Martin Kobetic

Hi, I'm a long time Smalltalker that hasn't done any Smalltalk in nearly a decade (mostly Go lately). I enjoyed working on networking protocols and cryptographic libraries in the past and I'm hoping to bring some of that experience to the table here at XMTP.

About me

What will you be doing at XMTP?

I intend to learn everything about the fascinating world of crypto and help writing some code that we can be proud of 😄.

Where are you currently based?

I split my time between Ottawa, Ontario and our cottage/second home in Napanee, Ontario. It's about 2.5 hr drive between the two which is a great way to catch up on some podcasts.

What’s your primary time zone?

UTC - 05:00 (Eastern Time)

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Prague, Czech Republic, but grew up in a small town in Slovakia. I went to the capital, Bratislava, for my high school and university. The iron curtain came down at the end of my high school, which allowed me to leave for Canada soon after I finished my degree and I lived in Ottawa ever since.

What does your household look like?

I came to Canada with my wife, Monika. We have two daughters, Diana is now in her third year at U of Toronto, and Andrea just started at U of Ottawa. We have a pom/german spitz Elvis, that we supposedly got because our girls wanted him, but who's really Monika's third child the way I see it 😄.

What keeps you energized?

I've always enjoyed tinkering with computers and that still didn't get old for me. There are plenty of new things to learn that can fill many lifetimes. That said, spending time away from computers is not optional for me anymore, and I enjoy spending it outside the most, which these days mostly means sailing or puttering around the boats or the house.

Anything else you’d like to share about yourself?

I used to read a lot and draw when I was growing up, I hope to get back to that one day. Lately I've been also trying to find some time to play with embedded stuff, it reminds me so much of my early days when I used to know my computer down to the chips on the board. So many things to do, not enough time to do them....

Work preferences

Where on the spectrum of introvert to extrovert would you place yourself?

I think I'm somewhere in between. I enjoy a good party as much as anyone, but like having enough of me time as well.

What’s your preferred way to receive feedback, in terms of speed?

I guess it depends, sometimes it's good to take a bit of time to think things through before you say something you'll regret. That said, the sooner things are laid out in the open, the sooner we can do something about them. I'm open to either way.

What’s your preferred way to receive feedback, in terms of format?

I think face to face communication is preferable for difficult topics. There's just so much more bandwidth and social dynamics than in other modes. That said, I find writing helps me put my thoughts in order and express myself more clearly, so I might do that first just to organize my thoughts before asking for a meeting.

What’s your orientation toward conflict?

I think if I'm being honest, I'd have to say that I'm conflict avoidant. I value relationships a lot so I would try to come up with a way to address the issue without creating an unnecessary rift.

What time(s) of day are you most productive?

By now I'm fairly used to pretty normal working schedule. Work first, rest after. Main thing for me is to have few larger blocks to focus, rather than many small ones. I'm a single track mind, I don't multi-task well. Context switching is expensive for me. I usually try to start early, so that I have some reasonable amount of the day left after to unwind and do non-work things.

What do you value more than anything else?

I'd say honesty, clarity of communication and being there for your team.

What’s your biggest work-related pet peeves?

Hmm, I think clarity of communication is something we struggle with in our field. There's way too much text written with low noise to signal ratio. We tend to bounce between extremes of just don't write anything (e.g. documentation), it's a waste of time, it will be obsolete soon, and on the other hand generating pages of fluff for the sake of writing something. Good writing is hard and underappreciated, but a very valuable aspiration IMO. A well written text is where each sentence carries its weight, i.e. that sentence cannot be removed without losing useful information. Every word has a cost paid by every reader of the text you wrote (gas? :). As you can see I have a lot of practicing to do still.

What does ‘work-life balance’ mean to you?

I'm at the point in my life where I'm working because I enjoy what I'm working on. I also enjoy a lot of things outside of work, so having enough time to do that is important to me as well. My main hobby, sailing, is seasonal and highly weather dependent, so having flexibility to take advantage of good sailing weather makes me happy.

Anything else you’d like to share about what makes for your ideal work environment?

While I can certainly appreciate the advantages of working from an office, I'm firmly committed to remote work at this point. It does make some things more difficult, but the pros far outweigh the cons for me, and it is well worth putting in the additional effort to make it work well. While I've worked remote most of my career, it was usually fairly synchronous which doesn't work well enough. I haven't really experienced proper async remote work yet. I hope we can figure this out here and want to help as much as I can.

What’s your favorite way to decompress after work?

This is going to shock you, but I'd have to say it's sailing at this point. It's not just the act of being on the boat out on the water, but also the vast landscape of domains associated with it. The theory, racing, boat systems, navigation, weather forecasting, provisioning, survival, maintenance, etc.