User Manual for Eli Perkins (@eliperkins) v1.2
Howdy, I'm Eli, polyglot engineering leader with a specialty in iOS and Apple platforms. 🍎
About Me
- 📱 I've been an iOS engineer since 2010.
- 🐈 I have a chatty Siamese cat named Atticus and a energy-filled Golden Retriever named Samson.
- 👾 I'm a big fan of RTS and FPS video games (currently playing: CFB '26, StarCraft 2, League of Legends, Call of Duty). I fell in love with esports like StarCraft 2 and Dota.
- 🍻 I enjoy brewed beverages like :coffee: and :beer:.
👋 Getting Started (aka Communicating With Me)
Guidelines
🖥 I always prefer async communication
🗣 Use public communication channels
- I prefer talking in open channels rather than DM, so that all involved parties can be informed about what's going on. This includes not only public Slack channels, but discussions in places like GitHub issues, pull requests, and discussions as well.
- Default to the relevant public channel first. Only Slack DM if it's sensitive, personal or extremely off-topic.
📥 Find a bug? Want a feature? Put it in a GitHub / Linear Issue and kick it over to me
- This gets back to the public communication bit. I might not be the one to fix your bug or implement your feature! Write it down so we all know where to go.
💻 Practice thoughtful code reviews
- Follow the thoughtbot code review guidelines
- Ask questions to clarify intent and/or grow understanding.
- Not sure how something works in a PR? Great! Please ask me questions about the code and I'm happy to write up a few sentences to clarify.
- Found a bug in existing code, and my name came up on the
git blame? Sorry/you're welcome!
- Submit a pull request to fix or address it, or
- Grab some time on my calendar to pair on correcting it, or
- Put some details together in an issue and let's improve it together.
Communication Channels
I default to async communication, especially with a distributed team and many timezones in-between.
In order of preference, sans urgency:
- Slack Public Channel
- GitHub Issue/PR/Discussion / Linear Issue
- Zoom / Google Meet
- Slack DM (to directly me, via a group DM, or via a private channel)
- Email
For urgent things:
- Slack DM
- Zoom / Google Meet
🏃 Maintenance and Care
What Motivates Me
📐 Clean Code, Clean UI, and Clean Products
I'm a stickler for nice abstractions, using the platform and delightful, lickable apps.
🚢 Shipping
Getting your app, feature, blog post or whatever in the hands of our customers is extremely gratifying to me. Seeing customers affected by the things we build and ship makes me want to build and ship more.
🙇 Constructive Feedback
I always want to improve, and I appreciate direct feedback in the moment. I might ask you for feedback after a meeting, presentation, pairing session or via Slack polls. If I don't, feel free to give me feedback about how I'm doing!
✨ Shiny New Things
I love using the latest iOS APIs, bleeding edge technologies, and new gadgets. Expect me to bury my nose in WWDC sessions every June.
🧹 Leaving Things Better Than I Found It
Sometimes, I enjoy a little boyscouting or KonMari in a codebase.
⚠️ Warnings
Meetings with no agendas
One of the most effective ways to run a meeting is to set an agenda. Joining a meeting with no agenda might leave me frustrated or unengaged.
Being late to a meeting, or rescheduling personal/1-on-1 meetings with no warning
If you scheduled time to be synchronous with me, we've both committed to putting aside whatever other async work we could be doing. Come on time, come prepared, or feel free to move the meeting to another day.
This changes a bit for 1-on-1s, as moving a 1-on-1 means that something else is more important than my time with you. If you need to move a 1-on-1 days in advance, that's great! If you need to move it 15 minutes before we meet, I'll feel frustrated by something else being more important than my time with you.
See also "Getting Started > Guidelines > Asynchronous Communication".
Lack of transparency
I have a low tolerance for hiding news or knowledge from teammates. Be transparent and don't sugarcoat things. If you can't find a great way to be transparent, reach out to me directly and I'm happy to work with you.
🛠 Troubleshooting
Do you have feedback for me? Something not working quite right? Let me know. Here's some tips on how to give me feedback.
Be honest and direct
I love direct feedback and continuous improvement. Tell me when I did something wrong, and I'll do my best to change my behavior the next time.
Praise in public, criticize in private
I quite enjoy and am motivated by public praise. I'm a sucker for a :heart: reaction on a comment or pull request.
If there's something I can do better, shoot me a Slack DM to let me know what I can do to improve.
See also "Troubleshooting > Be honest and direct"
🕰 Working Hours
My usual working hours are 9am-5pm MST/MDT, Monday-Friday.
I'm based in Denver, CO, USA (UTC-07:00). I'm not a morning person, but my most productive hours are 10am-1pm.
If I'm out-of-office, chances are I'm not going to see or reply to your message. I often use out-of-office time to step away from software (see also: my contribution graph on weekends) and spend time letting my brain think about other problems.