Hey, I'm Sebastian 👋

I'm an engineering manager passionate about building high-performing startup teams that take ownership and deliver impactful technology. I also enjoy exploring and, when possible, experiencing the cultural differences that shape how people live and work around the world. I'm currently based in Salt Lake City 🇺🇸, and I've been lucky to have lived in London 🇬🇧 and Buenos Aires 🇦🇷

Guiding principles

Over my, now multiple, years of experience I've found the following principles to be very useful to have top of mind for navigating life and work. Would any of these principles change in an AI-first world? I don't think so, but we'll see.

Life is one long game. Also know as the power of compounding. Focus on getting better 1% everyday, is much better in the long run. We all want to be successful and rich today, but being patient leads to more sustainable and longer term happiness. Warren Buffet famously said “we all know how to get rich, but is not sexy”. There is a phrase, thought to be said by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, that says “ensure luck finds you working”. This to me means that eventually, if you try enough times, you will get lucky and get what you want. This applies to so many things, including investing.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This comes from the book the 7th Habits, but, there are many different ways to express it, like “lead with inquiry” or “shut up and listen”. If our first reaction to something that we don’t agree with would always be a question, the world would be a much better place.
Embrace discomfort. I once read that a person success and happiness can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations they are willing to have. If you do things worth doing, some failure is just part of the process. Far easier said than practiced, but still true.
People and trust first. I believe most problems at our workplace are people problems. I believe relationships are the fuel of our life and essential to our success. I believe that you need people for a successful business and you need successful businesses for people to thrive, they fuel each other and are not contradictory.

Standing on the shoulder of giants

Everything we create is built on the work of countless smart people who came before us, and those around us today. These are some of the resources that have influenced how I think. I hope to discover many more in the future.

The culture map (Book)
Quit (Book)
The courage to be disliked (Book)
Coaching: This is not a specific resource, but more a commonality that I've seen accross many successful people I've met and experienced myself. Having a coach that you connect with can be a transformative experience, worth every penny.
Online tech communities: Specially when you work in small startups its important to have a way to connect with other people in the industry. I particularly recommend the Rands Leadership Slack and Refactoring. Remember always that you always get what you give.

This minimalistic personal website was inspired on this blog post and the design is based on the Dead Simple Sites collection and the OnFlow Ghost template.