> Did you think about what sort of parent you'd like to be and work backwards?
> Did you think about what makes a good kid and work backwards?
> Did you align with a "style" of parenting?
No to all of these since as you wrote there are so many contradictory approaches it's in the end up to you and anything is justifiable.
My (Asian) wife is stereotypical tiger mom when it comes to school and find western standards extremely lazy at least 1-2 years behind China in school, so i have more western laidback approach and find 46/48 points perfectly fine score, no need to have literally perfect score, the west ain't that competetive as China. I try to praise my kids, not only point out errors, since I remember my parents didn't really praise me for anything and I also tell kid grades are not that important, teachers are not really that smart and other real facts, which maybe is not so good for illusions, but I think truth is better.
> How did you use technology to help you?
Not much really, I think security cam can be useful to watch your kids if they are falling asleep or sleeping.
We are also watching TV in evenings with headphones to not disturb kids and enjoy sound without compromise, I've never liked hearing my parents watching TV in other rooms. Another thing I didn't like was glass door on my kids room next to hallway where there was always light going through when my mother was going early to work, so all my doors in apartment have no glass, just solid "wood" (well, it's paper, but I mean there is nothing transparent).
I find foam carpet (those puzzles you can connect) useful for small kids learning to sleep by themselves in case they would fall down at least they won't fall on hard surface plus it's also better for neighbor below us. Not really a fan of dust attracting fabric carpets.
> Did you keep your kids away from technology (like watching TV) for the first couple of years or just go for it?
Yes, I despise lazy parents who are giving young kids phone/tablet in their hand since very early age. My kids rather play by themselves various games or read a lot books. It helped my wife didn't work for many years so at least she could watch them or do stuff with them. TBH I despise even adults checking the mobile while having lunch with others. For first few years we had no screen time at all besides maybe few minutes of videocall per month, later we went to like 30 minutes per day, now when kids are in (pre)school they watch TV 45-60 minutes per day before dinner and son got retro video game (gameboy style), but they still can play only like 10-20 minutes per day. We don't have any tablets and only recently I started to watch with kids few minutes per day some funny short videos from Reddit (like kidsareFstupid, dammnthatsinteresting, whatcouldgowrong) which I save under my profile if I find them suitable for kids educatory or funny, so it's mostly stupid children, animals or technology.
Also since we were living in beginning in wife's country and din't know where we will move we spoke with first kid first few years only English and later after moving to country where we settle I started to speak to kid in local language of that country to prepare it for kindergarten and wife started to introduce Chinese. With 2nd kid she started with Chinese combined with English and me local language combined with English, I don't teach my own mother tongue since it is similar to local language to not confuse kids and only in recent months I started to teach some words which are different in both my local and mother languages (which is also their citizenship klanguage, but they don't speak it).
> What would you do differently if you had your time again?
Can't really think of anything, maybe start introducing nuts in extremely small doses since early age to build tolerance, since both my kids have quite strong nuts allergy, which is interesting considering me and wife have both none food allergy.
Also maybe less negative in front of the kid since older kid is copying my behavior, but gets angrier than me, I was not like that as child, but it's difficult with character, younger kid has completely opposite character, so don't think I can influence character that much.
Oh and I'd get them vaxxed against chickenpox (VZV) or go to chickenpox party at early age (3-4yo), it's not dangerous but the money would be worth avoiding it, especially since son seems to have permanently damaged skin in some spots, no issues with younger daughter, son got it quite late at 7 and it also ruined our vacation plans. So can't recommend this more - either chickenpox party at early age or chickenpox vax, don't wait until your kid is 7, older they get the worse is the disease.