Working with Mike Susz: front-end, design systems, accessibility

In 30 years of work I've joined many teams, and there's a pattern to making both an initial and a lasting impact. In a nod to the 30/60/90-day format of many of the job descriptions I've seen – here's what it will be like to bring me onboard.

First 30 days: Observe, absorb

I listen more than I speak. I get to know the team, the codebase, and the people everything quietly depends on, and I learn which processes everyone actually follows and which are aspirational.

Beyond ramping-up, I like to deliver a quick win – identify and relieve a pain point that the team may or may not even have known they had. I want everyone to be better off on day 30 than they were on day 0.

30 to 90 days: Adapt, suggest, improve

I start to make small, low-risk improvements. I set an example of engineering discipline – atomic commits, documentation, communication, and testing. We begin addressing the pain points I've observed.

I also use my 'new guy' perspective to ask difficult questions on behalf of the team – addressing technical debt, fixing broken or tedious workflows, considering things like maintainability and accessibility that sometimes get overlooked when under timeline pressure.