Summary

Meeting Context

• Review after approximately one month of employment
• Discussion of role expectations vs. reality
• Feedback exchange on workflow processes and communication

Role Expectations

• Expected more traditional software engineering tasks
• Actual role is more client-oriented with focus on n8n platform
• Interest in focusing more on engineering tasks in the future
• Concern about trust in technical decisions, particularly around infrastructure

Project Management Improvements

• Task descriptions should focus on expected inputs and outputs rather than implementation details
• Need for better project context:
  • Understanding the client's overall problem
  • The solution being implemented
  • Business purpose behind the project
• Better deadline communication needed to improve time management
• Overwhelmed by context switching between different clients

Development Approach

• Discussion about balancing quick delivery vs. robust engineering solutions
• Trade-offs between speed of delivery and code quality
• Setting clear quality requirements for deliverables
• Acknowledging the prototyping nature of most projects

New Meeting Structure

• Weekly kick-off meeting to discuss:
  • Client deliverables and deadlines for the week
  • Identifying project blockers
• End of week sync to review:
  • What was delivered to clients
  • Which clients have signed (updates from Axel)
  • Technical kickoffs completed
• Dedicated project kickoffs for new clients to provide context

Action Items

• [x] Schedule three project kickoffs for next Monday: Just Carpets, Signit, and School Talent
• [ ] Implement new meeting structure with weekly kickoff and end of week sync
• [ ] Improve task descriptions with clear expected inputs and outputs
• [ ] Provide better onboarding to Notion structure and client documentation
• [ ] Alin to communicate problems earlier rather than trying to solve them alone
• [ ] Restructure Monday meetings to be more efficient (shorten weekly kickoff)

Positive Feedback for Alin

• Willingness to jump in and solve problems
• Thinking along and tackling issues proactively
• Improvement in communication skills
• Dedicated approach to work

Notes

How has it been going from your perspective:

• My role expectations are different?
• Had a lot of learnings - gained lots
• Difference between expectations vs. reality:
  • Thinking more engineering tasks, real software engineering
  • Here my role is more client-orientated
  • We are working on n8n (can’t say i really like working on this platform) - seems to be quickest for development
• I will do what my project manager tells to me
• I would like to focus on engineering tasks
• Have a bit of a feeling you don’t always trust my choice:
  • On the infrastructure side, it felt like it looked non-professional

Feedback on tickets:

• My focus needs to be more on:
  • Task focus should be more on Expected Input and Expected Output
  • On some projects the clarity on the project is not clear
• On client-level its not very clear - whats the project actually:
  • General over-all problem that the client faces
  • The Solution we are trying to accomplish
• We need to setup requirements for our deliverables
  • Longer execution times to the client
• I am not aware of the deadlines
  • Making my time management harder

I have been overwhelmed:

• With a lot of issues and context switching between clients

Weekly kick-off - meeting:

• Deadlines & deliverables for that week to clients
  • Internal deadlines are self managed
• Identify blockers on projects
• Team-based project kick-offs

End of week sync:

• What did we deliver this week to clients

• Which clients have signed - Axel on sales

• Which project technical - kick-offs have happend

• Project Planning

• R&D

• Spiking and scoping

Transcript

I don't know if that's still, but yeah, look, I think, um, with all of these, uh, AI platforms, right. OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek. They're all quite similar in what they can do. I think it's often the question of, do you want to go through the whole interpretation?

The problem that DeepSeek has in a lot of people's mind, it's connected to China. So, lots of clients are scared about that and they don't want to... I don't want to use it. Yeah, I'm asking about it more compared to Curiosity. Yeah, really nice to find out all these models. Yeah. Okay, let's go.

Yeah, cool, yeah, so let's try.

Sorry, I should have prepared this better for myself. Give me a second. Another second, because I need more seconds.

I wrote down all my feedback and now I can't find it back. Give me a second. There we go. Cool. Found it. Okay. How's it? You've been with us for how long now? Almost a month? More than a month, right? Yeah, I guess so. It's 5th of September. I came in July 20-ish, something like that.

Yeah, well, there was quite a few problems and it's a bit differently from what I thought. At the start, how what would be the role of my role in this company, but I guess I Also, had a lot of learning, also gained some experience, and yeah, that's it.

Can you help me understand what was different in your expectation versus what the reality is? Well, actually, I was thinking more about engineering tasks. Yeah, real software development and all this kind of stuff, because that is what I'm doing usually at my jobs, but here my role is more client oriented.

And yeah, we are working on an attempt, which I can say I really like to work with this platform. And I really like to develop some page and so on it, but.

We have a number of faster solutions in terms of development speeds, I can't propose, so yeah.

Are you is it something that you want to continue working on and if it's not like a place you actually like how do you see this going forward?

Well, it's my job. I guess I'll do what my project manager sent me to do. I'll continue.

But, yeah, some more engineering tasks would be great, if needed. If not, I'll just do client jobs. And, yeah, also had a bit... of, yeah, the feeling that you don't always trust my choices.

Can you elaborate on that for me please?

Yeah, for example, on the infra thing, I'm not the most experienced person in DevOps field, but I have deployed some of the services. And yeah, anyway, it felt like my decisions looked to you a bit non-professional or something.

Okay, so I can understand.

If this is not the case. Right. I think that stems from one side us hiring and employing someone like this one to help us on the infrastructure. I think that's maybe one part of that. And the other part is also maybe me asking like, hey, this setup structure seems odd to me because you know, a few different people have asked me so me kind of double questioning, is that correct?

It's not about the project's questions. It's partially about Ruslan, but not in all the projects we assigned to him. I understand why, for example, it was assigned to deployments of AI. I tried it and we both know that I can't find fast enough a solution that would be cheaper because I don't have experience in AI field.

And all this kind of stuff. For N8n, Ruslan is also a great choice because he has experience with deploying N8n instances for a startup. But for my service, from my perspective, I mean...

I don't know. Yeah.

Okay, so for me I think it's also important to say it's quite difficult for me to kind of measure these things. Based on that, try to understand what needs to be done. I think from from from my perspective, what I'm looking at is.

The job that we hide or the work effort that we need to be measuring you on is related towards client work, right? Not necessarily related towards... The setting up of, you know, backing infrastructure. That's not the job. Right. So I understand that. And this is also why I think this one month review is good, but it's also

Key for us to, and that's what I'm going to come on to just now, is that we focus on, hey, what is the actual job? And let's focus on executing on that piece, because I think it's important. One, for you to also be able to measure, like, hey, is this, you know, am I happy doing this? Is this something that I enjoy? Is this something that's the right fit for me?

Because that's important, right? In my opinion, your job shouldn't just be your job, right? Well, it can be for a lot of people, but I think it should be something that you get energy out of, something that's interesting for you, something that inspires you, right?

Because if it's not, then it can become very jobby, if you get my drift, right? If you're not having fun and having a good time, then why are you doing it? Except for the paycheck, right? And that shouldn't always be the right motivation, I think, personally. But that's also my personal view on life, right? You can decide to do something different than that.

But I think it is something that we should be critical and open to each other about. Like, hey, is this actually something I'm enjoying, or is this not something I'm enjoying? And be vocal about that. Because if it's not, then I think it's also fair to say so, right?