands wrong. You don't move. You can't raise your hand because you don't have the context yet. Your manager isn't going to help because you don't have that history. Your peers are still peers, not allies.

So you sit with it. You take the note. You move on.

You can't be yourself yet. You have to be careful. Measured. You're negotiating every interaction instead of living in ones you've already built trust in.

Sounds a bit heavy. You can't hold back forever waiting for comfort. And you can't blindly trust everyone. The middle ground is doing something slightly silly and seeing who laughs with you instead of at you or something totally dumb and see who will have the guts to save you from embarrassment. "You got something in your team" moment. That's how rapport actually starts. Not through careful professionalism. Through small risks.

It comes. Not on day one. But it comes.

Overload. There's a conundrum nobody mentions. Either the company has good onboarding and you're drowning in information at 1000mph, keeping maybe 1/100 of what you hear. Or the onboarding is a lunch and learn and you're supposedly ready to go. Either way, you're overloaded.

I heard someone describe it once as "being fed with a hose." That's accurate.

You're in meetings where you have no idea what's happening. Three acronyms you don't know. A reference to a decision from six months ago. Someone asks your opinion on something that matters and you freeze because you don't have the context to have an opinion.

This is where people make mistakes. They try to sound smart. They make calls they shouldn't make. They nod along to things that don't make sense.

Here's what I learned. Say no. Or not no, but respectfully push back. "I don't have enough context yet" is a complete sentence. People will respect you more for admitting it than for pretending.

Keep notes. Especially acronyms. The same thing gets described five different ways by five different people and it'll make you insane if you don't track what they're actually talking about.

And when you meet someone, be present. Fully. You won't remember what they said, but you'll remember if you were actually there or just physically present.

It takes time. The 90 days cliche. You're not supposed to have it figured out by week one. Anyone who expects that is signaling something about the culture. Pay attention to that.

On Writing

Oh my! Back to releases every two weeksish.

I started publishing again and at the same time I did something that I haven't done in the past. I started having a schedule. A better cadence. I was always more on the path of "when it's time, inspiration will come" or "it's ready when it's ready".

This time I pivoted. I moved more into, don't wait for ideas to be perfect. You have something you like. Publish. Don't stress about making mistakes.

Why? Because I had the thoughts, I was adding them on paper. And they were sitting there, waiting for the perfect timing that never came. Or I was always busy. It's best to say, it was just time to do it.

The Manager Problem Problem was sitting in my drafts for way too much. Once I read it after much time, I repurpose and rewrote it, and although I knew it wasn't perfect I published it. It had mistakes, I got feedback. I updated it. No one was harmed.

Now these are the articles I published. Ten whole since August...ish. Nine for leadership and one for more technical parts. I do have an issue with Eleventy build but that's ok. This work gets me to my happy place. Take a look if you haven't you might see something you like:

The Scale

What can I say about this year? Where does it fall on the scale?

On good. I wanted to start over on something new. This has a toll. You pay it and it can work or not. In the end it did. Most of the times it does one way or another. It might take time, but it will.

So starting over, as hard as it is, is sometimes the only way to actually move forward. The work ahead is the same as the work behind: show up, stay consistent, write the thing, and the bathroom is third door on the left.