Jonas Bučinskas

Every experience feeds ideas!

README / User Manual

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Last update: Jan 14, 2024

About

Usually, I revisit this document once a year. I’m always surprised to see how my approach to product and now company development has evolved. Every year I learn something new and in a lot of cases those learnings are about things that I should stop doing or pay attention to. Sometimes, though, I might decide to include an entirely new section.

Logistics

  • Based in Kaunas, Lithuania
  • Know how to work across multiple timezones. Never had issues collaborating with teammates who are spread across the world. It’s all about setting expectations and sticking to them.
  • Deeply invested in my career development. I do believe in work-life integration and I’m totally OK working long hours, because I really enjoy what I’m doing.

Communication

  • Internal chat: If I’m working, I’m on the internal chat system. DMs are great, group messages are better, pings in a public channels are the best. I value transparency and being open by default.
  • Email: Email is a tool that I chose to master, so I have an “Inbox Zero” policy for all my email clients. You will get a response from me within 24 hours no matter what.
  • Meetings: Meetings are expensive, take a lot of time and, in most cases, it’s better to send an email, however, I do find a lot of value in casual banter with my co-workers. Because of that my calendar is open for you and I trust that you will use your best judgment when scheduling a meeting with me.

Things I value

  • Being organized
  • Customer feedback
  • Making fast decisions
  • Incremental product updates
  • Good strategy is hard. I value companies and teams that have it
  • Challenging discussions and a good banter
  • Striving for excellence

Things that drive me nuts

  • Micromagement: I don’t work in a kindergarten
  • Seagull management: please don’t do this
  • Shifting blame on external factors: Let’s talk about realistic variables that we can control and learn from

Technology

Before 2022, I was in “just enough to be dangerous” club. Enough technical knowledge to have in-depth conversations about the underlying tech work. Not enough knowledge to actually go and build those things. Changed that in 2022 and started building software products on my own. Also, during my career, I was fortunate enough to work with some stellar engineers. Some of them started coding before I was born! Naturally, some of the high-level concepts rubbed on me:

  • Ship often: code that is not in production is useless. Your users can’t provide feedback. Also, nobody likes a massive Pull Request. Please do yourself a favor and ship often!
  • All tech stacks are great: Just choose the right tools for the job and the business case.
  • Product Managers who have been doing their work for > 5years should really consider learning to code. Especially when the job market wants to do more with less.

How can people earn an extra gold star with me?

  • I admire people who push out information about their work status
  • I look up to people who are organized. Yes, work sometimes gets out of control for everyone, however, general organization and discipline is really important.
  • Push me for excellence. Tell me how I can improve

What are some things that people might misunderstand about me?

  • Strong opinions loosely held: I always drive for solutions, but that does not mean that my solutions are the best ones. I will always have strong position about my work, but please do tell me if my solution is wrong even when I’m not asking for feedback. The best products are born in continuous feedback cycles
  • I do sleep: people often ask me if I ever sleep. I do.

How do I give feedback?

I will not wait for a good opportunity to give positive or negative feedback. I do it on the spot. Punting negative feedback to later is just another way to avoid uncomfortable conversations.

How do I like to receive feedback

Just tell me things straight no matter the venue.

Areas of improvement

  • Asking for help: Sometimes I spend too much time trying to figure out stuff on my own, before I ask for help.

What are some honest, unfiltered things about me?

  • I thrive in uncertainty: especially if there’s an opportunity to achieve great business outcomes
  • I will do anything to ship the product: Yes! Anything. Just tell me what I need to do and I will do it. Always
  • I am a generalist: Some people call it “A jack of all trades” and I like to call it “Master of versatility”
  • I embrace the suck: Monotonous and repetitive tasks are part of the game
  • I’m really competitive: I love competition! I embrace it and will always look for ways to be ahead
  • Sci-fi audiobook addict: Over 100 sci-fi audiobooks in my Audible library
  • Rocky is the greatest movie series ever made: I find these movies inspirational and re-watch the whole saga once a year

Books that I always recommend

The holy trinity 😇 I consider that these books define what working in software is all about:

Sci-fi corner