Above all, I'm a human being. I have strengths and weaknesses, emotional ups and downs, and I make mistakes.
I spend a lot of time thinking about thinking, especially thinking less about things that don't increase my wellbeing. I'm curious about the World and how it works, and that drives me to study things way outside the scope of my job. Currently, I'm into complexity science. In general, personal development is an important part of my life. My personal motto is "always leveling up" because I'm always working on something to improve myself.
Originally I'm from Alameda, California. I grew up in a typical, dysfunctional, "middle-class", American family. I have two brothers (one older, one younger).
I've lived in Berlin since 2012. My German is okay (B2ish, with awful grammar), but after more than 10 years in Germany, I'm embarrassed it's not better. Someday I will take a sabbatical to properly learn German and pass a C1 exam.
I have a daughter. Officially, she's my stepdaughter, but I've been raising her since she was 4 (she's turning 17 soon). She's my top priority in life.
In my free time, I like to read 📚, write ✍🏾, hike 🥾, do sports 🏋🏾♂️, take pictures 📷, travel 🛫, and socialize with misfits 🤡.
Currently, I'm a product manager. Previously, I did a few different things.
I started my career in finance doing Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) for ~4 years. In 2012, I switched to marketing for startups to get my feet on the ground in Berlin.
After ~3 years doing growth-oriented marketing and getting a head of marketing role, I realized I had no desire to manage people at someone else’s company. Instead, I committed to becoming a high-performing senior IC.
After some reflection, I taught myself how to code and moved into frontend engineering to set the stage for a vertical move into a staff engineer role. Or, a lateral move into product management.
As a frontend engineer, I worked directly with engineering leads and senior product managers, which gave me a unique opportunity to compare the roles every day for ~5 years. Based on my experience observing people do both jobs across two companies and over a dozen projects, I felt product management was a better fit for me. Today, I’m a senior product manager with an eye on getting a product lead or staff product manager role. Once I achieve that, I don’t want to move further up the ladder as an employee. And I'm not planning on changing careers again, but you never know 🙃.
My approach to work is simple: I aim for the highest performance I can achieve without becoming emotionally attached to outcomes at work. I always have a perspective on what my company should do to succeed, but I’m comfortable adapting if leadership takes a different direction — as long as it doesn’t cross my ethical boundaries.
As a result of my experience across different functional areas, my "superpower" is my conceptual skills 🦸🏾♂️. In other words, I excel at thinking about problems from different perspectives and using concepts and ideas from each of them to find holistic solutions. I'm also pretty good at zooming in and out between the big picture 🖼️ and the minor details 🔍 of a situation / problem.
My weakness is my natural communication style is super direct. I learned the hard way that doesn't work for everyone. Now I'm more sensitive to people's communication styles, and I adapt my style to them. It's a work in progress. So, if you ever feel like I'm being too direct with you, please let me know so I can switch it up 😅.
My preferred working hours are 8:00 to 4:00. I'm not a morning person, so I prefer to do my deepest work early, alone, and avoid having calls before 10:00.
I usually feel the most energized and creative in the afternoon after a light lunch. It's not uncommon for me to get a burst of energy late at night. Sometimes I use that energy to get work done off-hours. So, don't be surprised if you get a message from me at midnight 🌚.
I prefer open, honest, super direct communication 😁. You don't need to sugarcoat things for me. You can if you want to, but I don't need it. And, if I feel like you're being too indirect, vague, or ambiguous - I will ask clarifying questions to better understand what you're telling me.
I appreciate positive feedback. But, constructive criticism is welcomed, too! Both are equally important to me.
I prefer to communicate via internal chat tools (e.g. Slack, Teams) for most topics.
I'm not an email person. I rarely check my inbox. I'm always striving for Inbox Zero. If I don't respond to your email, please try me via internal chat. Or, if the issue is urgent, give me a call via my private phone number.
I like to give / receive feedback in real-time (in-person, phone / video call) so people can ask questions and get immediate feedback. The frequency of feedback depends on the relationship. Generally, I like to give / receive feedback at least once every two weeks.
I love purposeful, well-executed, meetings (video or in-person), especially when team-aligning decisions are made and documented. I also love structured 1:1s to discuss progress, share ideas, and exchange feedback. Otherwise, I avoid meetings and focus on Deep Work.
- Successfully apply Decision-First Planning and OOUX to my PM practice 👨🏾🔬
- Complete the Product Strategy course via Reforge 👨🏾🎓
- Complete the Software Essentialist Course 💻
- Level up my data modeling and SQL skills via Relational Database Design and Modeling for Software Engineers and Grokking SQL for Tech Interviews 📊
- Formally learn German grammar via the Grammatik aktiv
Deutsch als Fremdsprache series 🇩🇪- A1 - B1
- B1+
- C2 - C1
- Continuously level up my product management skills via interdisciplinary cross-training 🧑🏾🎓
- Collaborate with talented colleagues to build products people are happy to buy 🚀
- Get promoted to an IC-track product leadership role again (e.g. Lead || Staff PM
↗️ - Keep my technical skills sharp via mentorship, full-stack side projects, and code challenges 👨🏾💻
✅ - Rolling Personal Goal Achievement
- Renewed my PMI-ACP certificate (August 2022) 📜
- Completed Product Managment Foundations on demand via Reforge's Cohort (October 2022) 👨🏾🎓
- Completed the User Insights for Product Decisions course via Reforge's Fall 2022 Cohort (November 2022) 👨🏾🎓
- Got promoted to Product Lead at mobileJob
↗️ - Completed the Finding Product Market Fit course via Reforge's Spring 2023 Cohort (April 2023) 👨🏾🎓
- Got promoted to Senior PM in less than 6 months (achieved in 4 months) Staffbase
↗️
- Useless meetings, especially if they are early in the morning 😒
- Intellectual dishonesty (e.g. ignoring empirical facts, data, and evidence because it doesn't support your opinion) 🤥.
- Repetitive whining and complaining instead of taking direct action or withdrawing from unacceptable situations 😵💫
- 💻 Web development, especially UX/UI engineering, and JavaScript tools like React.
- 🔮 The future, especially emerging technology, and speculating how it will change the way people live.
- 😋 Food, especially grilling / BBQ 🥩, the best Chinese restaurants 🥡, and street food 🌯.
- 🔄 Product management, especially aligning strategy, discovery, delivery, and data analysis.
- 🏦 Economics, especially speculating how significant events, emerging technology, and lifestyle changes will influence markets.
🛠️ - I know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, TypeScript, and basic SQL
🔭 - I'm shopping around for a new programming side project 🤓.
🌱 - I’m learning more React, more TypeScript, algorithmic layout, CSS Grid, fundamental data structures and algorithms
🛣️ - My technical learning roadmap includes a full-stack JavaScript framework (e.g. Blitz, Remix, Sails), full-stack application architecture, AWS via Serverless Framework, PostgreSQL, web animation, data visualization (via D3), and a few GoF design patterns
📝 - In 2020, I published Level Up and Launch, a limited series of articles about my experience leveling up my technical skills full-time to get my first React job.
✍🏾 - I created a blog named Diaminding, but I haven't started publishing yet
🌐 - My personal website is georgebullock.dev
📫 - You can follow me On Twitter @george_bullock
⚡ - Other Fun facts
- I'm an occasional Unsplash contributor. Check out my photos here 📷.
- I briefly worked in theatrical marketing for Lionsgate. I met a handful of celebs and literally got paid to watch movies 🎬.
- Before moving to Germany 🇩🇪 I lived in France 🇫🇷 and Mexico 🇲🇽 for one year each. But, I don't speak French or Spanish 🤷🏾♂️.
- I love Deep House 🎛️, Synthwave 🦄, 90s Hip Hop 🎤, crime dramas 🔫 (especially Heat and Collateral), sci-fi 🛸, BBQ 🍖, and Asian food 🥡
- My favorite restaurant: It's a tie between Doyum Restaurant 🇹🇷 and Good Friends 🇨🇳.
- My favorite baked good: Oatmeal raisin cookies 🍪.
- Pineapple on pizza? Nope 🙅🏾♂️.
- My coffee order: Americano with a bit of whole milk 🐮.
- I mastered the art of making American-style pancakes from scratch 🥞.
- My favorite baked good: Oatmeal raisin cookies 🍪.
- Pineapple on pizza? Nope 🙅🏾♂️.
- My coffee order: Americano with a little whole milk 🐮.