Software Misadventures

Known for co-creating Django and Datasette, as well as his thoughtful writing on LLMs, Simon Willison joins the show to chat about blogging as an accountability mechanism, how to build intuition with LLMs, building a startup with his partner on their honeymoon, and more.

Segments:

(00:00:00) The weird intern

(00:01:50) The early days of LLMs

(00:04:59) Blogging as an accountability mechanism

(00:09:24) The low-pressure approach to blogging

(00:11:47) GitHub issues as a system of records

(00:16:15) Temporal documentation and design docs

(00:18:19) GitHub issues for team collaboration

(00:21:53) Copy-paste as an API

(00:26:54) Observable notebooks

(00:28:50) pip install LLM

(00:32:26) The evolution of using LLMs daily

(00:34:47) Building intuition with LLMs

(00:43:24) Democratizing access to automation

(00:47:45) Alternative interfaces for language models

(00:53:39) Is prompt engineering really engineering?

(00:58:39) The frustrations of working with LLMs

(01:01:59) Structured data extraction with LLMs

(01:06:08) How Simon would go about building a LLM app

(01:09:49) LLMs making developers more ambitious

(01:13:32) Typical workflow with LLMs

(01:19:58) Vibes-based evaluation

(01:23:25) Staying up-to-date with LLMs

(01:27:49) The impact of LLMs on new programmers

(01:29:37) The rise of 'Goop' and the future of software development

(01:40:20) Being an independent developer

(01:42:26) Staying focused and accountable

(01:47:30) Building a startup with your partner on the honeymoon

(01:51:30) The responsibility of AI practitioners

(01:53:07) The hidden dangers of prompt injection

(01:53:44) “Artificial intelligence” is really “imitation intelligence”

Show Notes:

Simon’s blog: https://simonwillison.net/

Natalie’s post on them building a startup together: https://blog.natbat.net/post/61658401806/lanyrd-from-idea-to-exit

Simon’s talk from DjangoCon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLkRK2rJGB0

Simon on twitter: https://x.com/simonw

Datasette: https://github.com/simonw/datasette

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

A Silicon Valley veteran and known for his writings like "The Death of the Junior Developer", Steve Yegge joins the show to chat about his "AI Midlife Crisis", the unique writing process he employs, and building the future of coding assistants.

Segments: (00:00:00) The AI Midlife Crisis (00:04:53) The power of rants (00:09:55) “You gotta be able to make yourself laugh” (00:11:46) Steve's writing process (00:14:10) “I published them… and nothing happened for six months” (00:17:30) Key to perseverance in writing? Get pissed. (00:23:24) Writing in one sitting (00:29:05) The AI Midlife Crisis (00:35:04) Management to IC (00:38:35) The acceleration and evolution of programming (00:41:43) Picking up new skills in a new domain (00:43:40) The power of prompt engineering (00:47:27) Secondary hashing (00:50:47) The importance of context in coding assistants (00:53:56) “The future of coding assistants is chat” (00:57:15) The importance of platforms in coding assistants (01:02:30) The nefarious T-word in AI (01:06:32) The death of the junior developer and its consequences (01:09:35) The future of code understanding and semantic indexing (01:13:15) The power of context in AI platforms (01:16:21) Surprising capabilities of LLMs (01:21:04) Transferable skills in AI product development (01:23:53) Mental health and the innovator's dilemma

Show Notes

• The Death of the Junior Developer: https://sourcegraph.com/blog/the-death-of-the-junior-developer
• Steve’s blog rants: https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/
• Steve’s medium posts: https://steve-yegge.medium.com/
• Sourcegraph’s blog: https://sourcegraph.com/blog
• Steve on twitter: https://x.com/steve_yegge

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

A veteran of early Twitter's fail whale wars, Dmitriy joins the show to chat about the time when 70% of the Hadoop cluster got accidentally deleted, the financial reality of writing a book, and how to navigate acquisitions.

Segments: (00:00:00) The Infamous Hadoop Outage (00:02:36) War Stories from Twitter's Early Days (00:04:47) The Fail Whale Era (00:06:48) The Hadoop Cluster Shutdown (00:12:20) “First Restore the Service Then Fix the Problem. Not the Other Way Around.” (00:14:10) War Rooms and Organic Decision-Making (00:16:16) The Importance of Communication in Incident Management (00:19:07) That Time When the Data Center Caught Fire (00:21:45) The "Best Email Ever" at Twitter (00:25:34) The Importance of Failing (00:27:17) Distributed Systems and Error Handling (00:29:49) The Missing README (00:33:13) Agile and Scrum (00:38:44) The Financial Reality of Writing a Book (00:43:23) Collaborative Writing Is Like Open-Source Coding (00:44:41) Finding a Publisher and the Role of Editors (00:50:33) Defining the Tone and Voice of the Book (00:54:23) Acquisitions from an Engineer's Perspective (00:56:00) Integrating Acquired Teams (01:02:47) Technical Due Diligence (01:04:31) The Reality of System Implementation (01:06:11) Integration Challenges and Gotchas

Show Notes: - Dmitriy Ryaboy on Twitter: https://x.com/squarecog - The Missing README: https://www.amazon.com/Missing-README-Guide-Software-Engineer/dp/1718501838 - Chris Riccomini on how to write a technical book: https://cnr.sh/essays/how-to-write-a-technical-book

Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Known for hosting the CoRecursive podcast, which dives into the stories behind the code, Adam joins the show to chat about discovering that the great engineers he had looked up to are actually great communicators, his framework for building one of the best storytelling engineering podcasts, and the journey getting into DevRel.

Chapters:

(00:00:00) Highlights (00:04:23) The power of casual conversations (00:07:08) Taking the leap into podcasting (00:10:34) The hardest part of running a podcast (00:14:03) Learning to follow up (00:16:26) Storytelling in podcasting (00:20:36) The evolution of CoRecursive (00:21:19) What makes a good story? (00:24:48) Finding the right guests (00:30:26) Preparing for interviews (00:32:07) Favorite part of making a podcast episode (00:37:43) Learning from radio journalists (00:39:47) Overcoming self-doubt (00:44:27) Balancing passion projects with full-time work (00:46:38) The power of vulnerability in storytelling (00:53:29) Behind the scenes of developer relations (01:00:38) The great engineers you know are actually great communicators

Show Notes:

• Adam on Twitter: https://x.com/adamgordonbell
• CoRecursive Podcast: https://corecursive.com/
• Automating follow-up emails: https://www.followupthen.com/

Stay in touch:

👋 - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

As the original architect and API design lead of Kubernetes, Brian joins the show to chat about why "APIs are forever", the keys to evangelizing impactful projects, and being an Uber Tech at Google, and more.

Segments:

(00:03:01) Internship with Mark Ewing

(00:07:10) “Mark and Brian's Excellent Environment” manual

(00:11:58) Poker on VT100 terminals

(00:14:46) Grad school and research

(00:17:23) The value of studying computer science

(00:21:07) Intuition and learning

(00:24:06) Reflecting on career patterns

(00:26:37) Hypergrowth and learning at Transmeta

(00:28:37) Debugging at the atomic level

(00:34:27) Evangelizing multithreading at Google

(00:39:56) The humble beginnings of Borg and Kubernetes

(00:47:10) The concept of inertia in system design

(00:50:07) The genesis of Kubernetes

(00:53:45) The open-source proposal

(00:57:25) The Unified Compute Working Group

(01:02:16) Designing the Kubernetes API

(01:05:03) AIP.dev and API design conventions

(01:08:02) The vision for a declarative model in Kubernetes

(01:17:25) Kubernetes as a DIY platform

(01:19:07) The evolution of Kubernetes

(01:21:40) The complexity of building a platform

(01:25:11) Style guides?

(01:28:23) Gotchas in Kubernetes workload APIs

(01:32:02) Understanding your thinking style

(01:35:37) Reflections on Kubernetes design choices

(01:44:08) The importance of getting it right the first time

(01:48:13) Designing for flexibility

(01:51:16) Collaboration and leadership

(01:52:21) The role of an Uber tech lead at Google

(01:56:33) “Giving away the Legos”

(02:02:29) Picking the right person to hand off

(02:06:41) Overcoming writer's block

Show Notes:

• API Design conventions: https://google.aip.dev/
• Brian’s blog: https://medium.com/@bgrant0607

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

From building a new kind of server to building a new kind of company, co-founders Bryan and Steve join the show to chat about their "meet cute" and the origin story of Oxide, their unconventional recruiting process, transparent and uniform salaries, and their solution to the "N+1 shithead problem".

Segments: (00:03:03) Bryan and Steve's "meet cute" (00:05:56) "the sun does not shine on me" (00:12:19) the dagger that went into sun (00:21:23) culture of exonerating yourself vs solving customer problems (00:23:25) the shared "error in judgment" of joining joyent (00:27:54) the origin story of joyent (00:29:44) reporting to the (physical) chair (00:31:26) the comically bad ceo candidate (00:36:23) the enterprise software shift (00:40:21) the importance of curiosity in sales (00:48:30) filtering for curiosity in hiring (00:52:26) oxide's unconventional hiring process (01:04:01) bryan's worst hire (01:05:21) the limitations of traditional hiring (01:08:32) the value of written reflections (01:10:28) "what were the happiest moments in your career?" (01:21:16) misconceptions about sales and go-to-market (01:22:03) trust and alignment in sales (01:30:24) building connections across organizations (01:34:23) how to do performance reviews when everyone's paid the same? (01:40:00) the power of transparency in compensation (01:50:14) validation through impact (01:53:14) origins of on the metal (01:55:45) transparency and open communication (02:01:32) the importance of storytelling (02:04:56) building a company differently

Show Notes: - Bryan’s blog post on the transparent and uniform compensation model at Oxide: https://oxide.computer/blog/compensat... - On the Metal’s interview with Jeff Rothschild: https://share.transistor.fm/s/6fa1eaa4

Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

From building a data platform and Parquet at Twitter to using AI to make biology easier to engineer at Ginkgo Bioworks, Dmitriy joins the show to chat about the early days of big data, the conversation that made him jump into SynBio, LLMs for proteins and more.

Segments:  (00:03:18) Data engineering roots (00:05:40) Early influences at Lawrence Berkeley Lab  (00:09:46) Value of a "gentleman's education in computer science"  (00:14:34) The end of junior software engineers  (00:20:10) Deciding to go back to school  (00:21:36) Early experiments with distributed systems  (00:23:33) The early days of big data  (00:29:16) "The thing we used to call big data is now ai"  (00:31:02) The maturation of data engineering  (00:35:05) From consumer tech to biotech  (00:37:42) "The 21st century is the century of biology"  (00:40:54) The science of lab automation  (00:47:22) Software development in biotech vs. consumer tech  (00:50:34) Swes make more $$ than scientists?  (00:54:27) Llms for language is boring. Llms for proteins? that's cool  (01:02:52) Protein engineering 101  (01:06:01) Model explainability in biology

Show Notes:

• The Death of the Junior Developer: https://sourcegraph.com/blog/the-death-of-the-junior-developer
• Dmitriy on twitter: https://x.com/squarecog?lang=en
• Tech and Bio slack community: https://www.bitsinbio.org/

Stay in touch: - Make Ronak’s day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Having quit Google in 2018 to bootstrap indie software businesses, Michael is known for writing very transparently about the ups and downs of his journey. After recently selling his hardware business TinyPilot for $600K, Michael returns to the show to chat about the misconceptions about running an indie business, the hardest part of selling a company, and why “hardware is definitely out” for his next move 😂

Segments: (00:04:22) The complexity of selling a hardware business (00:08:49) Why "hardware is definitely out" for Michael's next venture (00:11:57) The evolution of TinyPilot (00:16:29) Inherent risks of a hardware business (00:20:53) The most terrifying 10 minutes of 2023 (00:24:52) The pricing strategy (00:31:48) Building the team (00:35:32) Recognizing the limits of solo founders (00:37:22) What and how to outsource? (00:42:45) Tracking hours and managing expectations (00:46:50) High-level math and profit projections (00:52:17) Working with contract manufacturers (00:54:12) How to know when to delegate? (00:58:16) Misconceptions about running an indie business (01:03:56) The importance of value capture (01:09:26) Identity and purpose after selling a business (01:13:40) How Michael arrived at the decision to sell the business (01:17:53) The process of figuring out the price (01:20:36) Negotiation and the final sale (01:25:09) Why due diligence was so stressful (01:30:09) The importance of buyer fit (01:34:16) Michael's new course "Hit the Front Page of Hacker News" (01:35:17) The power of "Show, don't tell" (01:38:14) Sneak peek of the course

Show Notes: - Michael’s blog post on the process of selling TinyPilot: https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/ - Michael’s excellent monthly retrospectives on building TinyPilot and beyond: https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/ - Hit the front page of hacker news: https://mtlynch.io/notes/htfp-live/

Stay in Touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Well-known for his insightful and meticulous write-ups on testing distributed systems, Kyle (aka Aphyr) joins the show to chat about the origins of Jepsen, how he built a business around testing distributed systems, his writing process, favorite databases, and more.

Segments:

(00:03:29) From Physics to Software Engineering

(00:07:47) The origins of Jepsen

(00:09:41) Turning Jepsen into a full-time venture

(00:13:14) Jepsen's testing philosophy

(00:16:30) The consulting journey

(00:19:16) Structuring a consultancy

(00:22:32) Setting boundaries

(00:24:32) Pricing misadventures

(00:29:17) Pros and cons of being an independent consultant

(00:32:08) Managing your time when working for yourself

(00:38:23) Best part of the job

(00:41:13) Early writing influences

(00:45:25) LLMs and AI-generated content

(00:48:17) “The period where you can trust what you read is actually very recent”

(00:51:33) How to become a better writer

(00:54:25) Developing a formal understanding of distributed systems

(00:59:30) Common faults in distributed systems

(01:01:17) The complexity of testing distributed systems

(01:07:32) Communicating criticism effectively

(01:10:26) Advice for distributed systems engineers

(01:13:46) “Anybody trying to sell you a distributed lock is selling you sawdust and lies”

(01:16:31) Failure mode documentation

(01:18:52) The pitfalls of containerization

(01:20:17) Lightning round - favorite databases

Show Notes:

“Anybody who is trying to sell you a distributed lock is trying to sell you sawdust and Lies”: https://martin.kleppmann.com/2016/02/08/how-to-do-distributed-locking.html

Kyle’s excellent write-ups on testing distributed systems: https://jepsen.io/analyses

Kyle’s blog: https://aphyr.com/posts

Training courses that Kyle runs: https://jepsen.io/services/training

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

From creating one of the Python’s most influential libraries to co-founding Voltron Data, Wes joins the show to chat about why the book cover of the pandas book doesn’t feature a panda, open source pitfalls to avoid, the pros and cons of hiring engineers at a non-profit, and more.

Segments:

(00:02:50) Guang’s complaint about the pandas book cover

(00:04:38) Quarto and Open Access Publishing

(00:12:00) Convincing Wall Street to Open Source

(00:15:31) Publishing the first python package over Christmas 

(00:18:01) Doubling Down on Building pandas

(00:23:23) Personal sacrifices for the sake of impact

(00:26:28) The Evolution of Open-Source

(00:29:19) “Open source development started out as a very privileged activity”

(00:32:40) The Consulting Trap

(00:35:17) The Startup Trap

(00:39:29) The Corporate User Trap

(00:44:21) Avoiding the Startup Trap

(00:46:54) Non-Profit vs. For-Profit

(00:48:09) The Challenges of Hiring Engineers in a Non-Profit Setting

(00:50:08) The Benefits of Remote Work for Open Source Development

(00:52:15) Balancing Open Source and Enterprise Interests

(00:57:25) New Funding Models for Open Source?

(01:00:01) Getting into VC

(01:06:19) The Future of Composable Data Systems

Show Notes:

- online edition of pandas book: https://wesmckinney.com/book/

- the new digital publishing tool that Wes recommends: https://quarto.org/

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

From creating Envoy to co-founding bitdrift to reimagine mobile observability, Matt joins the show to chat about being told to simply “write some proxy in Python” in the early days of building Envoy, early influences from building “shrink wrap” software at Microsoft, the process of spinning bitdrift out of Lyft, and much more.

(00:03:10) Being a plumber on LinkedIn

(00:05:00) Early influences from building “shrink wrap” software at Microsoft

(00:10:44) Getting diverse work experiences

(00:16:36) Setting high standards for the team

(00:20:42) Lessons from failure of the first startup

(00:22:02) Building a successful open source project vs. running a startup

(00:25:25) Why not start a company around Envoy?

(00:29:54) Why not open source bitdrift?

(00:36:01) Mitigating the risk of big companies building in-house solutions

(00:38:16) Co-founding bitdrift to tackle mobile observability

(00:40:37) Applying lessons from the first startup failure

(00:44:14) Why mobile observability is so hard

(00:50:06) Open source vs source available

(00:53:33) The software licensing strugglebus

(00:58:03) How bitdrift was spinned out of Lyft

(01:03:36) Achieving work-life balance through leverage

(01:06:13) The early days of Envoy

(01:09:20) Impact driven development

(01:13:43) The crazy decision to build Envoy in retrospect

• Matt’s blog posts on why mobile observability is a hard problem: https://mattklein123.dev/2024/04/24/no-one-talks-about-mobile-observability/

• The new company Matt is building: https://bitdrift.io/

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

From being a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems to co-founding Oxide Computer Company to build a new kind of server, Bryan joins the show to chat about being told that he’s on a suicide mission when starting Oxide, the moment he felt “I’m actually living HBO Silicon Valley”, and lessons from Sun. And much more.

Chapters:

(00:02:24) The Origin of Bryan's Nom-de-Guerre: "Colonel of Data Corruption" (00:04:02) What Debugging Performance Issues at Twitter in the Early Days Revealed About Silicon Valley (00:13:37) Value of Formal Education and the Experience That Everyone Should Have (00:16:02) Balancing Following One's Passion vs. Having Stability (00:21:14) What Shaped Bryan's Sense of Integrity (00:25:39) The Moments When Values Are Instilled (00:30:25) The Dark Side of Tech (00:35:12) "Economic Opportunities Attract Economic Opportunists" (00:40:35) The Origins of Oxide Computers (00:50:20) Building the A-Team (00:52:18) "Compaq Was the Most Successful Startup" (00:55:51) The Venture Capitalist's Dilemma (01:03:04) Being Told "You're on a Suicide Mission" (01:07:12) The Lifestyle of the "Lifestyle Business" (01:09:30) The Harsh Reality of Raising Venture Capital (01:13:12) The Challenges of Building Hardware (01:16:36) Why You Should Think About Not Only Gross Margin but Net Margin (01:19:14) Hardware and Software Co-Design (01:22:06) The Frustrations of Infrastructure Deployment (01:26:46) Finding the Right VCs (01:28:16) "Oh My God, I'm Actually Living HBO Silicon Valley" (01:33:12) Oxide's Principles and Lessons from Sun Microsystems (01:39:51) Sun's Unspoken Values (01:45:03) Sun's Legacy of Empowering Employees (01:48:53) Sun's Missed Opportunities (01:53:04) The Reason Why Sun Survived the Dot-Com Crash (01:56:21) "God Bless the Early Adopters" (01:57:39) A Tweet from Shopify's CEO (02:01:24) The Hard Thing About Hard Things (02:12:55) The Hardest Moment in Oxide's History

Show Notes:

- Oxide’s principles: https://oxide.computer/principles

- Requests for Discussion (RFDs): https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/

- Toby’s tweet: https://x.com/tobi/status/1793798092212367669

- Bryan on twitter: https://x.com/bcantrill

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

From writing the first lines of Kafka over a Christmas break as a LinkedIn engineer to running a public company as the CEO of Confluent, Jay joins the show to chat about how he and his co-founders convinced investors to take a chance on their vision, what many engineers get wrong about communication, and why engineers can make great CEOs - even when coding is not in the job description. And much more.

Segments:

(00:01:16) The Shaved Head Bet (00:04:07) Fundraising (00:12:16) The Role of Technical Background in VCs (00:15:48) The power of believing in the possibility of important changes (00:18:29) The Journey to starting Confluent (00:27:11) Kafka's Controversial Beginnings (00:34:30) Effective Communication in Engineering (00:44:20) The Early Days of Kafka (00:48:31) The Power of Storytelling (00:57:19) Early days of Confluent (01:03:06) Do Engineers Make Good CEOs? (01:07:59) A Typical Day in the Life of a CEO (01:12:24) The Evolution of Data Streaming

Show Notes: - “The log” blog post that solidified Jay and his co-founders' conviction to found Confluent: https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-what-every-software-engineer-should-know-about-real-time-datas-unifying

- Jay on twitter: https://x.com/jaykreps

Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

If you’ve worked on data problems, you probably have heard of Airflow and Superset, two powerful tools that have cemented their place in the data ecosystem. Building successful open-source software is no easy feat, and even fewer engineers have done this back to back. In part 2 of the conversation, we talk about Max’s journey in open source.

Segments:

   (00:03:27) “Project-Community Fit” in Open Source    (00:08:31) Fostering Relationships in Open Source    (00:10:58) Dealing with Trolls    (00:13:40) Attributes of Good Open Source Contributors    (00:20:01) How to Get Started with Contributing    (00:27:58) Origin Stories of Airflow and Superset    (00:33:27) Biggest Surprise since Founding a VC-backed Company?    (00:38:47) Picking What to Work On    (00:41:46) Advice to Engineers for Building the Next Airflow/Superset?    (00:42:35) The 2 New Open Source Projects that Max is Starting    (00:52:10) Challenges of Being a Founder    (00:57:38) Open Sourcing Ideas

Show Notes:

Part 1 of our conversation: https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/maxime-beauchemin-llm-ready Max on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximebeauchemin/ SQL All Stars: https://github.com/preset-io/allstars Governator: https://github.com/mistercrunch/governator

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

If you’ve worked on data problems, you probably have heard of Airflow and Superset, two powerful tools that have cemented their place in the data ecosystem. Building successful open-source software is no easy feat, and even fewer engineers have done this back to back. In Part 1 of this conversation, we chat about how to adapt to the LLM-age as engineers.

Segments:

(00:01:59) The Rise and Fall of the Data Engineer (00:11:13) The Importance of Executive Skill in the Era of AI (00:13:53) Developing the first reflex to use AI (00:17:47) What are LLMs good at? (00:25:33) Text to SQL (00:28:19) Promptimize (00:32:16) Using tools LangChain (00:35:02) Writing better prompts

Show Notes:

- Max on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximebeauchemin/ - Rise of the Data Engineer: https://medium.com/free-code-camp/the-rise-of-the-data-engineer-91be18f1e603 - Downfall of the Data Engineer: https://maximebeauchemin.medium.com/the-downfall-of-the-data-engineer-5bfb701e5d6b - Promptimize: https://github.com/preset-io/promptimize

Stay in touch:

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Out of thousands of engineers at Uber, there’s only a handful of Distinguished Engineers and Joakim was one of them. In this conversation we chat about

• Why software engineering is a lot like a sausage factory.

• Considerations for leaving big tech for a startup.

• “How to beat the promo commitee”.

• How can one effectively shape engineering culture?

• “Mentoring two people on the same team is a waste”.

• Much More.

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[0:01:52] The “reverse sausage” architecture

[0:07:36] How to get people on board with the new deployment system?

[0:13:55] What does it mean to be a distinguished engineer?

[0:17:47] Under-appreciated soft skills?

[0:21:28] How to improve technical writing

[0:24:16] Do all senior engineers need to write and review code every day?

[0:30:19] How to search out where to contribute when your time is so constrained?

[0:43:10] How to maximize your impact as a mentor

[0:48:52] “How to beat the promo committee”

[0:52:56] Effective means to influence engineering culture?

[0:57:09] Capping the company at 150 employees

[1:03:33] Why join a startup instead of moving to another big tech company?

[1:11:14] What Joakim is working on now at Beyond Work

• Joakim on leaving Uber to start Beyond Work: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-left-uber-start-beyond-work-joakim-recht-o63of?trk=public_post_feed-article-content

• Read Joakim’s other excellent posts here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/recht/recent-activity/all/

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

We’re super excited to have Kelsey back on the show! Our last conversation was around his incredible career journey - from working at McDonald’s after school to starting his own computer store, to hacking on python infrastructure with the core developers, to meeting Satya Nadella for an interview.

In part two of this conversation, we dive deep into Kelsey’s experiences learning in public and writing “Kubernetes: Up and Running”:

• The biggest barrier to getting started with learning in public and a step-by-step guide to overcome it

• Cautionary tale of the “JavaScript sucks” guy

• Developing the skill of crafting good analogies

• The business and economics of writing a book

• Much more

[0:01:12] Writing and learning in public.

[0:10:58] Writing "Kubernetes: Up and Running."

[0:16:05] The business and economics of writing a book.

[0:21:27] Why your first book should not exceed 100 pages.

[0:23:36] What prevented Kelsey from giving up on the book.

[0:26:15] Being intentional about building an audience and the cautionary tale of the "JavaScript sucks" guy.

[0:36:44] Authenticity does not guarantee success.

[0:39:09] Developing the skill of crafting effective analogies.

[0:47:47] Advice for engineers to leverage their technical skills outside of the nine-to-five.

• Kelsey on twitter: https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower

• Our previous conversation with Kelsey about retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42: https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/kelsey-hightower-on-retiring-as-distinguished-057

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

We’re super excited to have Kelsey back on the show! Our last conversation was around his incredible career journey - from working at McDonald’s after school to starting his own computer store, to hacking on python infrastructure with the core developers, to meeting Satya Nadella for an interview.

In part one of this conversation, we dive deep into Kelsey’s experiences and expertise as a startup advisor:

• How to break into advising when you don’t have a lot of connections

• How to influence without authority

• Passive vs. active advising

• How to add value as an advisor

• Setting boundaries and expectations

• Much more

[0:01:53] Being a "junior retiree"

[0:11:00] How Kelsey got started with startup advising.

[0:17:43] How to avoid mismatches in advisory engagements?

[0:27:23] How to influence without authority as an advisor?

[0:32:58] How to establish boundaries as an advisor.

[0:38:29] Actions engineers can take today to prepare themselves for future startup advising roles.

[0:42:55] How to manage the balance between advising and your primary job.

[0:44:32] How to cultivate perspectives beyond engineering.

• Kelsey on twitter: https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower

• Our previous conversation with Kelsey about retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42: https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/kelsey-hightower-on-retiring-as-distinguished-057

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

As a self-described “gainfully unemployed data person”, Josh Wills is an angel investor and has worked on and led data teams at Slack, Cloudera, WeaveGrid and Google. We discuss:

• How to get started with angel investing without a ton of $$

• Attributes that define great engineering managers

• What’s it like transitioning from management back to IC

• Challenges in Climate Tech from a software perspective

• And more

[0:01:35] Transitioning from management to individual contributor (IC).

[0:10:19] Emotional intelligence and its role in engineering management.

[0:25:21] Contrasting the hard power of management with the soft power of senior individual contributors.

[0:37:18] Addressing challenges in climate technology.

[0:51:34] The importance of practicality and how to assess it in interviews.

[0:56:01] Josh's journey into angel investing.

[1:12:59] Criteria used by Josh to evaluate whether to invest in a startup.

• Josh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/josh_wills

• The “Touchy Feely” course at Stanford: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/learning/leadership/interpersonal-dynamics

• Jason Calacanis’s book on angel investing: https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Invest-Technology-Startups-Timeless-Investor/dp/0062560700

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]

Known for coining the term “Data Scientist”, DJ is a renowned technologist with a diverse background spanning academia, industry, and government. Having led product teams at companies like RelateIQ and LinkedIn, DJ was appointed by President Obama to be the first U.S. Chief Data Scientist where his efforts led to the establishment of nearly 40 Chief Data Officer roles across the Federal government, new health care programs as well as new criminal justice reforms. We discuss:

• “Dream in years, plan in months, evaluate in weeks, ship daily”

• High school misadventures that shaped DJ’s world view

• Under-hyped opportunities in AI

• Building with the customer vs. “if you build it, they will come”

• Do we need more regulations on AI?

• Much more.

[0:01:48] Picking locks in high school.

[0:07:15] How can we make it easier for others to take a risk on us?

[0:11:29] How do you decide whom to take a chance on?

[0:14:24] The 70-20-10 framework for choosing what to work on.

[0:17:49] "No rules, only guidelines."

[0:24:09] Developing personal ethics.

[0:30:52] Building with the customer versus "if you build it, they will come."

[0:34:51] "Dream in years, plan in months, evaluate in weeks, ship daily."

[0:43:56] Ideas should be considered in terms of momentum.

[0:46:11] Under-hyped trends in AI?

[0:51:53] How does AI need to evolve to operate in fields that require very low margins of error?

[0:56:09] Concerning advances that lack sufficient guardrails?

[0:58:55] Do we need more regulations on AI?

[1:02:48] "Failure is the only option."

• DJ Patil on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpatil/

• The card that DJ carried in his notebook: https://twitter.com/DJ44/status/819316928623902720

• DJ’s interview series with thought leaders in Data Science: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/data-impact-with-dj-patil/data-science-how-did-we-get-here

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [email protected]