Work with me.

I’m always looking for interesting people to work with. But if you’ve hired in any capacity before, you know how hard it is to find people who share the same love and passion for the work as you do.

If you ever want to work with me, here are a few things you should know:

I’d enjoy working with you if

• You’re ambitious and interested in personal growth.
• You welcome direct and honest feedback.
• You operate with high agency, urgency and optimism.
• You show extremely high ownership and often go beyond the stipulated duties.
• You communicate clearly and quickly.
• You’re resourceful. You can do a lot with little.
• You take a lot of initiative.
• You show up. Consistently. Day after day after day.

How I operate

• I’m quite demanding with work. I expect a higher rate of iterations when we’re focused on a problem. I also expect high quality in our thinking and execution.
• I prefer a ‘high-touch’ approach at work. Working together in person is obviously a lot more fun. When we work on a project, you can expect frequent exchanges of ideas, directions and inspiration.
• I’m quite hands on as a designer. Throughout all the leadership roles I’ve held, I have remained deeply involved in the weeds. You’ll find me jamming on design files, discussing details in comments and sharing articulate feedback on the tiniest of things. When we work, I’m zoomed in and no detail is too small.

• I expect sincere work of the highest quality when we sit down to review something. I don’t like reviewing poor quality work. Bringing work that falls short on quality for a review wastes time for everyone. It’s also akin to cheating your craft, and that’s not cool.
• I like to give detailed feedback on the work. I also love discussing and debating it with you. If I haven’t explained my feedback well enough, I encourage you to ask questions till we both fully distill it.
• I work hard to protect your focus as a designer. I also try as best as I am able to, to give a clear idea of your priorities and timelines. Problem statements can be fuzzy, but your priorities won’t be.
• I like to communicate key information with urgency and clarity. You can rest assured that you would receive all the information that affects your work as quickly as is possible.
• I expect preparation from you when we have a meeting. I do the same. I also cancel the meeting and give time back when we don’t have any agenda.
• I don’t like shoddy writing. You owe clear writing to the people you work with. It’s so easy to fix nowadays (with all the free tools available) that there’s no excuse for not improving. Poor writing is a sign of poor attention to detail – writing basic product copy, Slack messages, updates and so on. I expect you to take this very seriously.

• I prefer to be aware of how things are progressing and if & when they’re blocked. Async updates are fine but they need to be timely.
• I think every leader hates following up. If I have to remind you about something we’ve discussed before, it’s too late.
• I expect closure on the feedback I share. Only a timely and proper closure (in action and communication) can help move our work forward.
• I like it when you do your homework and bring clear questions for me so that I can help you with decisions.
• I love bullet points. That’s how I communicate. Expect to receive a lot of YABLs (Yet Another Bulleted List) from me at work. I assure you though, you’d grow to love them.
• Progress over processes. We put processes only where we’re sure they’d help us be more efficient at getting the results we want.
• There’s no room for status quo. I don’t like doing something a certain way because that’s how we’ve done it in the past. If something doesn’t work anymore, we change it. And I love people who point out outdated status quo and help us update how we work.
• Low agency is a disease. When people get stuck and don’t do anything about it, it sets inertia. And it rubs off on the team too. If you don’t know the answers, go around and talk to people. If you know the answers, go execute. Don’t get stuck and wait. Develop agency (and urgency) to get stuff done.
• Don’t complain about problems if you haven’t tried to solve them or sought help from someone who can help solve them. Complaining without action is giving up.
• I don’t keep a timesheet for when you clock in and out of work. I don’t count the leaves you take. I trust you.
• When you’re not feeling it, take time off. I don’t keep a tab on how long you’re gone for, I just expect you to be back 100% when you return.
• I have great respect for the willingness to learn and improve. I have good tolerance for low skills with high intent. I have very low tolerance for low skills with low intent.

• Candor and informality are great at work. I make jokes and keep things light. I like to do serious work without getting too serious.
• I like to connect with the team outside work too, so you’d see me take interest in your hobbies and other activities purely out of curiosity. Also if you’re interested, I love traveling, collecting watches, taking photos, watching football and writing.
• There’s no space for negativity at work. If something is bothering you, there are constructive ways to handle just about anything. But you first need to accept that everything is fixable.
• I love when you question things – processes, ideas, projects, priorities, decisions, direction, strategy… anything.

Let’s work together

If all of this sounds exciting to you, shoot me a mail on me@hvpandya.com.