The One Where We Geek Out on Contributing to OpenTelemetry with Marylia Gutierrez

May 14, 2024

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About our guest:

Marylia is a Toronto-based Senior Staff Software Engineer at Grafana Labs, working with Open Telemetry. Before that, Marylia was a Engineer Manager and Developer at Cockroach Labs, working on Cluster Observability and a full-stack developer at IBM, working on internal Observability tools for DB2 products.

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Learn about the different ways you can contribute to OpenTelemetry here.

Transcript:

ADRIANA: Hey y'all, welcome to Geeking Out. The podcast about all geeky aspects of software delivery, DevOps, Observability, reliability, and everything in between. I'm your host Adriana Villela, coming to you from Toronto, Canada. And geeking out with me today is Marylia Gutierrez of Grafana. Welcome, Marylia. And where are you calling from today?

MARYLIA: I'm also from Toronto.

ADRIANA: Yay, Toronto! Super excited! I always get so excited when there are other Canadians, other Torontonians, and we've got the bonus because you're also Brazilians.

MARYLIA: In Toronto, yeah.

ADRIANA: That's right, Brazilians in Toronto. Okay, so before we get started with the meaty bits, we are going to start with the lightning round questions. Are you ready?

MARYLIA: I'm ready.

ADRIANA: Okay, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?

MARYLIA: Righty.

ADRIANA: Do you prefer iPhone or Android?

MARYLIA: Android all the way.

ADRIANA: Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or windows?

MARYLIA: Probably Mac is what I've been using for several years for development. It would be hard to move away from it.

ADRIANA: Yeah, fair enough. What is your favorite programming language?

MARYLIA: So I'm kind of in splits between...I really like JavaScript. I think I work a lot with this, but after working with Go I also really enjoy it. So it's good that I also like being like full stack. So everything backend I try to focus on Go, anything front end I use JavaScript, so it's a little split there.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. Best of both worlds. Okay, next question. Do you prefer Dev or Ops?

MARYLIA: Dev. Yeah.

ADRIANA: Right, cool. JSON or YAML?

MARYLIA: I think let's say JSON, just because I actually never work as much with YAML, so I, it's just not so common on my case. So it's the most familiar. Pretty much, yeah, yeah.

ADRIANA: And I guess because you, you also work with a lot of like JavaScript.

MARYLIA: Exactly, yeah, it's pretty much JSON, JSON, JSON. So.

ADRIANA: Okay, next question. Do you prefer spaces or tabs?

MARYLIA: Spaces. And you have like the tabs that actually convert to spaces kind of thing. So you don't...

ADRIANA: Yeah, I'm the same way. I'm the same way. Okay, two more questions. Do you prefer to consume content through video or text?

MARYLIA: Text, yes. Otherwise I get too distracted and, or I have to change the speed sometimes to go faster. Like where is that thing that I just wanted to remind myself there is no like way to just search on the video.

ADRIANA: I actually like, I caught myself last week listening to a podcast and I think I had to rewind it like five times because my mind started wandering while I was listening to it. And yeah, I agree. I wish there was like a search functionality in videos or podcasts or conversations in general where like, you know. I'll like, having...be having a conversation with someone, I'll zone out. I'm like, oh, shit, where's the rewind button?

MARYLIA: Or like, I talk with this, with that person. Who was the person? Or like, when do I talk about it? Come on after the brain.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I know, that drives me crazy. Okay, final question. What is your superpower?

MARYLIA: So I think for this one, gonna stick with context switching just because, oh, again, there's like backend and front end switching or just day to day tasks. I have to do this and I have to go to a meeting and then I can easily switch back and forth between things and pick up whatever is next.

ADRIANA: That is a good superpower. I definitely agree.

MARYLIA: That's like the time that I was like a manager previously I had like, sometimes the meeting would end early. I have a couple of minutes to the next one. I would like go in and program a little, do some coding and come back in just like those five minutes. So there's always something.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, I remember when I was a manager as well, like trying to, when I was doing some tech stuff on, on the side, I'm like, do I have time between, between meetings or like, please let people be late so I can like tinker on this a little bit more. Awesome. All right, you survived the lightning round questions. So I want to point out to our, to our audience that Marylia has actually...I have interviewed Marylia previously before on On-Call Me Maybe, and so I invited her to come on Geeking Out because it's always a treat chatting with Marylia. And last time, like when you were On-Call Me Maybe, we talked about how you were a manager at your previous job, but you still made it a point of staying technical. And so...which is...it's funny because the kind of management techie...management/IC switch has come up as a theme many times throughout this particular podcast.

So it's always interesting to see where people are at, where people land with their careers. And you just switched jobs, I guess relatively recently, right, where you were primarily in management, still staying technical, but now you're like, I guess fully IC?

MARYLIA: I see. So, yeah, the previous job was pretty much doing like the main position was a manager, but I was still doing a lot of development, still being like one of the top contributors, but now I move completely IC role, so. And I also have like small teams so we can divide things between us. So, yeah, completely IC now.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. And, and tell folks where, where you're working now.

MARYLIA: Working on Grafana. Focus on OpenTelemetry.

ADRIANA: Yay. Yeah, and that's, that was another reason why I wanted to have you on is because you are focusing on OpenTelemetry. And I believe and when you were at your previous job, you were managing an Observability team, right?

MARYLIA: So, yeah, so yeah, on the previous job I was working for Cockroach Labs and I was responsible for the Observability of the cluster. So already on this row of Observability and deciding what it was best for the user, like what information would be helpful for them to debug anything and also just know the current state of their databases, everything that they were running from, queries and things like that. So I really enjoy working on the Observability world. So definitely when made the switch, I wanted to continue on this Observability, and now I can focus. Now it's just pretty much on OpenTelemetry. So it can be, it's not just for databases now, for everything.

ADRIANA: So I guess you went from being like an end user of Observability to now like actually being a contributor in OpenTelemetry, which is awesome.

MARYLIA: Yeah, yeah. And it's good because I also have like the experience of, because I interacted a lot with what user would we're looking for and things like that. It's also helpful. For example, I, I'm joining the SIG for semantic conventions for databases now. We can actually give the opinion of like, oh, this type of information was always helpful. These were things that people were always asking and things like that. So whenever we made like a convention, I can give like the point of view of also what people were looking for.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that's so great. And one thing that I want to ask you with regards to, like, you know, becoming a contributor in OpenTelemetry, like, how was that for you? How was your experience? I guess first part of my question is, had you ever contributed in open source before? Like in an open source community, like OpenTelemetry before?

MARYLIA: Yeah. So, well, CockroachDB is open source, so everything that we do there can, people can contribute. But it was hard for people to interact with the area that my team was on because it was not something so easy for people like to jump in and do stuff, especially because some of the testing stuff were things that it was easy for internal people to test, not as much the community. So even though it was in the open, was not as much of interaction at that point. So that was a first interact...having the group. And I have people from Lightstep, I have people from Dynatrace, Honeycomb. So I, that is, that was definitely a switch there that I've been really enjoying it.

ADRIANA: Yeah.

MARYLIA: Receptive because they want to improve the community and things like that, so it has been really great.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. And it's so nice to hear, like, you've had such a positive experience because I always tell people, like, whenever, you know, I'm trying to convince people to contribute to OpenTelemetry, I'm like, everyone's really nice. No one's going to bite your head off. Because it's scary, right? Making that first pull request, you're like, should I?

MARYLIA: Yeah. So I think it's also like, for example, different. If it is someone that never contributed, never done something is going to be a lot more scary. Like your first PR, your first interaction, and then, like, joining a meeting and like, oh, should I give my opinion? Of course, is always going to be scary.

ADRIANA: Yeah.

MARYLIA: But for me, because I had the experience of all the things that I was doing, was already in the open. So you have, like, when you create things, try always to be clear. Put a lot of description, like, on your PRs or like testing. And when you talking with somebody, what if you have a question, give the context and then ask the question. So, for example, I joined it...my first, like SIG, I asked a couple of questions, was kind of like, okay, my second one, I was making some comments on one of the plugins for Postgres, and I end up, they even asked me to be the code owner for that package. So on my second meeting, I became the code owner of something. So, but of course, it's not going to be the same for everybody because it's not like two weeks, you're going to be a code owner.

Actually, I was working for the past three years in databases, and that gave me the context to like, oh, we can make this thing better or change this or that, so it's gonna be different for each one. And then I would then they have, one of them actually offered to sponsor me to become a member, so I became a member, and then it's just on track for all the other things wherever they come.

ADRIANA: That's so cool. That's so cool. And, you know, one of the things that I so appreciate about, about this community is like, everybody actually makes a really concerted effort to make it vendor neutral. We're all like frenemies, competitors, but it's like, you don't even notice it. I never think about the fact that when I'm interacting with people in OTel, we're competitors.

MARYLIA: Yeah, it's very funny because internally sometimes you think about, oh, we have to do this. Wait, are the others doing this? Like, oh my God, no, I have to like, get this customer because that is the goal, right? Getting the customer as a company, you need to have revenue. But then I am...those videos...they're like, oh, we are doing this. I'm like, okay, cool, we can do this then. And it's so fun, like, to have these other points of views and things like that.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. So was your first SIG that you joined, that was the, was it the semantic convention?

MARYLIA: No, it was the SDK Node. So my team is focused on SDKs, and we kind of like divide a little the languages between team, but we also switch a little just because I recently joined it. So now I'm focused on the node JS SDK with time. Probably gonna touch on all the others as well. So that is the one that I've been more actively joining. So that is the one that I became co-owner of the Postgres plugin inside the SDK.

ADRIANA: Oh, nice. That's awesome. So what are...for folks who might not be in the know on, like, what's kind of the day in the life, like working on the SDK, on the Node SDK, what does that mean?

MARYLIA: Yeah, so for example, I think one advantage that I have on my team is that the other members are working on, for example, the Java and .NET, and those are really stable SDKs. So I know the things that already exist there that are working. And then a lot of things are still experimental on the Node one. So we need to...or they just don't exist at all. So one kind of first step is to make alignment so I can create things like for example, we wanted to have information about the host ID and service instance ID, so we can use this even on Grafana dashboards. And then we were checking, and then each language were doing slightly different, or some of them were actually missing some cases. So my first thing was actually making sure that the host ID was always getting collected and then the server's instance ID was not being generated unless you force it. So again, I created like the default to have like a random ID.

So it stays like right now to make it consistent between then. The other thing that I'm working on right now is, for example, there are a lot of metrics we have, for example, semantic convention for the Java metrics. But that is the only language that has semantic convention. There is not for the others, but there are things that are very helpful specific for Node between, like, oh, just memory usage or like, specific like for the Node garbage collector, things like that. But there is nothing currently collecting any of those things. So that's why I'm working on, for example, working on creating like, the semantic conventions. Then if people agree, like, okay, these are the good ones that we should be collecting, then I can go back to the SDK and actually put up the PRs to make those things. And actually, just the other day, somebody opened, when starting collecting some of those metrics that you were missing, I was like, okay, cool.

So I can kind of like, already work with someone else that is also working on the same thing. And that is why the SIGs are important, because when I start working, I kind of ask like, oh, I'm start working on this. Just, is anyone else working on this? So we don't have any conflicts and they're like, oh, yeah, we have this information displays, but currently no one else is touching this. So I was like, okay, cool. So I'm going to create and share with all of you so you can give me feedback. So I think that is the cool part.

ADRIANA: That's so awesome. That's so awesome. Yeah. I've had some more recent SIG interactions outside of End User SIG are the OTel Operator SIG because I had a talk at KubeCon where we were talking about, like, aspects of the OTel Operator. So I, like, posted a bunch of questions on there. And one of the things that, that I notice as you start digging into things in OTel is like, oh, there's like, things missing, right? So you'll want to...I always see that as a...as an opportunity to, like, improve the docs, improve the README. So I remember like...

MARYLIA: Oh, I keep going on rabbit holes there because, for example, for this one, I was like, I just had to edit, like, the service instance ID. That's it. And my first thing was like, okay, which cloud detector already have this? And then I looked the README. There was no information at all on any of the READMEs about this. I was like, okay, let me first start then adding updating all the READMEs. So I opened like, a bunch of PRs to update all the docs. And then I noticed there was a PR, like, oh, some of those things were like, deprecated, we should update. So I started creating PR to update those things, and now I was like, okay, it's updated. And then I was like, but now we need to touch this other thing that also doesn't have any good example or documentation. Let me create this. So I think, like, on my first week, I open close to like 30 PRs.

ADRIANA: Oh, my God.

MARYLIA: And I was like, yeah. And my goal after I got all of those merges, like, okay, cool, now create the PR that I actually wanted and was like a small one kind of thing. But yeah, every time that I'm trying to use something and I say like, oh, I don't know how to use this, I tried to find out, I was like, oh, that is where the steps that I did. So I go there and update the documentation.

ADRIANA: So, yeah, yeah, it's such a rabbit hole with the documentation also because I think, like, some things live in the READMEs, some live in the OTel docs, and then, so it's like trying to achieve a balance because you don't want to necessarily duplicate information, but you want to make sure that one references the other, which in itself can be...can be complicated. Yeah. In my case, I remember I was asking a question for putting together this talk, and then someone pointed out, oh, yeah, it's not super well-documented. There's a ticket open to update this. And I'm like, it's still fresh in my mind, so I can totally update the README so that it clarifies things.

MARYLIA: Yeah, well, it was funny because I was following two tutorials. One thing that I was trying, but I was following one directly from OTel, and I was trying to put some things on a Grafana dashboard. And so I was following that document as well. But both ways were right ways of doing. But there was two steps that if you did, they would conflict with each other.

ADRIANA: Oh.

MARYLIA: And then I was like, it was not working. Like, why is not working? Then, like, I got some help from somebody from the community. I was like, oh, okay, so those two ways are right, but at some point, you, you need to check if you're doing one of the other was just like some Node options. And I was like, maybe I should put like this as a warning on the topic, like, make sure you don't have this other thing, like, set up. And I was talking with the person. I was like, okay, I'm gonna update them on both. Both Grafana doc and the OTel doc. They're like, wait, how can you update Grafana? I was like, no, no, I work for Grafana, so I can go there and update the website. So it's not something that...But, yeah. Then I was able to put the warning on both.

ADRIANA: That's so great. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing, like, because especially if you're starting out with something, it's so scary. Like, you know, you're following the instructions. I don't know about you, but I'll be following the instructions on someone's blog post or whatever. I'm like, I must follow this example exactly because I don't want this thing to blow up in my face. And then something blows up in your face. You're like, oh, my God, what's this?

MARYLIA: And then you put, like, part of code of one and then the other and become that Frankenstein, and you're just like, okay, which part of this I actually need? And you start, like, commenting out until, like, it breaks or continue working. Like, okay, okay, this is the thing that I actually need here.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. And then make sure you take good notes. Yeah. Because, like, I often find, like, if I don't touch something for a really long time, I might as well not have written it. You know?

MARYLIA: I have so many notes. I have, like, even for, like, notes about, like, topics. Even, like, if something, like, super basic, I was like, it's super basic for me right now. In a week, I might not think super basic. So I put, like, all the comments that I run for everything.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because otherwise, like, future you is gonna be so mad at past yoiu. Yeah. I'm always surprised by how easily I forget things. Like, when I'm doing, I'm like, there's no way I'm gonna forget this. And then a week later, like... So I wanted to ask you as well, you know, what...how has it been? Because, as I mentioned before, you had been managing a team, and then I think just before you, you left Cockroach, you had gone back to, I think, primarily IC. How...how was that...how was that transition for you?

MARYLIA: I think my. I think, on my case is easier because I never stopped programming, so that was still, like, 50% of my time. I'm always developing, so just continue picking up on this. It was easy, I guess. Like, the challenge is more, like, when you change job, like, the things that I need to learn. And so the challenge was more on that side, not the programming itself. And now I think I'm still trying to get used to the amount of meetings I have because it's, like, barely any. So just, like, wait, what do I do now? I should be talking with people. Oh, no, not. And especially because a lot of my team is on Europe, so I. The meetings happen in the morning. So I have like one or two meetings a day in the morning, and then afternoon is completely, like, open.

ADRIANA: So that's so glorious.

MARYLIA: So it's good because one of my teammates, he's in the US and then he actually is my onboarding, like, buddy. So we kind of say, okay, we can schedule in the afternoon because we know that there's not going to be any conflicts with anything. So it's good because pretty much like ten in the morning, I have like the weeklies or like the company meeting, things like that. The SIGs that I joined are noon pretty much. So I have like those ones and then heads down working afternoon.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. I definitely appreciate having like an uninterrupted chunk of time to work. And for me too, like that, I think that was the biggest shock when, when I went from manager to IC, I'm like, I'm free.

MARYLIA: I'm just joking with the, you know, like all those like, or YouTube music or Spotify, like, how many minutes you heard? I was like, oh, it's gonna spike so much. I already see the spike.

ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. And how do you find, like, aside from, you know, having a lot of coworkers in Europe, so having to do the morning meetings, how do you generally find, like, having, working with folks in like that big of a time zone difference?

MARYLIA: Yeah, I think it's gonna again, like, depends on the team. So for example, my team is very senior, so that is also like an advantage that people have the experience on, know when to sync up on what teams you need to sync up. So, and even like, for example, we are working on the SDKs, so each one is actually doing for their own parts, so it's not like we would interact. But then when I want to find something like, oh, I found out, like in Java works this way so they can kind of like share. So we know that it's being done the same way everywhere. So we do have like the team channel that we can share this type of thing. And then when we, sometimes we have questions that we think we should discuss with the whole team, then we just keep putting on the agenda and then when the weekly comes, we discuss. But I do have one on ones with the rest of the team as well. Just like check in and stuff like that. So I think, yeah, it has been going really well. But again, the key is communication for everybody that anyone that is listening that doesn't have the experience, just message. People ask away. They might not be able to answer at that time, but when they have the time, they will definitely help you.

ADRIANA: And I think that's such good advice because I think especially for more junior people, they tend to get so scared to ask questions.

MARYLIA: I used to, like, manage a lot of junior people, and some of them would only message me. I was like, you can message the team. So I was always encouraged them when I would see them asking, like, on the, like, team channel and sometimes because the team channel note was private, but sometimes they would ask, like, on the open channels, I was like, oh, I'm so proud. I would be, like, so happy when I was seeing things like that. I was like, and then one time I asked, my manager was like, because I think one of them, they were afraid of, like, oh, I'm just, like, concerned that I'm gonna, like, sound stupid with my questions making things. I was like, how can I convince them that is not stupid? It's just nobody knows a lot of things. You just have to ask to learn. I was like, how can I convince that, like, people can ask questions? He's like, use you as an example.

I was like, wait, what do you mean? And he was like, well, because I just that morning had asked on the engineering channel that was like, the big one, and I was like, I have this problem and I have no idea what it is. Can somebody help me? That was kind of like, my question was at the previous job, like, have no idea what I'm doing kind of thing. So it was pretty much me on the message. And then who, replying me was one of the founders who created the thing, like, six years ago. I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, okay, cool. So you just replied that. See, if me as a manager or like, a senior IC is so open, like, hey, I have no idea. What is this thing? Who knows? We're not expecting anyone even, like, more junior to know those things as well.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's such an important thing to, to impart, like, throughout our industry because I think, and I notice especially in, like, large corporations, people are very afraid of asking questions because, you know, you're supposed to give off this impression that, yeah, know what you're doing. And I, you know, it's like, yeah, there, there are so many points in my day where I don't know what I'm doing. I will try to solve things on my own as much as possible because I kind of like that.

MARYLIA: Yeah.

ADRIANA: But, like, I'm stuck...

MARYLIA: It's like a balance. So I would say, for example, if you have, like, a task you read and you first, you have absolutely no idea what the task is talking about the first thing. Ask questions to clarify and like, okay, now at least I understand what they are asking me to do. Now try just for yourself to figure out on your own. So say like if in one, two days you don't make any progress, ask for help. I was like, this is like at least like some thresholds for like to try it out, see if you can learn it. Or at least if you like, completely stuck yourself, like can you give me like some pointer? Because at the same time I wouldn't like with people that I was even managed. And I will not just say the answer, hey, do this thing on the same because otherwise they won't learn. So you kind of like question, what do you think about this thing? What about that thing? Have you tried kind of thing? And you can see like the light come up at some point, like, oh yeah, I think we can do it this way.

So you try to like guide them. But yeah, yeah, but I myself like to try a little. And then when I'm stuck, I just, I was just messaging like somebody like this, my onboarding buddy. Like yesterday I was like, okay, I tried like four different things that are still not working. Do you have some time? And then I just go over, say like, I try this, this and this. And then he's like, oh, yeah, you just missed this thing. I was like, oh, okay.

ADRIANA: It's like, dammit, I wish I'd asked earlier.

MARYLIA: I spent like two days on this thing.

ADRIANA: And that's the thing too. I find when it comes to troubleshooting, like, I don't know about you, but like, for me personally, if I'm like stuck for a problem, stuck on a problem for two days and like, like, I need to have a sense of accomplishment. And when I'm stuck on a problem, there's no, no sense of accomplishment, I feel like my day is a failure. And then, you know, and then it's like, okay, I need to like reach out to people because like, I've tried everything like this, I have to. And then, you know, they, they explain the thing and then everything that you've been doing over the last two days, like, you're like, oh my God, it makes sense. It's like, oh, well, it wasn't a complete waste because look at all the things that I learned along the way.

MARYLIA: And if you don't fix it, you keep thinking of that thing, you go to bed thing. I have, I had like dreams about fixing the things. Sometimes I had a dream like, oh, this is the way. And I'm like, I need to wake up so I can actually fix it.

ADRIANA: Yeah. And that's, that's the other thing. Like I, like, for me personally, I hate letting go even though I know the best thing that I can do is walk away. And I keep making the same mistake over and over again. And sometimes I'm smart enough and walk away. And as you pointed out, like, you, you're working on the problem, you know, like it creeps into your dreams. It's because your brain is still, is still doing the problem solving anyway. So, like stepping away is going to help you so, so much.

Yeah. So, yeah, that, so that any, like, that's, that's the advice to anyone who is stuck troubleshooting away no matter how hard it is. And then, and then to your point of like, you know, don't give away the solution. So that people like, especially more junior people have like, it kind of trains their problem solving brain, right. Because they're used to being given the answer even though you can do it for them in 2 seconds, right? Which is so tempting. And then the other lesson that I learned as well, which I think you hinted at as well, which is like when you do go ask people for help, like show what you've tried.

MARYLIA: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Because, and I still remember, like, this was, I think, the best lesson that I learned in all of university. I don't remember anything that I learned in university, but I do remember one conversation with a professor that I had in statics and I remember coming to his office asking him a question about a problem set that I was working on, and he got mad at me. He's like, you didn't even try. Like, you will...next time you come into my office, you will tell me exactly what you did to attempt to solve this problem. And then we can have a conversation. I remember leaving his office and, like, he's so mean. Mean old man. And, but, like, it's the one lesson that had stayed with me for the longest time in my life because I always think back to him, like, you have to like, show the people that you're asking for help that you've at least attempted so that they know what you've tried, that they know that you're making an effort because otherwise, no one...no one likes someone who doesn't make an effort.

MARYLIA: Yeah, just give me the answer. I was like, okay. Yeah. It's the two things. One is like showing them that you try and the other is like explaining the con-. Because sometimes people don't know what you're working on. So if you say something like, oh, how to connect this thing like, wait, what thing? To what thing? And then sometimes, like, the same word means different thing for different people. Like, okay, you're talking about this system or that system. Like, so if you explain what you try, explain the context, explain what you're trying to do, then sometimes it is so much easier for the person helping you to just, okay, it's this thing or that thing.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. I remember I once posted a question for the OTel Operator folks. I was trying to get, like, a demo working, and I was following, like, a thing in someone's blog post. So I'm like, okay, these are all the things that I tried. These are like, this is the version of, like, the operator that I use in the version of cert manager and blah, blah, blah. And then they're like, oh, what's, what's the version of this other component they use that I'm like, oh, it's this. And they're like, yeah, that's not gonna work. But they were super polite about it.

But, like, you know, being forthcoming and giving that information, and I. And I, you know, in a lot of ways, like, if you've ever worked in QA, I think it trains that part of your brain, right? Because you're used to filing bugs, so you can't file a bug that says it doesn't work. I remember my mom would call me, desperately trying to get her phone to work. It's not working. I'm like, what's not working? You have to give me more information.

MARYLIA: You're not helping me. Why? You can't. I'm trying.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Parent tech support.

MARYLIA: And even, like, different experience are going to, like, solve the same problem a different way. I remember one time that I had an escalation, and it was actually two escalations at the same time by the same customer, but coming from different teams. So I was in...each one was a completely different thing, and I was trying to find out if they were, like, related or not. It was like, a hell of an escalation. And then once I finished, like, okay, I think that was, like, a really interesting one. So I actually present it to my team, and I was like, I'm gonna go over with you with the information that I had at the time, and then all of you are gonna have to, because that was kind of, like, more a critical one. So I didn't have time to, like, stop and show to everybody, was kind of like, go, go, go kind of thing.

But after that, I was like, okay, now this is the information that I had, what all of you would have done here. So they would discuss and say, okay, I think we should do this or that. I was like, okay, this is what I did. Now with this information, what is your next step? So it was also a way of training them on what you would have done kind of thing?

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. That's so great. That's so great. So you turn like, you know, a, a troubleshooting moment into a teachable moment for the rest of your team. That's amazing. I want to go back to the OTel work that you're doing. So I had a question around, right now you're a contributor to the Node SIG. Are there plans for you to become an approver or maintainer in that SIG?

MARYLIA: Yeah, think that is part of my goal. And even because I'm already like reviewing PRs and I even try to like put comments and approve, but I've been joking, like last week with them, I was like, I am approving, but it doesn't really count because someone else has to come and actually approve for real. But like at least I'm trying to help you because when I find things the person is already fixing. So one time that one of them come, at least it is helpful. I hope so. And then one of them actually commented like, oh yeah, please continue doing this because it helps when we get you to be an approver. That can be in a near future and I'm assuming maintainer is something that takes a longer time.

ADRIANA: I've got my fingers crossed for you. I know it's gonna happen. Yeah. Do you know what the process is for like moving into like an approver role?

MARYLIA: Like, so there is a few criteria. So for example, I think for approver has to be working on the area for at least a month. Had several meaningful contributions and things like that. So I think I'm just completing a month now.

ADRIANA: Oh, wow. Has it...it's only been a month? I guess a little more than a month, right?

MARYLIA: Yeah. It's because like I joined Grafana first week of March, but then we had like the onboarding like in person like the second week and then the third week working like some internal stuff. So when I actually started contributing to like OTel was about my 3rd, 4th week. So it would be like almost a month.

ADRIANA: Oh, wow. Wow, that's awesome. And so like hit the ground running. That's so great.

ADRIANA: That's so exciting. Yeah. So I mean, this shows to anyone who, you know, wants, wants to get on that path towards OTel approver. Like it's, it's doable.

MARYLIA: Pick your, your language, your area, not just SDK. Of course, there is a lot of other project there. And then usually they have the tag for good first issue or like, for grabs, or things like that. So look for those that are an easier entrance for you and then just started sending. And don't be afraid. Usually the first PR is going to have a lot of comments because people don't always read like the how to contribute or like the README. So the format is now is like the writing for the PR and things like that. So don't be afraid. Your first PR, imagine is going to be tons of comments. Then the second one a little less, the third one a little less, and then things will be easier with time.

ADRIANA: Yeah. And I think that's great advice and for people to know what to expect. And the other thing that I will mention is, like, everyone is so polite in their PRs. No one is a jerk so far, like, of all the various PRs that I've made on OTel, no one has been a jerk. Everyone has always very thoughtful comments. And I'm always impressed by, like, how people really take the time to, like, review your stuff properly, which I really appreciate because I'm like, honestly, I'm like, it might be like part of someone's job, but still, like, you know, to put the, to be thoughtful and put in the effort, I think, like, it makes me feel a lot more at ease and makes me feel welcome.

MARYLIA: Yeah. And it shows the value. People are valuing you as well, right? Because people want people contributing. So if you just mistreat people, you're not welcoming them to actually join it.

ADRIANA: So, yeah, so, yeah, I think that's why. Oh, sorry.

MARYLIA: I was gonna say I felt like, very lucky with the people that I interacted with. They were always pretty nice.

ADRIANA: That's so great. And I was gonna say, I think that's why OpenTelemetry, I think, has the highest project contribution in CNCF behind Kubernetes. Which makes me super excited. And, you know, just going back to a point that you made earlier on, like, the types of things to contribute, like, I think people who are contributing to open source for the first time can be so scared to contribute anything or to, like, join a SIG meeting and speak up. And it's so, you know, like, if you're...yeah, I find even if I know what I'm talking about, if I'm like, in a group of people that I don't necessarily know, it can be like, really hard to speak up. So I think even just joining the meetings and just getting used to the people around.

MARYLIA: Join, just listening in. Like the ones that I joined, a lot of people just actually quiet, just listening in. So start with this so you can have, like, a feel of what it is. It's gonna be like, case by case. Of course, like my second week, I was open a bunch of can of worm with my question. I was like, sorry, everybody, but I had to ask.

ADRIANA: Sorry not sorry.

MARYLIA: This is after like, almost 15 years working on the, on this world. So of course it comes with the experience, with time, knowing how to ask a questions again. Also, if I'm asking something, I'm always trying to be respectful, polite, explain the context of the things that I'm trying to do as well. And yeah.

ADRIANA: Yeah, and I think, I think that's the thing, right? You know, we, we talk about, like, people not being jerks when they answer questions, but you can't be a jerk when you ask because otherwise no one's gonna want to talk to you.

MARYLIA: So I created this PR my way. I'm not changing.

ADRIANA: Like, bye, don't want you. Yeah. And I think, you know, once people start interacting with you more and more and you're interacting with them, they, you know, you kind of come to this realization of like, oh, yeah, we're all humans here. We're just trying to do our best and make this project great. And I think that's what's really easy to forget sometimes is like, there are humans behind those avatars on GitHub.

MARYLIA: Yeah. And I think I also got really lucky with this job that Grafana was like, oh, no, your focus is to work on OpenTelemetry. So my day to day is to work on the community and help something that is going to help everybody, not just Grafana. So I think that was definitely something that drove me to come.

ADRIANA: Yeah, that's awesome. And I think it's so nice, too, because, like, you know, open source doesn't happen without, like, the people who put in the time. And I mean, if you're, like, doing open source on the side, like, that is a lot of work. And I know some people do that, but it's nice to be to work at a company where, like, they're committed to that open source project and other companies in the area, in the same industry are also committed to the open source project project. So that it's not like just one main, just one main organization as contributor. And I think, like, I think it speaks volumes more, more so than a company saying, like, we are contributors of open source to actually have dedicated teams that do open source, and I think. I think that speaks volumes. And, you know, like, I'm fortunate as well.

Like, I would say most of my work is spent in OpenTelemetry, and I'm very grateful for it. And as you were saying, you're. You're getting to spend most of your time in OpenTelemetry, and it's great because that's what helps make the community better.

MARYLIA: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Cool. Well, we are coming up on time, so before we wrap up, do you have any words of wisdom or hot takes that you want to share with people? It can be any about anything can be related to any of the topics we discussed today. Your choice.

MARYLIA: Guess I can do, like, a recap of some of the things. Just don't be afraid to ask questions, and don't be afraid to learn, because that is how you grow your career, your knowledge, grow experiences. You're gonna also meet a lot of different people, different cultures when you do that as well. And that is also something always great to just open your mind to see what is out there.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. And that's such an excellent point. Like, especially in, I think companies more and more are becoming, like, very, very global, but open source, you have no choice. It is extremely global, and it's very interesting when you get to, like, meet the different folks, the different cultures, and I think it makes us. I think it makes us better humans to be aware of and interact and, like, learn to respect these different cultures and points of view. So, yeah, that's amazing advice. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you, Marylia, for Geeking Out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check out the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...

MARYLIA: Peace out and geek out.

ADRIANA: Geeking Out is hosted and produced by me, Adriana Villela. I also compose and perform the theme music on my trusty clarinet. Geeking Out is also produced by my daughter, Hannah Maxwell, who, incidentally, designed all of the cool graphics. Be sure to follow us on all the socials by going to bento.me/geekingout.