Hello, Dave.

Meet people like David Devries at Work Club

David Devries didn’t invent HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but he probably could have. David is a regular at Work Clubs in San Jose, and was just awarded a patent for his work on Amazon Alexa.

I wish I could tell you more about that, but I’d need a degree in Electrical Engineering and 20+ years of semiconductor experience (both of which David has) to explain it. When you see David at Work Club, you can ask him yourself!

We asked David to share a little about his career, his routine, and his Work Club experience.

So Dave, what are you working on these days?

I’ve spent the last couple of years consulting as a senior technical advisor and contributor at CFO or Principal level, to startups, their investors and executives. I’ve done some team management too — whatever is needed. My specialties are consumer device systems — latest is product architecture and embedded AI hardware design. I ended up doing this because I had backgrounds in semiconductor design, inertial sensing, and computer vision, and lots of experience in how to (or how not to) rapidly get a product to market.

How flexible are these consulting projects, and how do you build a routine around them?

I have deadlines that drive my work-life — when my stuff is due, there are no excuses and then I work evenings and weekends. But there’s definitely latitude in how I get my work done. For example, I “must” attend key product or design meetings, and those in the office. And I “should” be a good team player by keeping up daily communications no matter where I’m working. But there’s a lot of flexibility for sure. In my current project, management respects rush hour traffic, so they’re OK with everyone working from home or remote in the morning.

What’s your biggest challenge when you’re not working in the office?

When I work from home, I find I can focus very well for a day or so, because there aren’t any distractions at all. But after a couple of days, I begin to feel isolated. And that gets me blocked in my thinking. So I go to a coffee shop to get a sense of human connectedness. I try to find a seat with other people working on their laptops.

Have you discovered any “hacks” that the Out Of Office community might benefit from?

Morning wisdom. I find it helpful to start the day reading and pondering wisdoms or spiritual writings to get motivated. I take the theme of whatever I’m reading and memorize it, so when my mind wanders I can recall that wisdom and get myself back on track.

Daily sprints. I break my day into three 3-hour sprints with 30-minute breaks in between. Typically my first sprint is from 8:30AM to 11:30AM. During my breaks I get on social media, move around, or go for a walk. It’s my non-focus time. For me, mild exercise is a good way to deal with WFH alone-ness.

Stay healthy. For everyone out there interested in diet, I limit food intake to only healthy snacks during the day and generally eat as little as possible until dinner. Eating less prevents me from feeling sluggish. Also I drink lots of water!

What motivated you to join Work Club?

I needed human interaction in my WFH workday!

What’s been your experience so far — how do you like Work Club?

Having an office-like environment with other workers at Work Club helps me get way more focused. And the impact stays with me all day. It gives me my human interaction fix for the rest of my day when I work alone.

What would you say to someone who’s never been?

Work Club is a very cool, low-key meetup that gives remote workers some much-needed human interaction while they work. Just a couple hours in the morning improves my productivity for the rest of that day. I’m making new “work friends” all the time. I even got a job for one of the people I met!

Dave is just one of thousands of people you might meet at Work Club — so what’re you waiting for?