What's new in Cloud FinOps?

WNiCF - Interview with Mel - Engineers fatigue

Aug 2, 2024

Mel, an engineer at PwC, offers a peek into the life of an engineer balancing technical tasks and meetings. She discusses her daily routine, the productivity kill of random meetings, and the benefits of pair and mob programming. The conversation highlights the need for better communication between engineering and finance teams to tackle cost management. Mel also emphasizes the challenges of juggling multiple tools and systems, revealing the intricacies of effective collaboration and debugging in today’s engineering landscape.

46:06

Episode guests

Mel

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Engineers face significant productivity challenges due to frequent unexpected meetings, which disrupt their workflow and hinder focus on crucial tasks.

Effective collaboration between engineering and FinOps teams is essential for timely cost management and improved project outcomes, enabling engineers to balance coding and cost optimization.

Deep dives

Daily Responsibilities of an Engineer

An engineer's day typically begins with essential team rituals, such as a brief stand-up meeting to discuss ongoing tasks and any barriers faced. This meeting, aimed to be concise, ideally lasts around 7 to 10 minutes, ensuring everyone understands their responsibilities and can quickly get to work. Following this, engineers often prefer to minimize additional meetings, which can disrupt workflow and lead to decreased productivity. A common challenge faced is the influx of unexpected meetings caused by inter-departmental requests, often pulling engineers away from critical tasks.

Intro

2min

Engineering Routines and Meeting Dynamics

9min

Navigating Disruptions in Engineering Productivity

20min

Bridging the Gap: Engineering Costs and Feedback Loops

5min

Contrasting In-House Teams and Consulting Dynamics

2min

Bridging the Gap: Engineers and FinOps Collaboration

9min

Send us a text

SteveO and Frank sat down with Mel, a PwC engineer, to talk about what it's like to be an engineer and the hurdles they face.

They dug into her daily routine - from stand-up meetings to ticket management and making time to focus. They also explored how random meetings can kill productivity and the importance of debugging. They touched on cool topics like pair programming, mob programming, and using tools like Stack Overflow and Git branches.

This conversation is all about giving you a peek into an engineer's daily life and challenges. Mel shared her experience working with a bunch of tools and systems, including VDI, email, chat, Kubernetes, OpenLens, Terraform, Angular, React, Node, YAML, JSON, and Python. She explained how her team shares info about their system through tickets and updates in JIRA.

Then, they talked about the struggles of saving money and how it's often overlooked in engineering roles. Mel and the hosts agreed that finance and engineering teams need to communicate better and work together. They also stressed the importance of prioritizing and getting feedback.

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts

Save insights instantly, chat with episodes, and build lasting knowledge - all powered by AI.

What's new in Cloud FinOps?

WNiCF - Interview with Mel - Engineers fatigue

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Daily Responsibilities of an Engineer

The Impact of Meetings on Productivity

The Importance of Clear Communication in FinOps

Balancing Engineering Tasks and Cost Optimization

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts