Thoughts on James Jarvis

📚 Year of books 2025

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Bit late this year as I’m only posting this in April, but here are the reviews I wrote for the (12) books I read in 2025. For each book I read, I try and write a short (often scrappy) review as a way of remembering what I learnt from each book. I’ve also started writing more notes on books while I’m reading them, but those are more private.

The following has been extracted from a short script I reused from last years post, to export all of my reviews made in 2025.

The Lean Startup

5/5 :star:

I “read” this book as an audiobook, but I feel this does not do it justice, and I would have benefit more with a physical copy for later reference. The book repeats itself a bit, but has some valid case studies of companies who have benefitted from some of the “lean startup” approaches. Principally, the methods of “innovation accounting” seem to be key for ensuring a project is actually capturing a market fit, without wasting too much effort on untested hypotheses.

Eric mentions some other concepts that interest me, namely the concept of keeping known “innovators” on innovative work, with the assumption that some are better suited for the implementation, scale up, or maintenance types of work/management. This could perhaps explain the rarity of founder/ceos lasting much beyond the initial starting phase.

Interestingly, in the epilogue Eric notes on the general unproductive nature of modern business enterprises. Focusing on the wrong metrics, spreading themselves too thin taking too long on too many projects that are ultimately doomed for failure lead to higher than required rates of failure.

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

4/5 :star:

Fundamentally a brilliant book to reshape your perspective on gender issues, from a bottom up approach. I’m not convinced all case studies mentioned are as simple as stated, but the root problem is indeed a lack of gender disaggregated data.

Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

4/5 :star:

(not provided)

The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions

3/5 :star:

It took me 9 months to finish this book. Why? On one hand, almost every page is covered in a stream of factoids, which I’ve either read before elsewhere, or seen elsewhere in this book! On the other hand, this book is effectively a collation of small articles + accounts from climate activists from around the globe, with a connecting piece written by Greta in-between sections of the book. This format was interesting for about the first hundred pages, but after a while became a bit of a slog to read through, with the last 40 feeling like repeats of the first.

Whilst this isn’t the most flattering review, I want to make it clear that I agree with the majority of the book. Some suggestions are a bit delusional (yes, the richest nations must spearhead fossil fuel replacements through technological improvements, but pay reparations? That’s just not practical), but the overwhelming majority of the book is quite reasonable, if a little alarmist.

A Philosophy of Software Design

4/5 :star:

Overall a brilliant collection of strong opinions that I generally think are good to follow, or to at least consider and oppose meaningfully. A similar resource for this is grugbrain.dev, a personal bible for me.

It’s very much a theoretical book for those with the luxury of time though, as allocating time for a good design is inherently expensive, something that unfortunately must be traded off with implementation work. John coins a term “tactical tornadoes” for those who go around improving systems quickly, rather than holistically. I believe this is somewhat childish, as anyone can and must become this persona in times of need.

Overall I would recommend the talk John gives at Google instead of this book (find it on YouTube), as it provides much of the same core principles (deep interfaces, etc) in a more engaging and concise format.

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

4/5 :star:

(not provided)

Taxtopia: How I Discovered the Injustices, Scams and Guilty Secrets of the Tax Evasion Game

5/5 :star:

(not provided)

The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies

3/5 :star:

(not provided)

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future

4/5 :star:

The “engineering state” vs the “lawyerly society”, an accurate portrayal of china and the US. Dan Wang’s analysis of these two superpowers cuts pretty deep, and isn’t very forgiving for either one. I agree in general with the principle diagnosis, but there isn’t a whole lot more detail other than that. I’m also not entirely sure I agree with the final remarks that china is unable to compete technologically with the USA, I fear that lead is being eroded quickly.

Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure: Top Gear, Grand Tour and Twenty Years of Magic and Mayhem

5/5 :star:

Obviously impossible to fault a deliberate nostalgia trip.

Appendix

I just reused and slightly modified the script from last year’s post - no point wasting good LLM tokens on something already done!

Buckle Up: My Economic Outlook for 2026+

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR: Strap in and buckle up, it’s (maybe) about to get dicey in the economy…

With hindsight, you can see ups and downs in the markets, in the present you can feel stresses in your life, or periods of time when you are flying high. But every so often you can just tell when you are about to fly into a particularly turbulent patch of air. Right now I think we have just started a new patch of uncertainty, outlined by 3 key forces:

Inflation
Global Liquidity
AI

Inflation

Up until around about the beginning of March 2026, core inflation across most western economies had been higher than targets (specifically since 2022 after the fossil fuel crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine), but generally trending downwards, and was assumed to reach the target level either the end of this year, or mid-2027.

Markets had generally priced this return to normality in - as had central banks - who were beginning to lower rates, and were assumed to approach approximately 3% by the end of 2026. Indeed, that is what I had also assumed, surely the majority of people can’t be wrong about something as important as this?

That was, until the USA received a booty call on February 28th from their good friends in Israel, telling them that Iran was days away from enriching weapons grade uranium, and conveniently all gathered in an accessible location. The USA subsequently launched “Operation Epic Fury” (funnier if you read it in Trump’s voice), blowing up Iran’s leaders and several military bases - including the nuclear enrichment plant. The original intention was that this would last maybe a week or two before Iran’s government fell and a new regime took over - but we’ve heard this story before, right? Naturally, Iran is not happy about this, and has been flinging bombs left right and centre towards it’s neighbours, and shutting down the Straight of Hormuz (a shipping lane where 20% of the worlds oil flows). Predictably, restricting global supplies of oil by ~20% is a guaranteed method of increasing oil prices.

What’s interesting is that since markets generally run on the “TACO trade” principle (Trump Always Chickens Out), Oil futures hadn’t moved by much, as people generally assumed the war would be over within a few weeks with minimal lasting damage to oil infrastructure Well, the 3rd week has just come and gone, and as of this morning (19th March), Iran has managed to damage the Ras Lafan oil refinery quite substantially.

I’ll leave it there, as it’s not particular fun to imagine the continuation of global conflicts, but I think it’s fair to say that this isn’t going to go away quickly or cleanly. At least Trump won’t be invading Cuba for the next few months - though if China manages to finally finish purging it’s military generals, Taiwan (and the semiconductor industry) could be in for a nasty surprise.

What does this mean?

Inflation was assumed to fall back to 2-3% by end of year, and is looking more and more like we are in for a longer lasting period of 4-6% inflation for the foreseeable future. The markets unwinding their hopes and dreams, along with the friction of lower borrowing will have tangible consequences to investment.

This might not sound like much, until you realise that from 2021 -2027, cumulative persistent inflation (from ONS RPI figures) is looking like it will be around 46%. For reference, 2011-2017 was 16%, all whilst base rates were at a record low of 0.5%, as opposed to the 2020’s expected average of 4.5%.

Global Liquidity

By this, I mean the accessibility of capital being invested around the world. We’ve pretty much covered it above already: higher interest rates will reduce borrowing.

But to labour the point, I want to briefly touch on the yen carry trade and private credit. Since the birth of Abenomics, the Japanese central bank has held rock bottom interest rates (at around -0.1%). Recently though it looks like Japan is going to start playing in the same ballpark as it’s mikata countries, and has already hiked it’s interest rates to 0.75%. So who cares? Well, Japan has for a long time been a great place to borrow money from, and invest the money elsewhere. Surprisingly, the currency was relatively stable throughout this process.

This form of infinite money glitch led to a lot of capital being available cheaply to purchase other assets, such as government bonds. As long as the asset being purchased yielded a bit above the ~0.5% it would have cost to borrow the underlying yen, along with some buffer for currency fluctuations, then there was a willing buyer for it. This kept up demand for relatively lower yield socks and bonds elsewhere, like the USA or UK. As this reverses, we are likely to see a reduction in demand for stocks and bonds, requiring higher yields and lower P/E multiples to make it make sense again for investors. Think: lower stock market valuations, higher interest rates. A quick aside from this - every time you hear “fiscal sustainability” being uttered from a government, remember that they also sell bonds. If your government’s borrowing gets more risky, it will annoyingly start to bring up your own borrowing costs. Them’s the rules.

Our only hope for this is that the Swiss Franc remains cheap to borrow and relatively stable, to try and step in where the Yen has run away.

I’d also like to touch briefly upon Private Credit. There have been a bunch of murmurings around default rates increasing as general interest rates have crept up, and economic growth has stalled. If we expect the minimal/no growth to be prolonged due to higher inflation as outllined above, then we would expect to see further defaults in this opaque slice of the financial sector.

Why does this matter? If you find out your favourite companies are leveraged on uneasy foundations, then we may start seeing some unwinding here. I’m not too concerned about defaults here, as these markets are so locked up and regulation is generally better that any fluctuations will be slow enough as to not cause too much damage. The general point I’m trying to make is that if this does wobble, then we will get a reduction in liquidity, and less grease in the economy is always less fun.

AI

A fun collection of recent, lighthearted and totally-not-depressing quotes from our current overlords:

“By the end of 2028, more of the world’s intellectual capacity could reside inside of data centers than outside of them.” - Sam Altman, CEO OpenAI

“Half of all entry-level white-collar jobs could be eliminated within the next one-to-five years” - Dario Amodei, CEO Anthropic

“10 times bigger than the Industrial Revolution – and maybe 10 times faster.” - Demis Hassabis, CEO Deepmind

“Every job will be affected, and immediately. It is unquestionable… You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI.” - Jensen Huang, CEO Nvidia

If you glance past the obvious fact that these 4 are incentivised to say scary shit like this to pump their meme-valuations, then you realise, they are kinda right.

There’s a growing theory on the “K-shaped economy”, where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. This has broadly been happening in the western economies now ever since they started outsourcing labour abroad and debased their currencies from scarce metals, incentivising the speculation on essential commodities like housing. So what’s the difference?

The difference is a more recent phenomenon called “the permanent underclass”. If we hold these assumptions to be true…

AI will reduce the barrier to entry for “information economy” jobs, increasing supply and thereby reducing average wages for previously scarce jobs if employees can leverage AI to get a leg up.
The best employees will be even better with AI, and thus able to command a higher salary and break out of the now-larger pool of employees in their sector to rise to the top.
The lowest performing employees - if unable to keep up with the new influx of entrants into their sector, may end up being crowded out or stuck on salaries below their expectation. …then we can expect either companies will indeed reduce headcount once they are happy with their newly more productive workforce, or they will just continue with the same structures as they currently have, but reduce wages in real terms to account for the additional cost of each employee once AI tokens are taken into account.

Either way, this sure sounds like not fantastic news for:

House prices (if average wages decrease or unemployment increases in economies heavily reliant on services)
Wealth inequality (if the spoils increasingly get concentrated into fewer hands)

Another way of thinking of this is that the risk-adjusted salaries for knowledge workers may be about to take a nosedive.

Personally, I’m of the latter opinion, and think broadly that AI will be good overall in terms of economic progress + increasing competition in the markets due to lower barriers to entry for new companies, but that in the medium term this will probably lead to a lot of instability across the incumbent knowledge economy companies, all while shovelling money into foundation model companies, once they remove their subsidies as soon as it becomes critical to productivity. But who knows? The productivity boosting effects may be overstated, as after all a machine cannot be held accountable for the decisions it derives, providing a natural cap on the takeover potential in employment.

Summary

Phew, that was a bit bleak wasn’t it?

This is not financial advice, and I am not mystic meg, this is just the ramblings of an ambient observer who works in AI, travels to Asia a lot, and occasionally gambles his money in the stock markets. I barely know what’s happening tomorrow, but I wrote this to try and comprehend why it feels like the next 6 months are less certain than the last 6.

There’s still a potential universe that I’m rooting on where:

The doomer effect of AI is deemed to be overhyped, and either the majority of jobs remain unaffected but appreciative of the increase in productivity, or everyone is happy becoming plumbers and pothole fillers.
Trump chickens out of the Middle East, China doesn’t actually want to take over Taiwan, and our silicon wafer/oil prices stay nice and steady
Companies don’t default on their debt despite increased competition, or do but to a manageable amount that keeps money lubricating the economy
Our governments stop running budget deficits, and borrow less, or at least become less risky borrowers
Inflation comes back down to that nice magical 2% target, and we ease back into normality.

History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme, the problem is I can’t tell where I heard this song from?

🏚️->🏠 A year of house renovations

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I bought my first house at the age of 26 in late October 2024, almost exactly 1 year ago.

I was up for a challenge, so even though I didn’t start looking out for a complete fixer-upper, I slowly convinced myself (and my girlfriend) to take a chance on a project house. I wrote a bit previously about how we went about searching for the right house here, but TL;DR is that we could have probably lost less money by renting 😂.

So, a year ~~wiser~~ older, after hundreds of hours of work demolishing, planning, painting, plumbing, laying floors, building a kitchen, bathroom and generally fixing-up, this is my advice…

Planning is everything

When selecting flooring, I ordered 12 samples from 4 suppliers, I spent hours planning the herringbone sequence to make sure we didn’t get stuck. The kitchen went through 5 different designs, the bathroom went through 6 different designs, and the front fireplace took hours to just measure out.

It’s a bit annoying but once you’ve got experience with it, it’s fairly painless and well worth the investment.

Outside -> in. Top -> bottom.

Sage advice when working on buildings is that you should always sequence your work outside -> in, and top -> bottom.

Roof need fixing? Any leaky windows? Do those first before decorating the inside.

Want to plaster the ceiling? Better do that before you paint the walls, and definitely do that before you lay a new floor.

And any significant plumbing work should sequence neatly between outside work and any inner work, as you are definitely going to be ripping stuff apart in the process.

You can’t do it alone

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have taken advantage of a wonderful bunch of wilful workers from my family and friends. None of knew what we were doing, but they’ve all gotten stuck in and helped out massively.

I’d like to thank Feiyang, Jason, Celia, Penny, Owen, Jon, Matthew, Brandon, Raphael, Filip and Sam for all of their help.

Invest in tools

The first things I bought were a mitre saw and handheld combi drill. Alongside a stanley knife, some paint brushes/rollers and a borrowed handheld jigsaw I can’t imagine getting this far without them. I had to do almost a thousand cuts with that saw when laying the downstairs floor, and I’ve been through several thousand screws with the drill.

A borrowed chainsaw was way better than the 50 year old wood saw I had for removing some trees, and the laser marker or dedicated scribing tools were far better than me eyeballing a cut.

Double/Triple the budget

I think the last year’s work (~100sqm of wood flooring, every room redecorated/furnished, all radiators replaced and a new kitchen / bathroom) cost me approximately ~£45k. I had originally thought ~£35k would cover everything comfortably including the gardens and some more furniture - turns out I was off by about double!

Timing is also something not to be underestimated.

How hard can it be?

“Fuck it, let’s give it a go”

This kind of attitude is the most important thing required (possibly more so than capital imho) when taking on a big project.

You have to be willing to jump into a domain you know absolutely nothing about, mess stuff up, and figure it.

Understand what you are signing up for

This isn’t for the faint-hearted, it’s deliberately a massive pain in the arse and can be extremely stressful, not to mention economically exhausting.

Getting taxed 43%, handing over stamp duty (worse tax ever), only to remember that 20% of your new kitchen’s cost is also going to HMRC is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

Working a full time job, then spending evenings and weekends on DIY whilst living without heating or running water in a dusty house, eating only microwaveable food gets old real quick - you do need to be slightly stupid to do this.

Now the itch is scratched, I’m itching to do it again

…and I’m not talking about loft insulation!

It has been a genuine pain in the ass sometimes, but I can’t help but have a huge sense of accomplishment sitting in my home built home office.

I’m not looking to repeat some of the stress of the last year (I almost lost my eyesight twice due to stress!) but I am looking forward to taking on more big projects like this in the future.

Hopefully now, with a little more experience behind me!

No pirate builders here…

💰 My UK Tax Burden in 2025: A Personal Finance Reality Check

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Reality of UK Taxation in 2025 💰

It’s a strange hobby to have - budgeting - but it’s something I quite enjoy framing as an optimisation problem.

Recently there’s been quite a bit of chat about the burden of taxation in the UK, with several fiscal “black holes” being discovered by the government, attempting to be closed via higher taxation, and then somehow doubling in size the next year.

This is not going to be a specific opinion piece on taxation, but I wanted to provide some insight into what a typical PAYE employee as a Software Engineer in London may expect to pay in taxes in the UK.

My Personal Tax Breakdown

Let me start by being completely transparent about my tax situation in 2025. I’m not going to share exact figures, but I will share the percentages and structure that make up my total tax burden.

For the purposes of this breakdown, I am sampling an average month of the year, and counting “income” as any money that I am given by my employer in exchange for my labour. I’m not including an outlier month (like paying Stamp Duty or a Capital Gains tax )

This particular month is representative of the last year I’ve been living in my house, where I’ve reduced my “lifestyle” spend quite a lot, and have been dumping money into my recent house purchase. You’ll recognise there’s no “buffer/savings” section at the moment, 🤞 in a couple months I can swap the “renovation” section with “savings”, and I’ll probably post an update in a couple years, but the taxation breakdown will likely remain the same.

Income

Full time Employment, fairly standard
- Including employer’s pension contributions

Expenses

Tax (43%)
- National Insurance (12%)
  - Note: This includes Employers National Insurance, because ultimately I pay for this.
- Income (25%)
- Consumption/VAT (4%)
- Council (2%)
Savings/Investments (21%)
- Pension
Housing (20%)
- Mortgage Interest (15%)
- Mortgage Capital Repayments (5%)
Lifestyle (13%)
- Eating Out/Groceries
- House Renovation
- This section has been tight for a while now, and will increase after House Renovation (~10%) has finished.
Bills (2%)
- Gas/Electricity/Phone/Wifi
Transport (1%)
- TfL

The Tax Reality

The taxes I’ve included in this are:

National Insurance Contributions
Employers National Insurance Contribution
Income Tax
Council Tax
VAT
Insurance Premium Tax
Capital Gains Tax (currently negligible from my amounts)

I haven’t included:

Import tariffs
Road Tax
Any other erroneous tax on specific items that I didn’t want to calculate

Total Tax Burden as an individual: ~43% Total Cost of Living: ~67%

I’m not going to get too political, but if you assume my situation is fairly standard, and you assume that an economy is just the sum of its population, then it looks an awful lot like the UK economy is 43% government, about 30% housing, and around 3% the stuff you actually see and do.

What if I were a business?

There are some tax benefits that for some reason are only available to corporations, so I thought - what if I was a corporation?

Disclaimer: I’m not an accountant, and this is a bit of a stretched example relying mainly on the fact that expenses can be tax deductible, and completely ignoring the impact of import taxes, sales taxes, employment taxes, private health insurance etc that would be incurred.

But the general idea of it is, if an expense is vital for a company, it should be deducted from the tax liability of that company. Whereas if an expense is vital for a person, it cannot be tax deductible.

Interestingly, you could arguably question whether an employee’s income tax should ultimately just fall as a consumption tax on human capital for a corporation (i.e. Employers NI), but as the incentive should be to have companies employing people, I think this is hard to justify.

Tax burdens as a corporation: ~13% Total Cost of Existence: ~36%

Looking Forward

At the time of writing, the UK is preparing itself for a further round of tax increases in the UK (as opposed to cutting spending, reforming blockers to economic growth, or accruing further debt).

Nobody knows quite what the expected tax increases will be, but they are generally expected to tip into the “too much” category, risking some civil unrest.

Most people in the UK have absolutely no idea how much tax they are spending, or the inequality of taxation for an individual compared to a corporation - especially not to the extend that an individual with a certain level of wealth can engineers themselves into being taxed as a corporation, hence avoiding a 43% tax burden and decreasing their proportional cost of existence.

I am personally hoping for (though not expecting):

Simplification of the tax system + reducing regulatory barriers to growth
- See: UK Foundations Whitepaper outlines several blockers.
Better public understanding of the true cost of government
- Even better, a reduction in wasteful or too-generous public spending
Policies that address wealth inequality and social mobility
- See: Fairer Share as one potential tax change targeting “council tax” reform.

But my concern is that we’ll see more of the same: hidden tax increases, blissful ignorance of state inefficiencies, corporate tax cuts, and a growing burden on the average worker.

What’s your experience with taxation? Is it fairer/worse in your country? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the current system and what changes you’d like to see. Better yet, message your representative politicians.

🔥 Why I decided to join incident.io and my impressions so far

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Why I wanted to join incident.io 🔥

In May 2025 I joined the AI team here at incident.io, in search of new and exciting engineering challenges.

It’s now been just over 2 months, so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on why I decided to join incident.io out of all options available, and how reality has compared to my expectations.

I want to be a part of the AI revolution

Fun fact: I’ve been interested in AI since I watched Iron Man 2 as a wee lad and saw the “Jarvis” personal assistant, and I’ve wanted to be a part of building that ever since.

I went on to university to take a bachelors in CS with an Artificial Intelligence specialism, though the dream plateaued there - owing to the heavily fintech oriented job market in London.

Since GPT-3 dropped in late 2020, it’s been increasingly obvious that generative AI is sooner or later going to be generating more stuff than humans ever could.

I believe the outcome of this is not that Software Engineers are going away, but that they will be shipping exponentially more code.

Every engineer knows more code == more bugs, and more bugs == more incidents.

This frankly necessitates incident management to get proportionally more productive as coding output does. Enter incident.io.

The team has aura

I’ve been wowed by the output and engineering presence of the incident.io team for a couple of years now, most recently the series on prompt engineering and latency reduction.

A personal goal of mine has been to write more, speak more, and ultimately just become a better builder - outside of just programming.

Seeing how almost engineer has the experience, autonomy and support to not only build amazing things, but also share their experience online or at conferences, I was hooked - I want to learn as much as possible from these lot.

Most of all, I want to be one of them.

From how people in the London tech scene spoke of incident.io, it was also clear that the engineering team radiates Aura 🧑‍🌾, people spoke very highly of their achievements.

That’s always a good sign.

How have I found it so far?

Rewarding

I love working on a tangible project.

What that means, is I like to see the direct impact my input will have on something.

It may sound like a small thing, but at some companies, it could take weeks or months before you start to receive feedback on a shipped product.

On my third day, I was chatting with an engineer from one of our largest clients about an (albeit small) feature I had shipped to them.

You don’t get that kind of feedback loop in most places.

I’ve joined into the AI team here at incident.io, where we are working on building an AI SRE, a feature that feels absolutely magical to see in action.

We are planning ambitiously, changing priorities ruthlessly, and shipping ultra-fast.

On my 60th day, I presented at all-hands the results of the Alpha-release of one of our upcoming AI SRE features that will help manage communications to incident stakeholders on your behalf.

The early feedback we have had from our recent release of @incident chat has been extremely positive, and the feedback from our alpha customers on in progress features is extremely promising!

The hype is absolutely real.

Competition is fierce

The vision from above is crystal clear to others at the forefront of AI adoption, that as the rest of software development gets a massive boost in productivity, incident response needs an equivalent amount of love.

Whilst growth at incident.io is very good, the prospect of an AI SRE it too tempting for our competitors to just ignore - everyone is going after this goal at a breakneck pace.

The competition are well staffed, well funded, and have a similar focus.

So we are going to work our socks off to outcompete, out of raw talent and (imho) a better vision of what a complete incident resolution product should be.

Strong values; crazy productivity

At incident.io, (especially in the AI team) we have an unlimited budget to spend on AI tools that can improve productivity, with the only requirement that you share your findings in our #ai-chat channel.

To prepare for this blog post, I asked my current favourite AI tool Claude Code to research current blog posts and mention any current themes, so how did I do?

⏺ Based on my research of incident.io's blog, I found several posts from new employees sharing their experiences. Here's what I discovered:

 Key Blog Posts About New Employee Experiences:

 1. "Why I joined incident.io as VP of Engineering" - Norberto Lopes reflects on his decision after two weeks
 2. "Why I joined an engineering team of 6" - Martha's 6-month reflection on joining the small team
 3. "My first week at incident.io" - Megan Batterbury's week-by-week breakdown
 4. "How I started talking to customers in my first week" - Gabriel's intern experience
 5. "They're not kidding about the pace..." - Macey Baker on shipping 2 features in her first week
 6. "Five unexpected lessons from my first two months as an intern" - Lucas's reflection after 2 months

 Common Themes Across Posts:

 Pace & Impact: Everyone mentions the incredible speed - shipping features within days/weeks, not months

 Trust by Default: New employees get meaningful responsibilities immediately, even interns

 Customer Focus: Direct customer interaction from day one, including interns

 Team Culture: Emphasis on collaboration, learning, and supportive environment

 Technical Philosophy: Simple, intuitive architecture that enables quick onboarding

 Learning Opportunities: 1:1s, documentation, and systematic support for growth

Funnily enough, this maps quite well with our company values:

⚡ Raise the pace
☀️ Trust by default
✨ Make it magic
🤝 Find a way
🏆 Win together

On the second week of my time here, we all jetted off to Greece for the annual offsite (I know, brilliant timing on my part!).

With absolute certainty, I can tell you that everyone at this company demonstrates these 5 (quite un-corporate tbh) qualities in abundance.

I can only apologise as I repeat this in my own post…

Everyone pulls weight

The team here is dense with talent, and everyone is marching in the same direction.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked in 2 teams already at incident.io, and everyone I have worked with has been extremely helpful, willing to repeat things until they get through my thick skull, and capable of contributing to pretty much any part of the codebase at a moments notice to ship improvements to the product.

This does induce a healthy amount of imposters syndrome - nobody is entirely immune from this, and its healthy to admit. Though over the last couple of months of onboarding I’ve been ramping up on larger and larger projects, building back the confidence that drives my passion for engineering.

I’m with some of the best engineers in my career, all heads down focusing on how we can build an industry leading product that can intercept and resolve production incidents as they come up, before you wake up.

If you also want to be a part of the future of incident response at incident.io, we are hiring!

📚 Year of books 2024

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Building on my last year getting properly back into reading, this is a continuation of my reflections. For each book I read, I try and write a short (often poorly worded) review as a way of remembering what I learnt from each book.

In my last post on this topic here, I reflected on my 2024 New Years resolution:

For 2024, one of my primary goals is to write more, and to write more publicly (fail fast, thanks Levels).

Now I didn’t do too badly, writing 12 posts to this blog, but I’d like to see that go up in the next year, so consider this the continuation of that goal.

The following has been extracted from a short script I co-authored with the help of ChatGPT, to export all of my reviews made in 2024.

This year, I read and reviewed 20 books, a little down on last years 30, but I feel happy with it.

The Lean Startup

5/5 :star:

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

4/5 :star:

Don’t let the intriguing title fool you, this is a genuinely well researched and collated series of thoughts. Caveat here that I have not read deeply into this subject so this book is my first experience with reading on the economics of undervalued human labour.

The good: This is a subject that, from what I can tell, does not get the attention it deserves in popular economics. Graeber is clearly one of the most active thinker on this subject, and is able to highlight almost all questions regarding the phenomena at least that I could think of. Lots of interesting/humorous anecdotal case studies throughout the book, from people who have written to the author expressing their opinions of the social value of their own jobs. His theory on the inverse correlation between social value and monetary compensation for a job is a shared belief, but the reasoning appears to favour a belief that the subject is being rewarded by the virtue of producing social value in the job itself, rather than purely monetary value from the salary. It is full of classic case studies of middle-management and bureaucracy bloat, which if not particularly helpful, is somewhat cathartic to read.

The bad: Early on, the author makes a point regarding the rise of “services” jobs in both the UK and India. In the UK graph he notes on the increasing proportion of labour working in the service sector, whereas in the India graph he draws comparison on the increasing proportion of the services sector as part of India’s GDP. Whilst I don’t think the point is entirely lost here, the clearly handpicked statistics, each focused on different metrics of an economy, hurt his image as an unbiased commentator somewhat. As the author does foreshadow, the last chapter on Universal Basic Income and his opinions as an anarchist do also devalue the book somewhat. I need more information on UBI to consider whether any of the expressed opinions are valid or not.

The God Delusion

4/5 :star:

It’s hard to review this book as I’m just not the target audience for it. I’m already an atheist, so what were presumably controversial topics for religious folk, sailed right past me without much meaning. Thats not to say it hasn’t got merit, some chapters had interesting perspectives on various aspects of life. The ones I remember most being:

The analogy of “binker”
- And the suggestion that religion is a natural continuation of infantile support mechanisms (imaginary friends)
The perspective of death
- Mark Twain “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years.”
- William Shakespeare’s seven stages of man, suggesting a character dies multiple times throughout their life.
- The Theseus Paradox, at the atomic level.
The thin slice of the universe we are capable of perceiving
- With the imagery of a burkha, the notion that humans are only capable of experiencing and understanding a subset of all distances, colours, forces.

Although I did find that reading as an audiobook, the narrators had a “smarter than thou” tone, intentionally divisive for what purpose I can only assume, to anger some, and deepen a connection with others. I don’t think this is particularly constructive considering the objective nature of the book, so it could have done with a different style of writing/narrating.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

5/5 :star:

Learnt absolutely nothing and loved every page of it.

Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval

3/5 :star:

Pessimistic, alarmist, but most likely true. Vince argues that humanity is not on track to achieve our climate goals, and will end up with 4-5 degrees of global warming by the end of the century. The implication of this, is that:

all low lying areas will flood, including the likes of Bangladesh, Netherlands, London, New York and more.
forest fires will threaten drier locations with lots of vegetation
huge parts of the global south will become uninhabitable due to heat waves
all farmland will either become unviable, or will be forced to change their crops

Given this set of events, Vince warns us of an incoming mass migration event, from south to north. Large chunks of the book are dedicated to reminding us of the short lifespans of borders, and what is a nation anyway?

But I wonder if this is even realistic? Assuming continued population growth, and the loss of both farmland, and existing cities, can we even practically migrate almost 4 billion people into Siberia?

Not to mention the clear devastation this will bring to whatever remaining wildlife or wilderness in this new frontier, I fear we will only ever be delaying the inevitable. A side chapter on forcing meat free diets, cramming people into high rise buildings and seeding the atmosphere with sulphates appear to reveal the truly dystopian vision the author is subconsciously trending towards.

I think this is a good explanation of the problem we are likely to face, but draws the wrong conclusion about what a solution might be. A better solution for humanity as a whole, is to shift to sustainable living practises, and increase the efficiency of its use of resources, not to increase the population by any means necessary. For an explanation of some of these ideas, I would recommend the book “degrowth”

Unnatural Causes: The Life and Many Deaths of Britain’s Top Forensic Pathologist

5/5 :star:

Imagine finding a dead body. Imagine cutting said body up, folding back its tissues, pulling apart organs, re-assembling some part from bags, and imagining all possible ways this person could have died. Pretty horrific, right? Well, it would be for me, and as it turns out, roughly 23,000 postmortems later, it has turned out to be a bit traumatic for Dr Richard Shepherd as well.

A lifetime in public service, doing the necessary, difficult work most cannot imagine themselves attempting leaves us with this fascinating, very well written memoir.

Not for the squeamish, but a great read nonetheless as an exploration into one of those topics you’d never think about reading otherwise.

Personally my favourite tales are of the doctor’s passion for flying over Kent, something I can fail to accurately reflect the emotion of. In addition, his overall passion for humanity, be it a lonely elderly woman, or a boat full of party-goers. He seems to have truly cared about uncovering the truth for each one, but you can hear the weight of these experiences cumulating on his mind.

Surrounded by Idiots

3/5 :star:

One of those books that you naturally doubt, and requires a bit more practise to grasp the value of classifying people into one of four colours. The colours are certainly easy to remember, and have a hilarious, “inside-out”-esque character assigned to each one, but this only further accentuates how doubtable it is. If you are willing to take this information at face value, and be a bit crude in your own application of these classifications onto your fellow person, then I could see this being useful as a quick behavioural filter. However I wouldn’t consider this an idiot-proof guide and your mileage may vary vastly.

Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution

4/5 :star:

Not quite a historical account, not quite a modern day opinion piece, this book leaves the reader wanting to learn more about why such a country could do such things. Some scenes feel lifted straight from 1984, and the author does a good job with helping you to connect to each of the subjects, whose stories she portrays. If this were fiction, it would be interesting at best and yes, Orwellian. Given this is not fiction however, it fills you with sadness and a just a hint of fear for the future. As history is slowly erased during the course of the book, it ends noting that the Party and it’s leaders are going nowhere.

Brave New World

2/5 :star:

In my opinion, this book is not a must read science fiction novel. It has its merits, and the key themes of the book are laid out in plain terms roughly 3/4 of the way through the book in a narrative style, much like some other sci fi novels. However, the reason for the low review is that these themes are neither particularly challenging, nor investigated in an insightful manner.

You’ll find the first quarter, and subsequent snapshots of the book to revolve around the somewhat cheap and perverse obsession of communal sexual acts, chiefly amongst children. It serves well as a shock factor, but goes so far as to kind of bore you of the books main plot. The themes of automated and replicated human reproduction are interesting, but really don’t explain the necessity of “orgy porgy” to the plot. Similarly, the manufactured genetic class system, and free distribution of psychedelics are a great concept to explore, but explain nothing about how the “savages” are really so different, given their reliance on religion.

Overall whilst I’m sure this was groundbreaking for its time, it is one of those books that I might recommend once you have more or less exhausted the science fiction genre.

Speed & Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now

4/5 :star:

John Doerr puts forth the most digestible, compelling plan for combatting climate change in his book/call to arms: Speed and Scale.

Well structured and pragmatic, the first half of the book covers the “what” needs to be done to reduce CO2e emissions, partitioned by sector. The remainder of the book has a deep dive into the “how” we may hope to achieve this.

Well referenced with Objectives and Key Results acting as anchors to serve a trackable plan, the only concerning part is that since this book was published, the world is already falling behind on a number of these OKRs.

I greatly admire Doerr for his determination to have some form of impact against the threat of climate change. Whilst some of his investments (QuantumScape, Beyond Meat) are more of a joke than serious companies, the idea holds true. We must invest more and move quicker.

The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

5/5 :star:

I recommend this book to anyone even vaguely interested in managing and growing any organisation, though this may particularly apply to technical ones.

Fournier presents a well thought out breakdown of the challenges, her experience as well as snippets of wisdom from other leaders for various levels of management (mentorship, middle, senior leadership).

My key takeaway would be to focus on defining and following the values of your particular chunk of an organisation. I have been fortunate enough to see many of these recommendations play out to varying effects at the companies I have worked for, so I will consider this another slither of knowledge to compare my experience against.

That being said, I myself have not yet had the chance to truly live most of these experiences, so I would imagine your mileage may vary.

Rework

3/5 :star:

The introduction starts out by saying “a lot of people…call us a fluke” and then goes on to abashedly gloat about their apparently flukey success. The book is written in this quite abrasive style, but does make a lot of sense, particularly for smaller organisations optimising for low effort, high value output.

Some things stand out:

Make small, frequent decisions
Half of a product is better than a half arsed product
Avoid long todo lists
Avoid absolute terms where unnecessary (can’t, must, everyone, no one)
ASAP is inflationary
Focus on customer service
Don’t hire too fast
Teaching is the best method of marketing
Motivation has a short shelf life

Overall, I think it’s worth a read, and I’m appreciative that they kept the book so short (supposedly halving the length between first and last draft). However take it with a pinch of salt, I doubt this will work for all industries/sizes of companies.

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World

4/5 :star:

Some books you pick up, and wonder why you bother. The first paragraph passes you by without a second thought, and no value is apparent to you. This was not one of those books. I’m not completely blind to geopolitics, but this book presents a great way to reframe how you view a country. Its assets, liabilities and risks are made up of the natural landscape, resources and neighbouring interests.

Tim himself sounds like an interesting character, and I’m left hungry for more of his world takes!

The Price Of Money: How to prosper in a financial world that’s rigged against you

4/5 :star:

Great to read, but I forgot to take notes so now I’ll need to read again! I’m glad the book was kept short, as the value of this book is really just to reset your views on money, investments and the mentality of governments/central banks. It doesn’t need to be long to achieve that.

I miss studying Economics!

TL;DR: Money does not have any intrinsic value, it is simply a form of value exchange. Money’s value used to be tied to it’s scarcity, but since the 1970’s has been allowed to increase it’s own supply. QE and monetary policy are generally levers accessible to governments but have debatable impact. Limited monetary policy and inflation via QE are the likely strategy for the next 20 years, so the classic wisdom of owning assets still generally applies.

One of the best things from this book comes down to the fact that most people in charge of central banks simply don’t know for sure what effect anything they do will have. Economics only makes sense in hindsight, and normalcy bias will generally mean you do not take action on any signs you may think you see.

Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity

4/5 :star:

I started reading this based on the recommendation of one of my good friends whilst on a road trip around Washington State. I won’t say this has changed my life, but as we drove around partaking in the Standard American Diet, we couldn’t help but enjoy learning more about this subject. With my cynical hat on, I can tell that the author is probably just on the wrong side of obsessive over their health, but their final chapter around mental health proves they are at least aware of their condition.

If there is anything to take away from the book, it would have to be the general idea of “Training for the Centenarian Decathlon”. Pick 10 activities you would like to keep doing once you are 100 years old (carrying groceries a few streets, walking around a park, picking up a child etc), then multiply the efforts a few times and train at this level consistently. Sleep more, exercise more, avoid sugar, eat more protein, avoid alcohol. Lifespan != healthspan, and there is no point on living too 100 if you have no reasonable social activities to share your life with, so take all things in moderation, and live a little!

The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources

4/5 :star:

A genuinely gripping read for one not previously aware of this shadowy, essential, industry. The high level narrative is that these swashbuckling charismatic corporate figures have managed to corner effectively the entire worlds natural resources through sheer force of will. The detailed accounts of who and how are what keep you turning pages, whether it be tales of foreign policy individuals smoking cigars with Fidel Castro early in to the morning, or a savvy trader propping up entire failed states (or the rebellions overthrowing them).

This whole industry is a fascinating eye opener into how the world works, and the unimaginable riches that can be grabbed if the right information is known to the right people. The last chapter begins to map out the demise of the traditional giants as fiddly things like “ethics” start to get in the way (leaving space for some less regulated alternative traders from China to take the mantle).

Overall, a great read, and some intriguing insight on how traditional finance, plus speculative financial instruments can provide massive accelerants to what I assumed would have been fairly boring, perfectly competitive markets. Highly recommend for anyone interested in macroeconomics!

Conversations on Love

3/5 :star:

I doubt anyone who has spent time thinking about love will learn anything new, or discover anything about themselves.

The value of this book is in understanding that others have experienced the same situations, with some wonderfully personal stories. For that purpose, it offers a great casual read exploring the experiences of others, but I wouldn’t recommend if you are expecting insight. This isn’t one of those topics where you are likely to learn anything new.

Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

3/5 :star:

“Radical Candor” is a phrase I have heard several times over the course of my current career, by some of the most well respected engineers and managers I have yet encountered. So, I thought this would be worth a read.

Though this is not the first management / organisational book I have read, it deserves a space on the bookshelf. Scott recites her experiences from a whirlwind career starting on the streets of Moscow recruiting diamond cutters, to a pivotal time in the wholly radical early days of google, and scaling a sales team for Adsense, one of the most profitable products of the 21st century.

From these experiences, Scott believes she has found some key characteristics of business leadership that function particularly well. Note that this is less of a groundbreaking new theory, and more of a reminder of good practices that have worked well in the low context, collaborative and progressive western companies, such as google.

Some key points that can be translated elsewhere:

Most employees are either “rockstars” (steady performers) or “superstars” (high growth). It is important to have a mix of both, and to reward equally.
Nuances between “Radical Candor”, “ruinous empathy”, “obnoxious aggression” and “manipulative insincerity”, primarily with mistaking radical Candor for obnoxious aggression.

The rest, such as the need for immediate, direct feedback, and continually seeking constructive criticism, is echoed in many other books of this genre.

The Trading Game

5/5 :star:

What would you do, if you had one shot, one opportunity? The first half of this book reminds you of Eminem, a scrawny white kid attempting to rise against adversity in an industry he adored, whilst battling with the grips of poverty. Gary Stephenson is a unique economist and financial trader, with a compelling series of videos and articles outside of this book to his name, detailing his famous bets against economic recovery and the root cause: wealth inequality.

If you are interested in this side of the story, then the first 2/3rds of the book are for you. Having grown up also in east London, admiring the bankers herding their way through the city, I connected with this side of Gary’s story. The economic theory woven through this book is apparent, as he imperfectly competes over each rung in the ladder, towards achieving his first trading job.

Though his career was short, it was agonisingly intense. The equal but opposite side of his bell curve career at Citi offered a peek into the mind of a man descending into burnout induced insanity.

What would you do, for 4 million pounds?

For Gary, this appeared to mean a loss of all human connection, all humanity even.

Just ask yourself, what would you do? When would you escape?

Thoroughly recommend if you are interested in viewing a slightly different take on a career in trading in the financial markets.

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

4/5 :star:

Typically when picking up these kinds of books, the reader has a particular motivation in mind. Negotiating a salary or a deal at work, practising their haggling at the local boot fair, or attempting to get the best price during a house purchase.

This book as far as I can tell, gives some fantastic tips for negotiation, as long as the following constraints apply:

The negotiation must be between 1:1 parties. These tactics rely on approaching a deadline, deliberately drawing out the negotiation, and engaging in conversation first to best know your adversary.
The negotiator must become comfortable with emotionally manipulating their adversary. These tactics again rely upon an ability to emotionally connect with your adversary, and then convince them they are sucking you dry.

Depending on the reader’s disposition, they may either extract some extremely valuable advice from this book, that they can immediately start to practice with. Or, they will likely feel incapable of applying some of these techniques in their own life.

Either way, this book does have some interesting perspectives on negotiation, with a few case studies from the author’s own career, that make for excellent filler material all can appreciate.

Appendix

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🏡 On Buying a House

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I have a bit of a confession to make.

I am horribly, frustratingly, embarrassingly… indecisive.

It took me 4 months to decide on a new bike earlier this year, when I desperately needed one to commute.
It took me 3 months the year before that to decide on a new coat for the winter, when I had no waterproofs at all.
It took me over a month to decide on a replacement car when mine was crashed in to, and I was out of my most useful mode of transport.

But these were comparatively small purchases. What if I were to continue acting the same, but apply this to the largest financial decision of my entire life?

So, we arrive at March 2024. The beginning of my search.

Why buy?

For context, I have been living primarily in East London (Wapping/Limehouse) for the last 4 years, in flats of varying quality.

The rent was roughly ~2kGBP/month, split between myself and my housemates - not all too bad considering I could cycle into work/around London, and that is something I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

But there was always the sense of impermanence to the rental situation. Like my housemates, I had never decorated my room, too afraid to knock anything into the walls, or risk losing our deposit. I “made do” with furniture/appliances/colours/bathrooms I didn’t like, because I couldn’t get rid of the existing stuff, and I wasn’t allowed to change something that wasn’t mine.

Cynically, I was starting to assume that landlords fill flats with the cheapest ikea furniture, not because it was cheap for them, but because it would eventually break, and clawing back deposits was another stream of income for them.

Honestly, I was exhausted of not feeling safe enough to make my place of residence, my home.

Settled: I’ll buy my own place! (After years of aggressively saving for a deposit).

What buy?

It all depends on your lifestyle and your budget really, and there is no good guide for this. But I would recommend you take stock of what you do / what you plan to do during a normal week now and in 5 years, and optimise for that.

You basically have a choice of:

	High Budget	Low Budget
Very sociable	House/Flat inside city	Flat inside city
Less sociable	House outside city	House/Flat outside city

Whatever you buy though, watch out for the following:

Transportation links
Floor plan (in flats this is pretty much fixed forever)
Service charge and ground rent charges, also check for a sinking fund
If it’s a flat, does it have an EWS1 certificate?
Avoid leasehold as much as possible

My personal preferences leant me towards having full ownership of control over wherever I was am living, so flats were out of the question. Terraced, semi, or detached are where I’m looking for, I want some physical ground I can build a shed on, or park a car.

Where buy?

I’ll preface this by saying: I love London.

I’m also from London, the South East.

Now, the South East of London has without a doubt got the worst transport options out of all of London.

The city planners somehow forgot about the South when building out the underground network, and the government was quite happy with selling the national rail network to private companies, with no incentive for improvement.

However, my family all live in South East London, and it’s almost affordable, so that’s that.

One day, I’ll move to some nice leafy suburb in the North West, but that goal is not achievable just yet…

Overview of Bexley, by CrystalRoof. Sounds about right

Useful Resources for Finding a Property

These are some fantastic resources I used to determine my ideal area, and to track down a house on the market:

CrystalRoof
- Offers insight into local crime reports, demographics, transport links, and amenities. Really helpful if you aren’t sure about an area!
HoodMaps
- Hilarious and vaguely useful community map for rating a location.
Zoopla Travel Time
- If you don’t know where to start, but know you want to be able to commute to work by bike in less than 30 mins, this is a great tool.
Zoopla
- Probably the best home finding app.
RightMove
- The most popular home finding app.
OnTheMarket
- Also useful home finding app, covers some extra estate agents.
Jitty
- Honourable mention, has some interesting AI search features, like “period property with tall ceilings and a driveway”.

How buy?

I had been living in rental accommodation for the last few years, with some “free” months in Singapore, or staying with my parents. I’m quite frugal in general, aside from the odd splurge on flight tickets, so as a result I have managed to save approximately 30% of my income (around the same that goes to the taxman, grrr) over my first 6 years of work.

By around March 2024, this looked like a good enough amount for a bank to take me seriously as I requested a mortgage offer, and so I started to look for places.

If you have followed the writings of Gary Stevenson, the evidence of rising inequality can provide an explanation of why housing is becoming more unaffordable, but since I’m in no position to change this, it’s worth jumping in to the housing market as soon as you can.

The process is fairly simple:

Get a Mortgage in Principle (MIP). This is generally a crude affordability check for how much you can theoretically borrow from a mortgage lender. This is a maximum value, do not take it as a goal. Remember, you want to own a house, not to be owned by a bank.
Go for some viewings. Different areas, different styles, different sizes. This will take a long while (4+ months) but that’s ok. You probably won’t know what to look for but the most common, most valuable questions are:
- How old is the boiler?
- How old is the kitchen?
- How many plug sockets does the property have?
- Does the property have good insulation?
- Does the property have damp? Or any leaks?
- In what condition is the bathroom?
- Are there any signs of Asbestos?
- How are the neighbours?
Put in an offer. I would even recommend being a bit cheeky, and putting in an offer ~10% below market value for a property you won’t mind losing. You’ll get more of an idea of how the process works, and it won’t feel so daunting after the first time. Remember, you aren’t just buying a property, you are selling yourself as a good buyer, that can be extremely valuable to some people. If you are a first time buyer, you are worth at least 1% of the property value more when compared to another buyer in a long chain.
Get a good solicitor It’s not worth being cheap here. These guys are expensive, but the difference can be night and day. Go for one with good recommendations, though probably not one from the estate agents, as they normally get a kickback.
Get a mortgage Talk to mortgage brokers and go hunting online. Neither one covers the whole market, so try both for the best deal. I used these resources that I would highly recommend:
- www.mortgageadvicehub.com
- www.moneysavingexpert.com I would recommend getting a mortgage on the longest term possible (~40 years), as you will always have the ability to overpay and pay it off early, without being forced into it.
Get your surveys done You’ve got the offer accepted, a solicitor, and a mortgage offer in place. You now need have a professional come round to inspect the property and make sure everything is up to scratch. Your lender may offer a discount here if you use one of their partners, I recommend you take it, as surveys without a discount can be >£500. Your solicitor will also request environmental surveys (the surrounding area), to make sure you aren’t about to buy a future swamp. Technically your solicitor is acting on both your behalf, and on the behalf of the mortgage lender, it is in both of your interests that the house does not fall apart or get swallowed up.
Negotiate with the sellers Right before completion, you will want to negotiate with the sellers for any furniture or fittings left behind, as well as try to claw back some money for any surprises the survey may have picked up. If the house has a really cool but cumbersome cooker/pizza oven, or turns out you found the roof needs repairing, this is the point at which you want to perform a second round of negotiations.
Wait… This step is frustratingly inevitable. Any time you need to communicate with lawyers, or the Council, you lose both the will to live and a good chunk of your time. Expect the total purchase process to take ~2-6 months.
Complete! Completion day is one of those strange days in your life you’ll remember for just being a bit odd. It is the day when your solicitor gets given £100k’s from the bank, basically all of your savings, and you get the keys to your new place, all at once. If you are in a chain, this day gets even more complicated, but let’s pretend life is easy for a second and ignore that.

What next?

Grab a paintbrush, a tapemeasure, and your worst clothes. Chances are that if you found a place within your budget, as I did, you have a lot of refurbishment / renovation to do.

Even if it doesn’t need renovation, I’d recommend leaving your mark at least.

As of writing this post, I’m in this stage. All I can say for now is, make sure you budget for it!

Good luck!

🤔 Reflecting on 3 months living and working in Singapore

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Preconception

“Disneyland With the Death Penalty” William Gibson - Wired, 1993

A billionaire’s playground

An often quoted metaphor, that draws responses from both crowds. “I like Disneyland, whats not to like about that?”, “That’s kinda dystopian”.

The country has progressed quite a bit in the 30 years since that was written, but it still echoes throughout general sentiment.

Arrival

Greeted by robocop

I landed in Singapore on Monday, 1st August. I was supposed to originally fly out a week prior, but delayed it due to having already booked tickets with my Dad to see our first ever Formula E (it’s a strange sport, we were sat inside! The races don’t last particularly long, but give it a few more years and I could see it taking on Formula 1!)

Heathrow was… Heathrow-ish? I checked in a bit early and had a few hours to kill, which I duly spent eating a microwaved fish and chips in the overcrowded Wetherspoons at Terminal 5. Anyway, premium economy was nice - I never realised you could have metal cutlery and wine on a plane!

The airport of the country is synonymous with the country itself

For those who haven’t yet experienced it, let me tell you, Singapore Changi airport is in a league of its own! It’s a masterpiece of architecture and dignified travel, and almost unimaginable to the average european flier.

Not that I got to see much of it, as my work-booked taxi driver whisked me away immediately on arrival, a mere 20 or so minutes after landing the plane! I almost fail to appreciate this comfortable efficiency, that will come to become thematic of my overall experience of this new country. I ask my driver how he finds Singapore. He says he loved his 30 years in residence, besides some feedback for the weather, and recommends a few touristy activities for me to try out once I settle in. We cross the nation in 25 minutes.

Commute from the hotel to the office was 100 metres

The financial hub

My base for the next 90 days is Raffles place, the original British landing site and previous colonial centre point of South East Asia. I find it fitting for my first foray into this part of the world.

After checking in and generally gawking at my new hotel, I enthusiastically change into a pair of shorts, text a co-worker-friend and head out for a few drinks to meet the rest of the crew I’ll be working with.

Chijmes is a fun area for drinks, but I spent most time at Boat Quay

The Weather

I had been warned “you’ll be sweating after 5 minutes outside, and frozen after 5 minutes inside”, so I had packed a mix of shorts, trousers and hoodies. As it turns out, I was quite comfortable with both, as long as I didn’t move too much outside, or sit too still inside.

Monkeys are everywhere around MacRitchie, apparently they steal Koi fish from nearby house’s ponds

Lizards are rarer, but can still be found around the botanical gardens

Cicadas are heard (read: will drive you insane), but rarely seen

These trees feel almost mystical, just wish they would grow more in Europe

On my second weekend I attempted the MacRitchie Reservoir hike - a 10km hike around one of the few naturally forested areas left in the centre of the island. I highly recommend giving this a go if you visit, as you’ll be tripping over cicadas, frogs, monkeys, turtles, strangling figs and a whole host of other interesting flora and fauna. However, do go with a lot of water, sun cream, bug spray and very breathable clothing! My first naïve hike was performed in a cotton shirt and shorts and, by the end of it, I might as well had swam through the reservoir instead.

A quick trip to Uniqlo fixed that, and I was lightly draped with breathable, practically disposable clothes for the remainder of my time there. If you are coming from a Northern European country, I’d probably recommend bringing 2 days worth of clothes with you, and just buy whatever you need once you arrive.

Top tip: Sunrise yoga at the top of Marina Bay Sands is almost the same price as the normal ticket

A few weeks into my stay, I thought I’d try and take up running again. I figured the consistent 7am-7pm sunlight hours worked well with my optimistic morning jog + dip-in-the-pool-to-cool-off routine. The challenge (besides my pathetic fitness level) is to run as far as you can before the sun really starts to shine and you become too dehydrated to walk straight. Realistically I only did this just under 20 times, but I loved it, and made some noticeable health improvements whilst out there.

The government

Best museum in Singapore

I’m a sucker for a good museum. I also love a well planned urban environment.

As a consequence, it turns out I really loved the Singapore City Gallery! I spent hours reading every little plaque about various iterative designs for how to use the reclaimed land on the south side of the island. Where waste goes, how they ensure energy and water security, to how they plan for the fittingly named Urban Heat Island Effect, I am just continuously in awe at it all.

The Supreme Court building looks as if a UFO landed on top

I’ve always liked the idea of re-attempting a stint at Architecture (I originally went to visit my old university for an architecture open-day, before giving up and enrolling in computer science for the good old fashioned employment prospects). So for anyone interested in a similar thing - I recommend this museum.

Check out The food and activities for more recommendations.

You reserve a seat at a hawker centre by placing a packet of tissues, this is some strange unspoken rule

Also - NO CRIME! The European mind can hardly comprehend this, but you can genuinely accidentally leave your laptop in a cafe, and have full confidence it will still be there by the time you come back, hours later. There is no vandalism, and consequently there are actual public amenities available.

The point here is, you don’t get this kind of stuff without a good amount of support from the people running the country.

Whilst “From third world to first” is still on my reading TODO list, I left with much more confidence in the competence of the government than I’ve ever got from living in the UK or the US.

The people

Arab street is effectively a street of bars next to a Mosque

A bit of a weird topic to reflect on, but I’ve found that any time I move somewhere for a while, I notice something different about the people I am surrounded by. So I thought it’s worth spending a bit of time reflecting on that.

Shopping is a national pastime

Of course, Singapore is more of an international transitory city than a closed-off city. A solid half of everyone I met was an immigrant, but they never seemed to feel “out of place” (aside from the construction/cleaning workers, who all appeared to be shuttled in to the country on the back of open roof vans every day). You can notice a great variety in the locals between Little India and Chinatown, but on the whole they seem to follow a few patterns:

They are typically quite wealthy (I never met ay of “the help”, but I heard many people talking about how they hire “help”)
They are very kind
They respect their community, and in general have a deep appreciation of their Country
They are very social, also amongst “co-workers”
- This was an interesting realisation, but I found myself hanging out with co-workers on the weekend quite quickly in Singapore, whereas that is less of a cultural norm in London (or perhaps that’s just a reflection on me!)

Beautifully colourful Hindu temples

Honourable mention of course also goes out to my parents and my friends who came over to stay or travel with me for a few weeks.

The work

I didn’t work in this building, but they do all blur into one

Ah yes, that thing… the reason I was sent to Singapore…

I’ll be honest, the work was more difficult than I originally imagined. I was sent over with a vague mission of “improve < insert general description of company problem here >”, and seemingly the only resource available to me was my own time. To make matters worse, the Singapore office of my company is less than one-fifth the size of the London headquarters, and is primarily a sales/marketing outpost, with only a handful of full time Engineers. In summary, it is a satellite office with no engineering leadership.

As a result, I emphatically struggled to progress most of my initiatives I tried to introduce, which was a strange new frontier for me to encounter. In London, I can generally have confidence in relying on a support network of peers all around the org chart to progress or bounce ideas off of for a new initiative, and people are welcoming to trying new ideas. In Singapore, we required “consensus” and “approval from management” (read: London’s approval) to do anything. This is strange to me, as this was even in domains wholly owned by the team out in Singapore.

Furthermore, there was much less of a culture of challenging decisions. I’m quite happy to have my ideas challenged, as long as the approach is logical, and in return I’m quite happy with raising my objections to an idea if I think it is logically flawed. However, in the team I was placed in Singapore, this just was not happening. I’m yet to fully rationalise why that is.

The other side to the work was working on-call. This has it’s ups and downs, but in general was just a bit of a drain on energy.

Overall, I liked the general vibes of working out in Singapore, but if I come again I would try and work for a company who:

Is focused on engineering/development in Singapore
Is either headquartered in Singapore, or has strong leadership presence.

The food and activities

My first F1 experience was unforgettable!

This point is almost too obvious to mention, but I LOVED the variety and quality of food, and the general atmosphere.

I was staying by the Marina Bay, and a common “first day” activity when someone would visit was:

Take the MRT to Gardens by the Bay
Go to the Cloud Forest
Watch the “super tree” light show
Walk through the Marina Bay Sands hotel and shopping centre
Watch the Marina Bay light and fountain show
Either go left, and check out whatever festival is being ran in the car park
Or go right, and watch some free outdoor concert
Walk around the F1 track
Either go past the Fullerton, towards Lau Pa Sat. Or past Raffles, towards any one of the other hawker markets for some dinner.

The light show runs 3 times a night

I did this so many times, and never tired of it!

I won’t go into too much detail, but if you’re even remotely interested in architecture, museums, hikes, or eating and drinking, I’d highly recommend:

Singapore City Gallery
- Obviously, I already mentioned this earlier.
Cloud Forest / Flower Dome
- Worlds tallest indoor waterfall. This was my very first stop, and I ended up going back here 3 more times just for the sheer beauty of it.
Lau Pa Sat
- I must have visited almost every stall here during my stay. I’m also a big fan of the big fans.
Garden Rhapsody
- A free light show, every day! Such a nice atmosphere, you lay on the warm ground and look up at the lights.
The Jewel Changi
- The waterfall is the big attraction, but just look at all those Orchids! The butterfly park and the walking net are the cherry on top.
Marina Bay Sands
- The building synonymous with Singapore goes without saying, but did you know you can also go for morning yoga for only 5 SGD more?
Henderson Waves / Cable Car
- One is a bridge, one is a cable car. Neither are museums, but both are very pretty!
The Supreme Court
- I don’t think you can visit - but it looks like a UFO landed on a building…
Atlas Bar
- BEAutiful art-deco style bar. Just don’t try and enter in shorts and Birkenstocks like I did. They don’t like it.
Raffles Hotel
- It sits on 1 Beach Road and is absolutely iconic of colonial Singapore. Just remember to go to the writers bar and not the long bar.
Chijmes
- Strange one, it’s a food court around an old church. Similar ish to Mercato Mayfair in London.
1-Arden
- I stayed in this building, and would occasionally go to the top of the 51st floor to admire the field of boats stretching out into the distance, or to just watch the Marina light shows whilst enjoying a drink.
The list could go on, but I’m getting nostalgic now.

In short, I’d be happy to go back!

Clarke Quay, and Boat Quay are the night life capitals - expensive drinks and easy acquaintances can be found here!

Lau Pa Sat, hands down the best hawker centre in Singapore

Singapore has some amazing green skyscraper planning restrictions - leading to skyscrapers that have an entirely foliage facade!

Singaporean public housing is indistinguishable from private. Here is their most impressive one, overshadowing some traditional terraced houses

More green skyscraper laws produced this - an architectural marvel that triples its original footprint with new green spaces

Raffles Hotel. Singaporean sling is overpriced, but the Writers bar is worth visiting

Sunset from the terrace at the Fullerton hotel

🤔 Setting up for a Mini Sabbatical

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Why?

Why bother?

Meeting the girlfriend’s family

By September 2023 it would have been ~2 years since I started dating my girlfriend, so I thought it was about time I said hi to her parents! To complicate matters, her family were still in Beijing, China.

I still wanted to meet them of course, and wanted to make this a priority for 2023 (along with learning a toddler’s level of Mandarin, which I unfortunately failed). So became the goal of “meet the family”!

Rebound from grief

In December 2022, I was quite heavily affected by the passing of my Grandmother, after her long and exhausting battle with Bone Cancer. Those who knew us knew how close we were, and her passing seriously rocked my emotional foundations, in addition to that of my family.

I try to make sure I take away at least one maxim from each fundamental moment or figure in my life. From my Nan, these were innumerable, but to pick a few:

If you think something is wrong, check it now
- This goes without saying, if you suspect you have a health condition, act on it immediately. It may never just “go away”.
Do what you have to do, then do what you want to do.
- Something that was barked a lot at me as a kid, primarily about homework. I feel it has it’s own renewed value in an age of such easy distractions.
“At least I had a go”
- I’ll never forget this quote, it’s the kind of thing I wish we could all say when we look back on our lives.
Stay independant.
- My Nan’s husband passed away 30 years before she did, but she never let this slow her down and she continued travelling, making memories and friends well into her eighties.
Be friendly, and keep your friends close.
- I have never seen a funeral so full of friends, sharing such amazing memories. My Nan had this innate ability to form a bond with anyone, no matter how brief the first contact. Every Christmas her house would be decorated with a hundred cards, from friends all over the world. Almost every day up until she passed, she would be on the phone or having tea with another. I even remember being shocked at how she could stay in contact with a couple she had met whilst on a cruise, 20 years prior!

After her passing, I did feel a bit empty. The impact on me was nothing compared to my parents, and I’m aware my actions have been extremely selfish in contract, just another character flaw I’m working on.

Given this, I needed some time to reflect, and to make some more memories and friends of my own. So with me, I packed a diary, and I designated 2023 as a year of “learning”.

Depressurising from work

From August 2022 to June 2023, work became insanely busy, with a sequence of “death march” mismanaged development cycles that sucked a lot of the spare energy out of me, as I tech-lead two large streams of work. We seemed to have this concept of the “hero developer” at the company I worked, who could/would work tirelessly to deliver an almost impossible feat of code-smashing. Each time we burn out a “hero” we say to ourselves woah that was crazy, we can't do that again!, but somehow we always repeat the same mistake.

I’m sure many other companies suffer the same delusions.

This isn’t necessarily an entirely bad thing, during these crunch time periods the rate of learning is dramatically increased (partially due to the rate of mistakes also increasing), and you have the ability to grow much stronger professionally, having survived these challenges.

The problems can come when you fail to sufficiently separate work and life, leading to work encroaching on the precious sanctuary of your personal life. I unfortunately saw this happening to me, so I put my foot down and started planning for a period of time where I deliberately remove myself from this style of work for a bit.

Having now come back from this trip, several people at my work have come up to me expressing how much they want to do the same - some have even put plans in motion to do so! So I feel this emotion is much more common than I had first thought, and we could all do with some extended time off from work every now and then.

Additionally, I had felt that I was starting to stagnate as an Engineer, and I wanted a new medium to challenge myself with. Thankfully my manager was very receptive to this, and whilst he took a 3 week break of his own, he allowed me to get a slight flavour of management in his place (see: Trialling out management).

How?

In late 2022 / early 2023 (I can’t remember) I approached my manager requesting a 3 month sabbatical. Turns out this wasn’t quite as easy as I had hoped, and came with a fairly significant opportunity cost, so we “pivoted”. There was an opportunity within the company to take part in a secondment to Singapore to assist with the production support team, handling live client incidents within the APAC region.

This sounded somewhat daunting, but combined with a revised 6 week sabbatical (of which only 3 were unpaid), it came with a few key advantages over the original plan:

Much lower opportunity cost (3 weeks unpaid vs 3 months)
The company paid for the big flight tickets to/from Singapore (thanks!)
Put up in a nice hotel for 3 months, get to hang out with some really cool people from Singapore and take part in all the “crazy Singapore office” stories I had heard so much about.
My GF could only take 3 weeks holiday from work anyway, so this reduced the time I was travelling along

So, we agreed on the duration, and queued up my secondment, so the dates were set! 31st July -> 27th November.

Pre-departure

Preparing for a sabbatical is half the battle. If you aren’t clear on what you want to do, and you haven’t prepared for it, you may end up just twiddling your thumbs for 3 months!

For my particular case, I had to get a few travel things organised before setting off, as I already had a fairly good idea of what I wanted to do, and how to do it (I just wanted to travel, experience new cultures, meet the girlfriend’s family, and journal). If you are planning your own sabbatical, I’d encourage you to think about what you want to focus on during this valuable time!

Visas and Vaccinations

For a long time, I didn’t really know where I would end up going, so with the knowledge of “China at some point” I made a “Grand Asian Itinerary” and started listing places I wanted to visit. Once the dates were settled, I split this into 3 weeks of China, and 3 weeks of everywhere else, with the intention that China would be the first 3 weeks due to other scheduling constraints. For China we knew we wanted to spend around a week in Beijing, and travel to some other key places (Great Wall, Terracotta Army, Shanghai, Sichuan province for the food), so for the most part we just placed these on the map and connected the dots with what we could reasonably travel to by train.

For the remaining 3 weeks, I wanted to try to mimic Race Across the World as much as possible, so despite it being shockingly cheap, I tried to avoid planes as much as possible whilst around South East Asia. Once we had decided on Hong Kong being the last destination from the China portion, and knowing I had a return flight from Singapore to catch, it once again became a connect-the-dots exercise.

Chinese Visa

Thanks to the UK passport, I only needed a tourist visa from China. Unfortunately, the plan was a bit in flux still, and I had some slight challenges since I was applying for the Visa more than 3 months in advance of my visit to China (not strictly allowed according to the rules).

The whole Visa process itself was quite daunting, and this was not helped by the fact that their online application system was in a half-half state of readiness. Since covid started, China had stopped issuing tourist visas, and only restarted applications in ~April 2023. I was applying in May/June so they were still ramping up and changing rules as I went through the application, which was fun.

The application website had a slightly different set of rules to the Chinese embassy site and I even contacted both the Singaporean embassy and the London embassy to see where would be best to apply from.

In the end, as with most bureaucratic issues, once you talk to a reasonable person, the issue becomes a non-issue, and they were mostly ok with me applying a few months in advance. They even granted me a 2 year Visa instead of my requested 3 month one!

The only hiccup I had while applying, was that during my visa appointment, sat in front of the application interviewer, they asked to see my flight tickets, which I hadn’t booked! The Visa rules had changed in between me booking the appointment, and it actually taking place, so I needed to hurriedly book return flights from London to Beijing (not cheap!) whilst sat in front of the interviewer. Let me just say, that was one of the most stressful and expensive mornings of my life!

Not least because the first set of tickets I hurriedly bought, were non-refundable, and I had spelt my own name wrong on the tickets! 🤦‍♂️

Vaccinations

For the most part, I just took everything recommended from the Fit for Travel NHS website, under “East Asia”.

This required a few visits to the doctors/pharmacy to consult about vaccinations (ultimately deciding a couple were not worth the cost), and then ultimately have them administered over a few sessions.

Hilariously, the first vaccination session I had 5 vaccinations in one go, and ended up passing out (I’m not good with needles!), so that certainly felt like the weirdest ~£300 I ever spent.

Overall, vaccinations were the easiest part of this to organise.

Wrapping up work

Since I had planned this so far in advance, myself and my manager had months to prepare for this time off from normal work duties. When this process started, I was tech-leading a relatively significant chunk of work for one of the company’s (notoriously large) major version releases, so at least half of the 6 months before setting off would be dedicated to completing this stream of work. Afterwards however, I had nothing concretely planned, so let’s skip forward to that bit.

Handing off responsibility

Before you head off for an extended time from work (or quit!), it’s common courtesy to give plenty of heads-up to your team to make sure you aren’t going to place any undue stress on people.

For myself, aside from the above mentioned workstream, I only had a few low-importance things I was sole owner of, so I had kept a fairly good Bus Factor!

At the time, I had been running informal knowledge shares and discussion sessions for around 2 years within my team, partly to practise public speaking / whiteboard skills, but also to encourage healthy forms of debate and open conversations around tricky problems and upcoming feature ideas with the wider team. However, after 2 years it had started becoming a bit stale, and I felt it needed a change of leadership to reinvigorate the concept.

I was pleased to see that coming back these sessions were still happening, with a new runner, a little bit differently than I had thought, but that was the goal!

Trialling out management

A weird section in my recent career, but one I found very insightful.

My manager went on a 3 week holiday, and given my apparently alright organisational skills during time as a tech lead, we thought it could be a fun challenge to try and have me fill his shoes for a few weeks.

Obviously, whilst I’m fine playing around with my own career, we didn’t want this impacting any of my teammates, so there were no significant challenges for myself (no upcoming reviews, no significant ongoing work, no resourcing constraints, no unresolved pay disputes, etc), and we (correctly) anticipated this would be plain sailing.

I had a few small challenges, around battling a bit for resources with the other managers, and attempting to have serious productive conversations with my peers and friends about their career, but it was fun!

Three things that really stuck out for me were:

Transparency is key (even on the seemingly unimportant things).
- I had some feedback from the director that I hadn’t been as transparent as I could have been regarding department level goings-on. His point being that as you learn more about department level changes, it begins to break down that barrier between management/non-management, and can employees engage with the company. Transparency is something I value so it shocked me to realise I was failing myself! From that point I started each standup with a quick recap of the managers meetings, obviously avoiding mentioning things that introduce too much uncertainty.
1:1’s are the best.
- You have individual challenges with each person having their own motivations and personality types, but just having time to sit down and work out how each person can best work towards their own goals (or find them!) is both a fun challenge, and extremely rewarding in the long run (if it works!).
I am currently terrible at politics.
- I’m starting to believe that being an effective manager is 80% down to your skills in politics. Unfortunately I have much to learn here.

I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity, but I think I can currently deliver the most value as an Individual Contributor.

On-call lead

For 3 months I acted as lead of a core on-call rota.

A quick win was in optimising the rotation schedule:

For every week period, for the next 6 months we need 2 engineers available for on-call.
We also need to know who else may be able to act as a replacement, in case of illness.
We also need to space out shifts, to avoid burning out an engineer, but keep them frequent enough to grow skills.
We have ~20 engineers in this rota…

This was previously a nightmare, but I introduced a google sheet with some fancy scheduling formulas, then gave everyone access at once to allocate their own desired/if-i-have-to/cannot-do periods. After a few days we had a rock solid rota for 6 months, with backups for each week, all requiring much less effort on the rota lead’s part than previous methods. Win-win!

We also had a sudden influx of new people who wanted to join the rota (we had a lot of engineers who joined, and were now becoming tenured enough to warrant addition to the rota), this was a good thing as we had slowly been losing people from the rota over the last year, and our production-running experience bus factor was dangerously low. My opinion was that the most effective way to upskill a team quickly, is to follow a see one, do one, teach one approach. So I accepted almost everybody who applied into the rota, with the provision that they should self-arrange a shadow on-call session with an experienced member in the months before their first week of oncall.

I also encouraged more senior members of the rota to slowly remove themselves, to make way for new talent, and to free up their own time for more valuable pursuits in technical design.

The issue was, that the new applicants had somewhat underestimated the challenges of on-call. Whilst our clients were not impacted, the first month of this new round of oncallers did feel quite chaotic at times, as people rapidly ramped up their understanding of and skills working with older versions of our product, in hostile situations.

Coming back to the situation now, 7 months later, turns out I was right. All of these new oncallers are performing well, and are now much better at handling support requests than when they started.

Again, I’m very grateful for the opportunity, and would like to try it again in the future. However at the current company it is an unfortunately thankless role, so there is little incentive to take part.

Working abroad

A bit of fun, I decided to organise a 3 day remote-work holiday with some co-workers in Nice, France.

To make sure this wouldn’t be seen as a complete jolly by the rest of the company, we designated these days as “reset days” where we could finally work on some designs for long outstanding tech-debt / product improvement ideas that were not officially in the roadmap.

As a bit of a cathartic release, and a lot of fun with some good friends, it was a success!

This is something I want to do much more of, but the political capital I spent trying to get this approved was probably not worth it.

Preparing for the rest of the year

Then, the rest of the year!

I spent a good deal of time planning for what kind of impact I wanted to have on my Singapore rotation, as well as discussing my career goals with my manager to make sure my upcoming work would allow me to progress on this front.

Unfortunately, the rotation to Singapore to assist with production support is not viewed as a valuable activity for an engineer in my company (despite the high price tag associated), so this 3 month block was assumed to delay my promotion goals.

Additionally, I would be missing out on a “design” phase in the company, where many of the “cool” upcoming projects are divided amongst hopeful tech-leads, like a sounder of pigs at a trough.

Losing this was a bit of a blow to me professionally, but if you are planning on going for a sabbatical, you will face similar challenges.

I knew personally that this 4 months chunk out of everyday work, achieving some of my own life goals was going to be far more valuable than the opportunity cost of a bit more time in employment.

Your mileage may vary, but I strongly encourage anyone to at least consider a sabbatical at some point in their career - ideally multiple!

📚 Year of books

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read

I personally think there is significant value in taking time to reflect upon your actions, and setting some intentions going forward.

For reflection, I have been recording a second of my entire adult life as a form of yearly reflection from June-June, and now have this blog to express my intents on a more frequent basis.

However, I also like to set my own New Years Resolutions, as a significant Temporal Milestone I can guide myself against for the year ahead. I still struggle with writing effective goals, but I typically manage to tick at least half of them off.

One of the goals I set myself for 2023 was to read 10 books. I used to love reading as a kid, and have fond memories of ignoring the calls to go to sleep from my parents when I was 8, churning through the Harry Potter and Alex Rider series. Since I left school, for some reason I had dropped out of the habit of reading, and I quite missed it. So, I set up a Goodreads account, signed up to Audible and tried to track my progress in some shoddily written reviews.

The following has been extracted from a short script I co-authored with the help of ChatGPT, to export all of my reviews made in 2023.

TL;DR?

Clearly I have some progress to make on my own writing…

These reviews are pretty slopping and fairly valueless, and even while writing them I found I hadn’t always absorbed the content of the book as well as I would like.

That being said, it is an amazing start! I am very proud of myself for making this much progress, and have become very fond of my kindle/audible unwind time, and may have even learned something along the way!

I’ve learned that reading lists, much like TODO lists have this funny habit of forever getting longer, the closer you get to the end, and that I am a bit of sucker for a certain style of front cover.

For 2024, one of my primary goals is to write more, and to write more publicly (fail fast, thanks Levels).

This is the start of my efforts to contribute to this goal, hello!

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

4/5 :star: find online

(not provided)

Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track

5/5 :star: find online

Very interesting read, and a sure addition to my bookshelf I’ll be referring to for years to come! Very well laid out references too

1984

5/5 :star: find online

(not provided)

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

4/5 :star: find online

Not quite as interesting as the more historical/informational Sapiens and Homo Deus, but still good to read. Contains more opinions than I’d probably say necessary but still insightful!

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

5/5 :star: find online

Whilst itself not containing anything groundbreaking, I would recommend reading this at least once (ideally repeat reading it every few years) to remind you to focus on your priorities and motivate you to not become a “fair weather person”.

Value(s): Building a Better World for All

4/5 :star: find online

I appreciate the reflective focus of this book. I recall lots of focus on the impacts of the global pandemic and the global financial crisis (of which his section on the unravelling of the crisis from his perspective as a trader was my favourite). However I am left with a feeling that perhaps I haven’t learnt much, if anything what I have come away with is a renewed appreciation of planning for adverse scenarios and aligning incentive structures/markets for a shared purpose. Perhaps this is one of those books that aim only to ignite questions.

What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (What If?, #2)

4/5 :star: find online

(not provided)

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers

5/5 :star: find online

Having read this recently after finishing the similar but less focused “This is how they tell me the world ends”, I’m left ironically with a greater sense of dread from this book. “Sandworm” does more to focus directly on the Russian links to various high profile hacks in the 2010’s, and notes the direct and indirect links these have had with the Russian/Ukraine conflicts of the 2010’s and 2020’s. For me, much of the contents of the book detailing NotPetya and WannaCry have been published elsewhere, but I find more curiosity in the US defence exercises conducted on the electricity grid. Highly recommended read, along with “this is how they tell me the world ends”, but beware that this book will play on (perhaps very accurate) fears of the Russian state, at every opportunity.

Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity

4/5 :star: find online

Interesting read. As with any leadership book it is generally an ego massage for the writer, however this one does bear some important messages. He describes the importance of having a product mindset for yourself (delivering value, building diverse but relevant experience), and of the difference between “drivers” and “passengers”.

I’m not sure what the key takeaway would be that I’ll implement in my own life, but it’s a good thing to read occasionally to remind yourself to stay on the track creating the most value

The Happiest Man on Earth

5/5 :star: find online

I’m not sure it’s possible to give this book a bad review. Eddie is clearly a very inspiring spirit, having lived through the hardest of times and still left with a kindness in his heart. Reading this you are jerked into reflection on your own position in life. The audible narration is also fantastic, and a great match with what you would imagine the author sounds like.

Becoming

5/5 :star: find online

An inspiring book from the coolest First Family of modern times. It is reassuringly honest from a political perspective, and is a recommended read for any young person scared of their own social mobility

That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea

5/5 :star: find online

One of a limited set of exciting and insightful biographies of influential entrepreneurs. The story of Netflix is different from what I first imagined, but my main takeaway would have to be Randolph’s Rules!

How Not To Be a Boy

5/5 :star: find online

I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually watched any of Webb’s work. However I can’t recommend this book enough. His message is rarely told from such a first hand perspective, and it’s one that I feel will become more mainstream in the years to come. Personally I still don’t quite understand football, either.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

5/5 :star: find online

Believable if only in its disheartening representation of Silicon Valley. If you are just looking for a summary of the wrongdoings of Elizabeth Holmes, then this might be a bit overkill and a documentary will suffice. However the events portrayed in this book are an insightful mix of Lying, Cheating, and Sociopathic tendencies.

The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

3/5 :star: find online

Having read Becoming quite recently (and being very pleased with it!), I’m not sure this book offers much more value or new insights. My main takeaway from this book would have to be Grandma Robinson’s tips on teaching independence.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

4/5 :star: find online

I’m ashamed to admit I started reading this book with an expectation of what I would get out of it. Much like the outcome of Sheryl’s journey, the whole purpose of reading this is about the journey of the unknown. Some parts I felt myself prematurely repelled against (cheating, lying, emotional manipulation, inability to face consequences, sexual promiscuity, assumptions for help, naivety, heroin addiction, swallowing her mother’s ashes). However, what did I expect? I had an assumption this would be another privileged person travelling for the fun of it. Rather, this was a genuinely troubled person attempting to reset by taking on the biggest challenge they could imagine, alone. Some parts did not resonate with me and that’s ok, the experience is nonetheless valid.

The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

4/5 :star: find online

Erin delivers a clear, concise set of personal anecdotes and a framework for rationalising the effects of culture on communication. The book is very focused on the context of business, but the lessons learnt can be applied to any cross cultural communication. I’d recommend this for anyone engaging in long term cooperation (business or otherwise) with people from multiple diverse countries.

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

3/5 :star: find online

This book is perhaps a bit too long, and bounces around the topics of class warfare, race and immigration, with little structure. I admire it for sharing extremely relevant stories from Britain’s political past, but I’m not left with the impression that this book has been impartial in its investigation.

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

4/5 :star: find online

To begin, I see other reviewers comment on Tony’s personal failures and unhealthy leadership styles. I can’t comment on this context as the sum total of what I know about this man comes from this book, so I shall only refer to the book review.

Build is a well structured, if a little petty, guide to a product focused mindset. A lot of the concepts around finding product market fit, storytelling, focusing on press release first, structuring an organisation to ensure stakeholders have to agree (i.e making support sign off on new sales) feels like well founded advice and common sense. Some parts felt needlessly petty (a constant revert back to why google is awful), and some parts just felt like reflections on luck (right place right time hiring for Apple).

In general, I found the book very enjoyable to read, however I would be concerned with repeating all but the product focused points. I fear most organisations would not tolerate such abrasiveness.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

5/5 :star: find online

To be honest, I don’t know what to do with this information. But this is a good framework for analysing your current position (cashflow and balance sheet) and making steps to prioritise asset building. In the UK it’s a little less impactful to “pay yourself first”, and many recurrent tax efficient investment schemes are not available. However this book is probably one of the most impactful triggers for learning more on the subject!

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

3/5 :star: find online

The book is far too long, contains numerous logical errors or contradictions, is both harsh and heartfelt and I fail to see what I actually learnt from this book. That being said, I don’t think it is completely without value, and to the right audience it clearly resonates. I just think it should be called “12 vague themes for struggling young men” instead.

Outliers: The Story of Success

5/5 :star: find online

Outliers is one popular science book that is well worth reading. He proposes the concept that “genius” is a combination of:

A sufficiently high IQ (though beyond 120 has negligible effects)
Proper upbringing (concerted cultivation, as he notes in a few case studies)
Practical intelligence (derived from the latter upbringing)
Situational luck (noting similarities of prominent figures and their economic situations during formative years).

Anyone who falls trap to society’s worshipping of the “lone genius” should read this book to zoom out a little. A related book for the latter chapters around the power distance law and cultural effects on education and work, I would recommend “The Culture Map”.

Permanent Record

5/5 :star: find online

Something I didn’t expect to take away from this book would be an understand of how manipulatively flawed it’s intelligence organisations are structured. The fact that security clearance is not necessarily related to public/private roles seems strange.

The book provides an insightful (yet slightly dull) overview of his time contracting and training through the intelligence community, until ultimately suffering from a burst of epileptic illness, and after spending considerable time indoors, monitoring the traumatic events occurring throughout the Arab Spring, he forms a clearer view of where his own government is failing their people.

My review of Edward’s character is overwhelmingly positive. From his description of events, given his oath to the American people, he did the right thing by disclosing wrongdoings of the 5 eyes governments.

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character

5/5 :star: find online

The tales do occasionally come off as a bit show-offish, and he is clearly a bit arrogant of his own abilities. However it’s possible that this was entirely reasonable!

I’m not sure what I expected when going into this book, but it is very much focused on how the man operated, and not on his achievements. So without undertaking external research of Feynman, you are still left with only hints of what his main achievements were about.

His mind was certainly a curious one, and it is extremely refreshing to hear someone detail the ins and outs of his lifelong(!) passion, enthusiasm and energy for all things science. Additionally, after around 1945 the extracurricular focus of his life gets progressively saucier, having switched subjects, cracked safes, learnt languages, moved countries, played in a “band”, frequented bars, drew models professionally, and repeatedly mentioned his adoration of women! Although his “womanising” manner may appear a bit out of fashion nowadays.

Whilst I wouldn’t consider him a direct role model, his curiosity is infectious, and I wish all readers absorb at least some of his passion!

Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

5/5 :star: find online

I thoroughly agree, with about 50% of the solutions in this book, and the remainder I feel are too optimistic and not realistic.

Degrowth is a damaging name, for a movement that sounds like it makes sense for humanity: factor in the costs of all externalities (especially negative) when pricing a good or service, and provide a metric of economic progress that is more human-values driven (quality of life, sustainability etc) than merely monetary-value.

The book is well written, and the audiobook is similarly well narrated, however this type of book is more valuable in print format, where you can refer back to sections of interest later.

Something I don’t agree with, or at least haven’t formed a good enough of an opinion around yet, is that this book strangely reiterates the claim that distributing wealth equally would result in an instant improvement in quality of life for all. As far as I am aware, economies currently rely on inequality to price goods competitively, however more reading on my part is required.

Regulation and individual behavioural changes alone are a tough thing to rely on, which this book unfortunately primarily suggests. I however primarily like the concepts of:

Mandatory N year guarantees on new products
Community share-stations for seldom used goods
Limitations on lowest-highest compensation ratios
Direct democracy for long term societal strategies
Externality Tax on goods and services, based on their negative externalities on society/environment. Positive externality becomes a grant.

Overall, I think this is a good book for the future generation to read, but I don’t expect much action to come along with it, until the public is genuinely aware of the societal problems we will face if we continue to exceed our planetary quotas.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

4/5 :star: find online

A good book, but not one I would recommend as a “must read”. The author presents many insightful case studies, although some of which are slightly dubious, and I would have preferred a less opinionated form of writing, presenting the facts first.

The key takeaway for me, is identification of the cue, routine and reward habit loop; keystone habits; and that a habit exists primarily within the basal ganglia, and away from conscious thought.

Life Time

4/5 :star: find online

An interesting book, although I’ll admit that a combination of my reading times, and the bombardment of unfamiliar medical terms/acronyms meant the book had an ironically sleep inducing quality!

My main takeaway would be that “sleep is important”, with a side order of “when you take medication or eat food in relation to sleep is important”.

I’ll admit that I’m not the perfect target audience, as I don’t feel reading this book has given me the filtered information I need to actively improve my own health, although I have absorbed the gist of it.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

4/5 :star: find online

A great autobiography of Amazon and its infamous founder. However it is starting to show its age a bit. Quite poetic considering the opening chapter describes a conversation with Bezos, who questions whether the book is being written too soon.

I didn’t realise quite how… ruthless Amazon is/was. It is quite happy to engage in savage business tactics, and suck the humanity out of any worker, all in pursuit of the hallowed customer experience.

I quite liked the final comparisons between Steve Jobs (who valued profit extraction from addicted customers) and his own biological father (who ran the same small niche shop for decades).

Well worth a read, but be cautious of the survivorship bias of tech CEOs from this era.

Appendix

Code for parsing Goodreads data export

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👨‍🎓 Graduating in a Pandemic/Recession

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Sat, 01 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So yeah, that text message above is the only celebration of completing university that I have…

My sister graduated a year before me, and photos of her throwing her cap in the air are scattered around my family’s mantlepieces. Yet, all I have is a text?

Now, I’m being a little unfair - obviously this is not just a problem for me, millions of students around the world are having to deal with a slightly dampened celebration to end their very expensive education. Furthermore, the university has said that they will try and hold a ceremony in November at the Cathedral (however, November is also a likely bet for a winter wave of coronavirus).

But, here I am.

Grades

This is a simple one. The United Kingdom follows a three tier classification system, and you can read more about it if you really want to compare UK vs {insert country here} grades.

For me, I now have a First Class Honours Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) with a year in industry.

As is typical with most things I do, I logged these grades (including per module and per assignment, but that’s too boring to share) into a spreadsheet.

I made the spreadsheet back in year 1, when I realised the path of least resistance of uni was to just work harder in the early years, to give yourself some headroom later on to get worse grades (or to just take a holiday and not work as hard as you should - like I tended to do). This turned out to be a good idea, as even though I ended up with 80.3% overall, you can see the trendline moving downwards!

Ultimately, do grades matter?

Well, any additional effort I put in to get above 70% was kinda pointless, and probably time better spent kayaking or other socialising but 🤷‍♂️.

I actually started looking for my next job before I graduated, and to be honest most of the recruiters didn’t ask my grade, not even my predicted.

What they cared about most was my personal projects, previous work experience at Cisco, and Musish.

But at what cost?

Ok, I’m more than just a little bit salty at how much University costs.

I’m not a fan of how all my peers blindly told me (and everyone of my age) to go to university ignore the fine print costs, and have a good time, go drinking, get good grades, get a job.

In my second year I realised how expensive it was to have fun at university, not to mention the 5.4% interest on all student loans!!

So, all my money saved from working in my third and fourth years I used to pay for my tuition, and I stopped going out as much to save some money. I’m just annoyed it took me almost 2 years to realise, and nobody even mentioned the real world impacts of this when I started.

If I had the option, I would have probably skipped the first year and jumped straight into the second year. Sure, there would be a little less time to party but I wasn’t exactly a sesh gremlin in my first year either.

I’d much rather work hard and play hard.

What I really learnt from university

Ultimately, I agree with a lot of the things said by Elon Musk, and others, that university is more for the social aspect than anything else.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I have never jumped out my comfort zone, tried more things, met more people, changed my opinions as much as I did at university.

You can see from my One Second Everyday videos just how amazing the experience was.

What I loved was the sheer concentration of people all similar age, all trying to learn about something they are interested in.

I used to tag along to lectures from different courses, and made WhatsUpKent, a little web app to make it easy for others to do the same. There’s nothing like walking out of a databases lecture and into a lecture on quantum mechanics, and then into a lecture on postmodern cartoons.

This curiosity and the knowledge that “yeah, I can actually do that if I want” is something that I treasure from my time at Kent, and I have to shout out the Travel Society, Sailing Club and Kayaking Club and all my housemates for being absolute legends 🙌.

What next?

Well, I had hoped to take a few months off and travel a heck of a lot in 2020. But, coronavirus put an end to that.

As for the recession, well, I decided to get a job in a startup. ThoughtMachine to be precise, and whilst I’ve only been there for a couple weeks as of writing this I’ve been really enjoying the learning curve.

Yes, I know it’s not the smartest idea to work in a risky startup during a recession but hey, if I can’t go trekking across Australia I need to fulfil my risk appetite somehow 😉.

I had hoped to move to London with a few friends but London’s rent is a little too high considering how much you are able to do there during a recession, so I have decided to stay with the fam for a bit.