Outside of work, I:

• think about technology all of the time. I LOVE planes (Boeing is enemy #1), robots, boats (cargo ships / car carriers / LNG tankers specifically), trains, and more. Best inventions of our earth are the Space Shuttle, and the Airbus A380. I think about software, design, hardware, social media, computers, machinery [from small kitchen appliances, to mini-splits, to car transmissions] continuously.
• Write essays about the impact of tech on our world. Here’s one I wrote about what makes a social media platform good, and then one about Columbine.
• I also love poetry [Richard Siken is my favorite poet], philosophy, ethics, and non-fiction books. I spend most of my time outside of Faura reading and learning about the world. Share cool things with me :-)
• Built a tiny house out of a jail trailer from the 1970’s. I love construction, working on cars, designing my own clothes and focusing on fashion, or just doing anything mechanical.
• Get involved with a lot of non-profit projects. I come from the non-profit world, and really enjoy giving my time to other founders or orgs to help them better understand technology.

You should know that I:

• Wake up early to work, and log-off at a standard time. I aim to work 12 hours a day every day, so I get up about 5-6am to start programming and doing my quiet flow tasks, and then after standup, I mostly do admin / team work until 5-6pm. I am someone where I definitely need to be left alone to get work done, so this is a schedule that works for me! This means when I get offline, I am really ‘offline’ unless you message me about something serious (or unless you’re Tanvi or Valkyrie)
• am on the autism spectrum! You may have not guessed, but it looks different in women than in men - so I might not be similar to the people who you know that have it. Please don’t make comments such as, “No one can tell”, “Wow, my friend’s cousin’s lizard has autism”, “Do you think the vaccines did it”, and more. I’m letting you know for the sole reason that it changes how I communicate, and manage.
• hate being on unnecessary calls. I also hate being called without notice, unless it’s serious or an emergency. I would like to keep all of my calls relatively bundled and predictable. If you need something (like a pair programming session), aim to let me know ahead of time. I don’t want this rule to dissuade you from getting information. But, if I’m getting called at 8pm, it should be very important.
• aim to not work on the weekends, or at night. I know we all get to set our own schedules, but I will ask that you only communicate with me on nights / weekends for urgent things, or expect I’ll see them when I start to work. I will also try to protect your time, as much as I can and don’t expect you to respond during your non-working hours (unless we’ve been hacked or have become millionaires).

My fully electric, aluminum tiny house :,-)

Traits I value in others:

• Attention to detail, and holding a strong standard of workmanship. Quality of work is everything to me. As a startup, we don’t often get time to ‘perfect’ the small details, but I still want us to uphold good work to the world.
• Brevity, and the ability to know what information is correct on hand. Keep things short! Be direct and to the point. If I need more info, I will ask you for more info.
• Strong research skills - I value a good and healthy debate culture. Come to our discussions with well-researched facts and your opinions, but not just your opinions.
• Empathy and ability to voice their side, but not to pick unnecessary fights.

What I want to work on:

• Things that actually matter and impact people’s lives. Code is important, because it forms the back-bone of how we interact: with clients, homeowners, and everyone in between. Everything else is important, because it facilitates good code. Process, debate, and everything in between that we may go through stands solely to facilitate this. At some point, there’s diminishing returns in all discussions. My goal is to always know where that line is, and to avoid it.
• Our team’s relationship, so that we can lean on each other as needed. The people we work with are the people we trust. I, nor will Faura, make the right decision 100% of the time. The best we can do is give our best diligence, effort, and observations on what we see. We will make good decisions, bad decisions, and all of them in-between. What matters is being able to turn to the team about where we stand, know that everyone will give their best effort to come to an answer, and to make a gut decision based on that answer.

What I don’t want to do:

• Micromanage you. We have a team that encourages autonomy and communication - we communicate and give you freedom because we think the best way to run a team is to hire smart people and get the fuck out of the way. The rule applies here, as well. Please let me know if work is going to be late, if you’re not going to be showing up to meetings, or something important has otherwise changed since the last time we discuss it.
• Manage drama, or relationships between people. I’m not interested in playing office politics, and people who are ‘politically’ minded won’t enjoy Faura. This is also why we may encourage people who have conflicts with each other to directly address it, and improve the relationship. A small team only works if everyone feels comfortable, and feels able to move forward cohesively. This of course does not apply in situations of harassment, discrimination, or bullying. But in general, I will encourage you strongly to work with other people and to route your communications directly to them to build better team relationships, avoid backstabbing, and promote healthy conflict resolution.
• Guess about what you’re feeling, what you want, or things you may need. As I have mentioned, I am on the spectrum and will not be able to pick up on subtle cues. I value direct, real time information. If you are feeling overwhelmed by your work, please tell me so I can take things off of your plate. If you feel like you need more challenging stuff, tell me as well!
• Spend time over-engineering, or being in hypotheticals. A programming artifact that exists and is in production is better than one that does not exist, or is delayed by hypotheticals of a company that exists in a future beyond our fundraising runway. As CTO, I need to sharply balance the needs of now with the needs of the future. It’s not always a steadfast rule, but I try to build systems and teams that fit for the next 1 year of a company.
• Spend time reviewing things that are not well-done. The above being said, it’s possible to build correctly-engineered systems that are still high quality. The work we do is not ‘throwaway’, and we should aim to build things that will as a long time, feasibly. I do not want to look at shit fresh out of ChatGPT code. I want to build products that we feel proud of, that we know are safe to scale and can handle the pressure of what we’re putting on them. It’s a fine line to know what kind of system to build for the place we are now, and may be. But we should never ship terrible code, and we should hold others accountable for teaching that and building it into our products.

Where I can go wrong:

• I might not pick up on social cues, or unsaid things. This is why I value direct communication, and I aim to give direct communication.