README for François Huet

Hi, I’m François Huet (he/him).
Let’s get the name out of the way. It condenses in four syllables eight gotchas of French pronunciation for English speakers [1]. “Fran-swaa” is close enough! I don’t mind at all if you skip the cedilla (ç, typed with Alt-c on a Mac) and write my name as Francois, but notice and appreciate folks who do include it.
[1] Hard “r”, nasal “an”, soft c “ç”, “oi” pronounced “wa”, silent final “s”, silent “h”, rounded vowel “u”, silent “t”.

At Cadence OneFive, my role is…

Head of Engineering. This is day one as I am writing this, and I’m looking forward to defining what this means day after day.

Who am I?

Away from work

I arrived in the US a long time ago for a 1 year internship, met my wife, and never left. I have been living in Santa Cruz in California, and love the proximity to the ocean. I enjoy body-surfing, but can only do it sparingly: I somehow systematically catch a cold after I swim.
My wife used to volunteer at the animal shelter, and sometimes fostered cats. I have proven terrible at returning “temporary foster” cats to the shelter, so we have four cats. One of them might say hi during video conferences.
We have three daughters, and they make me immensely proud. They are opinionated, funny, and annoying in ways that remind me of me, in much better. They mock my French accent when I speak English, and I make fun of their grammar when they speak French. Between the three of them they play violin, piano, and flute, and you might hear them in the background during our 1:1s.

At work

During my career, I enjoyed applying software to vastly different fields that I initially knew embarrassingly little about. I worked on painting and 3d human pose modeling software (MetaCreations, mid-size company), conversational chat bots (Colloquis, start-up acquired by Microsoft), e-commerce search relevance (Amazon), and AI for healthcare (Curai Health, start-up). I’ve come to appreciate having impostor syndrome, and folks who suffer from it, too.

Goals

After years working on software abstractions, I want to learn about the physical world, and contribute to healing it.

Ways of working together

I have collected a long list of work processes that I learned to only pull out when they make sense and are adapted to a situation. From interviewing best practices to reduce bias, to post technical incident response and analysis to make sure something bad doesn’t happen again.
Now, I hate busy work, and have seen many processes that turn into zombie processes, so am very careful about focusing on the outcome rather than the process, and only signing up for “action items with teeth.”

If this can help you navigate my personality/style, my Clifton Strengths Strengthsfinder themes are:

  • Harmony: You look for consensus. You don’t enjoy conflict; rather, you seek areas of agreement.

  • Intellection: You are characterized by your intellectual activity. You are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

  • Individualization: you are intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. You have a gift for figuring out how different people can work together productively.

  • Deliberative: You are best described by the serious care you take in making decisions or choices. You anticipate obstacles.

  • Connectedness: You have faith in the links among all things. You believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has meaning.

You can lean on me to…

Balance short- and long-term decisions. I’ve been fortunate to stay in my past roles for longer than is typical in the software industry, and this gave me insights about long-term impact. I made a lot of technical mistakes that looked like great ideas for the first year (ask me about Freshness and Seasonality when you have a few hours to waste), and got to correct them. As a result, I put a lot of efforts balancing running fast and in the right direction, and anticipating on upcoming needs.
I notice small details. I keep as a treasured possession a letter from “Le Monde” (top French daily newspaper) confirming that, yes indeed, I had found a spelling mistake in their columns. It’s a blessing to catch bugs, but also a curse. Please bear with me when I correct typos in documents first before I can really grok its content. I’m not nitpicking, I’m trying to get it out of the way.
Related to the above, I give a lot of feedback on written documents. 11 years of Amazon “cult of the written doc” left their mark. I’m convinced this is time well-spent: written docs have a very long half-life. I have been told my feedback is really good, including by my daughters.
More broadly, I like to say “Use me as a tool.” Reach out to me if you need help. I trust you to make the right choices, and for this I trust you to engage the right folks who can help, including me.

How to support me as we work together

I’m comfortable with my impostor syndrome, but as I’m writing this first day on the job, I know I have a ton to learn about building science, legislation, financing, but also full-stack software engineering.

How to support me as a person

I’m originally from France. I’m used to conversations where folks interrupt each other as a sign of engagement (as long as it is unbiased, symmetrical, and not a sign of not listening). As a result, I: a/ rarely mind if you interrupt me, b/ might interrupt you out of habit (I’m working hard to not do it, but if I do, sorry, and please call me out)!
I have a terrible memory, but take good notes and set up automated processes to mostly make up for it.
I’m introverted, not a native speaker, and slightly hard of hearing. This is a winning combination for in-person group meetings! :) Please forgive me if you see me losing stamina quickly in social interactions: it’s not you, it’s me!

Feedback preferences

Don’t hold it in! Please let me know as soon as possible if there’s something you’d like me to change (or if I have a piece of salad stuck in my teeth), preferably in 1:1. I know giving feedback is tough, and appreciate the gift.

Technical preferences

I’m a fan of thinking in terms of versions. No software is ever done, and keeping in mind that someone will need to evolve it helps make better decisions. I like to write tools that show you the behavioral differences between two versions of a software. Impact is what matters.
Because my memory is so bad, I lean a lot on Joplin, an open source, cross platform note taking tool for personal information.
Because there are only so many keystrokes in your fingers, I rely on espanso for text expansion. Useful to type the cedilla (ç) in François, speed up common emails (type f@c​ to get “[email protected]”) or interview note taking (expand fuqa into “follow-up question and answer placeholder”), and to sprinkle ISO format dates (type ​`dt` to get “2023-11-30”) in documents.

Schedule and availability

I’m in PST and might be groggy during early ET meetings. While I’m at the tail end of my career as a kid chauffeur, I sometimes need to step out for kids activities. My Google Calendar is up to date.