Hello.

My name is Nate. I was raised in a small town in Vermont and have lived in different parts of Massachusetts ever since: west, east, and now somewhere in the middle. Most of my time goes to co-parenting my two young sons, reading, learning new songs on the guitar, and working as a director of software engineering for a large health-tech company.

Beliefs ↑

Always try to be nice, never fail to be kind. — Doctor Who

Work ↑

I lead engineering teams. Most of the job is helping good engineers do good work without burning out. I try to move at a sustainable pace.

At my first real engineering job, I struggled to find a way to be useful. That Christmas, my boss gave me a copy of The Goal. Not long after, I was let go. I finished the book anyway. It taught me to look for the actual bottleneck, not the loudest problem. It took a few more job changes for the lesson to click, but it did. Now, identifying where effort is being wasted and helping people focus on what actually matters is what I seem to do best.

Reading ↑

Focus and attention. Cal Newport is the one I read most: Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, Slow Productivity, A World Without Email. Alongside Essentialism (McKeown), Atomic Habits (Clear), Four Thousand Weeks (Burkeman).

Stoicism. Ego Is the Enemy (Holiday), How to Be a Stoic (Pigliucci), The Courage to Be Disliked (Kishimi & Koga).

Leading people. Dare to Lead (Brown), Crucial Conversations and Crucial Influence (Patterson et al), How to Know a Person (Brooks), Measure What Matters (Doerr).

Thinking about thinking. Thinking 101 (Ahn), Gödel, Escher, Bach (Hofstadter), Thinking in Systems (Meadows), Algorithms to Live By (Christian & Griffiths).

Classics. Don Quixote is astonishing for what it invented. So much of what we know about the novel didn't exist before Cervantes. "He Finished War and Peace" might go on my epitaph. The Count of Monte Cristo is the most fun of the three.

Television ↑

Shows that play with time or reality. Doctor Who, Dark, Severance, Twin Peaks, Quantum Leap, Sliders, Stranger Things, WandaVision, For All Mankind, Pluribus.

Sitcoms on rotation. Parks and Recreation, Community, The Office, The Good Place, Shrinking, Seinfeld.

Prestige drama. Succession, Silo.

Comic-book escapism. Superman & Lois, The Flash.

Movies ↑

Time is the main character. Back to the Future, Predestination, Groundhog Day, Donnie Darko, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Sci-fi. Interstellar, The Martian, Contact, The Matrix, Dune, Oppenheimer.

Comedies. Dumb and Dumber, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Superbad, 21 Jump Street, Game Night, Men in Black.

Someone pushing against the room. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Good Will Hunting, Fight Club, Whiplash, Citizen Kane.

With the kids. Encanto, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Music ↑

Heavy / Alternative / Grunge-Adjacent Rock. Alice in Chains, Silverchair, Toadies, Tool, A Perfect Circle.

Classic Hard Rock & Arena Rock. AC/DC, Queen, Scorpions, Genesis.

Indie Rock / Indie Pop. Modest Mouse, Spoon, Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club, Foster the People, Of Monsters and Men, alt-J, Broken Bells, TV on the Radio.

Psychedelic / Experimental / Art-Pop. Tame Impala, MGMT, Beck, Gorillaz, Radiohead, Puscifer.

Stand-up ↑

Storytellers. Mike Birbiglia, Marc Maron, John Mulaney, Patton Oswalt, Tom Segura.

Deadpan. Nate Bargatze, Mitch Hedberg, Taylor Tomlinson.

Dissidents. George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Lewis Black.

Podcasts ↑

Work and focus. Deep Questions with Cal Newport, HBR on Leadership.

Conversation shows. Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, Do By Friday, We Have Concerns, Roderick on the Line.

For engineers. Accidental Tech Podcast.