February 2024 Updates
Leading a hackathon, travelling to Europe, and the importance of environment
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Let’s catch up sometime :)
What I’ve been up to 🌱
The Google Cloud GenAI Hackathon is in full swing, with lots of meetings and items to coordinate before its launch on March 11, 2024. Being the project lead for this, I’ve grown to appreciate a lot of the complexities and details that goes into running a great event. It’s provided a different angle on project management, in a way that is more dynamic and fast-paced than other projects I’ve worked on.
Also at Onova, I initiated a new part of our hiring process: a work trial. Teams like Linear and Auth0, among others, use this as a way of evaluating a candidate’s performance, by bringing them directly into the working environment and seeing how they perform. In our case, that was a 4-day trial where candidates had full access to all of the tools and resources they would need to accomplish a series of tasks for ongoing projects. It was a great success, from both the company and the candidate side. Onova got a feel of what it would be like to work with these candidates, and candidates felt a true understanding of the type of work that they would do and the overall culture/vibe of the company, things that are hard to replicate in an interview process. Would highly recommend incorporating this process into your hiring flow.
I also took some time off in February to spend 9 days across Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona, and Paris with Shiri, Ying, and Brandon. This was truly a trip to remember, from all of the memories that we shared to just experiencing a different way of living that is so prominent throughout these great European cities. The history scattered throughout, the amazing food, and incredible art and architecture was incredible. For my first time in Europe, I wouldn’t want it to go any other way.
What I’ve been thinking/learning about 💭
Being exposed to the European way of living was very eye-opening for me. It’s a very slow and relaxed way of living. Often, people would stop and admire the architecture of buildings, listen to a busker on the sidewalk, or spend their afternoon with a coffee in front of a cafe. Dinners would be evening-long engagements and everyone seemed to just enjoy their time. This was a wild contrast to what the past few months for me - busy work days + side projects during the evenings and weekends, all in the pursuit of the future. Life moves a lot faster, but Europe showed me that it doesn’t always have to be that way.
I am so convinced that your environment is one of the most important if not the most important thing you should be optimizing for in your life. When we visited Montmartre in Paris, our walking tour explained how the great artists would come from all over the world to live in this one city. The town squares were lined with music and artistic discussions, painters exchanged their work for a month of rent, and everyone was living in close quarters with each other. The environment, in a way, built the talent, and it’s a reminder to myself to continue being intentional with mine.
Lmk if you are (or know someone who is) working on or thinking about the above!
Personal asks 🙏
Curious to know any must-have travel hacks?
What are some of the best newsletters you’ve seen or have been reading? In the process of filtering through mine :)
Thanks for reading this month’s update. Would love to hear how I can help you this month (maybe I can make some intros, work through some thoughts with you, or otherwise). See you next month 👋
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