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Geeking Out with Adriana Villela

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Oct 22, 2024 • 38min

E13 ENCORE: The One Where We Geek Out on Kubernetes with Kelsey Hightower

About our guest:Kelsey Hightower has worn every hat possible throughout his career in tech, and enjoys leadership roles focused on making things happen and shipping software. Kelsey is a strong open source advocate focused on building simple tools that make people smile. When he is not slinging Go code, you can catch him giving technical workshops covering everything from programming to system administration.Find our guest on:X (Twitter)MastodonFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow Links:CompTIA A+ CertificationRube Goldberg MachineHerokuKornShellCapistranoCloud FoundrySpring BootDistributed denial of service (DDoS)HashiConfMitchell Hashimoto (HashiCorp co-founder)Armon Dadgar (HashiCorp co-founder)Borg whitepaperSidecar (Kubernetes)Nomad on Kubernetes (GitHub)Hashinetes Talk (HashiConf 2017)From Community to Customers (KubeCon EU Amsterdam 2023)ConfdFOSSDEM (conference)Apache License, version 2.0RAIDWestworld LoopAdditional Links:Kubernetes the Hard Way (GitHub)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 today I have the pleasure of geeking out with me, Kelsey Hightower. Welcome, Kelsey.KELSEY: Happy to be here.ADRIANA: And where are you calling in from today?KELSEY: I'm in Washington state, so on the border of Portland, Oregon, and Washington.ADRIANA: Awesome. Well, let us get to it with the warm up questions. Are you ready?KELSEY: I am.ADRIANA: Okay, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?KELSEY: Right handed.ADRIANA: All right. iPhone or Android?KELSEY: iPhone forever. And I've tried android. Given that I've worked at Google for almost eight years, I've tried, but I'm an iPhone person.ADRIANA: Yeah, I'm an iPhone person too. I never tried android. I went straight from BlackBerry to iPhone.KELSEY: I think BlackBerry was definitely...I was a BlackBerry person. I was also a Nokia person. But I think once iPhone really dialed in the ability to have third party apps in the App Store, iPhone all day.ADRIANA: Yeah, I'm the same way. That was like one big sticking point. And for us in Canada, when the iPhone first came out, we didn't even have access to the App Store. So if you wanted any apps, you had to jailbreak your iPhone until it finally became available...because we get everything a little bit late here.KELSEY: Awesome.ADRIANA: Okay, next question. What's your favorite programming language?KELSEY: The one that I can get things done in. So, at one point it was Bash, then it was Python, then it was Ruby when I worked at Puppet Labs, and then it's been Goblin, probably for the last ten years.ADRIANA: Cool. Awesome. And Mac, Linux, or Windows?KELSEY: Mac on my desktop. Linux on the server.ADRIANA: All right, next question. Dev or Ops?KELSEY: They're one and the same.ADRIANA: I love it. Okay. JSON or YAML?KELSEY: JSON. If I had to program against it, YAML if I had to write it.ADRIANA: By oh, yeah, I definitely agree. I do find, like, manipulating JSON in Python is nicer, but YAML is more readable.KELSEY: Yeah. To all the people that are like, JSON over YAML, let me watch you write it and see how fast you change your opinion.ADRIANA: Yes, I totally agree with you there. Okay, this one's a little more controversial, and you can thank one of my previous guests for hinting at it. Spaces or tabs?KELSEY: I don't care. I actually don't care if Python makes me uses Spaces and my IDE does the right thing. I'm totally fine, actually.ADRIANA: I'm down for that. Okay, two more questions. Do you prefer to consume video or text when you're consuming content?KELSEY: It depends. If I'm trying to learn, I need to read it, I need to see it, I need to be able to kind of backscan read it twice. But I do like video in terms of when people are really good at the human side of it. Right? Like, if they're expressing or showing me something, like, I want to see the code run. I want to see where they click. I want to see how they start. But when it's like learning something in the programming world, I need text. People are pretty bad at video and programming lessons.KELSEY: Like, oh, just write these three lines of code. I'm like, can you please scroll up so I can see what you imported to make this work? So when it comes to seeing code, I want to see no snippets. I want to see as much as possible, but if I'm just going through for the first time to get the flow, video.ADRIANA: I totally agree with you. And you landed on one of my big pet peeves. When consuming content for learning stuff, which is the code snippets, because I have been and I'm sorry, Hashi people, but this is a crime on the Hashi docs that I see all the time is that I get code snippets, and I don't get to see a full example on the site, and it drives me bananas. And I'm like, what does this apply to? Give me a full fledged code example? Link me to a GitHub repo at some point.KELSEY: I'm always asking, why are people writing docs out there giving me hints to a murder mystery?ADRIANA: Yes.KELSEY: Show me the whole thing. I don't need it to be cute. I don't need it to fit perfectly in your style guide. I just need to see the whole thing and what's going on. So I think people do it out of style. There's really no substance when I'm trying to learn.ADRIANA: Yeah, I completely agree. I do find it very frustrating. That's why, for me personally, whenever I do technical docs, I give excruciating detail. All right, final question. What is your superpower?KELSEY: My superpower? I think one thing that I've learned over the years when it comes to mentoring, specifically, I used to be all about sharing my expertise, my background, my learning. And I've noticed that I changed my approach to holding up a mirror in front of other people and convincing them to like what they see and the number of people who actually like what they end up seeing and follow up with me. I really felt like that is a superpower, that you can actually have that impact on people. So that would be my superpower.ADRIANA: That is such an incredible superpower. And I think it's so relevant to our industry, too, because we have a lot of smart people who suffer from impostor syndrome. And I think showing people that you are actually as good as you think you are is such a huge thing. Right? I mean, we've got some amazing stuff happening. I have some coworkers who are brilliant, and they're like, oh, my God, I feel like I'm just a hack. I'm like, Are you kidding me? I can't even keep up with some of the stuff that you're telling me right now.KELSEY: Yeah. And I try to get people to understand that sometimes you aren't as good as you want to be. And that's okay too, right? I think there's okay with making progress, entering to new domains, and just helping people just relieve the pressure. Ideally, if you're any good at this thing, you're going to always feel this way forever because you're humble enough to keep learning, so you shouldn't feel so bad about it.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's true. That's a very excellent point. So let's get into the meaty bits. One of the things that I wanted to share with our audience was how you came to be on the podcast. We met at KubeCon North America in Chicago this year, and you were doing a book signing. And I came, stood in line, the long line. It was totally worth it. And I was wearing this mask that had the sticker for the podcast, Geeking Out, and you said, "Oh, what is that?" And I said, "Oh, that's my podcast."ADRIANA: And you said, "Oh, I could be on your podcast." So I am so stoked that you were able to join. And yeah, I mean, I've admired your work from afar for many years. I find your approach to Kubernetes very accessible, especially because it's such a complex subject matter. So I wanted to start off with how did you get into this field in the first place? Where did you find your calling to make things technical things, gnarly technical things so accessible to folks?KELSEY: I want to answer that question, but I want to address this advice that I give to my former self and to people that I run into all the time. And they say, how do you put in the effort to make sure good things happen to you in your career and in your life in general? And so you at that book signing with the podcast on your mask. You're advertising to the world, this is my podcast, this is what I'm doing, and you're advertising what needs to happen next. And so for someone like me, I can see that clearly. I understand in that limited interaction that there is this opportunity that I could actually be on your podcast, because now I know you have one. I think a lot of people really confuse luck and that kind of effort, right? When you put that kind of effort forward, you tend to make things happen. And so I just want to highlight that part of you having that as part of your strategy of going to KubeCon, making the best use of your time and every human interaction. So kudos to you for doing that.KELSEY: But it's a perfect example of how people kind of design their own careers and create the world that they want. So that's perfect. Now to your question about this whole idea of explaining things simply to other people. When I was getting into tech, a lot of people come from various backgrounds I come from the...fast food was my only job background, and I didn't go to college. And so for me, learning technology was like a pivotal life-making decision. I need to get into this field. I admire people that are in this field.KELSEY: I don't know anyone that's in this field. And so I would go get all the books and just flip through them. I remember the first book I think I bought was the A+ certification guide. I was like, I'll start there. And you just go through all of this stuff and you look at all your notes, right? You're trying to simplify all the information to truly demonstrate that you understand it. And everyone knows that feeling of the A-ha! moment where you take something that is complex to you and you finally understand it, and your confidence level just goes up. It immediately goes up. And so that feeling, I've always enjoyed having that feeling because it felt so empowering.KELSEY: So whenever I had the opportunity to speak at a meetup, I've noticed that some people at meetups or conferences, they speak, and it's just like, overwhelming. Hey, here's this computer science diagram. Here's this map that you cannot understand what's happening, and they are happy with just leaving it as a mystery to everyone. And you're like, what the hell was that? You had this opportunity to let me have my light bulb moment, but you chose not to. You chose to try to overwhelm me with your vast understanding of things that I don't. And so I've tried to say, what if I can make people feel like I felt whenever I learned a new subject? So this is why I've always said, hey, now that I understand this thing, I want to show it to you as well. But before I can, I have to give you context where I came from, my understanding beforehand, and then what led me to that understanding. And then let me show it to you.KELSEY: And I try to use analogies and simple terms, and you can see the light bulb moment go off for people in the audience, and then it becomes a game changer for their own career. So for me, I think I got addicted to that. Like, hey, I don't want to talk. I don't want to write a tutorial if it doesn't have that impact on people.ADRIANA: I absolutely love that because I can completely relate to that feeling, the euphoria, the high that you get from solving a problem, especially something where you've had to really put on the detective skills hat and try extra, extra hard to solve it. So that is so wonderful. I love that so much, and I think it's so important because making learning accessible to people, I think, makes it fun too, because I agree with you. Like those gnarly architecture diagrams that just look overly complicated, and then your brain starts to wander, and then you miss some important thing, and then that's it your opportunity for learning. That thing is gone if you're watching that lecture, because it's just, like, way over your head. So I think that's so great. Such an awesome approach to really disseminating information across the industry, especially these are not easy topics to unravel, right? So, Kubernetes, for example, how did you come upon doing your work with Kubernetes?KELSEY: You know how you walk in on someone watching some hit TV show, they're on season six, right? And you ask them, what's going on? Why is this person not like this other person? They're like, I got to recap season three for you to understand what's going on on the screen right now. And so I think for a lot of people, Kubernetes was my season six, right? I had always been in tech trying to share information. If you would have caught me 15 years ago, you would have saw me at a Python conference teaching people about packaging Python applications. If you saw me maybe six years after that, I was at Puppet Labs trying to contribute to configuration management tools using Ruby. And so when I get to Kubernetes, there's a whole career behind me of trying to build similar systems without the terminology or the experience. You just know that there has to be a better way of doing things. So when I saw Kubernetes for the first time and really got hands on time with it, there was an a-ha! moment. I was like, you know what? All the scripts, tools, philosophies, techniques, it has now been serialized into this one checkpoint, and the industry has finally given it a name.KELSEY: And so when I got that feeling, you know what was next, right? It was like, hey, I can't wait to go to a meetup to show people this thing. And I think the reason why I was able to resonate with so many people is because I had that previous background of doing things manually, trying different automation tools. And so I was just so excited. Like, I think we finally found the thing we've been all trying to build, and it looks like this. And so I think a lot of people got to see that season. It was like, oh, he's the Kubernetes guy. But there's so much historical context that goes into why I was ready to have that conversation, make those contributions at that time.ADRIANA: That's basically the classic case of, like, everything you've done up until that point has led you to that moment, and now you're ready to take on that thing. Right?KELSEY: I became a better speaker than I had ever been prior. I became a better engineer than I had ever been prior. And I've gone through all of that experience, and I was able to really articulate what was important. And I think for a lot of people who have been on this DevOps journey for a decade, nothing is working. We're doing all of the things: CI/CD pipeline, infrastructure-as-code. We're missing something here. And I think the industry had overly focused on automation and not abstraction. And Kubernetes was that final thing that you could touch to say, there is a difference between automation and abstraction.KELSEY: And I think when people saw those new APIs, in many ways, I told people Kubernetes was like this type system to infrastructure. It was like a standard library that we'd never had. It's not like a thing that if you just install, it solves all your problems. But it's definitely a much better checkpoint than what people were doing before.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of those things where I feel like it's a bit of a love hate relationship with Kubernetes. Right. Because in some ways, it makes life so much easier, and then in other ways, it's like, oh, my God, this thing is so complex to try to unravel in your mind. Right.KELSEY: I want to address that a lot, because there are some people that think I am the biggest Kubernetes fan in the world, and I am not. I actually spent the last four years working on replacements. I spent so much time at Google Cloud working on serverless just to make Kubernetes go away. I learned everything about it because I think the best people that will replace it are the people who understand it the most. And the way I look at Kubernetes is very different. People look at it as a tool that is competing with their other favorite tool or some alternative ways of doing things. To me, Kubernetes is just another word in the dictionary, and my focus has always been, what does it mean? And as a contributor, what should it mean? And when I think about it as an aggregation of the previous ten year set of techniques, and you push them all together, you get this thing. And I study that thing for, like, wow, we've come a long way since those days.KELSEY: Also, you can see what's missing. And I think that part is where, for me, that's inspiring. Oh, this is what's missing. So this is where the opportunity space is. Go work there and solve that problem. But I think a lot of people get into, oh, this thing is too complex. And I always ask them, but do you understand it? If you don't understand it and you say it's complex, then I think that's a mislabeling of the situation. You can just say, I don't understand it, therefore, I don't know why I would use it.KELSEY: And I think that's a fair way to start the conversation. I think a lot of people are just dismissing it because it's complex, and I can do something much simpler, and then they tell me what they're doing. I'm like, that sounds like a Rube Goldberg machine. You just named 25 pieces of custom tooling so you can avoid using Kubernetes. I don't know if that adds up.ADRIANA: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think it makes sense too, like what you said earlier about looking for something that could potentially replace Kubernetes, because I also think that we tend to get into this sort of rut where we think, well, it all ends with Kubernetes. But we all know that software has evolved so much in the last 20 years. Even everyone was talking about Heroku is this awesome thing, and now, yeah, Heroku is still in the picture, but other things have come and kind of taken our attention. So where are we moving towards then in this space?KELSEY: I think in some ways things haven't changed very much in 20 years. You write code, you build the code, and you try to do some process to get it on the server so people can use the code. About 20 years, people have been doing exactly that thing. Now, how people have gone about doing that thing, that's changed at different speeds. Some people are still writing KornShell scripts right now as we speak, deploying apps at their company, and it probably works well. Then you have some people that are still using tools like Capistrano because they want to use something that's written in their favorite programming language, in that case, Ruby. And so they just want to keep everything within their problem domain. And then you have some people who prefer platforms like Heroku, Cloud Foundry, you name it.KELSEY: I think the challenge has been is lots of people have been looking for that one solution for everything. I remember when Cloud Foundry, like the Heroku competitor that you could run yourself, it was like, look, twelve factor apps are the way to go, and you can write everything as long as you use Java and Spring Boot. You do that, you're done, you're great. And then it's like, okay, that's fine. What about my batch jobs? Where do I run those? Not there. What about my databases? Where do I run those? Not there? And then what happens is you end up having to bring in a second or third platform. And that's where the harsh reality of all of this stuff is, is that whenever we don't have one solution to solve everything, you end up having to complicate your infrastructure. And I think complicated infrastructure just the actual norm at this point.KELSEY: What the world wants in terms of if you have a public facing website, you're probably going to have a cache, you're going to have Cloudflare DDoS protection. Various security concerns that Kubernetes versus Heroku is such a small part of the decision making process that even if you got that layer right, it is such a small part of the equation that thinking that's where the complexity is, ignores the big picture, where I think things like Kubernetes are 1/100th of the equation.ADRIANA: Right. That makes a lot of sense. Now, on a similar vein of Kubernetes like product, you've also done some work with HashiCorp Nomad, right? How would you compare Kubernetes to Nomad for folks who aren't familiar with both?KELSEY: Respect to everyone that contributes. Because I've written lots of code myself, and you do the best you can. So we just got to make sure we get that out of the way. We're not attacking people here. So if you have a HashiCorp logo tattooed on your body or Kubernetes logo tattooed on your body, this is not about you at all. When I first saw Nomad, I remember, is when they announced it in Portland at one of the smaller first HashiConfs. And I was scheduled to give a talk about Kubernetes, and I changed the talk the night before to do Nomad versus Kubernetes. And I remember Mitchell, Armon and so many people from HashiCorp standing there watching the talk. Everyone's crowded in to watch the talk.KELSEY: And look, I'm not a mean person, so I'm not someone that's naively attack a project that I'm not working on. Doesn't make any sense. But I did learn it, got it installed. And the things I liked about Nomad, you got this single binary written in Golang. You just put it on the server and it's almost immediately ready to go, starting getting value, right? That part around, just go get a binary and just have it run on the server. It really, really made that easy. The part that wasn't great, though, is the API. You look at it and it's like, what is this thing? Right? I think I get it.KELSEY: And it felt like, oh, you're trying to copy the Borg white paper about what a task is, but you haven't used Borg enough to know that this is not what you want to copy. And so it was a good serialization of that knowledge that was out there. They built a very high performance fast scheduler. They optimized for scheduling, speed, and performance. But the thing I think that they missed was the ecosystem. This space now is about collaboration. So you have lots of people who want to build infrastructure, automation, tools. And the one problem we've had over time, in my opinion, is that you have to glue them all back together.KELSEY: And scripting only gets you so far when you have to glue together all these various APIs. So Kubernetes takes a different approach. Kubernetes says these things are all related. Your load balancer and your app and your IPs, and your storage, your secrets, all of it is related. And they depend on each other. And so Kubernetes felt like it lived a life where the maintainers or the people of that project had been using Borg for a decade or two and said, what would we fix? And they come into a popular ecosystem like Docker and all these pieces, and they aggregate them. And when you look at the API, you can see the experience peek through. Right here is a pod.KELSEY: A pod has to have multiple containers because most apps that people deploy in reality, need things like NGINX or sidecars or logging daemons. And so I felt like Kubernetes had so much more experience baked into it than just being a faster, easier to manage system for deploying things. So given that, it was really nice to see over time that both communities kind of learn from each other. I remember when Nomad started adding things like volumes, sidecars, or other things that you would typically see in Kubernetes. So I think some people like Nomad because of its simplicity. I kind of lean towards the simplicity side of the house, so I kind of resonate with the whole Nomad thing. But watching people kind of glue together, like vault console, and all these other pieces to try to get a whole system, I'm like, man, at this point, now Kubernetes starts to look a little better.ADRIANA: Yeah, I definitely agree. I worked at a job where so I had come from a Kubernetes background and worked at a job where it was a Hashi shop, and they're like, oh, we're using Nomad. So I'm like, oh, my God. How do I translate this? And when I learned that Nomad is not fully equal to Kubernetes, that you have to still stitch these other pieces together, I'm like, oh, okay, that complicates things. But I definitely agree with you. One of the things that I do appreciate about Nomad is that certain things seem a little bit simpler. And I did find the learning curve not too bad. Maybe it was because I also knew Kubernetes at the time, so maybe that helped and it allowed me to translate.ADRIANA: But there's definitely a lot of stuff that I appreciate about Nomad, and I'm glad that I've had exposure to both ways of doing things, because I think that's really cool. And like what you were saying, both communities learning from each other rather than, like, let's hoard our secrets, because that way you can end up with better products overall, right?KELSEY: 100%.ADRIANA: Now, one thing that I wanted to ask you about was your famous Hashinetes tutorial. What motivated you to put this together? And also, if you can just share with folks what this Hashinetes thing is.KELSEY: I remember the Hashinetes talk, because that was the year I was like, okay, all of these tools have been out for a while. Vault is out. Consul is out. Nomad is out. Kubernetes is out. Now what? How do you think about all these things? What do you even do with them? And I remember that year I wanted to have fun, right? Previous years, it's more about, what are these things? And then maybe years after that, it's like, it's in production. But I was like, you know what? I want to have a irresponsible talk. I remember starting to talk off: "Today we're going to be irresponsible."KELSEY: "Do not do this in production." "Do not go to work and say Kelsey said anything." This is just having fun. Okay, and so I remember having a Kubernetes cluster or maybe even Nomad, and said, all right, we're going to install Nomad as an app to see how it works. And I just started adding different layers and components one by one. Number one, teaching people how all of these things actually fit together and how another scheduler could actually arrange them and put them into place. And then I think people had so much fun with the talk. It's like, wow, look how powerful these tools are that they can actually deploy and manage each other if you really wanted to.KELSEY: And look how they're similar in some ways. And I think a lot of people were like, oh, these are just you need to pick one or the other. And at that time, there was a blog post of a company using Kubernetes for some stuff and then using Nomad for some of their batch jobs that would benefit from the Nomad way of doing things. I thought that was just, like, the right way to think about it. So that talk Hashinetes is like, what happens if you push Kubernetes and all the HashiCorp tools together, like using Vault for secrets instead of the thing that was built into Kubernetes, because I think Vault was a far superior secrets management product and API. And then what if you were to use Consul instead of Kubernetes built-in service-discovery? What would you get? And then let's just say you really do like Nomad. What if you were to run that inside of Nubernetes, too, and let that become the scheduler instead of Kubernetes doing the scheduling? And I think when people kind of saw that talk, they understood how to really fairly evaluate those tools. So we just had a bunch of fun.ADRIANA: What do you think was the biggest learning from putting this talk together for yourself?KELSEY: I think, honestly, if you just live 100% in Kubernetes land, all you know is config, maps, secrets, and you have an idea in your mind that there's no other way of thinking about these problems. Right? Everything must be a CRD. Kubernetes, Kubernetes, Kubernetes. But I think people forget I was a contributor to Kubernetes. I knew how some of the inner workings worked. And so it's like, how do you get Vault to work nicely inside of Kubernetes? Then you have to rethink the APIs, and you start, oh, the Kubernetes secret management API isn't that great at all? And so when you bring in Vault and you have to stitch it in and bake it into the whole process, you really do gain empathy for gluing all of these parts together yourself. So I think the biggest learning for me is that, number one, you can do it. There are situations where it does make sense.KELSEY: Think about it. If you have multiple clusters and you want to have multi cluster service discovery, you cannot do that with Kubernetes alone. When you add something like Consul, you can have Consul be the place that takes over DNS. And guess what? Voilà, you can now address multiple clusters using one service discovery tool. And so it's like, oh, okay. So even though Kubernetes hasn't solved all the problems, it doesn't mean that you can't bring in all these alternative tools to step in and fill that gap.ADRIANA: And it's nice to see that everything plays nice in that little ecosystem and that you can, I guess, take advantage of each tool superpowers, right, to sort of give that boost to Kubernetes Awesome. Now, on the Hashi front, I also wanted to talk to you briefly about a talk that you gave at KubeCon EU, "From Community to Customers". And I attended that talk, and I really enjoyed the talk. I thought it was very interesting how you were talking about this fine line of what to keep open source versus what not to keep open source. One example that you cited was HashiCorp, and then shortly thereafter, HashiCorp changed their licensing. So what are your thoughts around that?KELSEY: Yeah, I actually had this question come up a few times, and I always tell people from a place of empathy, I had a project, Confd. It became a little popular. I remember going to FOSSDEM on the other side of the world in Europe, and watching someone give a talk about using Confd, this miniature configuration management tool, and how they were using it and why they thought it was one of the greatest projects ever. Like, as a maintainer of an open source project, you'd love to see a community form around the thing you've built. But as a solo maintainer, you also know how hard it is to say no. And you wake up on, like, a Saturday morning and it's like, hey, I work at a huge company that makes tons of profit, and I get paid really well to do my job. I would like you to work for free and add this feature that we really, really need to make even more money. And you're like, no, this is not my priority.KELSEY: Number one, you're not paying me anything. And then two, you know what? You're going to have to prioritize that itself and maybe step up and do some contributions. And so when you think about it that way, and as someone who's also contributed code to HashiCorp products in the past, I did those contributions to scratch my own itch. And I understand that once I deliver those changes, it's on the HashiCorp team to maintain them forever. And so I understand the relationship here is me contributing code is not the end of the story. And so when they make that licensing change, I put myself in their shoes of trying to run a business and remember, they're a public traded company. So a lot of these decisions are not in fully their control anymore. The market wants to see profit growth.KELSEY: I don't know if you've ever worked at a profitable company, people listening to this. But having stagnant revenue year over year is a fast way to get shareholders to leave investing in your stock. So now they have this added pressure of no longer just making the open source community happy. The people that they kind of started their careers off of, now they have to try to make the market happy. And there you get into different behaviors. So now you got to figure out where to get revenue from. And if you ask someone, Where do you get revenue from something that is given away 100% for free? Last I checked, most people do not pay for things unless they have to pay for things. And so you got to draw the line somewhere.KELSEY: And I think the big controversy is, where do you draw the line? Do you draw the line on the core of the product? NGINX tried to do things like that. It didn't work out well over time, do we draw the line on, like, enterprise features and Web UIs? Right? That could be a fair place to draw the line. And so I think for a lot of people, HashiCorp decided to draw the line at commercial competition. If you take our software and start competing against us, using our name, likeness, whatever we say now in our new license, the business source license, that you can't do that. And so if you're being honest, as a user, don't really care. Like, I don't plan to start a business competing against terror. If you're being honest, I literally don't care.KELSEY: And most people don't really exercise all their open source freedoms anyway. I'm not saying that's not a good reason not to have them, but a lot of these licenses like Apache 2 to me to fully realize the benefits of them. I think you do need to become a contributor to really understand what the code base does, be willing to step up to fork a project when the time comes and having the skills to maintain it. A lot of people don't understand that's the other part of this deal. And so when they change that license, I think people got a wake up call. They own that project. It is not our project. Even those with that HashiCorp logo somewhere tattooed on their body, it's not your project.KELSEY: It belongs to HashiCorp. And so now I think there's a rethink. And a lot of people forget HashiCorp predates the CNCF, right? So they're not a part of a foundation, even though a lot of their technologies are foundational, TerraForm, Vault, those things belong to HashiCorp, a private company doing what they have to do. And so for me, I look at that business license change and says, great, they made their stake in the sand. From a business perspective, this will be good for HashiCorp. Now they can say no. And now their terms are a bit clear and no longer vague. Now, for the community that is upset,KELSEY: now it's time to exercise those open source rights we've all been talking about for so long. You get to fork the project, you get to maintain the project, bug, fixes security, fixes new features and then ask the question how compatible should you remain going forward with the thing in which you branch from? That's what's on the table. So those are my thoughts on it. It's very pragmatic. I think it's one of ownership and responsibility and no matter how you feel about it, you're going to have to take on ownership and responsibility going forward.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. It makes so much sense and I think you hit on a very important thing when it comes to maintaining an open source project, which is maintaining it. It is a lot of freaking work and especially if it's something that you do on the side for funsies. You can only expect so much, especially if you're the solo maintainer. So also hats off to anyone who is a solo maintainer of an open source project or works with a very small team because it's a lot of work. It's a labor of love at that point, right?KELSEY: I want to make sure people understand. A lot of people may have an ops background. That's definitely where I come from. And people think dev is easy and there's the same stress that you have in operations, right. For example, if you replace a hard drive in a server with a bad hard drive, you worry the first couple of days like, is that RAID configuration going to actually rebuild on time and the hard drive is going to stop being slow before traffic comes. You worry about these things and this is why we started doing things like on-call. And when you are maintained of open source project, you know that anything you merge in will make its way to someone's production, someone you probably don't know and you're going to feel responsible and accountable for doing that. And so there's a lot of this added pressure of like, hey, I got to be able to say no and make the right decisions to make sure that no one is going to be negatively impacted by these projects.KELSEY: I think a lot of people forget that when we start to ask and I don't like the way this person runs this open source project, there is so much pressure that goes into it. So just know that there's humans behind these projects. There's a lot at stake. So if they say no to your new feature or they have to make a business license change or stop accepting pull requests for a while while they go tend to other matters, you just have to understand that just what comes with the territory.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. There are humans behind those repos right at the end of the day. Well, we are coming up on time, but before we wrap up, I was wondering if there are any parting words of wisdom that you would like to share with our audience?KELSEY: I don't know if there's any parting words of wisdom, but I do think we're at this next cycle of new technology on its way, whether it's AI or LLMs, some people only know that stuff as chat GPT. And the question that I'm hearing a lot around is, like, is this thing going to take my job? And I always ask those folks, what is your job? And they say, "Well, for the last ten years, I've just been running scripts and automating things, and I'm like the same things for ten years in a row." I was like, "Listen, if that's how you would describe your job, then yes, you might have a problem when a new set of tooling comes around that reduces the need to do that." And that's always happened throughout tech. And I think what most people should probably think about is take these moments of insecurity and just do some self reflection and say, "Hey, my tools"...and I think we started the conversation this way. People tend to confuse automation to abstraction, and a lot of times, people get so comfortable automating the same things over and over, almost like a Westworld Loop, that they forget that we should rethink the thing that we're automating and ask ourselves if we should replace it with better abstractions. So I would say this this may be your very moment to pause for a second look at the work you do, and ask yourself, "Is it time for a new abstraction?" And if it is, I think that's the perfect opportunity to either go find a project that's attacking that problem or maybe even start your own that introduces the new abstraction based on all of that experience that you have.ADRIANA: Awesome. I really love that. Well, thank you so much, Kelsey, for geeking out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe, and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...KELSEY: All right, everyone, don't forget to 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. Hey, hey Geeking Out fans! We're taking a little break for the holidays, so this will be the last episode of 2023. Be sure to catch us again in January as we Geek Out with a fabulous lineup of guests.ADRIANA: See you in 2024. And Peace Out, and Geek Out. Bye!
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Oct 15, 2024 • 44min

E12 ENCORE: The One Where We Geek Out on the OTel Operator with Jacob Aronoff of SNCO

About our guest:Jacob Aronoff (he/him/his) is a Staff Engineer at ServiceNow Cloud Observability, formerly Lightstep, the tech lead for the Telemetry Pipeline team, and an OpenTelemetry maintainer for the OpenTelemetry Operator project. He's spent his career in a variety of backend roles acting as a distributed systems engineer, an SRE and a DevOps professional. Jacob's focus is enabling customers to reliably send telemetry data with a focus on Kubernetes and OpenTelemetry.Find our guest on:LinkedInX (Twitter)MastodonFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow Links:ElixirSwiftOpenTelemetry (OTel)OpenTelemetry OperatorPrometheusOTel CollectorOpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP)OTel for KubernetesOTel Operator channel on CNCF SlackOTel End User Working GroupstatsdOpenTracingOpenCensusJaegerCommon Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)OTel Operator Target AllocatorPrometheus Re-labelingOpen Agent Management Protocol (OpAMP)SignalFXAdditional Links:Adriana's articles on the OpenTelemetry OperatorJacob's Talk at KubeCon NA 2023Jacob on OTel Q&AJacob on OTel in PracticeJacob on the Maintainable PodcastAdriana on the Maintainable PodcastTranscript: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 Jacob Aronoff, who is also one of my coworkers. Welcome, Jacob.JACOB: Hello. Very happy to be here. I'm so happy that we get to do this. I feel like we talked about this in Amsterdam, and I'm so excited that we get to make it happen.ADRIANA: I know, right? Yeah. This is awesome. So as we start out, I'm going to do some lightning round questions. They are totally painless. No wrong answers. So are you ready?JACOB: I'm prepared. Let's do it.ADRIANA: Okay, cool. All right. Are you a lefty or a righty?JACOB: I am a righty. So I always thought I was supposed to be a lefty, and my parents forced me to be a righty.ADRIANA: Interesting. Soul of a lefty. iPhone or Android?JACOB: iPhone. I just got the new one. USB-C all the way.ADRIANA: I'm so jealous. I think I'm going to wait one more year because I want the iPhone...I don't like the Pro Max. It's too big. But I want the Pro.JACOB: It's way too big.ADRIANA: I want to wait until they upgrade the optical zoom to whatever the Pro Max offers.JACOB: Yeah, that makes sense.ADRIANA: Yeah. Anywho, go on. Okay. Mac, Linux, or Windows?JACOB: Mac for sure. Big Mac boy. Whole life.ADRIANA: Feel you. I feel you. Okay. Favorite programming language?JACOB: I feel like Go. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Go. It used to be Swift or Elixir. Those are my two a little bit more funky choices. I used to work in Elixir, and I really loved it. Definitely one of the most fun languages I've had the chance to do. Swift, I haven't done for a few years, but there are a lot of little Easter eggs around my socials that refer to Swift a lot.ADRIANA: That's why your social handle is get_sw1fty.JACOB: Exactly. Yeah.ADRIANA: Okay, I get it.JACOB: A lot of Easter eggs.ADRIANA: Nice.JACOB: Still, I was the first person to ever write a Datadog SDK in Swift, and it's still on their website.ADRIANA: Wow. That is awesome. Very nice. Very nice. Cool. Okay, next question. Dev or Ops?JACOB: That's a really hard one. Dev. I'm just going to say dev.ADRIANA: All right.JACOB: Ops is fun, but you're still doing Dev if you're doing Ops. You're still Deving. You're still Deving.ADRIANA: I like it. Especially modern Ops. Right? I mean, maybe not...well, even Bash scripting back in the day, right? Ops was more bashy, less like Terraforming.JACOB: Yeah. Back when Ops is mostly just like Jenkins scripting with Bash. That's still Dev. There's still a lot of Dev stuff in there, so it's always been like that. It's just new abstractions.ADRIANA: Yeah, fair enough. That's a really good point. I like it. Okay, next question. JSON or YAML?JACOB: It's just...I'm a YAML engineer. I can't deny it.ADRIANA: Yeah, I like YAML better. No disrespect to the JSON people out there, but I don't get it. YAML forces me to do indentations, but that's okay.JACOB: Yeah, that's all right.ADRIANA: Yeah, cool. Two more questions. Do you prefer to consume content through video or text?JACOB: Probably text. I love to read really long form things, especially, I don't know, I save a bunch of articles whenever I see them and they'll be like, ten minute, 20 minutes reads, and whenever I have some real free time, then I'll go through one or two of them and that is like my favorite way to consume. I probably consume more video, realistically.ADRIANA: Oh, really?JACOB: Yeah, I watch a lot of YouTube videos, like "How To" type things.ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: But I love to read more than I love to watch. Watching is too passive.ADRIANA: I get too yeah, I agree. I think that's what I find annoying about watching videos. Like, someone sends me a video link, I'm like, it better be like some short video. So if it's like an Instagram video or YouTube short, it's fine, but send me a five minute video, I'm like, I'm never going to watch it. Even if you tell me it's like the most wonderful thing in the world, I'm not going to watch it. I'm so sorry.JACOB: Or it's like, even if you watch it, you get so distracted by another thing. It's just like I don't know.ADRIANA: Yeah, I think the only way I can consume, quote unquote, a YouTube video is if it's audio only. So I'm like just doing chores around the house and listening to it, then it's okay, right? My brain is like it helps me focus better.JACOB: I feel that basically you're just podcasting at that point.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. Which I love me a good podcast.JACOB: Yeah.ADRIANA: Okay, final question. What is your superpower?JACOB: Superpower? I have a useless superpower. I can do a noise. I can make a noise that's really I can click with my tongue really loudly.ADRIANA: Okay, now you have to demonstrate.JACOB: I will, but it might disturb some people in this office. Okay.ADRIANA: Damn.JACOB: I don't know if that came through.ADRIANA: It came through okay over here.JACOB: It's really loud.JACOB: That was like a quieter one.JACOB: It's useful when it's like, I need to get someone's attention who knows that I can do that. And then I'll do the click, and then they'll be like, oh, there he is.ADRIANA: Nice. I like, that. Cool. All right, now we shall get to the meaty bits, which is sweet. Let's talk OTel.JACOB: Let's do it. I'm ready.ADRIANA: All right. Yeah. So I guess for starters you're involved as part of your so we both work at Lightstep, which I guess is now ServiceNow Cloud Observability. I guess you and I met because we both work in the OTel space, although we work in different areas of the OTel space. Why don't you tell folks what you do specifically around OTel?JACOB: Yeah, so I sort of got started with OTel two years ago when I joined the company working on the OTel Kubernetes story and what's going on there. Basically I came from a Prometheus shop that really heavily invested in Prometheus and I had sort of seen the great stuff with Prometheus and then some of the struggles with Prometheus and I came in and I was, you know, I now work on top of a metrics backend. What's the best way to get metrics there? OTel has the OTLP format and so I wanted to figure out the best way to get Prometheus metrics into the OTLP format and then into our backend, specifically in Kubernetes and what is the best way to do that. So sort of began this journey on the operator group, which is a SIG within OTel that works on a piece of OTel code that sits within your Kubernetes cluster, within your environment to make it really easy to deploy OTel Collectors and do auto instrumentation and things like that. And then the feature I was working on was to make it so that you could really easily scrape and scale metrics collection. So that was sort of my first foray into it. And then I started contributing a lot. I became a maintainer for the project and now I just sort of work on OTel Kubernetes stuff all the time. So thinking about new features, new ways to help users run their whole environment for telemetry collection in Kubernetes, that's really the focus.JACOB: How do we make that as easy as possible for people? There's definitely a lot to be done, but it's a really great group of people that I think think pretty deeply about this stuff and are very good at sharing and caring and not very what's the word? Nobody's really holding on to legos. Have you heard that phrase? Is that like a known phrase? Yeah.ADRIANA: I haven't heard that expression before, but I like it.JACOB: Everybody's happy to share. There's not really someone who's particularly unwilling to accept something. Yeah, nothing like that. It's really based on the merit of the feature, not the fact that you don't get to do it nice. It's a good group as a result.ADRIANA: I really like that and I can vouch for that too because I've bugged you with a bunch of questions around the operator when I was trying to understand it better. And I've also posed questions to the operator Slack Channel and people have just generally been really nice about answering my questions, which is awesome because I think definitely tech has, I would say. I'm sure it still exists. But you see stack overflows where people ask questions and then you get some asshole who's putting you down because you're a novice to the subject and you're just trying to understand it. I get none of that from the Otel community, which I love because then it makes me unafraid to ask questions and so it makes it easier to learn.JACOB: Yeah, and a thing that I try to make sure of, at least with our group, is for anybody who's like a new contributor. I try to go really out of my way to thank them for their contribution and make sure that they're sort of set up for success with what they're doing. Like, even today, someone was asking some questions on our GitHub about some operator features. I gave them their answers and they said, if you have more questions, reach out in our slack. Happy to follow up there. And so they followed up, asked some more questions. They asked for a feature that we didn't have. I was like, oh, if you make an issue for that, we can get that on the books.JACOB: It's not that hard. And then I was like, hey, this is actually really easy feature. If you wanted to contribute it, I can walk you through that process. I can show you an example of, like, here's an example that you can look at for someone who did something similar in the past and let me know if you have any questions. And that's what they're going to go do now. They're going to make their first contribution. So it's something that I'm really happy to see as not just with my group, but like, all the groups, people are really happy to walk you through contributions and make sure that you're supported. And if there's a feature that you want, people will actually take you seriously.JACOB: They respond to you with sincerity, not what's the other word? They respond to you with sincerity, not hostility. And so there are no questions that you could ask that I've seen where someone's going to really get angry at you for asking that question. And I think that that's, like, a really nice thing. It's good to see a humble bunch and not like, a really egotistical bunch.ADRIANA: Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that's why people keep contributing to OpenTelemetry, which is great. Now, as a follow up question related to OpenTelemetry, we had you on for the OTel End User Working Group for, well, two sessions. So first for our Q&A session and our OTel in Practice, which we host those two sessions on a monthly basis. And you had a really cool story, actually, about migrating to OTel within the context of an observability company migrating itself to OTel. And why don't you talk a little bit about that? I think it's so cool.JACOB: Yeah. So previously our company was on...before we had a metrics platform...we were on stated. Like, all of our metrics were recorded via statsd. Sometimes we would rewrite them in traces, which was pretty weird, or we would have them go through a proxy so that we could aggregate them in some way and get some information out of them. So we were previously on the statsd, and then we were also on a really old version of OpenTracing. This was before the OpenTracing and OpenCensus projects merged into OpenTelemetry. And so we were on that old OpenTracing version.JACOB: And so I took on this work to migrate us to OpenTelemetry for everything. Well, metrics and traces. Logs support is still in the works, but that's the next migration. But so I started this project for migrating our metrics to OpenTelemetry, at which point the metrics SDK was still in beta, or the metrics API was still in beta, the SDK was in alpha. And so the goal was to really help the people on the, you know, iterate on their designs, work on performance and really tighten up that spec. So I did that, and then I actually found a bug in our maybe not a bug, a performance issue in the metrics code, which was a result of us having to convert from the new OTel format for attributes into the old OpenTracing sorry, other way around to convert from the OpenTracing attributes format to the OpenTelemetry attributes format. The reason this was a problem was because we shared this implementation between our tracing and metrics, and it meant that every time we recorded a metric, we had to do this conversion on the fly. And it doesn't sound that bad on an individual basis, but when you're recording hundreds of thousands, millions of metric points, that's a lot of conversions and that type of thing can really add up totally. And after I gave some of this performance feedback to the team, I actually realized that we could do this OpenTelemetry migration for tracing as well, which would then get rid of this performance concern.JACOB: And so in the midst of the metrics migration, I took a pause and then we began the tracing migration. The tracing migration was much easier because it was a more mature format at the time. So that process was a bit smoother. There were a few weird things here and there. You can read about that, I think online somewhere that we have documented, maybe, I think there's some blog posts.ADRIANA: We have the recording from your OTel in Practice, OTel Q&A discussion as well.JACOB: Yeah, cool, thanks. But so we finished that migration, we went back to the metrics migration. We got to use that performance benefit. And the OTel people actually worked on a lot of the performance recommendations that we made. So we were able to finish the metrics migration as well. And so it was really neat because I love these types of migrations, because you're really just like, you'll see the phrase a lot, replacing the engine of a flying plane. It's like doing that in place. And that's really what it feels like sometimes when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of data points per second, how do you replace your telemetry collection about that? That's a pretty challenging thing for any company, not just us.JACOB: But then when you're the vendor serving the metrics. It's like, who's watching the watcher? That type of thing. Really the most difficult part is just reorienting your brain to think about the environments correctly to be sure that when you're talking about environment A, you are sure that that's where the data should be and not somewhere else, right?ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: Because for most of these telemetry vendors, whether it's us or Datadog or New Relic, it doesn't really matter. All of them have a meta telemetry environment that's sort of the secondary place that they send the telemetry of their main environment to. So that's the thing that you're monitoring. That's what lets you do these migrations effectively as well.ADRIANA: Yeah. So here's a question because this is actually like a really cool use case, because when we talk about bringing in OpenTelemetry to an organization, if you're lucky and you're starting out your application from scratch, you have the luxury of factoring observability into your architecture, right? And so you can start instrumenting in OpenTelemetry right off the bat, hopefully, right? One can dream. But then you also have the so called brown field scenarios, right, where it's brownfield. I have zero instrumentation and then there's the brownfield of like, I have instrumentation, but it's out of date. And I think that's something or not out of date, but it's not up to date with a standard, which now like the standard being OpenTelemetry. And so those are two really interesting conversations to have because I think a lot of the organizations that are adopting OpenTelemetry probably fall into one of those two categories. And from talking to a lot of folks, it's interesting too, because you have this conversation of like, you start telling them, oh yeah, I work in OpenTelemetry. Oh yeah, OpenTracing, we use that.ADRIANA: And I'm like, no, not the same, not really. You're having to educate them on that. But folks are also like, even if you get them sold on, like, okay, OpenTelemetry is the thing you got to now talk about a strategy for bringing that into the organization. And that can be very tricky. I mean, where we're at, it was an easy sell because it's like, well.JACOB: Yeah, this is what we do, this is what we work on. We should be doing it ourselves.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. So that's not even the problem. But even with that easy...I'll say easy, right? Because you're not having to deal with that hurdle. You have the hurdle of like, well, I've got some existing stuff now that I have to migrate. So one thing I'm wondering is, as you mentioned, there was some old OpenTracing stuff in place. And one of the things about OpenTelemetry is that they say they're backwards compatible with OpenTracing, OpenCensus. Now, which from my understanding means that if you have that stuff in place, you don't have to gut it right away.ADRIANA: However, you probably don't want it to stay that way forever. So what do you say to folks who are in that position?JACOB: A real it's a benefit that OTel provides these bridges to these legacy formats so that you can start using OTel and then get all of that in place. The thing that I always think about whenever doing these migrations, whether it's like a service, your telemetry, it doesn't really matter. The question is, how long do you want to be in a dual state? How long do you want to be in a state where you're potentially confusing someone on call? It's like the real crux of the issue is it's like always imagine yourself on call for whatever service you're changing, and someone gets paged at, like, 3:00 A.m.. Do you really want someone to have to reason about where your telemetry is coming from or how it's getting generated? You don't you really want that to be consistent. You don't want to have to ask the question, oh, is this like an OpenTracing thing? Is this an OTel thing? In the same way that if you're migrating a service and you have legacy service and new service, if you're in the dual state for a long time and you get a page for an upstream thing that's related to both of these downstream services, it's really frustrating to have to ask the question, which of these downstream things is affecting me? Right? Yeah, it'd be much easier if it was just I look at the single downstream, and I know that's the problem. Basically, it's shaving the decision tree for.ADRIANA: This that you're doing.JACOB: And so anything that you can do to remove the amount of time that you're in that dual state, removing those branches is going to do you better in the long run. The migration path is good that you can do this. There's another path, which I also think is a great option, where the OTel Collector probably supports whatever format you have right now. I'd be surprised if it doesn't. What you could do is just send rather than installing a bridge into your code, you could just send your legacy format to the Collector and have the Collector output, and then you can change your application to use OTel in whatever time frame you want, and then just have that sent to the collector, which already accepts OTLP. Yeah, right. And so that'll help you actually verify that the migration worked. You're already getting OTLP.JACOB: You don't have to do anything with that. And then once you start sending OTLP from your application, you should see no difference in what's yeah, and that's a pretty verifiable thing. You could actually even use the file exporter on the OTel Collector to actually dump the data that you get. And then for Service A, run it with Jaeger for ten minutes, dump that data with the OTLP out, and then do Service A again, but with OTLP, dump that data for ten minutes, and then just see what it looks like, understand that you should see, like, a pretty minimal difference between those.ADRIANA: Right.JACOB: And that type of thing can give you so much confidence. And you can do that probably from your local environment without even needing to push it up. And so that's something that we didn't really consider as an option at the time. But had we thought of that, I definitely would have done it that way. It would have been a great option.ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: Where we could have just moved to OTel instantly and then backfill. Right. That's like a much easier path.ADRIANA: Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's a very low friction approach, especially at my old company. They were using OpenTracing in a few spots, and so the mention of moving to OTel kind of sent people in a panic. Like, we have to re-instrument. Yes, we do. But hopefully never again after. But that idea sent people in a panic, and I had the same thought as you, which was like, yeah, just pump it through the Collector. Like, you don't have to change your code right away, but with the intention of eventually changing your code.ADRIANA: Because now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you continue on OpenTracing, you don't get to reap the benefits that you get with the whole OTel ecosystem, right? I mean, you don't end up with the traces and metrics correlation and the traces and logs correlation or any new updates to the API or SDK, right? You're kind of stuck with whatever OpenTracing was when it froze, when it was retired, basically.JACOB: Yeah. Which means if there are any CVEs, you're kind of like, out of luck. Which is a bad state to be in.ADRIANA: Totally.JACOB: It's a really bad state to be in.ADRIANA: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I definitely like that. Now, going back to the OTel Operator. So you said that you're doing mostly work around the metrics portion. It's the Target Allocator specifically, right?JACOB: That's exactly. Right.ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: Now it's a bit more than that.ADRIANA: Okay.JACOB: But back then, like, last year was basically all target allocator stuff.ADRIANA: Okay, cool.JACOB: I can explain it. So basically when we started this process, someone from AWS had designed this thing called the Target Allocator. The goal of it was that you could distribute Prometheus works in targets. Targets are things that are like IP addresses, like a pod, a node, your old EC2 instance, whatever it is. You then go and scrape that instance to generate metrics. Prometheus works where it's a single monolith and you have a list of targets and it scrapes those and stores that data. You have to do this because if you have more than one instance of Prometheus, there's no way to tell which instance should scrape which thing. And so you're just going to be duplicating those scrapes. With OTel, we have the benefit of we don't need to store those metrics because we're just handing them off to the next thing with OTLP.JACOB: So the Target Allocator's goal is to allow you to distribute those targets amongst a pool of collectors. So if you have 300 targets and you have three Collectors, the Target Allocator could say, I'm going to give each collector 100 targets evenly. Right, but you need to have 100.ADRIANA: Collectors then to send it to...is that what that means?JACOB: No, you would just have to have...sorry...if you have 300 targets and you have three Collectors, then it's 100 targets per collector and then you would just forward that to your destination. So it'd be like if your destination is Prometheus actually, which now accepts OTLP, you could have OTel do all of your scraping and then just send the data to Prometheus as your backend store, right? And that would be like a totally viable option.ADRIANA: Gotcha.JACOB: If you really wanted the ability to shard your scraping and scale how you scrape targets, that would be a pretty viable approach.ADRIANA: Right, which Prometheus doesn't support the sharding right now, right?JACOB: So Prometheus has experimental sharding support but it doesn't have the ability. So it can shard your scraping, but it can't figure out your querying effectively. So because Prometheus is also a database. If you have three instances of Prometheus that are scraping each different targets, you'll only be able to query...you'll have to query the right instance each time because it doesn't know how to do that communication...to ask for, "Who has this metric?" At least that's my understanding of it. Maybe they've changed that, but I don't think they have.ADRIANA: Cool, okay. Yeah, that's super interesting. And so this allows you to scrape the Prometheus metrics which are not I mean, basically you're scraping it from wherever your source of Prometheus metrics is, right? It can be whatever, it can be coming from your infrastructure or whatever. And then this thing basically does the sharding for you and then it'll send your metrics to a destination. The destination could be Prometheus itself or it could be any observability backend that supports metrics essentially.JACOB: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Cool. And that's the real benefit. I mean, we also open up by using the Target Allocator, we can be a little bit smarter as well. So the thing that Prometheus does, because it's all in one, is most of the targets that you get, you're just going to drop. The way that the scrape configs work is you get a target which has a bunch of metadata and then your scrape config determines whether or not you should actually get the data from that target.ADRIANA: Got it.JACOB: Even prior to making the request. And so usually you have to keep all of those in memory because you're constantly scraping them and you're constantly asking this question does the metadata match my scrape config? Does the metadata match my scrape config? And so forth. Whereas because we have the Target Allocator, we can actually just drop any targets that we know the Collector won't scrape okay in advance. So we only tell the Collector to process targets that it will end up scraping.ADRIANA: Okay, so it's like a filter.JACOB: Exactly. That's what we call it. We call it a relabel filter.ADRIANA: Okay.JACOB: So the real reason that this is really cool and why we added this in is because then we can also really evenly distribute targets to Collectors because we can say only. So if you have 300 targets, we use this strategy called consistent hashing, where you just hash each target and their metadata to assign that to a Collector ID. And so if you have, like, let's say, 500 targets, but you really are only going to end up scraping 100 of them after this filter, it would be better if you only tell the Collectors...if you only distribute the targets that you're going to end up scraping, because it's going to be more even rather than trying to fit in. It's the pigeonhole principle, right?ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: If you have three boxes and you have 500 targets, you might evenly distribute it at first, but eventually, when you go to scrape them, it might be uneven once you figure out what you're actually going to scrape.ADRIANA: Right. By the time the Collector is receiving them, you've already just gotten the ones that you want, and so it can give you an even distribution of those. So then there isn't an imbalance, basically.JACOB: Yeah, exactly.ADRIANA: Nice. That is super cool.JACOB: It's very clever.ADRIANA: Every day. Yeah, that's very awesome. So is the Target Allocator only part of the OTel Operator? Is that something that's available as part of the standalone collector?JACOB: So the Target Allocator is its own image. Like, it runs separate from the Collector binary. You could theoretically run it without the Operator. There are definitely some people that do that, but we don't support that as like, first class support. Reason why is that we do a lot of logic to rewrite. In order to make this work, you have to rewrite the Collector's configuration, and you also have to rewrite the Target Allocators configuration. It's just a bit of, like, data munging that we don't want users to have to do just because it's a little bit complicated. So we do it in the Operator for you.ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: There are people who will take what the Operator gives you, remove the Operator, and then just run it themselves.ADRIANA: Right.JACOB: And that's kind of a viable option. Yeah, but that's bespoke you'd have to do that yourself. And if you ask me a bunch of questions, I'll try to help you, but there's a certain point at which I can't help you. I don't know what you're doing.ADRIANA: That sounds like someone's idea of, like, a fun weekend project.JACOB: So we have a bunch of requests from people to enable the Target Allocator as part of the Helm chart, the raw Collector Helm chart. And I tried to do it, and it was so hard. It just proved so difficult to do. The config rewriting was so challenging because Helm isn't really a language. It gives you some go templating stuff, but at a certain point, it doesn't get you all the way there.ADRIANA: Right.JACOB: And so I wasn't able to make it work, and I eventually decided to give up because it was too much of a time.ADRIANA: Yeah, that makes sense.JACOB: Which is unfortunate because people ask for it a lot.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's interesting.JACOB: Yeah.ADRIANA: Now, obviously there's an OTel Operator because obviously a lot of people run the Collector in Kubernetes. Do you know, is it common for people to run collectors outside of Kubernetes? I mean, obviously, if you're not a Kubernetes shop, I would imagine that would be the use case. But how common is it? Do you know?JACOB: I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there are a bunch of people that do it, because I'm in my little Kubernetes world, I don't hear about it that often.ADRIANA: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.JACOB: I'm pretty isolated, but there are definitely people who just run Collectors as binaries on raw EC2 instances.ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: GCS instances. People are doing it, for sure.ADRIANA: Yeah.JACOB: I don't know. They probably have a whole different class of problems than the one.ADRIANA: I know we're coming up on time, but I wanted to ask you quickly. Well, by the time this episode comes out, I don't know if KubeCon will have passed, but all the same, but do you have anything coming up at KubeCon that you want to talk about?JACOB: I do indeed. So one of the main projects I'm doing for the Operator right now is adding support for the OpAMP protocol, which is a new part of OpenTelemetry that gives users the ability to do remote configuration management and agent configuration and Observability, sort of, with superpowers. And I'll be giving a talk with Andy Keller from ObserveIQ on OpAMP and how it's going to make your life a lot easier to manage these pools of Collectors that you have. So I am working on this project in the Operator group that will allow you to basically understand the topology of your Collectors in your Kubernetes cluster and also remotely configure them. Add in new features, push out updates, everything that basically allow your cluster's observability to be on autopilot for you.ADRIANA: Nice. Who doesn't love that? Very cool.JACOB: Stop thinking about it.ADRIANA: Is that part of Observability Day, or is that part of the KubeCon, like the main conference?JACOB: Main conference.ADRIANA: Nice. Very nice. Yeah, very cool.JACOB: I don't know how many people can fit in the room that I'm in, though. I thought they'd tell you that, but I guess they don't.ADRIANA: It'll be a surprise the day of.JACOB: It will. It'll be anywhere from five people to 500 people.ADRIANA: I'm always nervous for these types of things. I think on the KubeCon schedule, you can see people already will sign up for your talk and you start seeing people signing up to attend your talk. And if it's like a small number, you're like, oh my God. And if it's a large number, you're also like, oh my God.JACOB: Yeah, I'm very nervous. Yeah.ADRIANA: Is like a very big deal. But yeah, this is awesome. Very excited for your talk. Oh, the other thing that I wanted to mention also, I don't know if it's going to come out by the time this comes out, but I do want to promote it because you were on the Maintainable podcast, you recorded an episode recently.JACOB: I did indeed. I don't think that's out yet, but definitely something to look out for, though I have no idea when that'll be out.ADRIANA: We will find out. Yeah, I think when I recorded an episode, I want to say like, in the spring and it came out a couple of months later.JACOB: So probably there's a backlog of editing.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly.JACOB: It's a whole process.ADRIANA: I feel you. I have a backlog of editing for this too.JACOB: Yeah, that's just how it happens.ADRIANA: Yeah, totally. But anyway, something to look forward to as well, so you all keep an eye out for that. Now, before we part ways, do you have any interesting pieces of advice, be it like in tech or OTel or whatever, or any hot takes that you wanted to share with folks?JACOB: I think the thing that I always say is just do something that you enjoy. If you're looking for a job, just like find something that work on a project that you enjoy. Find something that's weird and fun and doesn't really matter and just brings you some joy. I think that we all sort of forget that coding can be really fun and enjoyable and there's so many things out there that are so cool right now, especially. And there's so many things that I think have been forgotten just out of the consciousness. I used to do a lot of coding with SignalFX and Java to do UI building and games and stuff, and I haven't done that in so long, but I had so much fun doing that. So if you're looking for a job and you don't know how to do it, my best advice is to do a project that you find very fun and interesting and not just one that you think will play well on a résumé. Because if I'm interviewing you and you tell me about a project that you were so happy to do and really excited about, that's going to be ten times better than a project that you didn't really care about.JACOB: Yeah, just have fun is my advice.ADRIANA: Yeah, that is really great advice and I couldn't agree more. Yeah, and coding should be fun. It definitely puts me in a happy place when I'm working on an exciting project that I dream up some weird thing that I want to explore and then you learn so much and I don't know, you get a high. The programmer's high.JACOB: Exactly.ADRIANA: Totally down for that. Awesome. Cool. Well, thanks so much, Jacob, for joining today. So y'all, don't forget subscribe. Be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and with our guests on social media. Until next time...JACOB: Peace out and Geek out.ADRIANA: Geeking out is hosted and produced by me, Adriana Vileela. I also compose and perform the theme music on my trusty clarinet. Geeking out is also 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 slash Geeking Out.
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Oct 8, 2024 • 51min

The One Where We Geek Out on Transitioning into Tech with Julia Furst Morgado

About our guest:Julia Furst Morgado is a Global Technologist on the Product Strategy team Office of the CTO at Veeam Software. Her passion is making Cloud Native technologies and DevOps best practices easier to understand by sharing her knowledge and experiences. She is also committed to empowering communities as an AWS Community Builder, a CNCF Ambassador, a Google Women Techmakers Ambassador, a Civo Ambassador and Girl Code Ambassador. Additionally, she organizes the KCD NY, further fostering collaboration and learning opportunities. Find our guest on:Twitter (X)LinkedInYouTubeGitHub (Julia's talks)Find us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:KCD New York 2024The Julia programming languageKubeHuddleMarino Wijay (KubeHuddle organizer) on Geeking OutAWS Community BuildersCNCF AmbassadorsAWS Community DaysVeeam BackupTim Banks on Geeking Out (Mental Health)KubeHuddle Mental Health PanelMichael CadeAmanda Brock on Geeking OutOpen Source Summit North America 2024Edith Puclla on Geeking OutThe Happiness Lab (podcast)Cautionary Tales (podcast)Transcript:ADRIANA: Hey, fellow geeks, 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 Julia Morgado. Welcome, Julia.JULIA: Hi, Adriana. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.ADRIANA: I'm so excited to have you on as I love having the ladies on the podcast. It's my favorite thing is to bring amazing ladies in tech to the forefront. But also, I've had several fellow Brazilians on the podcast as well.JULIA: That's amazing. Unfortunately, no Portuguese. But. But yeah, I love, I love collaborating with Brazilians as well.ADRIANA: It's so much fun. And where are you calling from today?JULIA: So I'm in New York. In Manhattan. Yeah, New York City.ADRIANA: And at the time that we're recording this, correct me if I'm wrong, but KCD New York is taking place tomorrow.JULIA: Yeah. Uh huh. Tonight we have a speaker reception already, and then tomorrow the whole day will have the KCD, which I'm super excited. We've been organizing it for over a year, so finally the day has arrived.ADRIANA: Oh my God, that's so exciting. And I definitely want to dig into that. But before we do, I'm going to subject you to my lightning round/icebreaker questions. Are you ready?JULIA: Yes.ADRIANA: Okay, first question. Are you left handed or right handed?JULIA: Right handed.ADRIANA: Okay. Do you prefer iPhone or Android?JULIA: iPhone.ADRIANA: Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows?JULIA: Mac.ADRIANA: And what's your favorite programming language?JULIA: I would say JavaScript, but I recently learned that there is a programming language called Julia. I never. Yeah, I've never used it, never tried it, but I'm really curious. So, yeah, maybe. Maybe in the future I'll try it out.ADRIANA: That's exciting. A language with your name.JULIA: Yes.ADRIANA: So cool. Okay, next question. Dev or Ops?JULIA: Ops.ADRIANA: And do you prefer JSON or YAML?JULIA: YAML.ADRIANA: Spaces or tabs?JULIA: Tabs.ADRIANA: And do you prefer to consume content through video or text?JULIA: That's a good one. It depends. But I would say text, probably. Yeah.ADRIANA: Right. And then final question. What is your superpower?JULIA: My superpower? I speak a lot of languages, so maybe, you know, I'm good with languages. Not, not just programming languages, but I speak Portuguese, French, Spanish and English. So I would say, yeah, I have an easy time connecting with people all over the world. Maybe that's a super superpower.ADRIANA: That is. That's so great. That's so great. And I, you know, one of the times that we were chatting. So for those who aren't aware, Julia writes blog posts in all four languages.JULIA: I try to.ADRIANA: Oh my God. Like, that's, that's so amazing. That's so much work. I am so impressed that you do this. And it's so great because, you know, especially having had a chance to meet more Brazilians in tech in the last little while, because I've been in this like, bubble of like mostly in Canada and just interacting with, with Englishspeakers and, you know, it's been interesting meeting so many fellow Brazilians in tech who, you know, like, yes, we all speak English, but there is so much craving for content in our native language.JULIA: Yeah. And sometimes their English is not great. And whether we want it or not, it's easier to understand something technical when it's in your mother tongue. So, you know, documentation and blogs, things like that, it's easier to understand if it's in Portuguese or whoever is reading that their own language. So yeah, there is the need, the demand for that. But usually from what I see, most things are in English. So that's why I always try to create some content in other languages as well.ADRIANA: That's so great. And, you know, to rewind a bit even further, because you have a really, really cool background and you and I met last year in 2023 at KubeHuddle. And that's when I discovered that you have a very cool background and that you're Brazilian. And so if you wouldn't mind sharing with our audience.JULIA: Yeah, sure. So I'll give a summary if people want to listen to the long version. I gave a talk at KubeCon in Chicago about my journey from being non technical to becoming a CNCF Ambassador. But basically, yeah, I come from Brazil, São Paulo, and I went to law school there. I worked as a lawyer there for a year, a year and a half, and then I moved to the US and I studied business and I started working in marketing. And my last job in marketing was at NMSP. So, you know, working with a lot of engineers, support engineers mostly. There were some software engineers. And I never thought I would become technical, but I got laid off during the pandemic and I started a coding bootcamp. And that's when all, everything started. And I would say, I'm here today. Everything that I've achieved so far is also because of the community. So not only I studied, you know, programming languages, JavaScript, etc, that itself is not enough. You need to be involved in the community. And I think that's why I grew so much, so fast, as well.So, you know, became a CNCF Ambassador, AWS Community Builder, ambassador to other programs as well. Organized conferences. So the KubeHuddle last year, I helped organize. I helped Marino. And then this year, I'm organizing the KCD, which is tomorrow. We're having also the AWS Community Day in New York towards the end of August. So, you know, very involved with several communities. And I think when people ask me, oh, Julia, what did you do? What's the secret? There isn't really a secret, but I think, like, when you're, you're involved with the community, it...first, it's fun, and then you grow more than you would by yourself, doing everything alone. Yeah, yeah.ADRIANA: It's so true. And, yeah, I mean, I totally echo your sentiment on the community. If it hadn't been for the community, like, I honestly, I think my career has grown more in the last couple of years than it has. You know, I've been in tech since 2001, and I, you know, like, my career has grown more significantly in the last two years when I've been out more in the community than it has this entire time before that. And as you said, it's the collaboration. It's just getting to meet really cool people and...JULIA: Exactly. And they become friends, and. And they want to help you, and they want to see you succeed, you know? And it becomes fun. Yeah. Because it's work. You know, work sometimes is boring, but by being involved in the community, it becomes fun. And then you also want to volunteer your free time to do, you know, contribute to an open source, open source project or. Or write a piece of content or even do what you're doing. You know, this podcast, you're doing it on your free time, so it's amazing. And then you get to meet new people every time you record it. And maybe they know someone, they'll put you in touch with them. So that's the power of community and the beauty of community.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. It's the networking possibilities.JULIA: Exactly.ADRIANA: There is just a.JULIA: And funny enough, tomorrow, one of the keynotes, they got Covid, so they had to cancel. And I was asked to give the keynote for the KCD. So I'm giving...I know...first time, I'm a little nervous, but it's gonna go great. It's just 15 minutes, but, yeah, I'm going to talk about the community. So, initially, the title was how to boost your career with the CNCF community. And then I crossed career, and the title now is how to boost your life with the CNCF community. Because it's more than just, you know, your professional growth, it's also personal growth. And I'm really excited to talk about that tomorrow.ADRIANA: That's so great. Congratulations on that.JULIA: Thank you. I'm excited.ADRIANA: Yeah. And, you know, it's been such a meteoric rise for you, I mean, considering that, you know, you started, like, around pandemic times.JULIA: Yeah, a little over two years ago.ADRIANA: Wow. Wow. That's wild. That's wild. And it just goes to show, that's what I love about tech is it's such an inclusive type of community. There are people with degrees in computer science, computer engineering, and then there are people who either their degrees have nothing to do with it, or they didn't go to university.JULIA: Exactly.ADRIANA: It's so great. My degree is in Industrial Engineering. I took some computer courses, but, you know, I, people assume, like, oh, I studied computer science. Computer engineering. Yeah, no, but I always knew I wanted to do this, so I just, like, stuck myself in that.JULIA: And that's the way.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so great. Now, you know, like, you're, and I think you're, like part of the, when they redid the ambassador program, you were part of, like, that new batch of ambassadors. I think we both came up at around the same time in that program. How did you hear about the CNCF Ambassadors program?JULIA: I think I saw on LinkedIn something. You know, I started getting involved with the community, I would say a year ago, because I started programming. I thought I wanted to be a software engineer. That's the only thing I knew. I thought tech was being a software engineer. And then I found out there is so much more to it. I started learning cloud, AWS, and then cloud native as well. I got a ticket to go to KubeCon, and that's when I saw, like, oh, there is this whole new world of possibilities and tech that I can learn, and there is a whole community around that. But I think they had CNCF Ambassadors back then, but then they closed the program and they reopened a new one. Then I saw on LinkedIn a post, someone posted, you know, register or, you know, fill out the form to try to become an ambassador. And I said, why not? I'll try. I didn't have any expectations. It's like when I submit a talk, I never expect that I'll get accepted, but I have this mentality of the no, I already have, so it's better to try. And if I get the no, that's fine, you know, but if I get the yes, even better. So that's what I did, I applied for the CNCF Ambassadors and I was just very honest. I said I was starting out in tech and didn't have a lot of experience. And I started, I was contributing a lot to documentation, like in the open source world, the CNCF project documentation and localization as well. And I said that's the extent of my contributions. But I'm very passionate. Sorry. I want to help and I want this to be an inclusive community and I want to bring more people that are in my shoes as well. Bring them like beginners, people that are transitioning to tech, bring them into the community. And I think that's why I got accepted, you know, because I have disadvantage. A lot of times, people that are in the industry for 10, 15, 20 years, they don't know how to talk to people that are starting out. They think, you know, if they write a blog, that is they, for them it's like not as, not that technical, but it's still very technical and hard for people to understand. So I think I break down things even more for those that are starting out.ADRIANA: And that's such a great attitude because I think, you know, my complaint has always been like, some blog posts are so technical because they're written by people who are just like, you know, this is their world, right? So they just assume, you know, stuff. And I take it from the point of view, same as you. Like, I know nothing and explain it in excruciating detail, right? Because there's, there's a desire for people and I think that's so wonderful. And I, I think it's really great to like, and, you know, congrats. And you just got renewed as a CNCF Amazon for another two years.JULIA: Yeah. Congrats to us, right?ADRIANA: Yes, yes. Yeah, it's so great. It's nice to know that we're good for two years now.JULIA: Exactly.ADRIANA: But I, I think it goes to show, and you mentioned two really important things, contributing to documentation and localization. Because again, we all know that technical documentation, especially for open source projects, isn't great because people would rather code. But then again, you put yourself in the shoes of someone who's new to the thing and you can't just assume that they understand. I have conversations with people where I'm like, can you explain this thing in the documentation? Like, oh, it's in like the Helm chart. I'm like...??JULIA: Exactly. How to start. Like, you really have to take someone by hand and show step by step. Otherwise, if you just put some links or, you know, like high level stuff. People are not going to understand and then they're not going to be able to try the project, you know, implement it, and then they won't be able to contribute in the future. So you have to really start from the beginning. And I think documentation is so important, but a lot of people, they don't think like that. They don't think it's that important.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. Because, you know, code. Code is the holy grail of contribution. But yeah, I completely agree with you. I started out in documentation too. It felt like the less scary thing to do. And plus, there's so much to say. There's always room for improvement. And then again, the localization, acknowledging the fact that we need to make our documentation accessible beyond just the english speakers, because there are some very brilliant technical people where they don't either they don't speak English or they don't speak English well enough to be able to communicate, but it doesn't mean that they know that they don't know what they're doing.JULIA: Exactly.ADRIANA: Competent people. Yeah, great. That's so great that you did that. And, you know, you know, as part of like, just going back to your learning journey, what, what sort of, um, what tactics do you do you use when you're learning a new technology so that you're, you know, to get into something new? Like what's your motivation?JULIA: I would say mostly getting hands on, but I know it's hard, you know, because you encounter so many issues and bugs and then you want to stop and you want to give up. But I think getting hands on, getting your hands dirty and trying things, instead of just like reading a blog post or watching a video, trying the things yourself, you get to learn more. But for those that are starting out, I would say it's fine if you follow a tutorial step by step. It's okay if you don't know by heart how to do something and you have to look back at the tutorial, it's totally fine. It's that muscle memory that you built and no one knows everything by heart, like commands and things. That's why you have Google. You can google every time. And now with AI, it's making it even easier. I would say yes, getting my hands dirty and asking for help as well. Because sometimes, like I said, you encounter a bug and then you want to try to solve it yourself. You're embarrassed to ask for help, but you don't get past that point and you won't understand what's going, you don't understand what's going on. What the problem is. So ask someone that knows a little bit more than you for help. You might think, oh, I'm gonna bother that person. But like I said, in the community, everyone is so helpful. They want you to succeed and they will stop what they're doing to jump on a call with you and help you. I've had that a lot of times. You know, I had an issue, I was trying to contribute, and I had, you know, a PR error. PR error on GitHub. Someone jumped on a call with me. I shared my screen, and then, like, we, we fixed it. And I learned why, why I was getting that error. Or, you know, other examples. But I would say, yeah, also asking for help is a big thing. And I still, I'm still working on that. You know, I still have a trouble with that.ADRIANA: Yeah, I can completely relate. I also have a hard time asking for help. And I'm always, especially, like, if there's one person, you know, that is like, kind of your comfortable go to person in an area and you're like, am I bothering them too much? Are they gonna, and I've noticed that if, you know, it's a getting to the point where they're feeling overwhelmed, oftentimes people will say, oh, you know, I might be like, a little bit swamped with stuff, but if you post in the blah, blah, blah slack channel, I'm sure there will be someone who can help out. And so, and that's what I have to, like, tell myself because I still get scared. Like, I had to write a couple of talks for KubeCon and ask questions on topics with which I wasn't super familiar. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm so scared to ask these questions on the Slack. But then I'm like, I have to get this talk done, so.JULIA: Exactly.ADRIANA: Yeah, it's the best motivation. And, you know, like, for you, being a newer member in the cloud native community. And it's funny because, like, I think that's something you and I have in common is that, like, we're newer to cloud native. I've been in tech for a while, but I've been on kind of the closed source side of tech. And you're like, new to tech, new to cloud native. What's been your experience around making, like, how was it when you did your first PR? How did you feel?JULIA: Like it was scary, you know, I didn't know what I had to do. So at first I followed some tutorials on how to open my first PR, and step by step, I followed that. But like, I told you, I had some issues. Someone jumped on a call with me, and we fixed that. I felt, you know, realization and relief that I get. I got that done. And then you kind of get addicted. You want to merge and more PRs and. But it's a lot of work, you know, contributing to open source. You can't do something and, like, oh, I'll just give five minutes, and then I'll open a PR. No, if you want to do something well done, you need to put in some effort. So sometimes, like, take a chunk of your day, like, in 1 hour, and work on that. Otherwise, it's not even worth to start something. So know how much time you have to invest in that. But I think the feeling is amazing. And then you also get to talk to other people. You know, the reviewers and the maintainers, they're gonna check your work, and if there is an issue, they're gonna comment. And I had a lot of issues, you know, people would review and say, oh, can you change this? And then, like, if I didn't understand that, I would go on slack and message them. And, you know, that's how you start a conversation and you end up making friends like that.ADRIANA: Yeah, it's so true. Yeah. Just being able to ask those questions of, like, clarify, and it's a little scary. Like, I actually had a PR the other day where I needed to chase someone down. Like, they made a suggestion to a blog post that I've written on OpenTelemetry, and I had to chase them down till they were, like, the thing standing between, like, me and getting the PR merged.JULIA: Yeah.ADRIANA: And I'm like, oh, my God, I don't want to bug this guy and ask him to look at my thing, but I really want my PR merged and so get over yourself. Like, just message him.JULIA: Exactly. It won't hurt. Yeah.ADRIANA: They don't bite.. They don't bite. I think that's the nice thing. Like, everyone's been, you know, I've mentioned this on my podcast before. Like, whenever I do a PR and OpenTelemetry, people's comments are so thoughtful. No one has ever been a jerk. Like, you know, on Stack Overflow, people are jerks.JULIA: I know.ADRIANA: I'm not saying, like, just in general, on Stack Overflow, some people can be total assholes and. And, like, open telemetry community is like, la la la.JULIA: You know, I would say I only have had good experiences in, you know, in the CNCF community overall. Like, open source projects contributing to those or, you know, events that I've gone to only good experiences because I think, you know, there is the code of conduct and people really follow that. And like you said, it's such an inclusive community. People, they don't judge you or anything. They don't want to make you feel bad. They want to make you feel good and come there again and again and help out. So I'm lucky. And like you said on stack overflow, there are so many comments. I've never had those, so I can't complain.ADRIANA: That's good. That's great. That's great. Now, the other thing that I want to ask you about is because you're an AWS Community Builder as well, right? And you just got renewed for that as well, right?JULIA: Yeah.ADRIANA: Awesome. Is this your second year doing it?JULIA: Yes. Yes. So it's every year as well, not two years like the CNCF Ambassadors. But I'm very involved in the AWS community as well because part of my job at Veeam, my main product is Veeam Backup for AWS. So I have to be involved in the community and teaching, educating people about our product. And I really like database community as well. People are also inclusive and very friendly and similar to the CNCF Ambassadors. You know, you have to help out somehow. So I mostly, I create content. I give a lot of talks at AWS Community Days. I'm always, you know, visible and posting on LinkedIn, but I didn't know that this, but recently I found out that AWS has a lot of open source projects. So we were at the Open Source Summit in Seattle a month ago and AWS was there. I had a great chat with them and they were telling me about all the open source projects. I still haven't got time to check them out, but it's another opportunity to contribute to.ADRIANA: That's so cool. And what was kind of the first thing. So did you start learning about AWS because of your role at Veeam or did you get your role at Veeam because you started getting into AWS?JULIA: Yeah. The second thing that you said I started learning, you know, when I was doing the coding bootcamp and then going to some events here in New York. And one of the first events I went to before KubeCon was the AWS Summit here in New York. So Marino, you know, Marino, obviously the one that organized the KubeHuddle, and he invited me to go to the summit. It's free. Everyone is welcome to come. There will be another one this year. And then again, similar to KubeCon, I saw there was a whole community and you know, another space besides software engineering, because when you're starting out, when you're transitioning to tech, you don't know what's out there. You only know what people tell you. So I only knew the coding. You know, what the coding bootcamp was telling me, and it was telling me to become a software engineer. And then I started going to these events and seeing, oh, actually there is more than that. There is cloud. What is cloud? And then, like, oh, let me learn a little bit about these and see if I like it. And that's how I got interested. And then I deviated a little bit and went cloud native as well. But I'm very passionate and interested in both topics.ADRIANA: That's so cool. And for you, like, because I'm kind of curious because I had my own, like, expectations of cloud, cloud native. What was your expectation when you first heard of, like, cloud cloud native? Was it something that was intimidating or something where you're like, cool?JULIA: It was. I think it was more intimidating because, again, you know, coming from a non technical background, everything is new. So I already, I had, I was learning all the programming languages. You know, I was. Back then at that time, I was doing practicing react and, you know, it's a lot of things thrown at you, you know, different terms, and you have to practice and exercises. We had to build our portfolio by then, and so it was a lot. And then on top of that, I started learning about infrastructure. And what is infrastructure? Because obviously you don't have just your app. You need to host it somewhere. But I didn't know anything about that. And then I had to learn all that behind the scenes from the app, what goes on, and then the cloud and cloud native. And because of Veeam as well, I had to learn a little bit of on-prem and VMs. So, you know, it was a lot. I would say it was a lot. It's still a lot. It's very overwhelming. And tech will always be like that now with AI, and there are new tools popping up every day and new languages and new packages. So I understand when people say it's overwhelming and they want to give up. Sometimes I want to give up as well. But you know what my instructor used to say, it's a marathon and not a sprint. You don't have to know everything in, like, three months. You can take your time, three years and slowly learn everything. But people, they want to know everything. Like yesterday, they want to know everything. And that's the, our, the problem of the generation nowadays, I think.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. It's the instant gratification.JULIA: Exactly. Yes.ADRIANA: And I agree with you. Like, there's. You know, there's so many people that I meet in tech where you look at them and. And you're like, oh, my God, they're so smart. I can never be like that. It gets really depressing. I am not gonna lie. And I'll sit here...I'm like, oh, my God, they have so much stuff like me. Like, what am I worth, right?JULIA: That's how I feel when I talk to you. And, you know, being an ambassador, I get that a lot, because a lot of the ambassadors, most of them, they know so much. They've been in the industry for several years, and they are maintainers of the open source project, and they do. They. They are part of committees in the CNCF, and. And they're doing so much. And. And you. What you're doing is just a drop in the ocean, and you feel like it's not enough, and you compare yourself a lot to others. So I totally get it. And, yeah, it's imposter syndrome, right?ADRIANA: Yeah, big time. Big time. It's. It's funny because I think the. The thing that helps to ground me sometimes is talking to really smart people who also feel imposter syndrome. And I'm like, okay, all right.JULIA: I think we should talk more openly about that. You know? I know. I think everyone feels imposter syndrome. Even recently. Veeam's previous CTO, he left a few months ago. Before he left, he said, I also have imposter syndrome. So imagine a CTO saying that. But you go day by day, and, you know, we have our jobs, and we are working from home. We are not really talking to people. And you don't know if the people that are posting on LinkedIn, they have imposter syndrome, obviously. Probably they have. But you think, like, their lives are amazing, and they have everything figured out, which is the problem of social media, and. But people, they don't go advertising. Hey, I have imposter syndrome, by the way. You know, I am giving this amazing talk. I have this amazing job, but I have imposter syndrome. And it's okay. They don't have to advertise that. But it would be nice if people talked more openly about that.ADRIANA: Yeah, I completely agree. Because then. Then I think it would help make us all more human eyes. Right. Because people that we admire are probably secretly struggling. And I agree with you. That's why it's so nice to be able to have, like, open and candid conversations about mental health. And I've had the pleasure of being able to speak candidly on mental health on this podcast with various people. I've had Tim on twice.JULIA: Oh, I love Tim. Yes.ADRIANA: Oh, great. He's so great. He did a dedicated episode on mental health, and then for KubeHuddle this year, we did a mental health panel where he was part of it, and he's so open about mental health. And I love it because we need to have these more candid conversations. You know, it's funny because you say, like, you're intimidated by me whenever, whatever we talk. And honestly, I feel intimidated by you because I'm, like, you've accomplished so much in so little time, and you write four different languages, and I'm like, oh, my God, I don't know anything.JULIA: You know, I don't even. I don't even count these things. Although I have an achievement list. So on notion. Yeah, I have, like, a folder where I put my achievement, although I never look at that. But, you know, people say, oh, you've done so much. And, yeah, you speak four languages, but for me, you know, it's my life. It's my day to day routine. I don't think, oh, that's more than what I should be doing or I would be doing. But then again, you compare yourself to others and you think, no, actually, you're not doing enough, and you should be doing more. So, yeah, it's a big problem to compare yourself to others. What I've learned is we have to compare ourselves to who we were yesterday or who we were, like, a week ago and not to others directly.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And, yeah, it's something that I'm trying to. To do a little bit more than I. Yeah, because I. Yeah, I have the same problem. I'm always comparing myself to others, and I'm like, no, but, like, you know, the other thing, too, is, like, each of us has something unique to bring to the table. Right. And so I think we have to put everybody else aside and what they do and just focus on what you can do. Like, so at one point in my career, I worked at the same place as my father and my husband. We all worked at Accenture together at one point, and it was very intimidating because they're really smart guys and they're both very successful. And so I'm, like, thinking, I spent my time there thinking that I had to be like them, and I sucked. I sucked. I was trying to be something that I'm not. And then finally when I left and started, like, forging my own career and realizing, like, I don't have to follow in either of their footsteps. I can just bring my own brand. That's when I started doing well at work, because I'm like, I can't be like somebody else. I have to be like me.JULIA: Yeah. Your journey is unique and doesn't have to be like anyone else's. And that's why when people ask me, oh, what did I do? You know, like, their journey is gonna be different from mine. I can tell you what worked for me and you can try to replicate that, but, you know, the outcome might not be the same. And it totally fine, you know, if you, if you don't get a job, like, if in two years, you don't get a job in tech, if it takes you a little longer or things like that, you know, but people have to start comparing themselves to other big time, I think.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Now just, I had another question talking about, like, how you got into veeam.JULIA: Yeah.ADRIANA: You work as a community evangelist, right?JULIA: Yes. Yeah. Like, yeah, the role, the title is Global Technologies, but yes, it's evangelist or DevRel/developer advocate. It's the same. We. Michael, do you know Michael Cade? He's my colleague. You probably know him. If I show you a picture, I've heard the name and he says, we like to make noise, make noise in the community. So that's what we do. And that's what evangelists do as well. And, yeah, that's what my role at Veeam.ADRIANA: That's so great. That's so great. And that was basically like the role that you've had basically, since you finished, like your coding bootcamp.JULIA: Yes.ADRIANA: Like your first official tech role.JULIA: Yes. And I had barely finished the boot camp and I got this job. So I was very lucky, you know. But again, there is more to that than just, you know, people. They can't compare themselves to. My journey. I had a portfolio, I had a resume, but I had done a lot as well. I had created a lot of content. I had four YouTube channels. I was going to a lot of events. I was giving talks already, so really putting myself out there. And then I met Michael at KubeCon in Detroit. And that's how it started. He put me in touch with the hiring manager, and now I work in his team. And that's the power of community, you know, networking. Someone knows a job opening and then they can refer you and they'll put in a good word and that's how it goes. So I'm a big advocate for. I really love networking. I'm a big fan of that, you know, meeting people and not expecting anything in return. So, you know, just meeting to make friends and to have a good time. And if something comes out of it, that's fine, but not meeting someone to ask for a favor, I don't like that. I get a lot of messages on LinkedIn or Twitter, hey, I need a job. Can you do this or that? No. If you start a frank, start engaging with me and showing what you're doing, maybe it will be different. But don't just come and ask for. For a job, you know, that doesn't work.ADRIANA: Yeah, I completely agree. And I think you touched on something really, really important, which I call it tech karma, because I think, like, you know, and it's in the spirit of community, like, you start to know enough people where you can do, like, you know, help out a friend in tech. It can be in small ways. It can be like, oh, hey, I heard of this job posting, or, hey, you know, there's a really cool person that I think you should meet. And you make an introduction at, you know, like, a social event or whatever or on LinkedIn or Twitter, and, you know, sometimes it can and, you know, just doing, like, acts of kindness in tech, not because you want something out of it, like, just for the sake of doing it. And I do find that at some point down the road, that kindness will hit you back, that somebody else will do that act of kindness or even, you know, when you're starting out, like, my philosophy has always been, like, because my degree is in industrial engineering. You know, when I was looking for, like, a tech job, especially, you know, companies were like, oh, you must have, like, a degree in computer engineering, computer science. And I'm like, I don't have that, but I have the experience in programming for several years. And, you know, somebody had to take a chance on me. And the way I look at it, yeah, you know, I want to be able to take a chance on someone else, too, repay that kindness, not directly to the person who took a chance on me, but, like, because someone took a chance on me, I want to take a chance on someone, I want to guide them.JULIA: Exactly. Yeah. And same with me. You know, they took a chance on me at Veeam, and it was my first job coming out of a boot camp. And I know a lot of people struggle, you know, with their first job in tech, and they saw that I had the hunger to learn, and that was enough. Sometimes you don't need much on your resume or you don't need a computer science degree, but you need to show that you're willing to put in the work and you want to learn and you're going to be there when things get hard. So. But a lot of people, they want the easy way out and they want, you know, they, they think, oh, tech, they see dollar signs and they think that's it. But no, there is a lot of work that you have to put into to work in tech.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely see, like, you put yourself out there all the time and obviously, like, your hard work has paid out and you always give, like, really great nuggets. Like, I definitely recommend that you follow Julia on, on LinkedIn and on Twitter because she's always posting some, like, really good nuggets of, like, just little bits of advice.JULIA: Yeah. Life in general as well.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's great. Especially, like, if you're getting started out in tech and, you know, whether you're a student just graduating or someone who's, you know, doing a career change, I think the advice that you give is, is great and relevant. I wanted to ask you also just before we, we wrap up, because you're doing, you're organizing KCD New York, which by the time this airs will have passed. But I always like to chat with folks. I think you're like, I think the third person that I've talked to on this podcast, third or fourth, about who's organized some sort of conference, and I've talked to Marino, I've talked to Amanda Brock, who organizes OpenUK. Who else that I talked to? Oh, Edith Puclla. She's great. She's doing like the KCD Peru. What's your experience been? You know, like, having participated, having been an organizer of KubeHuddle last year, how did that help you with organizing KCD New York this year?JULIA: So I knew what had to be done. You know, we had a list of things that needed to be done in order to get a successful event. I think that was helpful from KubeHuddle. But again, each event is different. It's a different venue. And you need, every time you need new sponsors and then publishing on social media about the event, getting people to register and buy a ticket, all these things are different from event to event. And I think the biggest takeaway is that when you go to an event, you don't see how much work has been put in. You think, oh, great event. I'm just enjoying myself today and then I'm going home after that and that's it. You forget about it. But the organizers, they've been putting the work for, like, at least a year. And they, you know, they, they've been, my case, anxious about it. Is it gonna work out? Are we going to sell enough tickets? Are people going to enjoy it? And then, like, at the day of, we want everything to go as planned, everything to go perfect. And even after that, you know, there is the post event and what did go, what went right, what went wrong, and, you know, and start planning for the next one. So a lot of times for attendees, an event is just like one more thing on their calendar. But for, for organizers, it's a lot of work hours put into that, you know, a lot of work.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. And even when you have a whole team of organizers. Yeah, a lot of work. And how many volunteers for KCD...JULIA: I think we have probably, like eight volunteers. We had a lot of organizers. We were ten, although two of them won't be able to come tomorrow, and a few of them have disappeared. It's normal. The work, a lot of times ends up being on a few people instead of the whole group, especially if it's a big group. Everything worked out, and, yeah, we have a few volunteers tomorrow just to make sure everything works, because also the organizers, they're gonna be busy with most important, the most important things. I'm also giving a keynote, so morning. I'm gonna be busy, but I'm really excited. It's going to be a great event.ADRIANA: That's so exciting. And you have AWS Community Day later in August as well.JULIA: Yeah, August 29, I think. Yeah.ADRIANA: You're an organizer for that as well.JULIA: Yes, I know, I know. I'm starting to regret that.ADRIANA: I can see why you weren't able to help out with KubeHuddle.JULIA: Yes, I told Marino I have too much on my plate. Yeah.ADRIANA: Yeah. Very understandable. Because...JULIA: But I have a hard time saying no, you know, I'm still learning that. It's really hard. Yeah.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah. I have the same problem, and I've had to, like, there was one. One conference where I got accepted, and it was like an online conference, but it was going to be for, like, a new talk, and it was going to coincide with, like, KubeCon this year, and I'm like, I can't. Yeah, I hate to say no, but I can.JULIA: I know. I feel really bad, but. But, yeah, we. We have to prioritize. We need to learn how to prioritize, and, you know, we can't be everywhere at the same time.ADRIANA: Yeah, but it's hard, you know, when you're trying to, like, build up your reputation. And then people ask you to do stuff means that they're starting to pay attention to.JULIA: Exactly. Yes.ADRIANA: I know. It's like, me next time.JULIA: And then you're afraid you don't want to say no.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's. It's always nice to be surrounded by people who, like, you know, it. I think oftentimes, like, our guts are telling us what the right thing to do is, which is like, having to say no. And sometimes running it past a friend or two to just validate your gut feeling is so helpful, because otherwise, you're wracked with guilt. And even if you say no, you're still going to feel guilty. But actually, I heard a really kind of interesting thing on a podcast recently, because every time you're saying no to something, you're saying yes to something else. Like, the yes can be even just yes to yourself. And they suggested, I think this was like. I think this was like, a joint episode with a podcast called the Happiness Lab, and I think Cautionary Tales. And they were basically saying for the thing that you said no, to put it on your calendar, because then when the date comes, it's not a reminder of, like, oh, I said no to this. I'm gonna cry. Oh, my God. Thank God I said no to this.JULIA: I'm so busy, I wouldn't have been able to. Exactly.ADRIANA: So it's a validation. So I thought that was, like, a really interesting take on it. I definitely would like to do more of that. Yeah, it's a journey.JULIA: Exactly. Yeah. It's a marathon and not a sprint. Yeah, it's a journey.ADRIANA: Exactly. We have to keep that in mind. Now, before we go, I wanted to ask you one more question, because you do have, like, a background as a lawyer. Do you find that that background has served you well as, like, part of your current work?JULIA: Not really, to be honest. Not yet. My manager, he says yes, you know, because I'm so good at, you know, public speaking and writing blogs, etc. So probably my background in law, because you have to read a lot, probably that has helped. But I started getting more interest on open source licensing, and having. Then having the background in law really helps. So I started, like, doing some research recently. Nothing big, but I want to. I want to learn more about that. And I think, you know, there are a lot of lawyers that work on that area. Maybe. Maybe one day I can. And I can work with that. You know, I'm just interested at the moment.ADRIANA: That's so cool. That's so cool. And by the way, I will. I will mention something interesting that I, that I read once, and I think it applies to people like you and me, where the things that come easily to us were like, whatever. That was, like, no effort. And the things that other people accomplished were like, oh, my God, that's so incredible. I'm saying this as a reminder to both you and me that let's. Let's celebrate the things that we do well. Even if they seemingly come easy to us.JULIA: Yeah, even the little things.ADRIANA: Exactly. They're still impressive to other people who don't, who might not necessarily have those skills come as easily. Yeah. As a reminder to our, to our viewers and listeners as well, because it's very easy to get wrapped up in that. Well, we're coming up on time, but before we go, I was wondering if there are any parting words of wisdom that you would like to share with our audience.JULIA: No. Just thank everyone for listening and, you know, follow your podcast. I love listening to all your episodes. Feel free to follow me and connect with me on social media if you have any questions. And, you know, keep doing what you're doing. I'm sure you're doing great. Don't give up whatever hardship you have, you know, again, the journey is not easy. It's a marathon, not a sprint, but everything works out in the end So. Yeah.ADRIANA: Absolutely. Those are great words of wisdom. Well, thank you, Julia, 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...JULIA: 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/geekingouthe.
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Oct 1, 2024 • 47min

The One Where We Geek Out on Accessibility with Rynn Mancuso

About our guest:Rynn Mancuso (they/them) is the developer community manager at Honeycomb.io, a contributor to OpenTelemetry, and a CNCF Ambassador. They led developer communities at Honeycomb, New Relic, Tidelift, Mozilla and Wikimedia. They're also an editor of Contributor Covenant 3 with the Organization for Ethical Source.Find our guest on:Twitter (X)LinkedInMastodonFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)ARIA (web accessibility)CNCF Ambassador ProgramCNCF Deaf and Hard of Hearing Working GroupAdaptive ClimbingCNCF AI Working GroupContributor CovenantOrganization for Ethical SourceOpenTelemetry Has Gone Multi-Lingual!Transcript:ADRIANA: Hey, fellow geeks, 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, I have Rynn Mancuso. Welcome, Rynn.RYNN: Hi, glad to be here.ADRIANA: Super excited to have you. And where are you calling from today?RYNN: Oakland, California.ADRIANA: Awesome. Okay, well, we shall start off first things first with our lightning round questions. Are you ready?RYNN: Yes.ADRIANA: All right, let's do this. First question, are you a lefty or a righty?RYNN: Righty.ADRIANA: Do you prefer iPhone or Android?RYNN: Android.ADRIANA: Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows?RYNN: Mac.ADRIANA: What's your favorite programming language?RYNN: JavaScript.ADRIANA: All right, do you prefer dev or ops?RYNN: Ops.ADRIANA: Do you prefer JSON or YAML?RYNN: You know, I kind of hate them both, but my friend has cats named JSON and YAML. And so I'm going to say JSON is a shadow of a black cat who is very attractive, but YAML is extremely sweet. So I'm going to say YAML wins the day.ADRIANA: All right, love it. Next question. Spaces or tabs?RYNN: Spaces.ADRIANA: And then do you prefer to consume content through video or text?RYNN: Text.ADRIANA: And finally, what is your superpower?RYNN: Building relationships.ADRIANA: Awesome. Congratulations for being the fastest responder to the lightning round questions. Well, I wanted to. One thing that I wanted to talk about today is accessibility in tech and the importance of accessibility in tech, because oftentimes it ends up coming as an afterthought, if that. So, I guess, first things first, do you have any, like what, what are your thoughts around the accessibility landscape in tech? What do you see that's been super awesomely done? And what would you see that's been very poorly done?RYNN: Yeah, it's an interesting time in terms of accessibility in tech, because when many of us, and I'm included in this group of people, first built the current standards, the WCAG, other standards for web accessibility, the web was a much simpler place than it was today. And we, you know, we emphasize the importance of writing semantic HTML, of making every element needed for accessibility, from alt text to ARIA, elements that allow you to run more advanced controls, all just part of good semantic HTML. And if you're speaking semantic HTML, the thinking went, your content is going to be very easily made accessible. Right now, the web in general is burdened with many, many components that are coming from frameworks that are coming from a range of different tools. Often your front end has a very complicated tool chain supporting it. Lots of places, plugins, lots of things that you're sucking from other places, perhaps ads, if you're serving content. All of this is more complicated for screen readers to navigate because there's lots of components. It's more complicated for people with ADHD and other cognitive challenges because there's more things to distract them.And it's more complicated for folks who might have mobility disabilities and not use standard pointer systems. And so there's some really neat innovation coming out to address framework accessibility. And folks are building accessible frameworks, but it's still a much bigger bridge for us to cross than we anticipated with the original. And also, I think if you extend that from the front end into developer tooling, the tools that we're looking at are more and more complicated. They're more and more visual, because it turns out that things that involve sorting and classifying and pattern recognition in text AI can do very well. But humans are very good at spotting visual anomalies. That would take AI a long time because they need to know the algorithm for the anomaly. And so using developer tools and using so many of them is really, I think, taking accessibility in a lot of new directions because it's tricky to provide an equivalent user experience for everybody.ADRIANA: Have you seen like, are you. I know that it's been like slow moving, but are you happy with the direction in which things are going?RYNN: I'm definitely seeing things getting better. I'm seeing more concern and awareness for accessibility within tech. There's really a movement that I think really got accelerated by the pandemic and people getting to sort of see how they were in different situations than what they were used to, of folks discovering that they experienced some form of neurodivergence, particularly like lots of developers, lots of ops people are realizing that part of what made them good at their job was some form of neurodivergence, which can be very different. When you're trapped inside the house, the impact that that can have on you can be very different. And so I'm seeing folks come out as having these identities and have more sympathy, more interest in providing accessible experiences. At the same time, I think lots of folks still don't know how to do it, and we could be doing a better job of teaching and I think a better job of incentivizing folks to make accessibility something that's built in from the start and expected as table stakes, rather than something you're retrofitting for, because retrofitting almost always results in inferior user experience because you just didn't design it. With this set of users in mind, yeah, yeah.ADRIANA: It's basically you're saying, let's shift left on accessibility, because otherwise you're doing like a square peg into a round hole, which never ends well.RYNN: Right. And the reality is that when you build things for accessibility, you are generally making them better for everyone. The Google crawlers that do SEO, for example, are an example of a headless browser, similar to a screen reader, that has a sort of, that might have a sort of different head than a standard browser or, you know, a text only browser. It renders content quite differently. And so what you do to improve accessibility for these alternative user agents is also improving accessibility for SEO. It, another part of accessibility, frankly, is good user experience, particularly when you get to accessibility for folks with cognitive challenges, because the reality is that many, some people have formal diagnosed ADHD and it's hard to focus, and different elements on the screen will make it more likely that their focus gets hijacked. But we all have things periodically that challenge our ability to stay focused. Whether we, we're under a lot of stress, whether we're checking into our systems because we've gotten a page while we were on the train and we're trying to do it from our mobile phone, whether, again, we've gotten a page and we're at a loud bar.And so when you improve the experience to make logical elements, draw people's focus, to make it easier to find different elements in the user interface for users with cognitive disabilities, you're actually improving it for everyone.ADRIANA: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, it's interesting. I remember a couple years ago when I was still working at Tucows, and I remember publishing some, some blog posts on their blog, and I was talking to the person who was responsible for managing the blog, and they're like, oh, make sure you have alt text for all your images. And I'm like, oh, that, you know, like, that's something that, you know, folks take for granted, right? Like, I can see the image, why do I need the alt text? And ever since then, like, he, they got me in the habit of always, whenever I write my blog posts now and include images, I always make sure I not only have the caption, but I also have the alt text. So it's gotten me into that new habit, which I think is very cool.RYNN: That's lovely.ADRIANA: And then the other thing that I was thinking of as well is I remember when Hachyderm became a thing on Mastodon and folks were talking about, when you write out hashtags, make sure that you use camel case because it's easier. I think it's something to do with. It has some sort of accessibility consideration. I can't remember exactly what it is, but because of that, I also always try to keep that in mind when writing out hashtags, which is kind of annoying. It's annoying in the sense where I'm trying to do camel case, and then some platforms have the hashtag autocomplete, and then they'll autocomplete it with all lowercase. I'm like, damn it, you're ruining my perfecty...you're ruining my camel case work. I put so much effort into doing this, and then you've, like, obliterated it. But it's like, just these little things, even, that we can do to just help make things a little bit more accessible for folks.RYNN: Right. Yeah. The accessibility concern there is that a screen reader will try to pronounce it all as one word if you have lowercase. But if it's camel case, then it understands to stop between words.ADRIANA: Ah, gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then the other aspect that I always think of, too, is like, from the podcasting standpoint, I always make sure that I have, like, captions included with my podcast. And so I think most of the production in my podcast actually comes from editing the captions and providing a transcript, because I have an AI tool that generates the captions, and it does a half decent job of it. But there are things that it misses. So me having to go through all of the entire transcript of each show and making sure that it's conveying the correct information so that if folks are using closed captioning on YouTube or if they want to just read the transcript from the show notes, they have that opportunity, which, you know, again, it's not necessarily things that I would have thought of in the past, but I'm grateful to folks who have pointed me in that direction.RYNN: Right.ADRIANA: And then the other thing that I wanted to mention, too, is, you know, I always think about accessibility, like, you know, in terms of you and I got to spend some time together at the climbing gym at a couple of conferences, and you've opened my eyes to, like, the world of paraclimbing, which I think is really, really cool. I mean, paraclimbers are like next level awesomeness. Would you mind talking a little bit about paraclimbing and even, like, how you got into climbing?RYNN: Sure. So I got into adaptive climbing shortly after the pandemic. I honestly, there was a group in my town, I saw them advertise on the a disability LISTSERV. I thought immediately, oh, this is something super exciting to me. I always thought of climbing as an extreme sport that sort of only people in really good shape could do. I'd never thought, oh, yeah, I, as a disabled person, could be a climber. It was definitely like, you know, there are certain stereotypes of climbing, especially from the outside, that you're like, I can't do this. But I was super excited to go try it.And so I went down and it just became something I was really excited about, started to do, you know, a couple times a week. Paraclimbing, I think, is pretty unique. Obviously, there's lots of people with lots of different types of disabilities who climb, but many of the folks in paraclimbing, we have disabilities that actually impact our mobility, our ability to walk. Some folks might be missing part of a limb. We have consciously chosen a sport that we are bad at according to any conventional standard, like, by definition, right. This is a group of people who have, you know, failed walking so badly that we use devices to walk for us, like wheelchairs or crutches, and yet, like walking up a hundred feet or thousands of feet in the case of outdoor climbing, wall. Sounds like a great idea. Yeah.So it's a very, it's a sport full of people who are trying really hard. It's a very tight knit community. Climbing in general can be very tight knit because your safety is always on the line with the person you are climbing with. But paraclimbing, I think especially so because people are having to actively figure out how to adapt climbing to make it work for them. There's no sort of bible for how you climb as an adaptive climber. It's so specific to your body. There are things that work for lots of people, but it's so personal. And so people are figuring it out together how to do it.What's interesting, and I think at the end of the day, paraclimbing and disabled climbers challenge the idea that we have that climbing should be about getting to the top as fast as possible, that it should be fundamentally goal oriented. Lots of climbers with mobility disabilities particularly, I see folks climb very slowly because they have to move slowly. And it's, I think, adding something unique to climbing as a sport to start thinking about it. Less is about getting to the top, doing things as fast as possible, and more is about the experience of climbing, about building strength, about solving problems, and, you know, like the way we talk about climbing and especially competitive climbing. It doesn't emphasize that. It emphasizes getting to the top of the mountain. It emphasizes how fast can you speed climb, and paracliming is the opposite of that, and I think has a lot to teach the climbing community.ADRIANA: Yeah, it's so true for me as a climber, especially because my family climbs. And so I'm constantly comparing myself to my husband and my daughter. And it's taken me a long time personally to just get over, like, oh, they're, you know, they're getting some bouldering problem that I can't. Getting over that and just focusing on, like, am I pushing myself? Am I improving as a climber? So it's not like the competition against others, it's the competition against self. What are you doing to challenge your mental limits, your physical limits within what you're comfortable doing? Because I think that's really, at the end of the day, is climbing is all about what you're, what you're comfortable doing and how far you're willing to push yourself to do it, really?RYNN: Exactly. Exactly. It's about personally pushing yourself. And I think comparison is definitely the thief of joy within climbing, because everyone, not just disabled people, has a unique body. There are lots of things about your body that go into which moves are easy for you and which moves are hard for you. For example, I'm super tall, so any kind of sit start where you have to start very close to the ground is super painful for me. I hate it. I can barely get in those positions. Adriana is, you know, you're super short, and so big reachy moves are difficult for you.ADRIANA: They are, yeah, they're, they're the crux for me. They. They make me angry, and in probably the same way that the sit starts make you angry.RYNN: Right, right. But I have big, long arms, so I can often just reach up for that kind of hold.ADRIANA: Yeah, totally, totally.RYNN: Yeah.ADRIANA: And I think that's. That's the thing. As you said, it's like knowing, like, working...what...working with your body and understanding how it works. And, and that's. That's one thing that I've personally, on my climbing journey, I've had to realize. Cause, like, my daughter is similar. Similar size. She's more slender than me, she's a little bit taller, but similar size.So I'm like, oh, she does whatever move. I'm like, then this is the way that I'm gonna do it. And then I realize, oh, I don't have maybe the same level of flexibility or, like, I just don't have the courage to do as risky a move as she's doing. And so now I have to, like, rethink my strategy. Like, how can I do this within the confines of what I'm comfortable doing, knowing how my body's gonna function?RYNN: Right, right. She's 20 years younger than you, and it's much less of a big deal for her if she gets injured because younger people bounce back quicker.ADRIANA: Exactly, exactly. But I mean, generally, just like, you know, that is what I love about the climbing community, though, in general, is, like, it is a very, like, welcoming community, and folks are always cheering each other on. Even, like, going to new climbing gyms in different cities, there's, you can, like, hang out with a random group of people that you'll probably never see again for a session and just climb together and cheer each other on. And I think that's, you know, we need more welcoming moments like these. And then the fact that, like, it's nice to see, like, you know, after you and I met, like, I noticed, like, in the last year, my. My local gym has been doing some adaptive climbing. And, you know, and then I thought back to, like, you know, when. When we were climbing a couple of times in. At, like, KubeCon, Detroit, and Open Source Summit last year, and. And, you know, and you kind of opened my eyes to adaptive climbing. I'm like, oh, this is so nice that, like, my local gym is, like, really embracing adaptive climbing and, like, really bringing that, like, making it more inclusive for folks, because I think I feel like that is, like, the. The essence of. Of the climbing community and also, like, just the range, as you said, of, like, different types of adaptive climbing. Like, you and I were talking at one point where you were, you told me about, like, climbers who are blind and they have somebody who calls out, holds for them as they climb. Like, I would have never in a million years guessed that that is something that was possible. And so, like, it kind of warms my heart that it really is, like, a sport that's, like, really open for everybody.RYNN: Exactly. And, man, like, as a mobility impaired climber, comparing yourself to a blind climber is definitely the theme of joy. They're so strong! Everything works.ADRIANA: Absolutely. Well, I did want to switch gears for a sec and also talk about another thing, which is, like, you're a CNCF Ambassador and you just got renewed for another couple of years, so congrats. Yay.RYNN: Excited to be an Ambassador with you.ADRIANA: Yeah, definitely. And I was wondering if you could tell folks about your own CNCF Ambassadorship journey, like, what got you to apply in the first place and what got you to continue doing the work, like, make you want to continue being an Ambassador.RYNN: Sure. So I became a Cloud Native Computing Foundation Ambassador because I was already doing a lot of community building work within OpenTelemetry. And the Ambassador program has lots of support for people who organize meetups. And, you know, I was super excited to get that support to be sort of better connected to CNCF. I also, at the time Adriana and I started, there weren't really many Ambassadors who had a focus outside Kubernetes. So it was an opportunity to bring more awareness of our project, OpenTelemetry, which is the second fastest growing and, I think, second largest project within the Cloud Native Computing foundation to the broader Cloud Native Computing Foundation community to really attempt to make it as ubiquitous as Kubernetes. I've stayed in the program and continued to meet the requirements, less because of that, because much of that has happened over the past couple years that Adriana and I have been working on the project and more because the people in the Ambassador program are really, truly wonderful. And I love getting the opportunity to connect with people who are passionate about cloud native from all over the world that I get in the Ambassador program.ADRIANA: And I have to say, like, I think when we were first, like, newly minted Ambassadors last year in Amsterdam, there was, like, we attended our first CNCF Ambassador breakfast. And I, you know, hats off to you. Like, you are such a social butterfly. And I sometimes, like, I can be, like, sometimes in crowds, I can be very, like, I can shut down because of the introvert in me. And it was thanks to you that, you know, like, you went out and started introducing yourself and, like, to. To various folks and, and allowed me to tag along for the ride, and that way got to meet some, like, new Ambassadors that I, I probably would have been the person standing off in the corner because I'm like, oh, my God, this is too overwhelming for me.So, anyway, I want to call that out. Like, hats off to you. You really are like a lovely community builder. You do such a great job of, of connecting people. So I can totally vouch for your superpower on that. And what I know that obviously, we're involved together in the OTel End User SIG. Are there other areas in CNCF that you're involved in that you're super passionate about?RYNN: Definitely my biggest investment in CNCF is the OTel End User SIG. However, I've been involved in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing working group as an act of solidarity with other folks with disabilities. I spoke on a panel at KubeCon EU with a lot of folks from that community, and they have really I think some of the hardest time, you know, because my disability, when I sit down at my desk, it doesn't impact me all that much. Sure, I have ADHD, but so do half of the developers, but my mobility disability doesn't really have any impact. And in fact, once we started interviewing remotely, it was great because I didn't even have to disclose that I had a disability until after I was hired. And for the deaf and hard of hearing folks, it's very challenging because so much of the information about new technologies you get at conferences, you get by sort of watching videos and webinars. It's tough just to follow things in text. And people don't always make things captioned.They don't always make things accessible. And in the case of some deaf people, in fact, their first language is sign language. Sign languages aren't related word by word to their parent, to any spoken language. They. For example, American Sign Language is called American Sign Language because it shares many of the cultural assumptions of American English. What it does not share is the grammatical assumptions and the ways of saying things, because there is a language called signing exact English, and that is not so much a language as spelling out written English letter by letter. That is extremely slow. It's not a good way to communicate.So, for example, you may have three gestures to communicate an entire sentence in sign language because the grammar is set up to be economical in terms of movement. It uses facial expressions, etcetera. And so if folks' first language is written English, if folks first language is sign language, then when they learn written English, that is a second language. And they also don't have the advantage that the rest of us have of learning how to both write and speak at the same time and being able to move back and forth between the two modalities. It is strictly a visual modality. And so it can be more challenging for folks to get involved in the community, both because everyone is speaking English out loud and because written English is not the exact analog of their signed language. There's no written version of the sign language. So I have a lot of respect for folks in this community, and there's just amazing people becoming engineers with all sorts of situations, everything from a little bit hard of hearing to, you know, folks who are completely deaf and whose first language is sign language. And I've learned so much from the vibrancy and the energy that these folks bring to this very hard problem, because literally, like, the second they go on a phone interview, their disability is exposed.ADRIANA: Right, right.RYNN: That takes a lot. Besides that, I'm involved in the CNCF AI working group. I have mostly been involved in sort of community building exercises for them, like managing presences at events, doing user surveys. They're working on white papers on how AI is being used in cloud native, which is super exciting to sort of see this space grow and change. And I'm really stoked that that's happening outside the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. I work on contributor Covenant 3. I built an enforcement system and enforcement manual for contributor Covenant 2, and that's led to now I'm one of the lead editors on 3, which we have started on this year. We're at the 10th anniversary of this important code of conduct that was one of the first codes of conduct available for open source projects.The CNCF uses a modified version of the contributor code of conduct across all of their projects. So do lots of other major projects. I believe Google's open source team used it, at least for a while. They may, I think, have transitioned to their own thing, Microsoft, lots of big companies, lots of big foundations that really took it on and made it their own. And I'm excited to be revisiting this ten years after the first code of conduct, because when we thought of the first one, we were a bunch of Americans who were frankly pissed off about things like sexual harassment at conferences. And now much of that has settled down. Conference culture has changed for the better, so that there's almost an expectation that there's a code of conduct. You don't see things like booth babes on the show floor much anymore.The position that women and non binary people have and the relationship to sexuality has really changed in the industry. And now what we are taking on is how do we internationalize this? How do we genuinely consider developers from all over the world, how do we consider different concepts of justice, different concepts of what is right, and still continue to advocate for inclusion in a wide range of cultural contexts? And how do we make this code of conduct better for the wide range of people, things people are doing these days? Because when we designed it initially, we thought, well, there will be conferences and there will be contributing pull requests to open source conference, to open source things. And now it's way more than that. We're doing way more in tech, and it's super exciting to think about all these places in which a code of conduct can be used. And it's also super exciting to be able to evolve away from strictly sort of punitive measures like, no, don't harass people, because some of that groundwork has been taken care of and it's more expected that you're not going to do those things. Now we can start talking about desired behaviors and ways to contribute to a community positively, ways to maintain the tone of a community. And so I'm really excited about the cc three work this year.ADRIANA: That's so cool. And, you know, it's interesting, too, because, like, these are the types of things that I think most of us just take for granted. Right? There is a code of conduct, but there is a group of humans behind that code of conduct that have put a lot of time and effort in crafting that out to make sure that, you know, you're covering all the bases as much as possible. And it's cool to bring awareness to that because, like I said, it's absolutely something that we take for granted in this area.RYNN: Right. And what I would say is people who write codes of conduct get lots of hate mail. There is a group of folks who is highly invested in being able to behave badly.ADRIANA: Oh, wow.RYNN: Of course, they will claim that they really support free speech or that they think everyone is equal and they want to get past this identity nonsense when you have a thing that says, no, we shall not discriminate on the basis of ability, race, national origin, and they will hide behind those kinds of arguments, especially on the Internet. But the reality is they are invested in being able to continue behaving the way that they want to anyone, and not invested in being able to show up in a community and participate in a way that's inclusive and respectful. And so as a code of conduct author, we get lots of hate mail. Many of us have, like, elaborate personal security systems that make us hard to track down because folks have received threats to their home, etcetera. So it's really important for you to go to the authors of your favorite code of conduct and, you know, make the effort to put pull request to show that you're using that code of conduct. Write them a letter saying that you actually appreciate their work because they don't get those letters.ADRIANA: Wow. That is. I had no idea it was, like, so, so brutal out there for code of conduct authors. And I appreciate you bringing this to light because I honestly, I would have never guessed that would be so, like, wow, just an awful experience.RYNN: Yeah. Yeah. There's always a pool of people who are like, the status quo is fine because it is serving me, and I am highly invested in keeping that the same instead of being like, you know, how can we change text so that everyone feels welcome? So there's more text. So we're all supported, and it's sad to see.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. And so in spite of all this, like, what keeps you continuing to work on the code of conduct? Cause, I mean, I'm sure the hate mail can be scary at times.RYNN: It can be scary at times. And, you know, I didn't work on CC one, which is when we received, really the worst of it, but some of my co editors did. And I'm aware of those stories. And I think what keeps me doing it is that I genuinely believe that making tech, and especially cloud native, in our case, a more opening and welcoming place, makes better technology. It makes better user interfaces. When we think about the needs of a wide range of users, from folks who need accessibility to folks who might not speak the language of the interface as a first language, to sort of thinking about internationalization, all of these things are better thought about by a diversity of people. And so I feel that code of conduct work, and I also was involved in rolling out the code of conduct system across all of Mozilla's projects. I didn't write their code of conduct.It was one of the first codes of conduct that did have desired behaviors, but sort of evangelized it into all the communities, did workshops on it. I believe that codes of conduct have the power to help us heal some divides within the tech community and bring people together. And I feel like having a safe environment should be table stakes for everyone. And I want to work to make that happen.ADRIANA: That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone deserves to be in a place where they feel included and safe. And it's nice to see that, like, there is work going on in the community to help make that happen. Even just going back to the work that you said that you were doing with the deaf and hard of hearing group, even, like, I noticed in, I think, the last KubeCon that they actually had, like, someone who was basically, as the keynotes were happening, actually, I think as the talks were happening, they had someone in sign language. Like, basically, I don't know if that's the appropriate term, but translating into sign language as people spoke, which, very cool. And again, until you see that, you're like, oh, my God, I've been taking for granted this entire time that I can hear people speak, and some people, like, they can't.RYNN: And something you don't see at KubeCon is that they have a system behind the scenes that is AI based, that takes in audio and text and puts out captions or audio in a person's native language, and lots of people are listening to it. You get to see the sign language interpreters, because at least right now, that still can't be AI'd. The translation is too different. The translation is too different. It's visual material, but that's a tiny element of all the internationalization that is going on in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. And we're also seeing, you know, in the last year, so they've launched KubeCon China, which is actually getting folks from behind the wall. They've launched Kube Day India. India is one of the largest places that contributes to open source, and they contribute in ways that are quite different than the way we think about contribution in the west, because they go to code clubs, which are like meetups.They'll go to code club on Friday. Like, you'll go to code club on Friday night, and you'll work through a contribution together. And you might not necessarily be, like, super skilled or all working on the same project, but your folks are learning together. But then from a code of conduct and a behavior standpoint that poses lots of challenges that we don't experience when we think about, oh, what's the code of conduct for people in the US who are sitting at home typing on their computer on GitHub, their experience is very different. And similarly, you know, China has lots of very specific rules about information going in and out of China. India, there is caste based oppression that can happen. For example, when I was at Mozilla to manage these code clubs, we ended up hiring a contractor in India who had a very good knowledge of, like, western feminism, had sort of been to school for women's studies and also of Indian culture, who could be our translator when issues came up, because we were like, this person is writing to us that people from this particular neighborhood can't feel welcome at this code club. And we care about this, and we don't understand the dynamics.And then it's like, oh, well, these people are actually low caste, quote unquote. And this other caste, you know, they're trained from birth to hate these people. And, like, we needed an explainer.ADRIANA: Wow. Wow, that's so wild. Yeah. These things that you just take for granted, you know, doing, working in western culture and even just going back to, like, the internationalization thing, I think I saw recently somewhere that, you know, I think the OpenTelemetry website, like opentelemetry.io. I think there they're doing. They're translating it into more languages. And I'm part of this group of Brazilians on CNCF Slack, and someone was asking around, oh, anyinterest in doing a translation into Brazilian Portuguese for opentelemetry.io. Because again, it's like if your working language is English, you totally take it for granted. But that is not the case for everybody.And there are some very smart people out there whose first language is not English. They don't feel comfortable speaking it, and why should they? And so, like, let's make it more inclusive for them by making things available in their native language or for them to be able to contribute in their native language and feel comfortable. And that's another aspect that we so easily forget about.RYNN: Right. And I should put in a plug that Contributor Covenant 2 and Contributor Covenant 3 are managed through the Organization for Ethical Source. And if you speak more than one language, particularly if you were very fluent in the culture of the countries that speak a non english language, we could really use you. First of all, we want to, we're trying to make sure that we have translations into as many languages as possible of CC 2. And CC 2 is sort of a direct translation from CC from, from the English. But what we would like to do with CC 3 is get folks in who have already translated CC 2 and thought some about, like, what that would mean inside their culture so that we can create translations of the code that take into mind that folks have different concepts of what justice is. Folks have different ideas about enforcement in different cultures. And we weren't able to keep that. We weren't able to, like, figure that out when we were writing CC 2 because the pressure was so great just to reduce the amount of harassment that folks were experiencing in tech. And now that we're working on CC 3, we have an opportunity to create that.ADRIANA: So it's not just a matter of doing a direct translation, but also, like, capturing the cultural nuances. And it is. What it sounds like?RYNN: Yeah, yeah. Probably the easiest path is to work on or review a direct translation of CC 2, and then you have a starting point for thinking about, okay, what's different in my culture that I would like reflected in a version of CC 3 that takes, that really is culturally sensitive, because that's an important part of localization and globalization efforts, is it's not just like the English words showing up in the other language. It's, does this make sense? And for our code of conduct, I think it's especially important that people are able to internalize and grasp the precepts of the code of conduct. So going back to the caste example in India, for example, we would include caste based discrimination directly. And folks in that culture are aware of what that is and how to impact that, that sort of thing. Yeah, just lots of things around cultures, ideas of justice are really different, and we want the code of conduct to be something that is so simple that people can internalize it within their own framework of justice and inclusion.ADRIANA: Gotcha. Gotcha. Wow. I have learned so much today. This has been such a great conversation, and thank you for enlightening me on so many different areas. We are coming up on time, but before we go, was wondering if there's any either a hot take or a piece of advice that you'd like to leave folks off with.RYNN: You know, people and people's individual stories are a really important part of technology. I think we underrate that. We think that it's all about the best tech, but the reality is it's about the human relationships. It's about how tech supports our ability to be human. And I think, you know, my advice is don't lose sight of that.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so great. I really love that. What a, what a what? Very lovely parting words. Well, thank you so much, Rynn, for geeking out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check our show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...RYNN: 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.
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Sep 24, 2024 • 50min

The One Where We Geek Out on Data Privacy with Rizèl Scarlett

About our guest:Rizèl Scarlett is a Staff Developer Advocate at TBD, Block's newest business unit. With a diverse background spanning GitHub, startups, and non-profit organizations, Rizèl has cultivated a passion for utilizing emerging technologies to champion equity within the tech industry. She moonlights as an Advisor at G{Code} House, an organization aimed at teaching women of color and non-binary people of color to code. Rizèl believes in leveraging vulnerability, honesty, and kindness as means to educate early-career developers.Find our guest on:Twitter (X)LinkedInTwitchWebsiteFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:International Left Handers Day (August 13th)Kotlin (programming language)Resilient Coders (coding bootcamp)Angie JonesBrian DouglasG{Code} House (non-profit)TBDGitHub UniverseKansas City Developer Conference (KCDC)Verifiable Credential (W3C)Decentralized Web Node (DWN)Additional notes:TBD on TwitchTranscript:ADRIANA: Hey, fellow geeks. 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 with me today, I have Rizelle Scarlett. Welcome, Rizel.RIZEL: Hi. Thank you for having me. It's super fun already, even though the podcast has just started.ADRIANA: Yay! I'm so excited to have you on. And where are you calling from today?RIZEL: I'm calling from Boston, Massachusetts, right now.ADRIANA: Awesome. So, fellow, fellow east coaster. As someone who lives in Boston, I gotta ask. So I just came back from a vacation trip to Stowe, Vermont. Have you ever been up that way? Because I have a bunch of family that. That goes up to Stowe, so I'm wondering if that's, like, a destination for Bostonians.RIZEL: Interesting. I never really go to Vermont or Maine, but it's like a place I want to go. Like, it looks. When I see the pictures, it looks pretty. It's really weird. Like, sometimes when you live close to places, you don't go visit them, but you go to the far place.ADRIANA: It is so true. Because it's like, it'll always be there. Whatever.RIZEL: I take it for granted.ADRIANA: It's so true. It's so true. Well, before we get started with the meaty bits, I always subject my guests to some icebreaker questions. So are you ready?RIZEL: I'm ready. Let's go.ADRIANA: Okay, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?RIZEL: I'm a righty. Like, all the way.ADRIANA: All right, awesome. I do want to mention, even though this is coming out sometime in the fall, today is international lefty day.RIZEL: Oh, wow. Shout out to all the lefties.ADRIANA: I observe it because I'm a lefty.RIZEL: I'm glad you get a day. I don't...Y'all need it. I get it.ADRIANA: We get screwed over on various things, like scissors. So.RIZEL: Yes. I was just saying that scissors are hard for y'all.ADRIANA: I know. I just end up using, like, right hand people scissors, left handed. And it's a little awkward, but it's okay. All right, next question. Are you an iPhone or Android person?RIZEL: I used to be a die hard Android person, and then, I don't know, like, once I started into tech, my job gave me a Mac, and then they gave me AirPods at one job, so I just slowly switched over to all things Apple. So now I have the iPhone.ADRIANA: It's the gateway drug. It was my gateway drug, too. Like, when I got my first personal Mac, I was like, boom. That's it.RIZEL: Right? Wait, wait...iMessage is all synced. Everything's just perfect. I was like, I can't go back to Android now. Sorry.ADRIANA: I feel, ya. I had a BlackBerry before my iPhone, so I never knew Android other than helping my mom when my dad bought her an Android for a very brief period of time. And then I said, screw it, I'm getting you an iPhone. But she'd ask me for tech support on Android. I'm like...RIZEL: What do I do? Yeah, I don't. When my mom asked me for help, I'm like, girl. She's like, but you're a computer person. I don't know.ADRIANA: I don't want to touch it. Okay, next question. Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows?RIZEL: Oh, okay. When I was in, I used to be in IT support and I used to like Windows and Linux. I felt like they were easy to troubleshoot and all that. But then when I went to software engineering, I prefer Mac. I don't know, just, just very similar to what I told you about when they gave me a Mac. I got hooked.ADRIANA: Yeah, I feel, ya. Yeah. I grew up on Windows. Windows 3.1. Back in the old days...RIZEL: Oh yeah. I remember using Windows 95.ADRIANA: Oh my God.RIZEL: Screen savers.ADRIANA: When that came out, I was like, mind blown. I'm like, what is this? As if Windows 3.1 could get better.RIZEL: Oh my God.ADRIANA: Yes. That dates me a lot. Um, okay, next question. Um, do you have a favorite programming language? And if so, what is it?RIZEL: Oh, okay. I love JavaScript. I like SQL, and Kotlin is like my new love now. Like, SQL is like the first thing I learned, and JavaScript. And like Kotlin, I'm like, yo, why did no one tell me about this? It's bomb.ADRIANA: It's funny because I've heard the same thing from various people who get into Kotlin and they're like, yeah, it's so good. Cleaner, like version of Java, right? Because it runs on the JVM.RIZEL: Yes, way cleaner. I think I've learned Java in college and I was like, this thing is overwhelming. But like, Kotlin's like, it kind of, it feels TypeScript. It just doesn't feel...It feels lightweight. It's like...ok... And intuitive.ADRIANA: Yeah, I love it. It makes me want to check out Kotlin. My dad is actually in tech, so I have like big shoes to fill. And he, for years, like, he's retired now, but for years he'd just rave about Kotlin. Like he still loves it. He's like, it's my favorite language to prototype in. Now he does Rust for fun.RIZEL: Wow.ADRIANA: Yeah, super hardcore. He's 71 and he does Rust for fun, so there.RIZEL: And that's, like, cool that you have a dad that was, like, a software engineer.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like big shoes to fill, though, because it's like, you know, he knows his shit. So... Sorry?RIZEL: No, I was like, I could easily impress my parents. Whereas you're like.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. With my dad, it's like, he'll catch the bullshit, but I love it. Kotlin. That's awesome. Okay, do you prefer dev or ops?RIZEL: I think I prefer dev. I guess there's nice stuff about ops, but I think I'm just a more trained, formally trained dev, that's why.ADRIANA: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay, next question. Do you prefer JSON or YAML?RIZEL: I prefer JSON. YAML. I don't know. It gives me a headache. I don't know.ADRIANA: Yeah...it's so funny. For me, it's the opposite. I find, like, JSON is, like, too many curly braces. It's like, Java trauma because I did Java for, like, 16 years, so I'm like, I don't want to see another curly brace.RIZEL: I get it. I don't know. Like, it'd be like, you didn't indent the right way. And I'm like, man, how many indent?ADRIANA: Yeah, it's punishing. It's punishing. It's true. Although, like, I'm getting mad at JSON lately because I'm, like, playing with dev containers and, like, I keep forgetting commas after. I'm like, stop yelling at me, JSON. Yeah, no, I mean, that's the worst of it, at least, but it's still like, stop getting mad at me over a comma.RIZEL: I know that pain.ADRIANA: I get you. Yeah. Okay, next question. Do you prefer spaces or tabs?RIZEL: Hmmm...I don't know...people...I think I kind of mix them. I know, like, people are, like, die hard. I think I just press whatever I need to press. I don't really think about it. I just feel like, type, type, space, type, type, tab. So I don't have a preference here.ADRIANA: Awesome. I love it. Bridging the gap between spaces and tabs. Okay, two more questions left. Do you prefer to learn things through video or text?RIZEL: Oh, that's a good question. I think it really depends on the situation. Like, if I. If I just want to get something done really quick, like, I'm just like, I just need to figure out how to. Like, I don't want to read a book, to be honest...about, about coding, but if I see some documentation, copy and paste real quick. I'm like, da da da da da. But if I need a deep explain explainer, like, why am I doing this? What's going on? Then I prefer video because I could...I guess I could rewind. I guess you could rewind with a book. I don't know, but I...my brain consumes the information better.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, I get that. I get that. It's funny when you mentioned, like, you don't want to read a book about tech, because it made me think back to, like, in the early days, that's all you had, right? Was, like, those big, thick, manuals, like, for learning a language. And as soon as you mentioned, I don't want to read a book, I'm like, holy shit, like, PTSD. Like, I had this flashback to my childhood of, like...because my dad got me started early in coding, so... Like, I had, like, a book on basic open.RIZEL: Wow.ADRIANA: And I'm, like, trying to go through the exercises and type it out on my computer at the same time. Right. Because no online documentation with copy paste. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I don't want to, like, go through a programming book.RIZEL: Yeah. Shout out to y'all that learned from the books, though. But I, like, it's just so much easier to do, like, command F and copy and paste. I mean, if the book is online, I'm okay with that.ADRIANA: I am super down for that as well. I like that. I like that. Yeah. I hadn't even, like, thought about that until you mentioned it. Okay, final question. What is your superpower?RIZEL: Oh, that's a good question. Um. Oh, I guess that I think I'm resourceful. Like, I think a lot of times, people...Is that a superpower? I don't know. They're like, I don't know how to get the answer or whatever. It doesn't matter if it's tech or not. I think I will find a way to make something work.ADRIANA: That is a great superpower. And I feel like you have to be resourceful in tech. Because we're put in so many situations where it's like, yeah, you can't do that because, you know, you're not allowed to because of, like, whatever work network policy or whatever firewall shit. Or, like, I don't know. Or my problem is, like, a slightly different variant of the thing in stack overflow.RIZEL: Yes. You can't just straight up copy and paste some text.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, I think that's such a great superpower. Well, thanks for. Thanks for answering the questions. And now we are ready to get into the meaty bits. So I wanted to start out with. I always like to hear how folks on the show have started their career. So what got you into tech initially?RIZEL: Yeah. So, initially, I was studying psychology, like, out of college because I didn't really know what I want to study. And then I found out I don't have enough money, and on top of that, I was undocumented. So that made stuff a little bit more complicated. Like, I can't get, like, certain grants and, like, bigger scholarships that people were getting, so I was doing a lot of out of pocket. So then I had to stop going to college, and then that made me reevaluate and be like, okay, I can't. It doesn't really make sense to study psychology because I got to go get my masters to actually make...start making some kind of money or get a job.So then I was, like, Googling what jobs make the most money really fast. And then, like, tech came up. Okay. Like, so in the beginning, it was, like, a financial thing, but, yeah, yeah. Like, so computer science came up. I got a little nervous by the math because I've never been, like, super strong in math. So I was like, I'll just do information systems major at a community college. So I did that.RIZEL: I got an internship, got a job, and then that allowed me to, like, pay for college at the same time as having a job, but then...IT support, that was fun, but I just felt like I was really good at it, so it got boring easily for me. I don't know. It's fun, but I'm like, I need more of a challenge. So I was like, okay, I'm ready to try out computer science, but I didn't. I still didn't have enough money to go for, like, a whole bachelor's, so I went to a free coding bootcamp called Resonant Coders. Learned to code from there. And then once I got my software engineering job, then I got a bachelor's in computer science. Did that while I had my software engineering job, and then I transitioned into DevRel.ADRIANA: Wow, that's so awesome. So it's like this accidental discovery of, like, oh, I actually like this.RIZEL: Yeah. Yeah. I was like, this is actually fun. Like, I like the challenge, and I like the community. So cool.ADRIANA: Yeah, the community has been awesome, and especially, I would say, in open source.RIZEL: Yeah, I agree.ADRIANA: So you mentioned you got into DevRel, and what got you into the DevRel path.RIZEL: Yeah. So I was doing software engineering, and I like coding, but I'm not a huge fan of software engineering. I don't know. So, like, you know, like the whole, like, agile and everything into, like, I don't know, that's, it's just not necessarily how I work or, like, what really excites me. So on the side of doing software engineering and on the side of completing my computer science degree, I also was helping to run, like, I also helped to start a nonprofit that was teaching women of color how to code. And I was like, I really enjoy, like, making these presentation decks and just like, explaining to them little parts of code that, like, I don't know, they were asking interesting questions. They were like, why do the hyperlinks turn blue? I'm like, I don't know. I never thought of that. Let me go, like, dig into it. So I really liked that part of, like, still getting to code but explain things to people. So I was like, Googling, how do I get to do that for the same amount of money as, like, software engineering? Because that nonprofit job was not paying. So I kept finding people like Angie Jones and Brian Douglas, and I was like, what's their job? And it's a developer advocate. So that's how I, I just applied. And at first people told me, you don't have experience. But then GitHub gave me a chance.ADRIANA: That's such a great story. And I love also that, you know, as you mentioned, like, GitHub gave you a chance. And I feel like so many times in tech careers, it's all about someone just taking a chance on you. That they see something beyond the experience, right? Like, I think that's the thing that's a little bit frustrating. I think a lot of people get very hung up on, like, do you know this exact technology? It's like...no. I can learn.RIZEL: Right. It's not that...I mean, it could be hard, but I have the ability.ADRIANA: Exactly, exactly. And what is modern tech if not the ability to just pick up a bunch of stuff that you never knew on the fly because, you know, otherwise you get left out.RIZEL: Yeah, that's how it works. You're never going to know everything. Yeah. So I was really grateful when GitHub gave me the chance. I didn't even think GitHub, like, that's a big company. But I was like, oh, thanks, guys. And I ended up, I think I did really well. So, yeah, absolutely.ADRIANA: That's so amazing. How, how, like, you know, before when you mentioned, like, working and studying at the same time and running this, this program for women of color coding, like, how, how did you manage doing that? Like, without, you know, just, like, losing your mind. Like, that's a lot of stuff to juggle.RIZEL: I don't. Okay. I think I was super stressed out, so I wouldn't. I'm not gonna lie to anybody. Like, I was just breezing through. I was. There was. There was times that, like, I was either doing bad at my job or I was doing bad at school. Took to. And then doing good at school, but, like, it would, like, fluctuate. I never reduced the amount that I was giving to the nonprofit maybe until the last year. Like, the last. I did the nonprofit for, like, four or five years. And when I joined GitHub, I was like, this is too much. Like, I'm traveling and doing this, and, like, you could tell the quality of work was kind of lowering, so I did. I did.There was crying nights and everything because I'm like, my homework's not working or my. My work is not working. So it was not. It was not smooth sailing, but I think I was. I was used to always having multiple jobs or multiple school and jobs, so, like, it didn't feel like anything to me. But now I'm like, I just want one job, and that's it.ADRIANA: Yeah, that is super fair. And. And, you know, thanks for also, like, being so candid, too, about, like, you know, these things are hard to juggle. And I do often find, like, something does have to give because there's, like, only so many hours in the day. Brainpower, sleep.RIZEL: Definitely.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And, you know, I think. I think as we get more into our careers, because it's so easy, like, when you get early into a career, even if it's, like, it's. You've been around for a while, but, like, you've taken on a new career, you don't want to say no, because it's like, but what if this is a great opportunity?RIZEL: Yeah, I tend to have that problem. I'm trying to reduce it, but that's been, like, a thing for me where I'm like, but I really need the opportunity.ADRIANA: It's more exposure.RIZEL: Yes, sorry, go ahead.ADRIANA: I was gonna say I totally agree, but feel. But saying no also, like, feels so icky sometimes. I don't know if you feel that way, but I feel so guilty when I have it. I'm like, I'm letting someone down.RIZEL: Yeah, I feel. I feel bad sometimes because it's just tough. I think even at GitHub, I really loved working there, and I did really well there. But sometimes some people, like, I think I was one of the more visible people on my team, and I was like, relatable. So sometimes people outside of my team would be like, hey, we need you to work on this. And I'm like, what about my coworker? And they're like, no, no. You're the only one that can do it. And people were like, you just gotta say no. I'm like, but I already said no. And they pushed back. I'm just going to say yes. Now I'm nervous, or I feel bad.ADRIANA: But it's so flattering at the same time, right? Because I think a lot of our job, especially as DevRels, is that relatability. And that's why people consume our content, because they look at the stuff that we produce and it's good, but also, like, we're approachable, relatable. It's like, oh, I want to talk to you. So then you don't want to say no.RIZEL: It was, like, flattering and overwhelming at the same time.ADRIANA: I know, right? Yeah, yeah, I feel ya. And as a DevRel, have you also like, what's kind of your favorite thing to DevRel on? Is it like blog post creation, talks, video content? Like, what's your, what's your jam?RIZEL: Ooh, that's a good question. I think blog posts are my thing. Like, I'm very. I love doing blog posts. Recently, as I've gone to this new job, maybe I've done less of them. I also like live streams because, like, live stream coding or live stream talking to other people within, um, this particular whatever industry I'm in because I think it allows me to learn more about that industry while also, like, creating a connection for my company. Um, I like talks too. I like a lot of it. The only thing I probably don't like as much is I'm probably not the best at, like, pre recorded video content creation.ADRIANA: That's stressful. Like, you would think would be easy because it's like, I have a script, I just need to, like, talk in the video, and it's like, no worse than, like, than doing, like, a live talk or live stream.RIZEL: Yeah, because the live stream, you're going to make a mistake. You can't rewind it is what it is. But pre recording, I'm like, no, I got to do that over and then it's like 10 hours later.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, I. I can totally relate. Like, I created video content last year, and sometimes it would take, like, I think for a five minute thing, it would take over an hour. And there were so many outtakes of me going, fuck, I'm sure if I hadn't deleted all those outtakes, or...like, I would have a computer full of fucks.RIZEL: That would be a cool blooper reel.ADRIANA: Oh my God. It would be. I want to ask you, like, about public speaking. Like, what was sort of, like, your first public speaking experience? Was it, like, in a tech setting, or was it a non tech setting? Like, what launched you into doing talks?RIZEL: Yeah, DevRel did. Because actually, my intention was like, I don't know. I didn't. I didn't know that this was probably over ambitious, but I was like, I don't want or not ambitious. Or maybe under ambitious. Like, I thought I could sneak get away with it. I was like, I don't want to do any public speaking. I was like, I'll just sit behind the scenes. And my manager's like, yeah, I don't know if that's going to work, Rizel. So I think at first, I started off, like, doing virtual talks, and I think that was helpful because it was pretty similar to when I did a nonprofit I would, like, do talks to. Like, it was kind of like talks to beginners. So I'm like, okay. Familiar. And then after that, the first, like, in public and other people seeing me was at Kansas City Developer Conference.ADRIANA: Oh, cool.RIZEL: Yeah, it was a nice audience. They were, like, welcoming, so that was good. But because before that, my public speaking skills were not good. I was like. I just kept having a shaky voice. Every time I did any kind of public speaking, it could be, like, a small crowd, and they'd be like, Rizel, present your demo. And it'd be like, hello.ADRIANA: It can be so nerve wracking going in front of an audience, because, like, I don't know if you get this, but, like, when I go to speak, I'm like, shit, they're looking at me.RIZEL: Yeah.ADRIANA: They expect me to say intelligent things.RIZEL: Yeah, yeah.ADRIANA: The self conscious thing comes up, and you're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm usually like, I'm dying before. Right before a talk. And then when once I get in the groove, I, like, calm down, and then the world melts, thankfully.ADRIANA: But I'm a wreck beforehand.RIZEL: Same, I think. Yeah. Now, for some reason, I don't know what switched, but now I just black out everybody. Like, I don't even realize they're there anymore, because once. Once I realize that people are there or, like. And I, like, make eye contact, that's when the nerves come back. But if I block out everybody, I'm like, I'm just talking. And it is really good.ADRIANA: Yeah.ADRIANA: You know, I think I do something similar because a lot of, like, advice around public speaking is, oh, focus in on one person in the audience and connect with them. And I'm like, I don't know if I want to make eye contact with people like that.RIZEL: I don't. I probably look like I am, but I didn't see you. For real.ADRIANA: Yeah. I'm more of a I will scan back and forth as I talk kind of thing.RIZEL: Yeah.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, it definitely takes. Definitely takes a practice to get used to it, and I think to also, like, just kind of go with the flow when you realize that, you know, you've, like, messed something up. I had a talk where I had a co speaker recently, and she started, like, saying my lines at one point. I'm like, no, no, no, we gotta rewind. You know, like, we're not gonna get hung up on that. It is what it is. It's like, back up, restart, and the show must go on.RIZEL: Yeah, you just gotta go with, yeah, I make lots of mistakes, so I just have to erase them from my mind. I mean, it's whatever happened. Like, one time I showed my speaker notes, and I kind of. I just, like, I was like, oh, no, y'all can see my speaker notes, and I just moved on. Yeah. I'm like, it is what it is.ADRIANA: For real, that is actually one of my public speaking nightmares is for people to see my speaker notes. It's a window into my soul.RIZEL: I was like, how? In my head, I was like, how long have they been looking at the notes? Like, I don't know.ADRIANA: I had an online talk once where, um, I had forgotten to start sharing the slides, but fortunately it was caught early enough.RIZEL: Oh, yeah.ADRIANA: But I was, like, so embarrassed. I'm like, I. I can't think about this. I just need to, like, carry on and pretend that this didn't happen. But that's another nightmare of mine.RIZEL: And when I did the GitHub universe keynote, I messed up. But everybody was like, we didn't even notice. Like, I was, like, kicking myself about it. Like, I was like, oh, my God. Because basically there was, like, a recording of, like, I was demoing. What was it called? It was, like, Copilot Voice. They changed the name of it, but basically it's like, use your voice and then Copilot writes stuff for you.Yeah, but it was really hard to do live, so we were like, we're going to pre-record it and, like, kind of pretend you're doing it live, because I didn't record it with my voice, but sometimes, like, you know, your accent or whatever, it just wouldn't always go smoothly. And we have, like, a set amount of time, like, in the background, GitHub Copilot's, like, typing all the stuff that I'm saying, and then I. I think I went either ahead of it or behind it, and, like, it typed it out way after I said something, and then I was like, oh, no. Like, I said it under my breath, and when I was done, I was like, oh, my God. Like, everybody knew it. And everybody's like, we did not hear you say, oh, no. Like, we didn't even notice you made a mistake.ADRIANA: And, you know, that that's, like, such an important thing to call out, though, because I think, like, we tend to be so hard on ourselves when we give talks, and I think if people are interested in the content that we're producing, the things that we're talking about, they're not going to be scrutinizing every single little thing that you've done, because all they care about is, have I learned something? Am I having fun in this talk? And I think if you can deliver that, no one's going to harp on this stuff, but we, as perfectionists, lovers of our craft, were like, oh, my God.RIZEL: I want it to be perfect. But it's never perfect.ADRIANA: Never, never. Especially with live demos. This is why, as a rule of thumb, I don't do live demos. I pre-record my demos. I'm honestly terrified of doing live demos and live coding. So hats off to you for doing live coding, because I'm the kind of gal who likes to code in the comfort of my own personal little nook, and. And that is it. I hate it when people watch over me as I'm coding.RIZEL: Yeah, no, I I'm not a fan of it, either, but I think it's helping help me to grow and, like, I don't know, I become a better live coder on stage, so that's been good for me. But I agree with you. It's way comfortable to just be in your bed or just, like, in your own office and just typing with no one looking.ADRIANA: Exactly. No one can see, like, the. The angry, like, print statements that you put in. That's when I start to angry code. Why isn't this working? Why aren't you hitting the for loop?RIZEL: Oh, my God.ADRIANA: So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about. So, you mentioned that you were at GitHub, but you've got a new gig. Why don't you tell folks about your current gig?RIZEL: Yeah, actually, I almost worked here for a year. Now it's about like eleven months. Yeah. A company called TBD, that is the real name, but it's. It's a company or a business unit within Block. So Block has a couple of business units, like Square, Cash App, TBD, Title, like a couple different things. And, um, so just like background. Like, the idea behind all of this is like, Block really cares...or, this is their mission is like financial empowerment.So with square, they enabled like, mom and pop shops to be able to like, accept payments through, like, you know, you can just. In the beginning it was like you just put this little card reader on a phone and you could swipe it and stuff like that. And then with cash app, I know you're in Canada, but, like, within America it's like, oh, cool, I can send money to my friends with the click of a button. And so with TBD, we're doing a couple of things. One of the things is we're creating a. An SDK that allows financial institutions to basically make it easier for you to send money internationally and like, change the currency and stuff like that. Yeah. Because like, you're, you probably know, like, it's annoying if you're going to get money from or something.So they want to make it a smoother experience. So we're not necessarily building the tool that makes it a smoother experience, but we're building like, the SDK so that financial institutions and other businesses can take that and then they can build that. And then in addition to that, we also have this thing called Web5, which I know oftentimes people are like, what happened to Web4? And stuff like that. Like, yeah, I get it. But basically the. It's a tongue in cheek kind of name. But they're, the whole idea is they're trying to make it easier for you to own your data and your identity without block, the use of blockchain. So, like, they'll.They're basically like, we like the idea that, like, Web3 had of like, decentralizing things and helping you to own things, but there's like a barrier within blockchain. Like, we like some stuff, but we want to make it a little bit of a lower barrier to entry. And a lot of the stuff we're using like, our open standards from the W3C. And they're not like I, before I came into TBD, I was like, what are they really doing? But it's not like they made up anything. Like, one of the open standards is called Verifiable Credentials. And that's actually what mobile driver's license use underneath the hood. Like, that's the technology, the standard.Yeah. So it just allows you to be able to, like, have your digital identity on your phone and be able to control who can get access to certain parts of your data. Like, let's say you wanted to prove that you're of legal drinking age. Usually you will show your physical ID. It has your address and everything. You don't really need to show that. They just need to know you're over that age. So you can show your phone, have it be scanned, and it'll just be like, yep, this person's over 21 or 18 or whatever, and then you get your alcohol. So that's kind of like how the technology works.ADRIANA: So it basically, it's like we're just showing the necessary information.RIZEL: Yes, exactly. Yeah. It's called "selective disclosure". So you can choose to disclose only the things you want.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that's so important nowadays because, like, I feel like we've basically become open books in terms of personal data.RIZEL: Right.ADRIANA: Because, you know, it's like, you want this, you got to sign up for that. Like, I can't go into a store. Like, I'll go into, like, a retail store. And they're like, can I start off with your phone number? I'm like, how about no? What do you need it for? Yeah, or like, you've returned something and they. They want, like, your entire life's history. It's like, I'm returning, like, a five dollar thing. Why do you need, like, all this stuff about me?RIZEL: Exactly. And that even reminds me, I think earlier you, before the. The stream start or the podcast started, you were asking me, like, oh, do I want to talk about, like, pregnancy and tech? But that reminded me about something else. So I actually used Web5. Like, and I want to build more on this idea, but, like, in a company hackathon, I was like, it would be so cool if you can, like, own your, like, menstrual cycle data, your period date. Oh, that's the same thing. Your pregnancy data, all that. Any fertility or anything that's going on with, like, your own personal health. Because I feel like as soon as I, like, Googled any questions about it, or I downloaded an, like, a pregnancy app, then, like, TikTok and all my Facebook reels were like, what it's like to be a mom? And I'm like, dang. Yeah. So I'm like, it'll be so cool to still be able to track this stuff digitally, but, like, be able to own that data and then have the ability to share it with who you want to share it with.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.RIZEL: There's slightly two different concepts, but very similar. So, like, the verifiable credentials. And then what I used was something called the decentralized Webno, but the details don't matter too much. But anyways, it would be like, you can decide. Maybe I want, like, my partner to see this particular information or my doctor to see just this one part, like, of the information. Yeah. The rest for myself. So, like, yeah, it would be like that.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, that, yeah, that is so useful. And so that's something that you said that you were building as, like, part of an. You did it as part of an internal hackathon?RIZEL: Yeah, it's like, very, like, bare bones.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.RIZEL: I really want to, like, continue to build upon that. So there's. There's more to it right now, which is, like, you just add your. Your cycle data and then you have control over it, and then you could send it to someone, but I want to add. Yeah.ADRIANA: Yeah. That's so great. Wow. Yeah. That's such a useful application. You know, it's funny because you know that back when. Back in my day, there was, like, none of this, like, tracking cycles through an app. So, like, when that stuff came out, it's like, what? You can track it through an app, but then, you know, it's like the can of worms that. That opens up. Right. It's like, oh, you got. You got a cycle tracker? And what does that actually mean? Where's my data going?RIZEL: Right, exactly.ADRIANA: Yeah. So, because, like, why does it need to go anywhere but, you know, within the confines of, like, you.RIZEL: Exactly. And I get that's how, like, they make money. So they, like, do marketing that way and they sell your data that way, but it's like, I don't even know who you gave it to.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. It's kind of creepy. Like.ADRIANA: No, thanks. On a similar vein, can you talk a little bit about, you know, like, as we talked before the show, like, you mentioned that you're pregnant. How far along are you at this point? How's it been? How are you finding, like, being a pregnant woman in tech? Is there, like, do you think that there's. There is, like, there is a difference being a pregnant woman in tech versus not in tech?RIZEL: Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. I'm about 24 weeks right now, and I would say, hmm. I think it's probably. It's probably easier. Well, my experience. Right. If I. Maybe I was going in person a lot. That would be much more exhausting if I was going to work in person. But I have the ability to, like, work from home, so that's been good. And, like, I know that tech has a lot more flexibility in terms of, like, hours and stuff like that. Like some. Some jobs, not all of them, but, like, you know, no one's like, oh, your bubble went gray for a second.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.RIZEL: So that part has been beneficial. I think some parts of DevRel I might have been over ambitious with. So, like, at the. I mean, I didn't know I was going to be pregnant. So I had all these talks lined up and it went to them and I was like, oh, my God. Like, I did not know that first trimester is so exhausting. Like, I would tell people who are never been pregnant and they're like, are you eating your vitamins? I'm like, yeah, I am. Yeah, I don't think the vitamins are gonna make me less sleepy.ADRIANA: Yes. The your dead ass tired in a way that you never thought was possible.RIZEL: Yeah. I'm like, dang. Usually I'm a person, it's actually a little bit of a hard hit for me because I'm usually a person that, like, I don't know, I just get excited sometimes about work and I want to do, like, extra work and never been in a spot where I do not want to do extra work. In fact, I'm logging off early. Like, like, it would be like, 3:00 and I'm like, just gonna close my laptop. I can't even read what people are saying on Slack. Like, I get sleepy every day at, like, 2:30, 3:00 p.m. So that was a hard hit for me because I was like, oh, my God, maybe I was like, is all the pregnancy gonna be like this? Like, I was like, maybe I can't even work anymore.ADRIANA: I definitely felt that in my first trimester, I legitimately thought I'm like, I'm just gonna, like, peace out for the next few months.RIZEL: I was like, Googling, why isn't maternity leave longer? How do you more? Wait, Canada has like 18 months or something, though.ADRIANA: Yeah, you can do up to 18 months now. So when I was pregnant, it was twelve months. So you get twelve months where. So the way it works is like, you're entitled to twelve months. Twelve to 18 months now, which means that you do have your job guaranteed after that period. Like, when you return, it's up to your company as to how much they pay you during that time. So, like, when I was pregnant with my daughter, it was, I think my company paid, like, I want to say, six weeks at, like, 90 or 95% pay. And then after that, you go on unemployment, which is like piddly poo, but you are, you are technically guaranteed your job when you return.And I'm saying that in air quotes because there has been some shady ass shit that's happened where I've actually had a few friends who returned from mat leave, and then it's like, hey, welcome back to your job. Next day, oh, by the way, you're fired. Or it's like, oh, we're restructuring. And so there have been some interesting, like, obviously, companies are not allowed to do that, but some, some do, some have taken, like, have, have taken their companies to court over stuff like that. But, yeah, but, yeah, we do have that entitlement. I took advantage of that, for sure. It was, it was hard. Mat leave was hard because, like, I'm a very, like, I can't sit still.I'm an ADHDer. I cannot sit still. And this idea of, like, sitting home with my baby who was like, you know, the first three months is so boring because they're just, like, sleeping, crying, and pooping, and I'm like, nothing exciting is happening. And I'm like, this is so boring, and I need to be out doing something. But then they get more interesting after three months. And honestly, like, I'm so grateful that I had that opportunity because getting to see her grow, like, over that year was so unique. But it is so hard also, like, if you're used to being active and out and about and, like, my sense of, like, I need to feel like I'm productive all the time. So, you know, even, even, like, you talking about the first trimester fatigue, like, I used to not believe in naps until I got pregnant.RIZEL: Me too.ADRIANA: It's like, give me a nap.RIZEL: Yeah. My husband takes so many naps throughout the day. He's a software engineer, and I'm like, why are you taking naps? Just get your work done. Like, come on. But then I just all of a sudden, like, I need to take my daily nap.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. My husband was so excited when I started getting into naps because he loves naps. I'm like, naps are for old people. And we napped together while I was pregnant. And, like, oh, this is the best. We need more of that. And then, and then second trimester, for me, I was lucky that I got, like, my energy back. And then third trimester, it, like, it crashed again.RIZEL: I'm preparing. I'm now I'm prepared because I, like, I mean, part of second trimester, I was like, y'all were lying. I'm still tired, but I'm like, I'm in an energetic area, so I'm trying to get as much work done as possible. And then once it's third trimester, I know I'll probably go down because I, what you were mentioning of people still getting laid off. And so I don't think my company or my manager would do this to me, but I have read a book about kind of what you said, like, how companies they use, like, maternity leave or medical leave in a sly way to eventually fire the person. And I'm like, don't want that. I want that. Like, you're like, even though Rizel was gone for twelve weeks, like, she did, she did that. She was accomplishing stuff before she left.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, I think it's a combination of, like, working for a good company, having a good manager who has your back. Yeah. Makes a huge difference. One thing that was challenging for me when I was pregnant because, like, so I'm originally from Brazil and so for my parents, like, this, like, mat leave thing, it's different there. And my mom was a stay at home mom as well, so, and so for her, it was, like, very important that my sister and I both had jobs. She's like, you need to be independent. Make your own money, la la la. So when I was on mat leave, my parents are like, you're taking the full twelve months? I'm like, yeah. They're like, out of sight, out of mind. They'll forget about you.RIZEL: I'm like.ADRIANA: They were like, they were really on my ass about, like, you know, taking six months off or whatever. And I was like considering it for a while. I'm like, oh, my God, what if they're right? And then six months, you know, hits, you know, into my mat leave, I'm like, I can't do that. Like that.RIZEL: No, take all the time you need with your kid. Because if they're giving that benefit, I'm like, some people, they don't get a chance to see, like, even be at home. Like, I don't know how my friends who are, like, in retail and stuff like that, like, they worked until they gave birth and then they barely had mat leave. I'm like, wow, that is impressive. And also a little bit sad.ADRIANA: Yeah, it's like, you have to make do, but it's like, it's so stressful and, like, your hormones are raging after you give birth. Like, if you think your hormones are raging now.RIZEL: Oh, no. Well, I guess I don't need to worry about it. My husband does.ADRIANA: That's true. That's true. Yeah. It's the recipients who have the hardest time. But it's nice that, like, you get to work from home, you know? And it sounds like your husband is working from home as well?RIZEL: Yeah. He only goes into the office two times a week.ADRIANA: Oh, nice. Yeah, that is a really good setup and. Yeah, and that's definitely, like, a huge advantage to. To working in tech and starting a family is that you're. If you're able to work from home, then you have that ability to be with your kid, and especially if your spouse is home, then you get to, like, tag team. So not one person is dying all the time.RIZEL: Yeah, I cannot complain. If I. The only thing, if I had to do it over, I will realize how tired that you could really get, and I would have planned it out better. I think I'm in maybe a more better. A better position than maybe some other working women who are pregnant.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Oh, this is such an exciting time. Do you know if you're having a boy or a girl. Are you gonna just wait to find out?RIZEL: Oh, I know. We have zero patience. As soon as we did...the test results were available, we're like, what is it? Tell us the gender. Everyone's like, do a gender reveal. It's gonna be so fun. Like, no, I don't care. Yeah.ADRIANA: Oh, so what. What are you having?RIZEL: Oh, it's a girl.ADRIANA: Oh, yay. So much fun. I'm a little biased because I have a girl, and she's lots of fun.RIZEL: I'm excited.ADRIANA: She edits. She edits the videos for this podcast, actually.RIZEL: Oh, she does? Oh, look at her. Wow.ADRIANA: But she rejects tech, so. She wants to be a dentist.RIZEL: Okay. At least that's a good job still.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, totally. No complaints. She knows what she wants to do. So I'm like, you good. You good. Oh, that's so exciting, though. Awww, congrats. It's. It's gonna be a wild ride, but it'll be. I promise it'll be fun.RIZEL: Thank you. I hope so. Thanks so much.ADRIANA: Well, we are coming up on time, but as we. Before we wrap up, I wanted to see if you have any, like, parting words of wisdom or hot takes or just anything that you wanted to share with folks...advice?RIZEL: As I will say, a lot of times people ask me like, oh, how do you like level up when you're a junior? And stuff like that. And this is probably not an answer people really like, but I think it's. It eventually comes with time and patience and just putting in work. I think I always was like, I really want to, like, level up. Like, I don't know how to do the things I'm doing, but I'm like, just continue to stay involved. There's not really. To me, there's not really a fast track. Like, as long as you continue to stay involved with your team and keep building and keep trying to learn, you'll naturally go on that, like, learning path or that growth path.ADRIANA: That's great. I really love that. And, you know, it is so absolutely true. I mean, you gotta. You gotta put in the work. You gotta put in the face time, and. And you'll see the rewards. That's amazing.Well, thank you so much, Rizel, for Geeking Out with me today. Y'all. Don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...RIZEL: 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.
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Sep 17, 2024 • 46min

The One Where We Geek Out on Observability Engineering with Iris Dyrmishi

About our guest:Iris Dyrmishi is an Observability Engineer dedicated to the belief that observability is fundamental to a company's success and the performance of its tech stack. Enthusiastic about sharing insights through speaking and writing, with a particular focus on observability and OpenTelemetry.Find our guest on:LinkedInFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:MiroIris on On-Call Me MaybeIris on OTel Q&AIris on OTel in PracticeIris on OTel Collector User Feedback PanelIris on OTel x Prometheus Interoperability PanelIris on Humans of OTelOTel End User Special Interest Group (SIG)Iris' Blog on MediumOpenTelemetry CollectorOpenTelemetry OperatorOpenTelemetry zero-code instrumentation (auto-instrumentation)Join CNCF SlackOTel Collector channel on CNCF SlackOTel Operator channel on CNCF SlackOpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP)Additional notes:KCD PortoTranscript:ADRIANA: Hey, fellow geeks, 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 Iris Dyrmishi. Welcome, Iris.IRIS: Hello, Adriana, nice to be here.ADRIANA: So happy to have you. And Iris is one of our, I would say, like On-Call Me Maybe alum, and it's been cool to be able to like bring various folks who have been on On-Call Me Maybe onto Geeking Out. So I'm super excited to have you on here. So where are you calling from today?IRIS: I'm calling from Porto, Portugal.ADRIANA: Awesome. Well, are you ready for our lightning round questions?IRIS: Yes.ADRIANA: All right, let's do it. First off, are you a lefty or a righty?IRIS: A righty.ADRIANA: Okay. Do you prefer iPhone or Android?IRIS: iPhone. I used to be an Android freak until two years ago and I switched to iPhone just to try it and now I'm obsessed.ADRIANA: Oh, you're a convert. Woo. Welcome to team iPhone. Awesome. Do you prefer Mac? Mac? Oh my God, I can't talk. Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows?IRIS: Mac all the way. Yeah, my Mac suffers a lot with me, but it's my best buddy.ADRIANA: I feel you. The other day I think I took my Mac to the max. I have an M1 Mac, and those ones don't have fans. They never heat up. I was working outside and we're having like a mega heat wave right now in Toronto, like a heat dome. And it's been like, I think with the humidity, it's been like feeling like 40 degrees, which is outrageous. And my Mac was actually heating up on my lap and I think it was because the outside temperature was like, it was like, yo, you gotta bring me inside. So, yeah, too much, too much. Cool.ADRIANA: Okay, next question. What is your favorite programming language?IRIS: I would say Go. If you asked me a year ago it would be Java, but now I'm liking Go a lot. So that's my go-to language.ADRIANA: And Go is so compact compared to Java.IRIS: I've suffered a lot with Java, not a lot with Go, so I highly recommend to get into it. It will make your life a lot easier and everything Observability right now it's written in Go, so it's good.ADRIANA: There you go. So it's perfect. It's funny because like you mentioning...I suffered a lot with Java, I can definitely relate because for me, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but like every time I set up a JVM on a new machine, it always caused me problems. Or also like, some software was using whatever version of the JVM and you're writing your stuff in some other version of the JVM and they no likie each other and...IRIS: It's crazy.ADRIANA: Yeah. Go is very opinionated. I do appreciate that about it. Okay, next question. Do you prefer dev or ops?IRIS: Ops. I got trained as a dev, but I started working as an ops very early in my career and I love it. Now I'll never change again.ADRIANA: It's funny because, like, you know, a lot of times, like, there is like, you know, in school, there's...you can either, like, get a degree in computer science, computer engineering, or like, you can go to a coding camp. And so there's training for dev, right, but there's like, no training for ops. How wild is that?IRIS: Yeah. I'm actually thinking I want to get a master's degree. I want to further my studies now, but I'm so deep into my career, into ops and doing a master's degree, it would feel just like doing it for the sake of it. There is nothing that will further my knowledge in the ops field. It's crazy. I'm really trying to find a good program, but it's just impossible. It's either game development or back end development or for example, machine learning, which are, of course, good skills to have. But if you are doing that degree to improve what you're currently doing, it's, it's impossible. You cannot find anything with ops, especially Observability, of course, but, yeah, in general. Yeah.ADRIANA: Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, you need like an Observability camp.IRIS: We should make it happen.ADRIANA: I know, right? There you go. There's. There's the idea of the day. Okay, next question. Do you prefer JSON or YAML?IRIS: YAML. I work a lot in infrastructure with YAML, and right now I can debug it with a clear eye without even needing anything. Like, I can see. Ah, there's a problem. It is the problem with the indentation. But, you know, I'm so used to it now, how it's supposed to look that it's very. It comes very easy to me.ADRIANA: Yeah, I was gonna say, like, being so, so heavily invested in the ops side of things. Like YAML, YAML, Go, is like part of the ops toolkit these days. Okay. Spaces or tabs?IRIS: Spaces. I feel like I have more control over the spaces. With tab, it's like too much. With spaces, you can do one at a time and fix things.ADRIANA: I'm with you on that. Okay, a few more questions. Do you prefer to consume content through video or text?IRIS: Text. Because the video, I get distracted very easily. If I'm watching a video, I'm thinking a thousand other things and I will not get the knowledge that I need. By reading, I focus and I take notes. It's much easier.ADRIANA: Yeah, I agree. I agree. I find it, I find it really irritating when, like, I'm forced to watch a video because I can't find the answer anywhere else and then I have to sit there and sit through it in like five gillion restarts because similarly, my brain starts to, like, go in all the directions and I'm like, oh, this gave me an idea for blah. No, watch the video. Totally get it. And finally, what is your superpower?IRIS: I would say that I get things done. I'm very crafty in life and in my work. Like, if I have something that I need to do, I do it no matter what. I find a workaround and if there is none, I'm gonna find a workaround. For the workaround, I always get things done. And that's a nice skill to have, especially in ops, but in real life as well, even like, for example, to put a picture in the wall, I don't have the tools. I always find a way. It just happens. So, yeah, it's a nice superpower to have.ADRIANA: That is a great superpower. And it's so relevant for our line of work. I mean, for any, any line of work. But I feel like for our line of work, like, the craftiness translates to creative problem solving, especially when we are hampered for whatever reason from doing the thing. So I think that's so cool.IRIS: And makes work and life fun. It really challenges you when you have to get crafty, so, you know, you never get bored.ADRIANA: I agree. So hopefully I don't put you on the spot asking this, but what is an example of being crafty that, like, you're super proud of?IRIS: Actually, yeah. One thing that I'm very crafty is like, I live in a very small apartment that I'm renting right now. So I wanted to have a very fancy office set up. So I went to Amazon, I went to Google, I went to 100 different, and I bought the small pieces here and there. And I have made like three screens. Beautiful, like amazing, comfortable. You know, it's like without spending too much money. And I'm very proud of it because it was like, okay, I got this in a bargain from Amazon. I got this from there and just put it together. And without the space, it still is, like, a great place to work. And it's, like, my creative space. It's more of a home project, but, yeah, I feel proud of it.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so cool. And, you know, like, having a cool space where you can, you know, let the creative juices flow is so important because you got to be, like, comfortable where you're working, right?IRIS: Absolutely. And, yeah, I have my beautiful screens. You know, I look like a hacker in the movies. You know, when I was a kid, I used to watch, I was like, wow, that's so cool.ADRIANA: It's funny because, like, you know, you mentioning, like, you. You creating, like, a nice little workspace for yourself, you know, like, thinking back to the days of working in the. In an office. Right? And I don't know if you had a similar experience, but I did go through a phase where, like, I had a nice large cubicle that I decorated and stuff, and then the company I was working at, like, moved to, like, bench seating. So it's like, you have enough space for, you know, like, your monitors, your keyboard, and maybe some extra stuff and, like, a little drawer under your desk. And it's a very sort of in, impersonal workspace at that point.IRIS: Yeah. For me, it was always working in this open spaces that you can sit wherever you want and you have a monitor, then you can plug it in, but every time you sit somewhere else, it's never personal. So I like to have my own space to organize it how I want to have, like, a microphone here to buy little things and decorate it. It just brings pleasure. And I work fully remote now, so it's great solution to have, like, this nice little space.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. I think that's what's really nice about working remotely, is that you can kind of craft your own little working corner and get it just the way you like it. And I love seeing people's different setups for remote work. Like, some people, like, do really cool lights and stuff, or, like, you know, they'll do the mechanical keyboards, or they'll invest in, like, you know, three monitors, three external monitors, and it's like, oh, my God, this is so cool. Things that, you know, we wouldn't necessarily have that at an office without, like, you know, going through whatever process to, like, request extra monitors. And they'd be like, why do you need all this extra crap?IRIS: Yeah, I bet they cannot give me a blanket that my cats can sleep next to me. That's what I have as a Christmas gift, we got a blanket from Miro, and my cats love it. So they take turns coming there. I'm working, they're purring. It's perfect stress control. I cannot get it anywhere else.ADRIANA: And being able to work with your cats because, like, you, you hear a lot of, like, offices that are like, dog friendly and, and because of the nature of cats, I mean, I don't, I don't.IRIS: They cannot be together.ADRIANA: Yeah, well, that's the other thing. Yeah, they can't be together. And also, I doubt people would want to bring their cats to the office because the cat would be like, what are you doing to me?IRIS: They like to escape as well. So, yeah, it's not a good idea. You can have them at home, but nowhere else.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, all right, well, thank you for answering the lightning round questions. And now we shall get into the meaty bits. And, you know, one thing that I love chatting with you about is Observability. And that's how we got connected in the first place is we got connected on Observability when we brought you on to On-Call Me Maybe, and hearing about your Observability journey on there. And it's been really cool to see you as a more active participant of the OpenTelemetry community, which has been awesome.And getting to meet you in person at KubeCon in Paris a few months back, that was so cool. But yeah, I mean, talk about your Observability journey, how it started for you. And now I think when we talked On-Call Me Maybe you were at a different company. So this is like your second Observability role. So if you don't mind sharing your journey and how different it is, like, going, you know, like now being in your second Observability role.IRIS: So, yeah, a lot has changed in the past year. I remember when I participated in On-Call Me Maybe I was so insecure when I was talking about it because I had been in a while in Observability, but I was still, like, building my position, my skills. And now one year later, I changed company. I'm currently working at Miro, doing Observability there and I can see how much I have evolved. Like, I have become not only good at Observability and knowing how it works, another superpower. I would say that if you wake me up at 2:00 a.m. in the morning, I usually am not very coherent when someone wakes me up. But if you ask me an Observability question, I'm gonna answer that.ADRIANA: I love that.IRIS: So, yeah, my passion has reached that point.ADRIANA: Yeah.IRIS: But, yeah, now I'm not just like a person building Observability, but I'm also advocating for it a lot. I like to think that in my team, I've advocated for a lot of good technologies of improving Observability and getting to the best possible and getting more engaged with the community. And it has been a great ride. I'm actually not just doing Observability now, but also kind of working more on architecture level to put all the pieces together. So I feel like my journey in Observability has been great, and I'm looking forward to see what is going to bring more and how it's going to advance my career. I plan to be on Observability for a very long time because I really, really like it.ADRIANA: I love that so much. Yeah. I love your Observability advocacy because it's so infectious. And I've seen, too, that we've had you a bunch of times for end user discussion panels for you giving your feedback as an end user to the OpenTelemetry end user sig. And if I recall correctly, we also had you for OTel Q&A for the End User SIG. And even, I think we even did OTel in Practice, right?IRIS: Oh, yeah, yeah. We were talking about Observability as a sport, I remember.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. So we're like, yeah. Because after I met you, I'm like, we must have you for the OTel End Users. So you've been such a great proponent of Observability. And I've seen also, like, got a blog on Medium as well where you, where you write about Observability. And it's so cool. I love seeing that. I love seeing the passion. What is it about Observability that, like, gets you so excited that, you know, for you is like, this is the it thing in my life.IRIS: Well, it honestly started at something that was so new, I had never heard about it before. Like, not in school, not in work, in companies. It's like something so new. I'm like, okay, I need to learn about it. And the more I learned, I understood how important it is for a company. And it made me wonder why not many other companies have it or are building it at the time when I started my career. So I really got into it and I saw that it's like an industry that is moving so fast. It's becoming so modern, and it always has the best practices if you know how to apply them.So it always keeps me on my feet, always wanting to improve, always wanting to learn more. Yeah, it's great. It becomes a little bit addictive wanting to know more. I stay on LinkedIn, for example, or on Medium, and I find these great articles use cases and it's just fascinating all the time. It never gets boring, basically.ADRIANA: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think all aspects of tech Observability just keeps evolving and it's been really interesting to see it evolve over the last little while. And especially with OpenTelemetry. How would you say your experience has been with OpenTelemetry? Like when you started using it versus like now?IRIS: So when I started, you know, it was something very new for me and of course the community had contributed a lot, but still, it was like finding the unknowns and it took a little bit of getting used to. The documentation was not, not the best. So that's why I even started my, my blog. At the moment, maybe it was just me not being able to put the pieces together, but now it has changed a lot. I see that the community is a lot more involved. We have a lot more exporters, receivers, processors, makes your job a lot easier. And I see that it's always like the maintainers are doing a great job, always keeping on top of everything. For example, we had that security vulnerability some weeks ago.Yeah. And it was solved immediately. So it's no longer two years ago, maybe even one year ago, people were skeptical to use it because, oh, it's so new. Things are not as well. Now it is the technology to use it. So many vendors are also making it a crucial part of their solution that they're offering. So it's really become that. It's a huge transition from we're skeptical to use it to yes, let's use it, let's find someone who knows how to do it, let's find someone to instruct us how to do it properly.And that's one of the things that I'm very proud of achieving in Miro and in Farfetch'd. Because in Farfetch when...actually a funny story because when we were in KubCon, they showed the companies that are active participants or that are using OpenTelemetry. And I saw both Farfetch's and Miro and I feel kind of proud because I was an advocate in both cases. But yeah, one year ago and now, and it's a huge difference, but it was always a good technology and you could always see the future and how much premise that it had. Yeah, I am a big fan of OpenTelemetry, and I can talk about it all day as well.ADRIANA: One thing that I wanted to ask is, I remember, like, when you were at Farfetch, one thing that, like, really struck me was that it had this culture of Observability already, which for me was like, oh, my God, it's like Observability nirvana. Because they were, like, really wanting the team to, like, they wanted the whole organization to implement Observability practices. And I remember you saying that. I think when we chatted for Q&A that there was a directive that it wasn't, you know, developers had to instrument their own code, which near and dear to my heart. How do you compare that to where you're at, at Miro? Did you walk into a similar Observability culture? Is that something that you were kind of brought in to do to start building up that Observability culture? How did it compare?IRIS: I think that I entered in Miro with the same Observability need and culture, but I think that my role actually, during my interview process, I actually interviewed them as well about how Observability works. Because since I'm so passionate being brought to a place that just having the Observability title and not actually doing what it is would not make sense. But, yeah, when I entered, I realized that it actually has that culture as well. They just needed more people to advocate more and to make it bigger, a bigger movement. And at the moment, we are in that stage. That Observability is one of the main initiatives in the company. Still the same. Everybody owns, instruments their code, owns their alerting, owns their dashboard.So I'm very happy with that. I think that we're doing it correctly even here. Yeah, even now that we have more experience with the community as well. It's a great movement in Miro as well with the Observability. I'm very, very happy with that. And we're also collaborating a bit more here with other teams, for example, with performance. OpenTelemetry is helping both of us, and we're pushing it together forward. So it's a great movement.ADRIANA: That's so cool having that culture that you're, you're walking into. And I, you know, you, you mentioned something that's so important that, you know, you interviewed them as well, because, I mean, I've always been a huge proponent, proponent of the philosophy that, you know, when you're interviewing a job, it's not just them interviewing you it's you interviewing them because you need to make sure it's a good fit for you as well. Right? Because there's nothing worse than walking into, you know, a complete shit show, unbeknownst to you, because you didn't ask the right questions. And I, and making sure that you knew what kind of work you wanted to do and making sure that you could continue doing that work, I think is really, really important. And I think career wise, we all deserve to find our little corner where we can be happy with our jobs. Yeah, I can't underscore that enough. It's so awesome that you ask those questions. Now, in terms of the Observability practice, what is the main functionality of your team?IRIS: So my team, we are currently having a fully open source Observability platform. We have built the logging pipeline. Tracing pipeline metrics, pipeline visualization. We usually use Grafana, open source kibana. So basically we build everything from scratch. And of course we help teams for alerting to build. Alerting to build their instrumentation. Advice on best practices.Usually we don't touch the code. I personally, I haven't done backend coding in so long that even if I wanted, I couldn't go and just like in a matter of days, get into it and help instrument. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to. But, yeah, usually in this part, we're advisory and just maintaining the main stack, improving it, making it better in general. Now we're actually moving, making the big move to OpenTelemetry. We finished with tracing. We're working with every everything else. So, yeah, it's basically always evolving from one place to the other to provide the best tools.ADRIANA: Nice. And how has it gone in terms of getting people into using OpenTelemetry? Was it something...because, I mean, it's already like, it sounds like an Observability centered organization. However, like, what were they using before for before OpenTelemetry.IRIS: So for the main reason why we went into the OpenTelemetry or how we were able to sell it, let's say, was tracing. We were using Jaeger and tracing those pillars. That was kind of the forgotten child. I went there and I was like, tracing, tracing, tracing, talking about it all the time. It's actually a running joke right now in the team as well. They're like, yeah, yeah, tracing. Yes, it's tracing. So we have now he's our senior manager, but he used to be a staff engineer in the team still working actively with us.He said, okay, let's push it forward. Let's have OpenTelemetry and tracing become the pillar that people didn't really care about. They saw that when we had OpenTelemetry, we could handle a lot more. Some change their instrumentation and they could see a lot more information during incidents. So it was kind of selling it. By showing what a good thing tracing was and how OpenTelemetry helped, it became easier to say, especially to upper management, that, hey, this is a great tool. See what we can do with this. And for the engineers, actually, it was very easy.Once they saw how much of a potential tracing was, they understood that other pillars will be equally useful. So, yeah, it's now it's our main, main tool that we are planning to use for our Observability needs. So it's very, very good. And when I joined in November in the team, there were some small talks about OpenTelemetry, but we were saying, oh, maybe later, maybe later. And then we were like, tracing is good, OpenTelemetry is great. Sharing articles every day about something that happened in the community. And in January, we had already migrated traces, so in two months we already managed to turn some mindset around.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so amazing. How cool. And so I guess people didn't have too much trouble implementing, like instrumenting their code using OpenTelemetry. Like, was there any, was there any education on your part or your team's part where you had to kind of direct them, as you said, not instrument their code for them, but explain, like, this is how you approach it, these are your best practices?IRIS: Yeah, we're doing it constantly, and we're really taking advantage of the OpenTelemetry instrumentation, the libraries that already are and the documents that are already there. Usually the team did most of the work, but we do have, for example, a monolith. And some, of course, applications are very sensitive because we have a lot of users that use our product live 24 hours, depending on where they are on. So it was a bit sensitive. So I would say that, yes, we've done some instructions and sharing documentations and inspiring mostly, but yeah, the engineers, the backend engineers have done their work in instrumenting. We're still not 100% there. There are some applications that have been instrumented, some not, but the mindset have shifted and everyone want to do it, but the priorities are different for everyone. So that's why it's good to have support from management always.So they're the ones that are pushing this forward, where you cannot be always going to someone and telling, please, instrument, instruments from instrument, you know, it needs to be like a bigger movement that comes from a bit higher than us.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, I think that's really key. I mean, yes, the individual contributors are the ones who are going to do the work, but if they don't feel like their support from up above, what's in it for me, like, versus, you're gonna do this.IRIS: Yeah, because we have roadmaps plans that we need to follow. We can just be like, oh, the Observability wants this. Let's do it.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.IRIS: It needs to go through the right channels.ADRIANA: So are you finding...IRIS: Sorry, no, I said, especially in big companies, that is like a lot of hierarchy.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. And, yeah, and that's really important to keep in mind as well. The thing I was going to ask you is, are you noticing like benefits already from the instrumentation?IRIS: Yes, we could see, we have some applications that have spans with 40,000 traces, with 40,000 spans, for example, and they get the level of information that they get now, it's a lot more detailed and troubleshooting is a lot easier. You can already see the issue. So because we are also testing our grounds with different vendors and how the information can be sent there and can be shown to our engineers, because of course, the open source backends can do a lot, but can only do so much. And yeah, we've shown a lot of value from the OpenTelemetry instrumentation together with the help from vendors and their support, obviously. Yeah, it's been amazing. You can really see a difference on the amount of information that is being shown and how easy it has been to troubleshoot to the point that we've been using OpenSearch as a backend right now, while we still have OpenTelemetry and even dashboards were built on spans because it has more information than metrics at some point.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.IRIS: So, yeah, in a way or another, good or bad, it has provided a lot more than we had before.ADRIANA: That's awesome. And, you know, when you're...because that one thing that I get from a lot of folks is some people get like, very overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data. So how do you, like, how can you tell when, when there's an issue, how are you able to narrow in on the actual issue amongst the sea of spans? Because, like, you have the information, but how do you know where to look?IRIS: Yeah, it's usually seeing the status codes of the span, seeing the duration. That's very manual, to be honest, until now, especially with, we're still using Jaeger UI and it doesn't provide a lot of, for example, you can search by tags, you can see where the error happened or which of the spans had the biggest duration, and maybe it will pinpoint you the right direction. But yeah, we're looking at solutions that are a little bit more better. For example, some architecture overviews, let's say, of the application and the spans, which is more obvious rather than you going and scrolling it just shows it right there. We're focusing mostly because the visualization layer is only so much that we can do in terms of open source. So we want to kind of leverage another tool to do that for us. So we're focusing on getting, transporting the right data there so it is shown properly and it makes it easier for our engineers to troubleshoot.ADRIANA: Cool. So then that means again, you're taking advantage of like the OpenTelemetry superpower through the Collector, where you can send the same data to multiple sources, right?IRIS: It's a lifesaver. If anyone is listening to this and they're wondering if they should use OpenTelemetry, it's amazing. You don't even have to touch your current architecture and you can leave it running on production and you can have a full separate better one running on the side just by using OpenTelemetry. And at the same time you are building this amazing architecture and you can decommission the old one without your users even noticing anything. It's amazing.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's awesome. I love that so much about OpenTelemetry is the flexibility. Another thing that I want to ask you about is Collector usage. How do you end up having a bunch of different Collectors? If you're able to talk about that, what's the Collector setup that you work with?IRIS: Well, I can talk about it. We're currently, because our metrics and logging are still not there yet. We're still working on it. But yeah, we already have a deployment, but we're already deploying a daemon set on all our Kubernetes clusters to collect all our information and probably running another deployment as well. The plan is always to use because of the amount of data. It's a very big company. We even want to use one Collector per Observability pillar. One for tracing, one for logging, one for metrics.It will just make it easier for us to know where the issue is and it will not be a single point of failure, for example, if something happens, because it could, we don't want all our signals to be down. So it's good to keep them separate. So yeah, we're leveraging everything, deployments, daemon sets, everything that's in there.ADRIANA: Awesome. Yeah, and I agree. I think that's great that you're doing like different Collectors per signal because exactly of what you said, like you. And also I think it makes it a little bit easier to kind of like manage the data, you know, so you can isolate problems if you run into problems. And so like it sounds then like you're running most of your Collectors out of Kubernetes. Are you using the OTel Operator for that?IRIS: Not yet. It's in the plans, but not yet. I'm a big fan of the OTel Operator. Currently we're just using the Collector, the normal Collector.ADRIANA: Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I find the Operator very exciting and I remember discovering it by accident and I'm a huge fan and I try to contribute to documentation around the Operator whenever I learn something new.IRIS: Yeah, yeah. In my mind and I think in our plans, I think we in the team are in sync when it comes to this. We want to use everything that OpenTelemetry has offered and whatever it is building, including the Operator, auto instrumentation, which is great and makes life easier for everyone. So yeah, it's a process, of course, because it's a big company and things that will be slowly. But yeah, we're going to use all of it and we're preparing for all of it. Yeah.ADRIANA: And actually you mentioned auto instrumentation. What it is, are you contending with like, are there multiple languages for like the applications at your company and if so, then like are you taking advantage? Are the languages available, the ones that have like auto instrumentation, like built in.IRIS: The main languages that we're using? Yes, there are some corner cases that are not, but we're already preparing to create our own instrumentation there, maybe even contributed to open source or if we think that it's not good enough, just have it still use auto instrumentation, but with our own library, the in house.ADRIANA: Cool. That's awesome. And for the auto instrumentation, because one piece of feedback that I've heard from some folks who are using auto instrumentation is usually around, like sometimes it spews out too much information. Has that been the case for like, is that something that you've experienced or you, are you satisfied so far with the amount of data?IRIS: Yeah, currently we're preparing for it, but we're not using. But I did use it in my previous company and we were very satisfied with the amount of data. We didn't really have issues. We did see that, for example, some information was collected twice, once by our current infrastructure that we hadn't decommissioned yet, and once by the OpenTelemetry Collector. So it became a bit overwhelming. But that wasn't really the, the library's fault. It was us trying to figure out how the data, like, what to decommission and whatnot without causing any incidents to our consumers. But yes, so far from my experience with it, I haven't had any issues in the amount of data.ADRIANA: And what about. Because you said you're mostly focused on traces, so I'm assuming there's like some plans to bring in metrics, I would assume metrics. Next store. Is it logs? Are you planning on logs at all?IRIS: Like, we're actually doing both. We're doing everything at the same time. So, yeah, the whole team is actually. Yeah, we are in a big movement. I'm very proud to say that, that our team is like, in the movement to modernize and to use the latest technologies and OpenTelemetry is it. So we are putting a lot of strength and a lot of manpower into it, doing investigations, thinking what to do, how to roll it out. It's a movement.ADRIANA: And have you found yourself in the position where, like, you know, you need some guidance from folks in OTel on how to implement this? Or like, found an issue with an implementation, like, have you, and if so, what have you done to resolve that?IRIS: Yeah, I've had issues, actually. I think it was a few weeks ago, I had some issues that I couldn't find the solution of, but I just searched on Google. That's my first place. I only searched on Google. And I think I went on a forum, an OpenTelemetry forum. Somebody else had had the issue and it was resolved. And it usually, I'm up to date because I am usually on the groups of, in Slack channels in OTel Collector.So I read everything that happens there and I see all the errors. So if it's something interesting, it usually gets stuck in my mind. And if it happens to me, I'm like, wait, I've seen this. I know that it's. Yeah, it's so many users right now that it's very difficult to find issues that nobody else has had before that you are not able to. So that's another thing that I like very much right now. It makes your job easier, especially when you are trying to work fast and not spend like days and days investigating something. There's always an answer out there.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's so true. I had a similar experience last week where I was trying to update some stuff in the Otel operator, there's a new version of for the Collector CR and, but there was like no documentation around it. So I'm like, and I'm like, I was trying to convert my YAML right to this, to this updated format and it was not working. And I'm like googling all over the place. I'm like, ah, crap, I'm gonna have to start. I'm gonna have to post a question on the operator channel. And like, and folks on the operator channel are super nice. So, you know, it's not that.It was more like I didn't want to waste their time on something that like, has already been asked before. So I'm like, as a last ditch effort, I started searching their slack for like my one particular keyword and I'm like, oh my God. And I found someone had opened like a GitHub issue on that. I'm like, oh my God. I have the example I'm looking for. Thank goodness. And I was so happy. I'm like, yeah, I mean, the slack channels, honestly, like, there's so much info on there. It's great, it's great. Yeah.IRIS: I love the community. OpenTelemetry community. I've never seen anything rude happening. Maybe there is very good admins as well, I don't know, but it's always very helpful. It's a great community to be in because I have been in other communities as well. And sometimes you're kind of afraid to post and ask because you will get judged. It doesn't, I haven't seen that happen here.ADRIANA: Yeah, I agree. I'm scared every time I post a question. But everyone is always so nice regardless. Like, train my brain to like, stop. Chill out, man.IRIS: Yeah.ADRIANA: I've never like, on a pull request, I've never had anybody be absolutely nasty to me. Like, it's always very like polite things, even when like, you know, I completely misunderstand the concept. It's like, well, let me clarify for you, which is super nice, right?IRIS: I had a situation actually a few weeks ago, a few months, honestly, I say weeks, but it could be a few months that I was just looking for tasks to contribute in documentation. So I said, I wrote that, okay, I'm going to do this. But at the moment I was busy, so I didn't have time. And someone else, the admin technologies and someone else posted the MR and they're like, okay, I did it now. And they actually tagged me and they said, Iris, are you comfortable with moving through with the, with their MR? You were the one who posted first. And we need to respect that you were actually volunteering and that was so nice. I know it was not with malicious intent by the other person that did the MR. Probably they saw the task and they did it without following the instructions.But it was very nice by the admins to just check with me to make sure that things are done properly. That made me very, very happy. I'm like, okay, yeah, this is a great community to be in.ADRIANA: Oh, that's such a nice story. I love that so much. And you know, like especially with the docs folks, they're so nice like, you know, it's very like because they have to walk a fine line, right. Of like making sure that you don't post anything that's vendor specific. So like they've, they've got to find, follow all these rules and ensure that you're following these rules and make sure that it's a respectful community. So I really appreciate, you know, the docs, maintainers do such a nice job of that generally of I've never seen, I've never had a negative experience and it's so nice to hear a story like that as well. I wanted to ask, because you're mentioning like contributing to docs, is there any other area where you've contributed to OpenTelemetry?IRIS: No, I'm actually working on a project. I have started it for months now and I, because currently the Kafka receiver is for logging. It is only accepting the OTLP format. So I want to, I started to work with it maybe to make it compatible with some other formats because of personal reasons, personal professional that I need to do at my work. And we really wanted to make use of that, but it was impossible to have OTLP logging everywhere. So yeah, I'm working with that. But I haven't really made a lot of progress. Yeah, I'm a little bit slow on the contribution stage.I like, I tell myself to feel better. Okay, you write blogs. It's okay, it's okay. It's some kind of contribution. You speak about it, some kind of contribution. But it's my goal that I want to be a very active contributor because I getting so much from the community and from work that other people are doing. So I'd like to give something back as well. So that's why I'm like practicing my goal skills to make good contributions.So yeah, hopefully soon.ADRIANA: Oh, it's so exciting. Yay. Yeah, that's great. And I think that's a really important point to underscore too because I think because OpenTelemetry has the backing of most of the major Observability vendors. It's kind of assumed that it means that those folks will be contributing. And I think a lot of vendors have dedicated teams that work on Otel because it's in their vested interest and it's in the community's best vested interest. But then there's the other side too, which is like the end users making contributions. And I think that's an important story to tell as well because, you know, ultimately the end users are the ones who are, who are using OpenTelemetry.And so to have those contributions and making sure that there's a path in your organization to make those contributions as well is so super important because, you know, it sounds to me like there's no issue in like Miro letting you contribute to OpenTelemetry. But I know also like in, in some companies, like even just allowing developers contribute to open source is such a difficult process. Right.IRIS: That's very interesting actually. I've never come across a situation like this because open source is open source. But yeah, I can imagine that there is cases like that.ADRIANA: Yeah, I think like the very corporate places like banks and stuff can be very, very protective of open source contributions. Not because like they don't dig it. I think it's more from like security concerns and so whatever, whatever concerns that they have around that. So it's just nice, and it's, it's nice working in a place where that obviously security concerns are concerns for everyone, but it's nice to work at a place where there are low barriers for contributing to open source.IRIS: Yeah. The way I see it, if you are using open source, then you should be allowed to contribute to open source. Because even for example, if you build, let's say an OpenTelemetry receiver, something new that hasn't been done before and you want to contribute it to the community. I don't, I really don't see how that could be a concern to just keep it for, for yourself because you are already using code that is public. You know, this is going to be public as well. I don't understand.ADRIANA: But yeah, yeah, I agree with you and that's a really important point. Like you're using the open source like you're benefiting from other people's work. And so, you know, you should, I'm not saying like everybody has to contribute to open source, but at least make it like if you're an organization and you are benefiting from open source, don't make it such a huge barrier for contributing, to allow your, your employees to contribute back to the tools that they are taking advantage of.IRIS: Absolutely.ADRIANA: Yeah, I know we are coming up on time. So as we wrap up, I wanted to ask if there are any words of wisdom or hot takes that you would like to share with our audience.IRIS: Well, I would like to speak to all the engineers in the companies that they should be a little bit nicer to their Observability engineers.ADRIANA: I love it.IRIS: We want to collect all the data, but unfortunately, it's very expensive. It's very difficult to process it. Also, sometimes we have to make decisions to collect some, to drop some, and to put guidelines in place. Trust me, we want to collect everything, but we just cannot. So be nice to your Observability engineers and cooperate, and you're going to build an amazing Observability platform.ADRIANA: That's awesome. And that's a really excellent point. Remember the humans behind the work that is being done. It's not just magic. It feels like magic, but it's not. That is super awesome. Well, thank you so much, Iris, for geeking out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...IRIS: 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/geekingouthe.
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Sep 10, 2024 • 1h 9min

The One Where We Geek Out on Tech with Carmen Huidobro

About our guest:Carmen Huidobro (she/her) is a developer advocate and dev education enthusiast originally from Chile and based in Austria. She thrives on lifting others up in their tech careers and loves a good CSS challenge. Always excited to talk about teaching tech, especialmente en Español, oder auf Deutsch.Find our guest on:LinkedInX (Twitter)MastodonYouTubeInstagramTwitchFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:Marino Wijay on Geeking Out (Episode 24)Marino's Tweet on cool folks to have on podcastsAdriana's invite to those folks to join Geeking OutiPhone 3GSBlackberry Smartphone (early 2000s)Motorola Razr (original)Motorola StarTACLG ChocolateThe Matrix (movie)Liquid cooler for PCMS-DOSSAP (software company)ABAP (programming language)Dynamic-link Library (DLL)Objective C (programming language)Smalltalk (programming language)Hackers (movie)Backbone.jsCarmen at DevOps Days NYC 2023DevCraft AcademyThe Programmer's Brain, by Felienne HermansHedy (programming language)Tabs vs. Spaces: Its an Accessibility IssueDocs for Developers, by Jared Bhatti, Sarah Corleissen, Jen Lambourne, David Nuñez, Heidi WaterhouseGreenSock Animation Platform (GASP)HacktoberfestColumbo (TV Show)Additional notes:Bad Website ClubUpcoming Speaking EngagementsAdriana's O'Reilly Video Course: Fundamentals of Observability with OpenTelemetryTranscript:ADRIANA: Hey, fellow geeks! 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 Carmen Huidobro. Welcome, Carmen.CARMEN: Thank you so much for having me. Hey everybody, all listeners. It's an absolute joy to be here.ADRIANA: I am so excited to have you on. And, you know, it's really cool how I got you on the podcast was because I think Marino Wijay did a shoutout of, like, all amazing people that should...he did a Tweet about like, oh, these are some awesome people that you should totally have on your podcast. I'm like, awesome. And your name was on there. And so I replied to that tweet. I'm like, anyone on that list, like, let me know. DM me. You can be on the podcast.CARMEN: Honestly, like, I'm so grateful to Marino and also you for, like, laying down that growndwork. I don't know what was what I was thinking that day. I was feeling like, oddly bold. Is like, because I saw, I saw your post and I was like, you know what? I am going to reach out to her and just sort of like, very bravely be like, hey, I'd love to.ADRIANA: I am so glad that you did. I love it when, when people take me up on, on my offer. So.CARMEN: Yeah, no, I appreciate it.ADRIANA: Yay. Well, as, as we start off, are you ready for the lightning round lightning slash not really lightning round questions?CARMEN: Awesome. Let's go.ADRIANA: Okay. All right, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?CARMEN: I'm a righty, but I was born a lefty. But, like, so I was growing up in Chile at the time, and my....so, like, my grandmother did not like it and she was, like, forcing me to, like, try and, like, write with my right hand. So, like, I do some stuff sort of lefty, but, like, 90% righty.ADRIANA: Oh, okay. So your, like, brain was retrained on, on the rightiness. Ooh, cool, cool. Yeah, my mom. I'm a lefty. My mom was also a lefty. And she was forced to do things left-handed [NOTE: should be right-handed] by some angry nuns. And she...but she was like one of those, like, you can't take the lefty out of me. And she just couldn't, like, as much as the nuns tried to do it, she just. Nope, not. Not happening.CARMEN: So they try. And they tried to train her out of being a lefty, right?ADRIANA: They did. They did. And it did not work. Yeah, they...Because I think, like, she would hold her fork with her left hand, and they're like, nope. And so. So they make her sit in the cafeteria trying to eat with her right hand.CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: And if she didn't, she would, like, either not eat or whatever, like, if there was some sort of punishment or I think she missed recess because she was stuck at the cafeteria, like, trying to eat with her right hand. And so she was, like, thoroughly traumatized. So for her, it was like, almost. Almost like the visceral reaction of, like, nope, I'm a lefty for life on all the things.CARMEN: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, kind of. I mean, I wasn't at school when they were doing this, but, like, my...my grandmother was very, very adamant about, like, nope, she has to be a righty.ADRIANA: Thou shalt be righty. All right, next question. Do you prefer iPhone or Android?CARMEN: You know, I alternate because I'm undecided and boring. But I started out as a Mac developer, so, like, there is a sort of, like, propensity to stick with, like, Apple products. So I'm currently on an iPhone 12 Mini, and I'm kind of annoyed about it because, like, it's the last...no, it's the second last mini they made, and I have small hands. I don't understand why phone manufacturers don't like people with small hands. Bring back the Mini.ADRIANA: I know. I love the size of the Mini.CARMEN: Right? So, like, yeah, I. And I have to get a new phone soon because this one's starting to run out of battery and, like, I don't know what to get. How about you?ADRIANA: I am...I've had an iPhone since the 3GS.CARMEN: No way. That was my first phone.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. So before that I had a BlackBerry, and before that I had an LG Chocolate, which I adored. It was one of those, like, do you remember the slider phones?CARMEN: Yeah, totally.ADRIANA: And, like, you know, they became, like, really popular because of the Matrix. And it was like, it was cute. It looked like a little candy bar. It was, like, tiny in your hand. And I adored that phone. And then, you know, blackberries came out, and I loved my BlackBerry until it started to spontaneously shut off in the middle of phone calls. And then I got really angry, and so we. We retaliated and bought iPhones.CARMEN: Fair enough. Fair enough. I had a Motorola Razr. I don't know if you're familiar, like.ADRIANA: Oh, my God, those were beautiful.CARMEN: I love those. I miss it, honestly.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. Those were beautiful phones. I mean, even, like, it's predecessor, like, you remember the StarTAC?CARMEN: Oh, my God. Yes.ADRIANA: Like, I mean, at the time, I'm like, oh, my God, this is like the coolest phone ever. You know, especially, like, I carried around this. It was like a Sanyo brick phone, which at the time was like, oh, this is so tiny compared to those, like, really big ass phones that fortunately I never had.CARMEN: Oh, yeah.ADRIANA: I'm not that old.CARMEN: Oh, gosh.ADRIANA: Phone memory lane. Awesome. Okay, next question. Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows?CARMEN: So I recently, like, I like to...so I have a PC that I built back in 2018. Like the first PC I ever built, and I love it to bits, but it was getting too slow. So I did something very, very wild for me, which, I mean, it doesn't sound that wild. I installed a liquid cooler into it, right. Which is a lot more, which is a lot more complex than it sounds. It's really just sort of like, you know, doing, putting in some parts and plugging stuff in. It wasn't nearly like, as complex as it sounds.CARMEN: But what that means is that, oh, my gosh, I'm motivated to work on my PC again. So I got on back on Linux and I missed it. Honestly, I'm really enjoying working on Linux right now. But I started out as a Mac developer, so it has a soft spot in my heart. Windows exists. I use it, you know.ADRIANA: Yeah. I feel, you know, I. It's funny, I have Windows PTSD because I used it for so long.CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: And in, under such corporate settings that I have, like, this very negative association with Windows, even though, like, Windows was my...I guess my first operating system was DOS, but Windows was my first, I guess, like proper GUI...yeah...OS. I just, I cannot, like, you know, I should feel some nostalgia for it, but I honestly, I feel PTSD for it. And Macs kind of represent, like, you know, phase two of my career where I've, like, it's the enlightenment of my career where I've moved away from the corporate-y mindset.CARMEN: Oh, I so feel you because I'm actually in that right now. I...last...no, earlier this year, I started consulting with an SAP consultancy. Do you know SAP?ADRIANA: My husband works in SAP? Like that. That is his career. Yes, yes, yes. Like 20...I want to say 28 years doing SAP. Like, ABAP performance tuning. Like, that is his jam.CARMEN: I mean, I don't know if you've ever taken. Absolutely. Like, I appreciate it because I'm, like, I started consulting with him, but, like, working on them, bringing sort of like, my developer relations and developer education site aspect to it. But I've also you know been picking up at ABAP and SAP GUI and all that stuff and like good golly what a completely different world that is. And like, and of course that means that I need to have a Windows machine because like you know it's completely like...what do you mean Linux? What do you mean open source? Like, you know? And like so I've been just rediscovering Windows in a corporate context and like, it hits different.ADRIANA: It does hit different. Yep, yep, yep. But the Windows salvation is the Windows Subsystem for Linux.CARMEN: Yes, yes. In fact like when I built my PC like a long time ago I was like you know what, I'm going to work with WSL. Like you know, Windows Subsystem for Linux. And I loved it. I still do and whatever, like whenever like I'm onboarding folks like if they're getting new to, if they're new to programming and they're like you know starting out, I love to like very, very gently...I'm not a, I'm not some kind of like adamant person who's like oh, you have to do this. But I'm definitely like, you know if you're having trouble installing node on your machine, have you heard of Windows Subsystem for Linux? You know, that sort of thing?ADRIANA: Yeah exactly, exactly. Yeah. The last time I had a Windows machine the first thing I did was install WSL.CARMEN: Absolutely, same here.ADRIANA: Yeah it's, yeah I mean it's, it's, it's a whole other experience. It makes Windows a kinder, gentler.CARMEN: Oh absolutely. And like honestly like I'm very grateful it exists because it gives folks an opportunity to you know get into programming a lot easier or like you know get antiquated...to get antiquated, is that the term? Familiar with? Yeah, acquainted. That's what I wanted to say. With, with these kind of tools that you know folks are working with on a day to day basis but like a lot more accessible. You know my...I had a client that I used to work with. I've done a ton of freelancing in my career and like one of my favorite client experiences was this was a client in gastronomy for like local businesses and like the business, the industry area of Vienna and we were doing like lunch...like you know like corporate lunch for them and stuff like the gastronomy and like catering and all that stuff. And my job was to build their POS, or point of sale system, right? And of course every, every office that they would deliver to would have a different kind of thing.And like I was doing a lot with like thermal printers and stuff for their like receipts and stuff, you know. By the way, thermal print, you know, thermal printers, right? Like, I never occurred to me that they don't use ink, but in fact they burn the paper. Like how metal is that?ADRIANA: I know, right?CARMEN: It's like, oh, absolutely. And like the protocol for like printing to them like this, like the one we use was the ESC POS protocol for printing is so versatile. It's kind of cool. Anyway, and I wrote a system that like worked very nicely with like Linux and like writing to like writing over serial to the, to the USB, to the USB port on the, on the printer itself. And that was all well and cool. And then my clients like, cool, well this client has a Windows machine, so we should just...like a Windows POS...we should just do it with that. And I was like, oh yeah, no problem. I'm sure, like writing to, writing to like, you know, ports on Windows is going to be completely easy. And like 48 hours of like reading C documentation for like win DLL or something. I was like, maybe I'm not a programmer after all.ADRIANA: Oh my God, the DLLs crap. I remember those.CARMEN: I never, I never, I never wrote one. Like, we ended up giving up and like, I think what we ended up in doing in the end was the most like hacky thing in the world, which was like, let's just buy a Raspberry PI and send it data over wifi. And hey, it works. And that still being used to this day. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, it was great. I love that. I love...I gave a talk about that at a Ruby conference. It was a lot of fun.ADRIANA: That's awesome. That sounds like such a great solution.CARMEN: Oh, it's super fun.ADRIANA: All right, next question. What's your favorite programming language?CARMEN: Oh, no. Okay, I do have an answer. So I mentioned I started out as an Objective-C...I just gave it away. I started out as a Mac developer, and at the time, not to age myself, uh, the, the only programming language for macOS was Objective-C. And I don't know if you know Objective-C. It's weird. It's got a...it's got an odd syntax.You send mess...like, you don't send messages using a full stop, you know, as you would like, you know, object dot method. Instead you do it with square brackets. So like, square brackets, object message, if you want to like use that as a parameter, no problem. Just surround it with more square brackets and you can end up with like an, in, like an inception of, like, several square brackets, and, like, it gets a lot of...ADRIANA: Oh, my God.CARMEN: And it gets a lot of criticism for having an odd syntax. It's still SmallTalk-like. But the reason it's my favorite programming language is because I now jokingly say, like, I started out in Objective-C. Nothing can hurt me now. And, like, it taught me to be flexible. It taught me to, like, appreciate, like, object orientation. Like, you know, the base, the essentials of SmallTalk and that sort of thing, and really grateful for it. But, you know, after that, I don't know. I think I associate programming languages with, like, stages of my career or my life because...ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can definitely see that. Totally.CARMEN: So, you know, after that, I was a...Like, all of our tooling for our apps and objectives were written in Ruby because my client was a big fan of, you know, of ruby on rails. And this was, like, early 2010. And so I went into ruby on rails, and I love Ruby. Like, especially, like, the european Ruby community has such a special place in my heart that, like, I. Because, like, right after, like, getting into that, then I started feeling a little bit isolated as a. As a. As a freelancer.And then I sort of started, like, I'm a. Okay, believe it or not, I'm a shy person. And, like, I started, like, dipping my toes into, like, going to meetups and stuff, but it was very intimidating. And, like. Like, Objective-C. I think the German language gets a bad rap because it's, like. Like, especially for, like, you know, myself. I come from, like, a romance language.I come from Spanish. And, like, yeah, German is hard to learn, but I think it, like, I think it gets...I don't know, there's a certain beauty to its modularity, for example, that, like...ADRIANA: I agree with you. I totally agree with you. I think German is so...German is so beautiful.CARMEN: I agree 100%. Like, don't get me wrong, it's hard. It's got its rules. Like, you know, articles, you know, the der, die, das...like, for. For assigning to nouns is difficult.ADRIANA: Oh, my God. Yes, yes, right?CARMEN: I gave up.ADRIANA: Honestly, just make shit up as you go along.CARMEN: Look, people are gonna know what you mean, like, regardless of the language and all of that, but, like. Anyway, so the meetups were, like, super intense and very, like. I mean, you. You know, if you. If you're familiar with, like, the tech scene, especially in, like, German speaking countries, there's this. There's this, like, sort of not anarchistic per se, but there's a very, like. Like, hacker. Like, are you familiar with that sort of German hacker culture? You know, like the, they call it the demo scene.They do, like, lots of, like, graphics and music stuff, and it's very, like, anti authoritarian and that sort of thing. And, like...ADRIANA: Right, right. Kind of, kind of like in the Hackers movie, that kind of vibe.CARMEN: Oh, I was a complete side note, I was at EMF camp a few weeks ago, and, like, they have a, which is like a nerdy camping event, but with WiFi and electricity and, like, all of that stuff and talks. Actually, I gave a workshop on how to get into public speaking and tech speaking at that event a few weeks ago. It was good fun. I'm not a very good camper, but regardless, they show that movie every time.ADRIANA: Yeah.CARMEN: And they have the director there for a Q&A, which is pretty cool.ADRIANA: What? Yeah, I, you know, that movie has a special place in my heart. Like, my husband and my daughter hate it. I'm like, but it's so bad. It's good. Come on.CARMEN: I thoroughly enjoyed my time watching it, but I kind of just shocked myself. Favorite programming language. So, like, Ruby. Like, I started going to the Ruby meetup and, like, very quickly got on boarded into, like, Rails Girls. Rails Girls, Summer of Code, and, like, lots of, like, you know, more sort of like humanitarian stuff related to code. And so, like, I did a lot of that with Ruby for a couple of years. And then a couple years ago, my friend and I, my friend Jess and I started teaching JavaScript and HTML and, like, you know, especially when I talk to folks who do, like, more backend or low level programming, and they go like, ugh, JavaScript is weird. And I was like, I know, isn't it great? I have a soft spot. A soft spot for it. And then, like, I started getting integrated into the Rust community. And, like, at least here in Europe, they're also wonderful. I don't know, maybe I, maybe my favorite programming languages are associated to the respective communities.ADRIANA: I mean, and that's such a great association to make. Like, you know, you have a nice community and you feel like it inspires you to learn more because you like the people around it. Right? And I think it's funny you mentioned Ruby because I've had a number of people on the podcast who are big fans of Ruby, and... everyone talks about the Ruby community.CARMEN: I mean, they are pretty great.ADRIANA: Can't beat that. Can't beat that.CARMEN: I'm curious, may I ask what's yours right now?ADRIANA: I would say Python. So I was a longtime Java developer, 15 years. So I got on the Java bandwagon, like in the late '90s, early 2000s...so when Java was pretty new. I was like, I got onto it because my dad is, he's a retired software architect. He learned Rust for fun last year. He just made, like, we were chatting on the phone. He made his first contribution to, what is the Rust library thing called? Not the package manager. Like the library, like where people, like, where people put their, like their homegrown libraries.CARMEN: Crates. crates.ioADRIANA: Yes, that's it. Yes. He published his first Crate last week. I'm like, and my dad's turning 71.CARMEN: That's amazing.ADRIANA: So, yeah, but I got into Java because of my dad. My dad got into SmallTalk when SmallTalk was like, the thing, and then it was like, Java, Java, Java. Now he's like, Java is an anti-pattern because object-oriented programming is an anti-pattern. And then he would...he did Go for a while. Now he's like, I hate Go. Rust. Rust is where it's at.CARMEN: I mean, you know, that's something I find so liberating about programming languages and technologies in general is that, you know, opinions come and go. Like best, best practices come and go. And like, I find being able to like, recognize patterns and like, bring over knowledge and even use that prior knowledge to challenge current knowledge. So helpful. The one I always think about is, you know, I was doing lots of Ruby on Rails and then like, I kind of missed like the major hype of single page applications. Like, I did a little bit of Backbone.js, if you're familiar, like way back when, which was like one of the first, one of the first like single page application frameworks and stuff. And then like, but when I started really getting into stuff like React and Vue and all of that, everyone's like super excited about server side rendering. It's the future.It's here. And I'm like, wait, we stopped doing that? And, you know, like, things come and go. Like, everyone in, like, a lot of folks in like the Next.js world are super excited about like RPCs and TrPCs. And I'm like, do y'all mean remote procedure calls? Because like, don't get me wrong, they're fantastic. Like, I didn't know they were gone, you know?ADRIANA: So true. Yeah. It is very cyclical. Yeah, I think, like, programming languages, like, you know, it's also a thing, like, the thing I hear a lot with them is like, my favorite programming language is the one that I'm using right now, which is cool. It's like, yeah, whatever. I'm down to learn new languages, because what I. It's exactly what you said. You, like, you start to recognize patterns between languages.And I think that's one of the things that I enjoy about learning new languages is like, oh, how is the thing done in this compared to the thing done here? Right? Yeah, and, yeah, I mean, and I think it's that process of discovery and then learning the nuances and then the...this language does this so poorly. I love how this language does that, and I think that's...that's what I love. It's that discovery of programming languages for the first time. It's like falling in love for the first time.CARMEN: Absolutely. And then that excitement of, like, how something is done, and then you bring it back to your programming language. One of my favorites is when Objective-C introduced blocks, which are anonymous functions, right? And subjectively, the syntax is pretty gnarly for them. Like, I know, like, what are the...what are the...what's that sign....the...the little arrow that goes, is it a caret? The one that goes....ADRIANA: Yeah, the yeah, right, yeah, like that. Right?CARMEN: Yeah, but it's. It's. It's upwards.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.CARMEN: Yeah, I think that's a caret as well. Could be wrong, but I think it is a caret. Yeah, yeah, most, I think so. Yeah. But, like, it's. It's pretty garly. It involves one of those. It involves ampersands. It involves, like, like, curly bracket. It's pretty, like, doesn't...curly brackets doesn't sound that bad. But anyway, it's pretty weird. So much so that for a very long time, I looked it up recently. It doesn't exist anymore. There was a website called effing blocks, which all of its purpose is to remind folks how to do block syntax in Objective-C because it was that weird. And I love that. That sort of, like, not spite per se, but like, that sort of joyful, like, oh, God, I need to reach for it again. Sort of thing that I just find.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love stuff like that.CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: There's a place that I can go to to remind me how to do x.CARMEN: Absolutely.ADRIANA: I'm all for it.CARMEN: Awesome.ADRIANA: Okay, our next question. Do you prefer Dev or Ops?CARMEN: Ooh. So I've spent most of my careers in dev, so, like, my heart will always be in dev, but, like, I've recently started dipping my toes more and more into ops. And, like, I have a very, very solid appreciation for it. And, like, again, I'm gonna sound like a broken record. Y'all are so nice like, the community is so sweet and I just like inviting. Like, I spoke at my, my first DevOps event last year. It was a DevOps DevOps Days New York and it was just such an incredible event. And folks are so, like open minded and like inviting and like, so thoughtful and so provocative in a good way as well.Like, I really enjoyed my time there and I feel like I'm learning a lot. It's like, it's just like rediscovering a new aspect of career. It's kind of like picking up a new programming language. Like, you're just sort of like picking up new things. And like, I think there's a lot of consideration and considerable work being done there that, like, I'm finding myself really drawn to.ADRIANA: Yeah, that, that's such a great way of putting it because I think, like, for me, DevOps was, it was like a milestone in my career.CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: Like, it was. I, for me, it was a turning point because it was where I'm like, oh, I like infrastructure stuff, but I also like coding and I can do both? What?? It was like...🤯CARMEN: And like, just, just the thought that just the fact that, like, so much, so much, like really good tooling is being made to make this more accessible for folks. Like, for me, onboarding is always a question with this sort of thing. It's both like, it's double edged sword. And like, I find that as folks, like, especially in the ops communities like are taking all of these steps to make these tools, make all of this, like, all this learning that we had to do in one way or another, perhaps more painstakingly than others, more accessible, is something that I'm finding really compelling.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the fact that we've been able to transcend beyond bash scripting, right? Which, I mean, I love a good bash script, don't get me wrong, but I definitely appreciate all this other tooling that is now available for our convenience.CARMEN: Semi related. Like, it's funny you mentioned that because like sort of related to Windows and shell scripting, I had to build a...so, like, one of the things that I do at my main job at DevCraft Academy is like give folks training in reviewing pull requests and like giving like kind, thoughtful, constructive, not necessarily nice, because nice is like superficial, but like kind for me is like really pushing towards, like this is great. This is how it can be better. So I'm like really pushing for a lot of that stuff. And one of the things that happened especially like, as folks are getting more experience in, like, contributing actively to teams, is giving your files and folders names that are not going to make Windows explode because Windows is pretty strict, uh, conventions for how you name your files. So. Okay, no problem. I'll just, like, add a little, like, existing GitHub action that, like, validates those names.But it turns out, like, the thing I need didn't really exist. So I was like, well, guess I'm going to have to write my own. And I had to dip my toes into shell scripting for this. And good golly, did I struggle. And at the end, like, my client was like, why don't you just make a Ruby script for it? I was like, that's an option. Oh, goodness. And then it took five minutes.ADRIANA: I feel. Yeah, yeah, there, there were a few instances where I'm like, you know, on the path towards creating, like, this horrible shell script, and then I'm like, I can do it in Python.CARMEN: Exactly. I mean, isn't that one of the most wonderful things about tech, is that you have these tools available and, like, you have the right, like, I don't know, something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Kind of a side note is that, like, when we're introducing folks to, like, tech in general, and, like, we sort of, like, build up this sort of image, not, not on purpose. I don't think, and definitely not maliciously, that there is a perfect learning path that they have to take, or there's like, learn this, this, this and this, and you're good in this exact order. And, like, unfortunately, whether we like it or not, there's no set path because if there was, it'd be documented, right?ADRIANA: Yeah.CARMEN: So, and I feel like one of the things that I would love to, like to communicate more and want to do a better job at communicating is that, like, look, there's never going to be a perfect tool for a job. It's going to be the one that works best for you, like, working solo or working with your team. There's going to be the one that works best for y'all. For example, writing a script, gonna be Python for you, gonna be Ruby for me. And that's like, neither is wrong.ADRIANA: Exactly.CARMEN: Like, in most circumstances, if they're like, I don't know, running something on some embedded thing that only works on Python. Sure. Then your options are a little bit more limited. But, like, again, working within, working within your means and, like, picking the right tool for the job, I think is so much more important than, like, having, like, what is the most optimal tooling for the job.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. And I think that speaks to it even makes me think actually about, that's how I feel about Agile.CARMEN: Oh, yeah.ADRIANA: Where I feel like we've especially generally, I think as an industry we've invested so much time in like the, the structure around Agile. And especially a lot of people equate Agile with Scrum even though Scrum is an approach to Agile.CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: And, and I detest Scrum. I detest SAFe Agile because it's...it defeats the purpose of what Agile is, which is agility and fast feedback loops. And people get so caught up in the, you know, you have to do it this, this and this way that, and get caught up in the ceremonies that you end up completely forgetting the point of why you were doing this in the first place. And so what I've always found has worked really well. I've, where I've seen teams being really successful at Agile is when they pick and choose the things that work best for them. It's like, oh, Scrum has an interesting concept that, you know what, it works really well for our team. And maybe SAFe has a thing and maybe Kanban.So then you pick and choose these different approaches and it's a choose your own adventure. And it's similar with like solving, you know, it's similar with like what you were saying around like learning paths there is there because people learn so differently. And what clicks well with one person won't click well with another person. We have visual learners, we have non visual learners. So what's going to, what's going to work best? And so of course, as you said, there's no, you can't say like this. This is the path or if you learn these tools that is going to take you to where you need to be because it, it may and may not.CARMEN: I mean, to the point of like, you know, learning differently. I, I actually got pushback on that from. Do you, do you by any chance know somebody called Felienne Hermans?ADRIANA: I don't.CARMEN: Oh. So she wrote this fantastic book called The Programmer's Brain. Highly recommend it. She's a neuroscientist, I believe. Don't, don't quote me on that. But she does a lot of work around the neuroscience and like, you know how that works in programming. She's working on this programming language called Hedy which like is like put pushing back on monolinguism in that. Like you can write it in any spoken language you want.ADRIANA: Oh, whoa. That's cool.CARMEN: Right? So we had her on. On The Bad Website club for like you know, learning how to learn and all of that. And she was pushed...she...because I very...said, like, well, yeah, we all learn differently. And she goes like, actually we don't. I can't remember why, but I remember that pushback. So whatever I hear, like, we will learn. We all learn differently is like, wait a minute. Apparently we don't.But like, I think there's a, there's something to be said for like the, the aspects of like, because I used to teach children to code and like, like, actually one of my favorite things I've ever done was, you know, I was never the best student, but one of like at university. But like, one of my favorite things I did was actually my bachelor thesis which I wrote about like my experience teaching children to code and comparing that with like, established research in the, uh, technical pedagogy for children. And like, there's these, there's these two, um, learning theories that, that exist. One is called constructivism and one is called constructionism. And I'm going to focus on the latter which says that our learning is modular, where we pick up different, like, let's say like Lego blocks and apply them and analogize, analogize, analogize. Compare them with those other pieces of knowledge and make them fit together, which if you think about it, goes back to what we're talking about, like, you know, recognizing patterns. And what I love about that is that it kind of gives a freedom of, for example, choosing your learning path. And then like, when we think about like, you know, how we learn and stuff.And like, you know, when we do like developer relations and we create different types of content, you know, for example, we like a lot of, there's a lot of metrics that say, like, oh, short form video is super popular right now. And maybe written, like, written a, written content, not so much. Like, personally I prefer written content for learning, but, but there's aspects of video that are very helpful. But like, what I found is that like, people have their preferences, people have their own learning styles that they prefer. And like, having that flexibility is going to help you so much more. I went off on a tangent and I apologize.ADRIANA: I love that tangent. And you know what? I'm going to go off on a similar tangent because you made me think of....so my daughter attended Montessori school for many years. Because...I'm like super jealous of her education because like, what I love about Montessori is that it really embraces, like, it's all about individualism, but it also teaches you to work as part of a community. And what I especially loved is so my daughter, our first parent teacher interview that I had with her teacher, and she started when she was three in Montessori, and she did it up, up until she turned 13. And her first parent teacher interview, her teacher's like, yeah, Hannah's not learning very well. And also, she stole a bunch of stuff from the classroom, like, oh, my God. My first parent teacher interview. My kids a klepto.I'm sorry, Hannah. I know you edit this podcast. I hope I'm not embarrassing you. And then I'm like, oh, my God. So I'm, like, panicky. I'm like, went from proud parent to like, oh, my God. And then...and then...Hannah has a very unique learning style where she hates being told what to do.Like, and I mean, like, everything's on her own terms. And her teacher, Cecile, who, like, we're still friends with to this day, because she cracked the Hannah code, she determined that in order to teach Hannah how to do something, she had to go and show it to one of Hannah's classmates. And then Hannah would walk over, like, learning by observing. Don't teach me. I will learn this way. And her teacher, Cecile, cracked the code. And basically...and then Hannah went through this phase, I think she was, like, four or five, where she decided she wanted to sew.So she would, like, she sewed, like, gowns and stuff. Like, when she graduated kindergarten, she sewed her own, like, grad dress thing and her. And she was, like, full on obsessed with the sewing. And her teacher, Cecile, again, then, okay, you love the sewing. Let's incorporate other aspects into the sewing. How can we incorporate math? How can we incorporate, you know, science or whatever, like, things into the learning to help her learn. And so ever since then, it's really made me appreciate seeing how she grew up versus how I grew up, which was very, you know, like, very traditional. Like, I'm south american.I've got, like, my. My mom had very, very distinct ideas of how. How I should learn. And, you know, I spent, like, a summer memorizing my times tables, because that is what you do.CARMEN: Yep, I can relate. I have that.ADRIANA: So, you know, as a result of that, it's really...she's opened my eyes to, like, how people. How people learn. And even, like, my husband is dyslexic, and I'm a fast reader, and being around him, I've had to, like, first of all, learn to slow down. I can't just, like, show him a thing. Here, read this right now. And he's like, I need a minute. But also recognize the fact that, like, even though, like, he doesn't let dyslexia get the best of him. He's found coping mechanisms.So it's so fascinating to see how different people adapt to different situations, how they will learn things differently. And I think that's, like, the most magical thing. And that...yeah, I love that.CARMEN: No, 100%. I just want to. Just want to clarify the face I made when you. When. When you told me that she had, like, don't tell me how to learn who. That hit, like, a very familiar nerve for me, of, like. I mean, that's the exact. That's why I say I wasn't the best student, because, like.And, like, it was so fascinating to see, like, how differently I would approach. Because if a professor, like, a university would tell me, like, read this book and, like, spit out its contents on an exam paper, three months later, I'm like, right. The man doesn't tell me what to do. But if a client or, like, somebody or, like, you know, a higher up tells me, he's like, hey, you should read this book. It's really helped me with my career. I was like, thank you, I will. And I read it with gusto. And I'm like, I take notes and stuff.I'm like. Then I look at it, I'm like, wait a minute, who am I? And, like, I know that's me. That, like, I have, like, you know, attitude and stuff. But, like, I do think it's really, like, I mean, that kind of helps us sort of, like, reframe as well. Like, how we approach these different problems and stuff. Like, reframing is such a powerful tool.ADRIANA: Like, oh, my God. Yes.CARMEN: Right? Like, not. Not fully related to learning, but, like, you know, I do a lot of talking about, like, pub...like, tech speaking and public speaking and that sort of thing. And, like, I, like, I will be very embracing of the fact that I get so nervous every time I go on stage, right? And, like, yep. Right? And, like, I help...I used...I used to help run this thing called Global Diversity CFP Day. CFP standing for, you know, call for proposals at conferences when they invite folks to propose their talks and stuff. And like, I just, like, I was like, you know what? I'm going to give a short presentation about getting nervous.And, like, I just went on Twitter. This was like, gosh, I want to say, like, three years ago and just, like, gathered so much empirical evidence from folks of, like, how do you. How nervous do you get? How nervous do you get relative to when you're going up on stage and that sort of thing. And, like, something I found so magical. Like, there was one person who replied with, by saying, like, I've been speaking for 14 years and I get nervous every single time. I get...I increasingly get unbearable to be around the closer it's time for me to get up on stage.But then they said, I...and I'm so grateful for the fact that I get nervous because I've reframed it as excitement, as caring. And if I'm not nervous when I'm going up on stage, it means that I don't care about what I'm presenting about and I'm gonna do a bad job. And I was like, whoa.ADRIANA: Oh, damn! Oh, my God, I love that so much.CARMEN: It's such a powerful reframing. And, like, I don't get me wrong, it's not about, like, lying to yourself or anything. I think it's just, like, about looking at the things that you experience in and, like, for example, learning and, like, how you...how you, you know, take things in and just, like, rethinking about how you approach them is so powerful.ADRIANA: Yeah, I love that so much. Yeah. Because, I mean, I always get nervous before talks, and I've learned to just accept it, you know, and that's okay. And I also know myself well enough that, like, once I get up on stage and, you know, unwind a bit and I just get into the groove, and then it's like autopilot, and it's such a magical feeling to you when that kicks in.CARMEN: It's the best. Like, I always, I always joke that it's like, you know, to get a little bit math nerdy. It's like a, it's like a tangent graph. Like a tan graph where it's, like, not nervous, not nervous. Super, super nervous. And then, like. And then I'm, like, in another plane of existence and, like, yes. Like, I know that my speaking style tends to be, like, very, like, engaging and, like, energetic and stuff.And then people come up, it's like, oh, my God, you're so, like, don't get me wrong. I appreciate it. This isn't to, like, humble brag or anything. I have a point. But, like, you know, they'll come and be like, oh, my gosh, you're so energetic. It's so cool. Like, how do you do it? And I was like, yo, what you're seeing is, like, anxiety and adrenaline just, like, in human form.ADRIANA: I can relate to that.CARMEN: Right?ADRIANA: Yeah. People are like, you're so peppy and, and then, you know, it's like when you said, like, you won't believe it, but I'm actually, actually, like, very shy. I'm like, I am too. I can so relate. And people, people meet me, they're like, oh, you're so outgoing. It's like, yeah. And then get me in a room full of people I don't know, and I'm the one, you know, in the corner texting. So texting a friend, going, oh, my God, help me.CARMEN: That was me at my first meetup. I actually, I had a...I had...I had a little weird, like, let's call it a science experiment a few years ago where I, where I went to speak at a conference in Romania, in Bucharest. Had a really good time. They took such good care of me. But, like, I arrived, I, you know, earlier in the day, and I went out to find, get lunch. I was by myself, and, like, I realized I was being so...I don't know what the term is. Shy, nervous, uncomfortable. Like, I felt uncomfortable even ordering food by myself. Right. And then, like, we went out first. Then was time for the speaker dinner. I kind of awkwardly went up to some folks at the, at the, in the hotel lobby that didn't really. They gave off that vibe as we don't really know anyone here, and we're gonna go to a speaker dinner, and, like, I want to introduce myself to them.And then, like, we went to the speaker dinner after that. And, like, a couple of the folks I met were like, oh, I wonder where that guy got napkins. I could really use napkins, but I'm too shy to ask. And, like, don't ask me why. My brain, like, rewired itself. It's like, don't worry, I'll take care of this. And I go, it's like, excuse me, sir. Where did you get those napkins? Thinking back to the person, like, 3 hours, 5 hours ago who was too shy to order lunch, and I'm like, what's going on? Right? I don't know. It's weird.ADRIANA: That's so cool. Yeah. It's funny how, like, certain things will trigger, like, I, you know, I think of myself at, like, conferences, right?CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: Like, I am on, at conferences, I'm like, I put on the full on, like, extroverted thing, and then I look back at it and I'm like, who dat?CARMEN: Oh, my God. I so feel that.ADRIANA: Right? And sometimes, like, you're not even conscious of it. It's like something goes off and you're like, yep.CARMEN: And, like, I gotta be honest, I still don't know. Like, I don't even know if I fall in any of the two categories of introversion versus extroversion. Like. Like, don't get me. I thrive on, like, being, like, being on, as you put it, because it's very similar for me. It's like I'm a different person when I'm in public versus I'm, when I'm at home, just, like, doom scrolling or something. But, like, it's. It's.I don't know. I kind of like that. Don't get me wrong. I think...I think it's not that you're, like, personality is, like, fragmented or something, or it's just. Or anything like that, or that you're putting on a show. I think it's an aspect of your personality that just comes out in those situations, and it's extremely valid.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And what you mentioned earlier, too, like, why should we be put in a category of, like, you're either introverted or extroverted. Why. Why can't it be shades of gray? Like, everything else is shades of gray? There. There are seldom things that are binary. So, like, totally. Why not this?CARMEN: Absolutely.ADRIANA: Okay, we're almost done. Yeah, sort of done. No, we're not quite done. That's okay. This has been fun because, like, we've dug into, like, all the topics through. Through the...through these questions, so I'm here for it.CARMEN: I love it. This is so much fun.ADRIANA: Do you prefer JSON or YAML?CARMEN: Oh, I have a YAML story. So I was building back in my Objective-C days, I was building a file renaming app. You drag in a bunch of files, you put in a set of actions, and then it would rename those files for you. It's pretty...it's a pretty complex app, and it's how I learned regular expressions, by the way. Super fun. But regardless, I needed to...these chains of actions that you would take to rename the files, insert these characters, put in numbers, find and replace all of this stuff.I needed to store these somewhere, and I was like, oh, I'll just store these as YAML. For example, for find and replace, you could have any string you wanted. I was like, cool, we'll just put in, like, you know, if I put in a letter "y", I ran into trouble because YAML doesn't interpret the letter "y" as the letter "y". It interprets it as "true" now. And it gets wilder than that because, like, you might think, okay, well, then, like, don't use the letter "y". Fair. But the same goes for "ON", which is, correct me if I'm wrong, the..what's it called? The abbreviation for Ontario.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right.CARMEN: But in YAML, "on" is "true".ADRIANA: Derp.CARMEN: And there's a bunch of these that through this...through these...through these sort of, like, frustrations, I just switched over to JSON. I have to admit, it made my life significantly easier. So do I prefer one to the other?ADRIANA: That was it for you? It's like, yep.CARMEN: I have...I mean, don't get me wrong. Like, I'm a big, like, use the right tool for the...for the job. I love...I kind of have a soft spot for those quirks of YAML. Don't get me wrong, they're frustrating. But, like, I don't know, I just like. I just like it when a...I just like it when...when languages or technologies have their...there's a spanish word that I love called that. It's mañas. It's like... it's what makes you like. It's like when you're a picky eater, you're called mañoso or mañosa or mañose...it's like, it's quirk. A quirk. That's the term. A quirk.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.CARMEN: And I don't know, I find them endearing. So, like, in that. In that context, of course I prefer JSON, but, like, I don't know. I have a soft spot for YAML.ADRIANA: Fair enough. Fair enough. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. That viewpoint on it. Okay. On a similar vein, do you prefer spaces or tabs?CARMEN: Oh, oh, I prefer. So, I mean, I use spaces. Well, I mostly used spaces, but there's actually a reason to prefer tabs, and that is for accessibility.ADRIANA: Ooh, tell me more.CARMEN: Like, I cannot for the life of me recall what that article, but I read an article where somebody said, like, look, essentially the way, like, a screen reader or something is going to interpret tabs or spaces, it's gonna make more sense to have tabs. And I'm like, you know what? Fair enough. Because at the end of the day, a tab is a character, right?ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A character that represents a chunk of space.CARMEN: Exactly. And, like, that feels more, let's say, screen reader-ly honest than two to four spaces.ADRIANA: Yeah. Huh. That's so cool. I have not looked at it from that perspective.CARMEN: See if I can find the article, and I'll send it to you.ADRIANA: Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Hopefully we can include that in our show notes. Okay, I think you answered this question in one of your earlier statements, but I will ask it formally. Do you prefer to consume content through video or text?CARMEN: I think, yeah, no, I did kind of. There was somewhere in my rambling. It was there. I think I prefer text, but it really depends on, like, what I'm trying to do for, like, I don't know, like, I think I mentioned. Yeah, I did mention that, like, I installed a liquid cooler into my PC for that kind of thing. A video was much more helpful, but, like, for certain coach things, especially for, like, navigating. Navigating dashboards and that sort of thing, I don't know why I'm at dashboards. I don't know what's up.Like, I feel like every time they. Every time, like, a dashboard gets updated, I'm like, am I bad at tech? So I find videos really helpful for helping me navigate dashboards and that sort of thing. But there's a balance to it. There's a really great book on documentation called Docs for Developers, and they mention, like, you know, having this versatility of content that I find really, really helpful. So it's...I know I'm...I know I'm tending to answer things where I don't really commit to one side or the other, but, like...ADRIANA: No, no...I love it! I love hearing, like, the different, the different reasons for the different things. This is great. This is great. It's all the different perspectives. I appreciate it.CARMEN: You're very kind. But, like, yeah, I think there's just nuances to this sort of thing that make, you know, make them more...more relevant for one or the other. I like talking about creating content, video or text.ADRIANA: Ooh, I should add that one.CARMEN: It's...let me tell you...I love live streaming. I love writing, like, prose or tutorials or guides and that sort of thing. I am so bad at videos and I don't know why because, like, I think the script has to go so perfectly. Like, did you do a lot of, like, did you pre record any talks during, like, when there were a lot of conferences were online?ADRIANA: I wasn't doing talks at that point, but I have a recent experience...so this year I launched my video course on Observability through O'Reilly, and I had to do a lot of recording for that. Like, the whole thing is a video course. And, you know, I thought, okay, once I handed in my slides, like, it would be easy to record the video because I had all my speaker notes and stuff. Oh, my God, I can't tell you how hard it was to record the video for that. That was like, like the number of times I would, I would spend sometimes like an hour on one slide because I'd be, like, tripping over my words and I'd be like, so frustrating.CARMEN: There's an, first of all, I feel you so much. Like, like, I just triple, like, I don't know why. Every time I have to record some video, like, I do some video courses for Egghead and like, every time I have to pre record a video, I'm always, I always naively think to myself, I can do this in one take, no problem. I do stuff in one take all the time. Not taking into consideration that I trip over my words constantly or like, I mess up and I just like, sort of just like blankly stare into space for a minute. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. My friend Cassie Evans released a montage. She does, like, stuff with green...I believe with GreenSock Animation...CSS animation stuff.And she released a montage of like, all of the time she's messed up and sworn at...like, let out a swear word. So much life. I love that we've all done it. Let's be honest.ADRIANA: I can't tell you how many outtakes I have going, "motherfucker!"CARMEN: Honestly, even for like, even for like a two minute video for like, I'm going to speak at a conference next month about like, dependency management that they're like, hey, do you mind, like, recording a two minute video for us? And I was like, well, there go 3 hours. Because I'm, because I'm just like, hi, my name is Carmen and damn it. Hi, my name is Carmen and I'm here to damn it. And like, it's just that...a bunch of, that. It's the worst!ADRIANA: Yes, it is. I like...yesterday I was putting together a video to accompany a blog post that I'd written. I don't know why I thought, like, let's do a video too. Like, I find, I find video work challenging, as you mentioned. And it was similar thing, like a three minute video. It took me an hour to record it. And also I'm like, I don't need a script.CARMEN: Oh, my God.ADRIANA: And I really...I do need a script. I do. I'm sorry, me, but you do.CARMEN: Like, so, like, I don't know, like with talks it's different. With talks, it's like, I don't need a script. I don't need like speaker notes. Like, I'm fine. I can just wing it. It's totally cool. Like, for some reason I just sort of like, come up with the script in my head. And don't ask me why, but I.I like, it's. It's not so much a script. I like to call it a. A mental choreograph of how I give a presentation and, like, I don't know, timing and stuff. It's just all in there, but with a video, just not the same. And I don't know why. So weird!ADRIANA: It ends up more robotic for some reason. Like, yeah, I look at myself in videos, especially, like, the one I did yesterday, thankfully, was a voiceover. But, you know, if you're doing a video with your face on it now, it's like, oh, my God, I've got resting bitch face, or, like I look like a robot or whatever. Right?CARMEN: It's like, the silly thing about that is that we're the only ones looking at those aspects of ourselves, right? Because everyone else is, like, focused on the content.ADRIANA: Yeah, it's true. Yeah. They're like, why. Why is their face there?CARMEN: I'm not even that. They're just, like. Like, barely registering it. It's just like, yep, that's a face talking to me. It's not like. It's not like me where I'm looking at myself going, like, oh, God, my hair. Like, I look so sweaty. Oh, my God. You know, like that sort of thing.ADRIANA: Yeah, I know. Yeah. We tend to be so self critical and...I don't have the answer for that...I...you know, I tell people, don't be self critical. Meanwhile, I'm like, oh, my God, everything sucks.CARMEN: Do as I say, not as I do.ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly.CARMEN: Totally.ADRIANA: Exactly. That's okay. That's what therapy is for. It's helping me get through. Same. Okay. Oh, we have one more question left.CARMEN: Hey, I I'm excited.ADRIANA: Okay. What is your superpower?CARMEN: Oh, gosh. That one's actually gonna stump me. What is my superpower? I'm gonna sound naive, maybe, but, like, I think so. I used to frame it as, like, if a dummy like me can do it, so can you. I'm trying to reframe that into a little bit more of an expertise, because I owe myself some credit, but, like, I think my superpower might be making things approachable.ADRIANA: Yes.CARMEN: And I mean. And I mean that in every sense of the word. Like, one of my favorite projects I ever did back in my days at Codesy, where we were doing a tool, we were making a tool on a complex, code based understanding, and I was like, well, it's Hacktoberfest. We need a live stream. Carmen, do you have an idea. And I was like how about we get a bunch of like open source maintainers, have them onboard me onto their project using our tools, never having looked at the code before, not even tried the programming language before, and like it was, you know, it's onboarding so, and I, and I have no sense of dignity, so I bought a little sailor outfit and like, you know, they were onboarding me to the ship and it was a lot of fun and, but I felt like, I felt like that sort of like relaxation and like, you know, embracing what is it failing, how does I put it? Failing positively, failing safely, taking privilege into consideration, of course, but like failing safely and responsibly. Something, I think that's something that I'm good at. I remember I have one more story I had.So like I was doing the, we're teaching JavaScript online for free at the Bad Website Club, and like we're doing the free code camp exercises. They're very kind, they're very cool people. There was one exercise there called the Record Collection Exercise where you had to manipulate a complex JavaScript object with a function and it was pretty complex. So what this was is an hour of live streaming where I would just go through and explain the solutions that I would write as I wrote them and explain concepts and that sort of thing. And I got so stuck, I got extremely stuck, couldn't make it work. And I remember panicking on the inside, of course, I'm very good at hiding it. I remember panicking being like oh my gosh, this isn't working. And people in the chat were like, I'm so lost...she's...what is she doing? Try, like, have you tried doing this and this and that? And I couldn't process it.I was just like ah, anyway, and I felt like a failure. But I did eventually get it. I spent like 20 minutes of that 60 hours...60 minutes livestream going through this exercise. And then like I went, I disconnected, sat down, I had a tiny cry, but then I got a message from somebody being like hey Carmen, you know, that looked really tough. Congratulations on beating that exercise. I just wanted to write you and say like thank you for showing me that even someone who's been developing for software for 15 years is gonna get stuck on stuff occasionally. And that to me felt like probably the biggest victory of my career, where I made something seem more approachable, where I just added that human side of it. Like, I think especially as we're finding our first roles, we forget, especially if we've been in tech for a while, we forget what it's like to look up to folks and think like, well, they know everything.It's kind of like when we're children and we look at grown ups and we're like, oh, yeah, they've got everything figured out. And then we, you know, I'm 36 and I'm like, still waiting for that to happen. And like, yeah, same happens with tech, you know, and I think that might be my superpower, just sort of like embracing.ADRIANA: Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. And, you know, I...and you give off very approachable vibes. Like, you're, you're very friendly and bubbly and I feel like, you know, you're someone I'd want to learn from. And I think approachable, oh, no problem. Honestly, you know, making tech approachable and, and putting a friendly face to it is so important. Especially, like, I, I think for women in tech, that's so important too. Especially because so many of us come in intimidated.Absolutely intimidated. Um, especially because it's, it's still a man's world in tech and we gotta, you know... and being able to show other people that, a, we exist.CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: And b, like, we're friendly and approachable. Come learning with us...I think is so, so important.CARMEN: I agree 100%. And if, you know, if I may say likewise, like, you have made this experience of talking to you and podcasting. I feel like I've known you for ages. It's the strangest thing.ADRIANA: I know. I feel like we're like besties, right?CARMEN: And like, and I think that's, that is that same application of like, making something approachable, making it not comfortable in a, in a, in a....let's say more like, let's say marshmallowy way, but like making, making folks comfortable to, for example, something as, something as perhaps straightforward from the outside is asking questions like, we take for granted how scary it is to ask questions and knowing, like, what's a proper heuristic of when to ask a question, especially as you're starting out and like, you know, especially if you don't work in a very positive, a positively reinforcing team. Like, how do I ask questions like, what is the right time? Like, I have a little hack for that, actually. Like, even though, like, I might know the answer to something if we're at a meeting or something, I'm still going to ask the question being like, what are KPI's? What is SEO? Or whatever? And like, I find that, like, make, it's that aspect of approachable. Maybe it's my focus point?ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. I really like that. And I think forcing yourself to ask questions and, because, like, I remember so early on in my career, I'd be sitting in a meeting, absolutely lost and just, like, not knowing what's going on, and. And I've started to just, like, I force myself because it's so scary, too, like, especially when you're in a room of people who are so confident and they exude confidence, but they might not actually know anything or they might not know as much as they let on, let's say.CARMEN: Yeah.ADRIANA: And so I've taken to just, like, take a deep breath, ask the question, and I kind of take the Columbo approach. And, you know, like, for folks who are younger, I'm sorry, if you don't know who Columbo is, you should definitely look up Columbo. He was this awesome detective on TV, but his approach was, like, kind of, it was kind of the bumbling idiot question. So it wasn't that I presented myself as a bumbling idiot, but I'd be like, you know, just, just for my own education. To clarify for me, could you explain what, what this means and taking that sort of approach? And people are usually more than happy to answer that question that you have, which is, like, that's another thing that I learned. It's, like, asking.CARMEN: And there's almost, like, a bystander effect to it where, like, maybe everyone wants to ask that question, but they don't feel like it's the right space to. And, like, by doing so, you kind of open that door and, like, allow more conversations to flow. And, like, especially for those, like, in a higher position of privilege, I highly encourage them to lend it and, like, make things more accessible for folks.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things I enjoy about being a DevRel as well, is I find, like, you know, the thing that, that kind of launched my blogging, my tech blogging was like, I'd be spending all this time, like, trying to figure stuff out, and. And then I'm like, oh, my God, this was a doozy. I got to write about this a for my own benefit so that I can. And I referred back to my blog posts that I've written in the past. I'm like, thank you, past me. I forgot this.But also, like, my thought is, like, if I have this question, chances are others will, too. And I also like to document, like, these are all the places where I messed up. And so you might want to check this, too. Like, I try to include a list of gotchas, depending I, depending on what I'm writing. And I think that's really important.CARMEN: I agree 100%. In fact, you reminded me, like, one of the things that I always like, especially when folks are starting out with, like, public speaking and that sort of thing, like, they're always like, what is the one number one thing that we hear? And, like, I feel it myself from time to time, too, because I'm human and it's like I have nothing to talk about. And I was like, and I always tell them, look, there's one audience member that you want to be targeting, and that is yourself from four months ago who would have benefited from this talk. And, like, as long as you've got that one person, because there's always going to be one person who watches something or, like, reads something that you've created and will, you know, they might reach out, they might not, but, like, know that people are benefiting from that, especially, like, you know yourself from the future. Like you said, I think it happened to me once already that, like, that I googled, like, a problem. I was like, oh, I wrote a blog post about this.ADRIANA: Yes.CARMEN: It's a great feeling.ADRIANA: It is. I know. Yeah. And so, like, and that's why I was also encouraged people to, like, blog stuff that they learn about because, like, I had this one mentee, and, you know, I was trying to give him some, some direction on his career. I'm like, you know what? Blog stuff on Medium. And within months, he got, like, he got a lot more followers than me on Medium. I'm like, damn. I'm genuinely happy for him because he writes about, like, I believe he does, like, working in AWS, and he does a lot of stuff around APIs, and that's something that resonates with the community.So, like, for him to get that many followers means that he's writing about stuff that really, like, touches...it's things that people want to know about. So I'm very, I'm very happy to have encouraged him to do that. And every so often when I see one of his blog posts, I'm like...CARMEN: If I may, you absolutely, like, deserve to give yourself credit as well for playing a part in that. I think it's not something that I don't know...I find that oftentimes we don't give ourselves enough credit for the work that we do and encouraging others and taking some credit for it for ourselves and being like, you know what? I did play a part that's significant.ADRIANA: Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, that's true. We do need to remember that we influence people's lives in different ways.CARMEN: Absolutely.ADRIANA: That's so awesome. Well, we. I think we're coming up on time, and we got through all...we got through all the lightning round questions, and this was, like, honestly such a fun application of the lightning round questions because it just, like, turned into so many fun topics that we got to dig into. And I swear I could just keep asking you more and more questions.CARMEN: Same. I'm having such a good time.ADRIANA: I think it just means I'll have to have you on at another point again.CARMEN: I'd love that. Thank you.ADRIANA: That would be so fun. So, yeah, you know, before we part ways, do you have any, any words of advice that you want to impart on our audience or hot takes, if you have any? Either is good.CARMEN: Yeah, I think, you know, like, for me, very much a topic that's been very recent in my life is just sort of, like, trying to decouple myself from my online self, by which I mean, or, like, my professional self, and, like, trying to learn, like, not so much in a work life balance kind of thing, in terms more of a, like, identity sense of, like, am I a programmer or a human, or am I a dev. Am I an ops person? Am I a human being? Like, where do those coalesce? I don't even know if coalesce is the right word, but I'm gonna go with it. And. And, you know, been trying to take steps to sort of, like, maybe be a little bit less. Less online, maybe be like, I was having a conversation with somebody today about, you know, trends in tech and, like, FOMO, you know, fear of missing out. And, like, lately, that sort of, like, evolved for me in the last couple years into something that I called AOMO, which is more, ambivalence of missing out and, you know, trying to not...so not...I mean, of course, you know, mental health is very important, but also, like, trying to, I don't know, somebody gave you some advice once which was something like, youre only as helpful as you are capable in terms of energy, in terms of, like, you know, capacity.If you take on too many mentees, the quality of your mentorship is going to decline, right? And I feel like a lot of that applies to. I mean, like, I'm talking about mentorship as if there's some kind of, like, seniority to that advice, and there really isn't. I think that this applies to a lot of aspects of my career. My friend Jess gave me some advice that I really love, which is that my phone is not allowed in my bedroom, and that has been such a game changer for me, first of all, because, like, the alarm sounds on my phone, I have to get up and go turn it off, as opposed to get up, drug, like, sort of groggily turn it off, and then go back to sleep. And I find that, like, yeah, I guess I'm trying to, like, decouple myself a little bit in terms of, like, you know, social media is...is...is very impactful, and it's giving me so many opportunities, opportunities for my career. But at the same time, I know that in my mo. In my weaker moments, it has dictated my life a little bit. So I'm trying to, like, you know, go easy myself and that sort of thing, and just. But at the same time, I'm not. I'm gonna not...I'm trying to feel less bad for feeling bad, if that makes any sense.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.CARMEN: So, yeah. And generally, my friend Sylvia, when we were getting to know each other, I adore her to bits. She gave me some advice that I really love, which is, like, you need to present more as an expert, and that is such a weird little contrast to making things accessible. You also need to present a little bit more as an expert. It's something I'm figuring out. So it's not so much advice as this is what's going on in my life, but I think there's some resonance there with folks, so I hope that's helpful.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that's so helpful. And I think I, you know, you've said so many insightful things, and I really, really enjoyed our conversation today. This has been a real, real treat and definitely brightened up my Tuesday.CARMEN: Aw. Same, if I may say, like, you made this so approachable and so easy and so comfortable. Thank you.ADRIANA: Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. Well, and with that, thank you so much, Carmen, for geeking out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...CARMEN: 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
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Sep 3, 2024 • 43min

The One Where We Geek Out on Being a Field CTO with Liz Fong-Jones

About our guest:Liz is a developer advocate, labor and ethics organizer, and Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) with nearly two decades of experience. She is currently the Field CTO at Honeycomb, and previously was an SRE working on products ranging from the Google Cloud Load Balancer to Google Flights.Find our guest on:LinkedInFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:Liz Fong-Jones on On-Call Me MaybeQBasicAdvent of CodeDungeons & Dragons (game)Factotum (Dungeons & Dragons)The Daily Life of a Field CTO by Kai WaehnerJessitronMartin Dot NetGartner Observability Platforms: Reviews and RatingsGartner Magic Quadrant for Observability PlatformsApplication Load Balancer (ALB)OpenTelemetry Governance CommitteeAdditional notes:Observability Engineering by Charity Majors, Liz Fong-Jones, and George MirandaTranscript:ADRIANA: Hey, fellow geeks, 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, I have Liz Fong Jones of Honeycomb. Welcome, Liz.LIZ: G'day, Adri, from Sydney, Australia.ADRIANA: Thank you for waking up early to record.LIZ: That's kind of my life these days, given that I work with people from the US and Canada, start early, take a break midday, and then work late to catch the UK.ADRIANA: Oh, damn. Wow, that is a lot.LIZ: You know, that's a voluntary choice that I made to move to Australia, so I fully accept that.ADRIANA: Are you permanently moved to Australia? Because before, I remember, you were splitting your time between.LIZ: I'm still splitting my time, but, you know, I have a house here, I have clients here, so I'm spending several months a year here.ADRIANA: Oh, nice, nice. And hopefully...how's the weather down under right now?LIZ: A little bit chilly and rainy, but, you know, not by Canadian standards, right?ADRIANA: True, true.LIZ: People are complaining. Oh, like, you know, it's like, you know, 10 degrees or 15 degrees, and I'm just like, yeah, whatever, it's fine.ADRIANA: I know, right?LIZ: I have a jacket.ADRIANA: There you go. Yeah, we've had, um, kind of, we've had a hot summer in Toronto, actually. Like, like Brazil hot, which is where I'm from originally. And, yeah, I've...I have a pretty good heat tolerance, but I have been melting, so...LIZ: Yeah, yeah, it's fun to, you know, it's like the sauna to the, to the ice. To the ice bath, right? Like going back and forth. You get used to rapid climate changes in addition to time zones. That's something that no one tells you about is climate change.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, I'm super excited to have you on...on the show and, and for folks who have been listening to Geeking Out, Liz was On-Call Me Maybe way back when, when I used to host that with Ana. And so I'm very excited that you've agreed to come on. Now, before we start off, I always like to start my guests off with some icebreaker questions. So are you ready?LIZ: As ready as I'm going to be.ADRIANA: All right, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?LIZ: I am a righty, like a majority of the population.ADRIANA: All right, do you prefer iPhone or Android?LIZ: I am an Android user because Google gave them to me for free for about a decade. I was one of the early, one of the Android beta testers. So that meant that I got free phones that might break. And that habit has carried on since after I left Google.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so cool. How was it like having used like the early Android phones? What kind of experience was that?LIZ: Yeah, you get them early in the technical validation process and you help carry them through all the way to production. Because of NDA, I can't talk exactly about what the experience was like. But yeah, no, it's cool having access to, to the latest hardware. It's actually though, it makes you weirdly paranoid because you have to hide your phone from being photographed by others. You have to slip it in your pocket at all times. You can't just leave it out on the table. So it does introduce some interesting complications to your life. But it was worth it at the time to get access to the latest and greatest hardware and to give the team feedback on it.ADRIANA: Wow, that's so cool. Okay, next question. Do you prefer using Mac, Linux, or Windows?LIZ: I am a hardcore Linux user with one exception. Well, it's technically still Linux on the desktop. I am a ChromeOS user for my laptop, again like habit from my Google days. But yes, I do my development in a VM on that ChromeOS machine. So it's Linux. I'm talking to you from a Linux machine. I have a habit of building mini ITX PCs that are all Linux based. I think I've got four little computers running around, each of which is its own independent Linux system.ADRIANA: So are you then a lifelong Linux user? Did you ever dabble in Windows?LIZ: I've been using Linux since I was 16, since 2003, 2004, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's been my primary environment since, since college. So since 2005.ADRIANA: I was, I guess forced...DOS was forced upon me because I mean like when Windows...LIZ: Oh yes, of course, right, like MS DOS. Yeah, no, no, no, as a kid. Yes. Yeah, QBasic. Yeah, yeah.ADRIANA: QBasic, oh my God, yes! Exactly!LIZ: I knew I was destined to become a programmer when, in I think fourth grade, I wrote a program that would take three sets of coordinates and solve the quadratic equations.ADRIANA: That's so cool. My dad got me into BASIC. He pulled me aside when I was ten and he's like, how'd you like to see something cool? I'm like, all right.LIZ: Yeah. Yep. It runs in my biological family. I've got uncles and aunts who work in IT. So yeah.ADRIANA: That's awesome. Okay, next question. What's your favorite programming language?LIZ: Ooh, favorite. That's an interesting question. So I'm somewhat known for solving Advent of Code every year. I've been doing Advent of Code every year since it started in goodness, I don't even remember when it started, but like 2017 or something like that. So I've been doing Advent of Code in Go publicly on stream when I can for the better part of a decade now. So definitely Go is a programming language...I even use in recreation, the language that I use professionally. But it's really hard to pick favorites because, you know, I work with clients, clients use all kinds of languages.I have to be a little bit of a polyglot as a result. So like, I do, I have a project that's written in typescript, for instance. I think it's really important to not, you know, just settle into rut and be like, I am a Java programmer, right? I think you kind of have to see and experience kind of what's going on. So at some point I will pick up Rust, I am sure, and become the prototypical stereotype of a trans cat girl who programs in Rust and has stripey socks, but that's not going to be today.ADRIANA: Fair enough, fair enough. I do really like what you said about just broadening your horizons and learning other languages because I was actually like a Java developer for like 15,16 years and that was like my whole life. And then a friend introduced me to Python and, you know, I was like in my 30s at the time and I'm like, oh, so cool. Like, you know, it was for the first time, like since, you know, my BASIC days I did QBasic, Visual Basic, that I was like actually picking up another language and I'm like freaking cool. I got to do more of that. And yeah, and that was like my first sort of like, oh my God, you can learn another language at the same time, which is ridiculous when you think about it. Of course you can. Next question. Do you prefer dev or ops?LIZ: I prefer ops. I still, despite my railing on about how you shouldn't try to be a hero, I personally enjoy that feeling of solving the problem. I'm not going to say that I enjoy necessarily being the hero, but I definitely enjoy being, being the person who has the insight that solves a problem, right? Like, you know, it's weird, right? Like, you know, when you, when you're doing dev stuff, like, you know, there, there is some degree of, you know, I'm, I have a start of the problem. I have the end of the problem, I fill in the stuff in the middle, right? Like you have some idea as to how it's going to go because you've decomposed the pro- the problem enough, right? Yeah, I think with ops it's a little bit more unpredictable. There's a little bit more novelty. Right? Because you don't know what's going to happen when you open up the box, right? And I, and I think that's, that's, that's the fun thing.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah.LIZ: So I'm not going to say it's necessarily about, you know, the esteem of having people be like, Liz, you solved it. Like...But it's much more about the, you know, I find that it's really interesting to do the ops and, and to, and to find new things.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree with you. All right, next question. Do you prefer JSON or YAML?LIZ: I think I prefer JSON because it is not whitespace sensitive and, you know, you can pretty print JSON if you need to. That being said, my pet peeve about JSON is the fact that they do not support the trailing comma in lists and that peeves me off to...like nothing else. But no, I have to interact with YAML because of Kubernetes manifests and CircleCI configs and I have broken enough YAML configs. Oh, and the hand handling of floats and the handling of like, variables. Can we not just quote all of the keys and call it a day? Right? Like, it's stuff like that that just drives me up the wall.ADRIANA: Yeah, I feel, ya. I've heard a couple of horror stories with YAML. Like someone was telling me the other day, like, "ON", which is the abbreviation for Ontario, is interpreted by YAML as "on", "true". So it's like...I know, right? So it's like all these little nuances in YAML where you have to be like extra careful. Plus the white space. I still like YAML myself because I find it a little bit more readable than JSON because of like my Java days. All the curly braces in JSON just kind...LIZ: Just feed it to JQ and you'll be good, right? That's literally what I do anytime I encounter anything that's in JSON is I immediately pretty print it. You're right.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah. I have to pretty print it because I just cannot function otherwise. I feel you. Okay, next question. Do you prefer spaces or tabs?LIZ: I am a Go programmer, so I am obliged to tell you tabs. But let's be real. I think that spaces work a little bit better in text editors because they actually run consistently. Like, I have to manually configure, like my tab with in Nano, my favorite text editor, in order to, you know, whenever I set up a new machine, because it defaults to eight spaces for a tab and that just eats your screen, right? Two, two, right? Like, so, yeah. I personally would prefer spaces, except for Go makes me use tabs.ADRIANA: Ah, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, two more questions to go. Do you prefer to learn through video or text?LIZ: I am a text person. I use captions whenever I can because I just read so much faster than I audio process. Or rather, if I'm going to be listening to video, I have to listen to it at 1.75 x or 2x. I just have to. It's not that my audio processing is slow. It's actually the opposite of that. It's that interacting with video at 1.0x is painful, and I will often multitask something else with it. If you make me watch a video at 1.0x. Cue the obligatory HR videos where you have to sit...sit and watch them, and like, click the little spinner at the end of 1 minute precisely. And it's just like, yeah, so, yeah, text. Because I can read it however fast I want without having to wait for the speaker to deliver the words.ADRIANA: Yeah, I agree with you. I actually watch TV with captions on, and it's just so...LIZ: I watch TV with captions on and I do something else that if I, rightly, because I process not quite at 2.0x, I process at 1.75x. So as a result, like, if I do two things at the same time, I'm going to miss a little bit of each one. But the captions help me stay like...ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah.LIZ: ADHD high 5.ADRIANA: One thing that I've never, like, been able to do is actually listen to stuff at like, high speed. Like faster than 1x. Like, when I'm listening to a podcast, if I accidentally hit a button that makes it 1.25x, it actually drives me crazy. Like, they're talking too fast. Like, it breaks my brain. I don't know what it is, but so many people I talk to, they're like, I can only listen to it at, like, listen to stuff at super high speed. I'm like, more power to you all. Does not work for me at all.Okay, final question. What is your superpower?LIZ: What is my superpower? My superpower is I am...are you familiar with Dungeons and Dragons?ADRIANA: Yes. High-level familiar.LIZ: Okay...there is a class that was added on afterwards that's called the Factotum, and the Factotum is able to emulate the ability of any other class by using a certain number of knowledge points. I am a Factotum, right? Like, I am specialized in nothing in particular, but I am really good at being able to do things that specialists in other fields would do, but only one or two of them, and otherwise being able to communicate with specialists in other fields, right?ADRIANA: Yeah.LIZ: So I can get people to talk to each other who don't necessarily kind of share common ground or share kind of skills. I can pick up those people's skills and use them, at least for a time. So that's my superpower.ADRIANA: That is such a great superpower. And this leads nicely into our main, or one of our main topics of conversation, which is, I think when you and I met, you were at Honeycomb working as a DevRel. But in the last couple of years, you've transitioned over to being a Field CTO. And for folks in our audience, it would be great if you could explain what that entails and also what prompted you to make that change.LIZ: Yeah. So Field CTO is a role that is relatively new in the industry, and it really depends from Field CTO to Field CTO, company to company. Um, so actually, the one of the field CTOs at Confluent, um, whose name is Kai, wrote a piece about it. But in essence, you know, regardless of what someone's background is and where they come, come to being a Field CTO from being a Field CTO is about interacting with customers who are making very sophisticated use of your technology or otherwise have really interesting and gnarly technical problems or social problems. Honestly, the social problems are the more interesting ones that they need the help of someone who is an expert and an expert at the executive level to solve, right? So unlike a DevRel, right? Like, you know, I don't necessarily...I don't necessarily write "how to" blogs anymore. I don't necessarily, you know, yes, I do speak at the occasional conference, but more and more of my time is spent on site with customers. And I think that is, you know, interacting one on one with customers is something that I really, really treasure because it means that I get to see all the cool things they're doing with Honeycomb. And the other piece of my job that I really enjoy is going back to the product development team. And actually, I try to, as best as I can, carry water and chop wood for them and also help solve technical problems that our customers are having at scale in our tool. So, for instance, I am working this week on something where a customer was like, we want more than 100 group by fields in a Honeycomb query. And I'm like, okay, I'll see what I can do. Let's talk to the team to see if it's possible. Let's try it out. I've been Field CTO for about two years now, coming up on two years in October, and it's been super, super rewarding to now be at the executive level in Honeycomb, to have the opportunity to interact with the executives at other companies. It's weird. There's not like, you know, a sudden transition in job responsibilities. I think it was more like, there's this funny thing that happened. In July of 2022, I was invited by Amazon to give the keynote at, or one of the customer keynotes at AWS Summit, New York. And they gave me, the AWS PR team, gave me a lot of side eye about, oh, you're, you know, not an executive.You're not a CTO or VP. Like, you know, what are you doing up on stage as a principal engineer, right? And that was kind of a catalyst of, okay, fine. Like, you know, titles do matter at some point, right? So I didn't change what I was doing overnight, but instead, I kind of gradually fell into the role, and then the job titles changed afterwards.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so cool.LIZ: Yeah.ADRIANA: So did you find then, because it was more of a gradual change. Like, there was, like, less. Like, was. Was there anything still, like, super jarring that stood out for you when you. When you made that change? Or. Or.LIZ: I think the main thing that has really been kind of challenging is, you know, when I was DevRel, I was part of the Devrel team, right? Like, you know. You know Jessitron, you know Martin Thwaites, right? Like, you know Martin Dot Net, right? Like, so, you know, they're an amazing team, but I'm not part of that team anymore, right? Like, Charity and I are off on our own as the office, the CTO. And I think that that is a little bit of a change in that. I'm not part of marketing anymore.I kind of don't have a department. So I work across all the departments, but there's not necessarily anyone I can lean on who's like, you're working with me. Let's do this. So I kind of have to beg and borrow to work with people. And, of course, people are happy to have the opportunity to work with me, but I'm nothing part of their planning processes, right? If I show up and, you know, as happened the past six months, right? Like, you know, if...If I show up and say, you know, hey, by the way, we're going to be trying out Graviton 4,right? Like, you know, that's...that's something where I either need to drive myself or, you know, I need to just find someone who wants to geek out about it with me.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. So does part of your job then entail, like, you coming up with some interesting use cases to try out? Or are you driven more by customer asks, or is it a bit of both?LIZ: Customer and partner asks? But I do think that they're, for instance, the thing with Graviton 4, that's Amazon, who's a partner of ours. They asked us to try it and I said yes. You don't in general say no when Amazon asks you, do you want to try this shiny cool thing? But, yeah, I think that majority of what I do is driven by what large customers are experiencing or what I can see they will be experiencing, right? Like, I think there is some room for thought leadership, right? There is some room for, like, looking ahead of where things are. But historically, as a company, Honeycomb has trended always, you know, too far ahead of where the ball is today.Right? Where people can't necessarily see. This is, you know, how it aligns with what they're, what they're doing today. And we're trying to course correct that now and meet people, people where they're at now. So that's where I find myself spending a majority of time now is pragmatically connecting where people are with the challenges that Honeycomb helps solve for them. And also seeing these are the integration points that we're going to need, right? So one of the projects I'm working on is relating to better log support in Honeycomb.Because it turns out that despite Charity and me saying, you know, throw your logs in the bin. Actually, no, you can't. Kubernetes emits logs. You're not going to throw Kubernetes in the bin. So what do we do about that? What do we do about your legacy applications? Looking at that is something I'm contributing to, and that's really driven by what customers ask me about every day.ADRIANA: Right. That's so cool.LIZ: Yeah. In terms of superpowers, another superpower...we were just...also, how I consume...I read text incredibly fast. As a result, I'm in several hundred different Slack channels and I read them all and I can just do that. It's great.ADRIANA: Oh, damn. That is a superpower.LIZ: Yeah. I don't listen to all of this calls that our sales team have with clients. But, boy, do I ever read the gong summaries of all of the call recordings.ADRIANA: So it's funny because when you were describing the nature of the job, initially, it almost felt like. Almost like a consultant role, but non technical. But it is totally not that, because there's definitely. It sounds like there's some very, very technical aspects. So you're...you're kind of like a...a super tactical consultant who is working with, like, very high level, like, executives kind of thing.LIZ: Executives and principal engineers. Yeah, right. Like, you know, that's that first point of call of, there's this really interesting or weird customer who's asking this question they've never seen before, right? Like, hit me with it. Like, I've been around the system long enough, and also, I'm aware of what the best practices are around observability.ADRIANA: So does this. I wonder, like, does part of your job entail also, like, working with some of the solutions engineers? Like, pairing with them on that?LIZ: Yeah. So I work with our solutions engineers. I work with our customer support and our customer success team. I work with customer architects. I work with software developers. That's why I say I'm a Factotum. I have to be able to speak sales. I have to be able to speak engineering.I have to be able to speak marketing. I have to be able to communicate with all of these people and collaborate with them daily.ADRIANA: What's been your favorite part of being Field CTO so far?LIZ: I think my favorite part is the variety of it. No customer is alike. I think that's a lot of fun. I think the gratification and the payoff of this is what we're building. This is how people are really, actually leveraging it. I think that's also really, really satisfying.ADRIANA: Is there any sort of thing that you've been working on that you're allowed to talk about where you're like, oh, my God, this has been, like, the coolest thing I've gotten to do.LIZ: Yeah. I think one of my on and off fascinations is continuous profiling, and it is very, very weird in that, you know, it interacts with the very, very guts of the kernel, of the runtimes. So getting to interact with one of the Go subsystem maintainers, cherrymui, and sending her crash reports when the profiling doesn't work completely according to plan, getting to work on our integration with profiling that we developed a couple years back and that we continue to use ourselves, I think that's a lot of fun because it shows how much depth there is if you really, really, really want to get into understanding the performance of your system. I do not necessarily recommend that our clients do this. There's so much low hanging fruit to find just via tracing, but we aim to be cost effective. We aim to be fast. And part of how you get there is by looking at continuous profiling and looking at the data down to the kind of nearest, nearest line of code. And I think that's a lot of fun.It's just maybe not quite at the level of application where everyone should be doing it, but that's kind of a thing that I've worked on, on and off for the past two years that I found to be just, it's so much fun. And that engineer geek brain of, I want to optimize the heck out of this. That's the thing that it really satisfies for me.ADRIANA: And speaking of profiling, now, profiling is actually one of the newest OTel signals, which is extremely exciting.LIZ: Yes. I was one of the people who nudged the Pyroscope team to start to form the SIG, and then people from all the profiling vendors joined, and it was wonderful. Yes. So I am really thrilled by it. I wanted to congratulate the people who work on it. And, yeah, having kind of that singular profiling agent contribute by Elastic, like, that's. That's going to be...that's going to be so amazing in terms of just, you know, standardizing the format, standardizing how we can produce the data and then leaving it to vendors and open source solutions for people to look at it.Right? Like that kind of really, really opens up that opportunity for people to start using it in anger a little bit more, I think.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. And just getting that extra little bit of insight now that, you know, it's been standardized, which is super cool.LIZ: Yeah.ADRIANA: Now, I wanted to switch gears a little bit because before we started recording, I asked if you had any interesting hot takes to share. So I will let you share your...one o...one of your hot takes.LIZ: Yeah. So as of when we're recording this, the Gartner Magic Q uadrant just came out. And I was actually just on Reddit, like, you know, talking to a bunch of SREs who...and I think that it's interesting in that, you know, the SREs are saying Gartner got it wrong. And, you know, I may or may not have some spicy opinions about, about the way that the Gartner Magic Quadrant shook out, but I think it's really interesting to see. It's almost like a Rorschach test, right? Like, you look at it and you see what you want to see, right? So, yeah, my spicy take is that because I interact with enterprise buyers, SREs are not the enterprise buyer, right? So I saw SREs just slagging Gartner, right? And it's like, no, the Gartner analysts that I speak to are very smart. They know what they're doing.And their audience is executives. Their audience is executives at fortune hundred companies, right? Like, so, you know, you an individual contributor SRE at some cool startup. The Gartner magic quadrant is not for you. So if you're complaining, you know, oh, like, you know, why didn't. Isn't Grafana ahead of Datadog and, and Dynatrace? The answer is that Grafana is maybe not quite as batteries included as you know, that large enterprise really wants it to be, right? Like, you know, that's, you know, sure, you can set up Grafana. That's great for you, but that doesn't mean that it's going to be the best choice for a big enterprise. So, yeah, people, you know, were like, oh, my God, like, you know, Gartner's so pay to play, and it's like, no, like, you know, Gartner does a fair job. Like, you know, sure, you can buy their attention to listen to you, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee they're going to, you know, say good things about you.So, you know, you can get Gartner to, you know, even mention your name in the quadrant, but that doesn't guarantee that you're going to score well according to their evaluation criteria. That being said, you can game their evaluation criteria. So I think that's spicy take number two is I was actually looking at LinkedIn and I saw, you know, Rob Skillington, one of the co founders of Chronosphere, you know, bragging about, you know, how well they placed and also saying, like, you know, they spent, you know, hundreds of hours, you know, a thousand, a thousand hours working on, you know, on making sure that they had every single, like, you know, qualifying attribute of the Gartner magic quadrant precisely shown in a, in a, in a, in a demo video snippet, right? If you try super, super hard and, you know, you curate your example to, you know, demonstrate narrowly what Gartner's asking for, sure, you can do really well, but I think competitively in the field, my own experience is that we do not tend to encounter chronosphere in terms of it being a competitor we've run into in APM competitive situations. They're primarily a metrics vendor and newly logging vendor with their calyptia acquisition. And it seems very weird to me until I saw Rob Skillington's post.You know, it seemed very weird to me that a competitor that was so weak in the APM and tracing space that very publicly trashed tracing and trashed OpenTelemetry that they could score so well in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. And then the pieces clicked together when I saw that they basically curated the view that they wanted Gartner to see. Whereas I can say my team and the extended team in Honeycomb, we put in a good effort and we showed the product as it is. We didn't invest a bunch of effort in polishing it, and I think that reflects it. Gartner is tough. Gartner is fair. I don't dispute where we placed in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. I think their criticisms of us were spot on, and those are things that we actually happen to be working on.You know, I think the Gartner Magic Quadrant is a useful tool. You know, I think that it should be taken with skepticism and a grain of salt, but it is not pay to play. It is. If you make one criticism, it's that, you know, you can put in a lot of effort to, like, look super sparkly, but that it is a fair perspective as to how the enterprise market perceives, perceives companies, whether it be observability or a different magic quadrant. So sorry, SREs, you're wrong. Gartner is not being unfair to Grafana. Gartner is not being "pay to play". But you are not the audience for the Gartner Magic Quadrant. Right?ADRIANA: That's super fair. And I have a follow up question on that, which is, you know, how...what's the process of being like, one of the vendors that Gartner evaluates is that do they look at all the vendors in the space, or do you come to them?LIZ: They look at all the vendors in the space. Although obviously some of the additions to that are a little bit weird. Like, in past years, they've had Alibaba Cloud on there, and it's like, who? Right? And that might be an example of, okay, this is a really niche thing that they were forced to add for one reason or another. But no, every major player in the space gets given an invitation to participate. But as a criteria for inclusion, you are obliged to...you are obliged to submit proof that you have a certain minimum number of customers. You are required to submit confidential proof of your top line revenue and the growth year on year. And if you do not meet those criteria, you are not included.They actually added a note in their report saying Observe Inc. was not included in the report because they. Not because they failed to meet the functional criteria, but because they failed to meet the non functional revenue, revenue and customer criteria, which was super spicy, but, right. Like, so, yeah, it is a well rounded set of the industry. Obviously a vendor can choose not to participate. I don't know why they would do that, but, yeah. So your employer, ServiceNow, Lightstep, is on the Magic Quadrant. I truthfully think you should have placed higher, but, you know, I wasn't privy to what you submitted to them.So, yeah, that's kind of how it goes. Lots and lots and lots and lots of spreadsheets, lots and lots of recording demo videos. And, you know, it's up to you how much time you want to invest in it. We are a 200 person startup. We decided to do a good enough job and not necessarily. Not necessarily clip all the rough edges off.ADRIANA: Right, right. It's interesting because it almost sounds like, you know, the type of process that you, you go through for an audit. Obviously not, not quite as, as much scrutiny, I would imagine, as doing an audit, but you have to put in the work.LIZ: Yep. Yep.ADRIANA: There is another question that I want to ask. You know, having, now that you're, you're interacting a fair bit with, with enterprise customers, what's, how has it been in terms of like, differences that you've noticed between interacting with enterprise versus non enterprise customers?LIZ: People are a little bit scared by the deploy on Fridays thing. It still is a little spooky to people. Right. Like, and it's understandable that if your deploys break regularly and break after a time, time delay of 24 to 48 hours, that you would be spooked about deploying on Fridays. Right. So I kind of have to dial back the, you know, Charity and Liz, like, you know, break all the things rabble rousing. And, you know, I focus on stability, I focus on speed. And then I'm like, okay, now that you have stability and speed, like, you know, let's, let's talk, let's talk about revisiting Friday deploys.Right. Similarly, like, I've had to caveat the, you know, test in production to like, you know, you test and you, you test in production whether you admit it or not. Right? Like, we're not saying don't test in staging. We're saying, you know. Right. Yeah. So I think that's definitely changed. I think, you know, the enterprises are not necessarily quite as willing to make large bets with the exception of kind of innovation units in startups or, sorry, innovation units and enterprises.Right. Like, so they spin up an internal team, they give them resources to work with public cloud, to work with the latest technology. Right. Like those teams are the teams that are more willing to be game to try, to try and experiment.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. And let's not forget also the inordinately long process of getting approvals for anything enterprise related.LIZ: Firewall holes. Firewalls are my new enemy.ADRIANA: Oh my God. I, when I worked at Bank of Montreal for eleven-ish years, and I think one of the most annoying things that I had to do in my time there was making firewall rules, request changes. It was such a process. Such a process. And I swear it, like changed every time I did it. I just wanted to like pull my hair out. It was. Yeah...LIZ: I know. And we live in the world of public cloud, right? Like, I use ALBs, the IP addresses of my ALBs, I cannot guarantee. Right? Like, you know, we have private link. That's how we solve that problem for a majority of cases. Right. Like, because people don't understandably don't want to open a firewall hole to all of the us east. One EC2 public IPs.ADRIANA: Yeah, I feel ya. I feel ya. One thing that I also wanted to ask you spent many years at Google as an SRE. Do you miss it? Do you miss the SRE work?LIZ: I get to work with the SRE team at Honeycomb and they are so incredibly talented and sharp and I love working with them. No, I don't necessarily get to do that much SRE work myself anymore, but I get to help and work with SREs across many different companies. Right. So I'm kind of a meta SRE now. I've come to terms with that. In terms of Google. Yes, I miss my Google colleagues, but increasingly, whether due to layoffs or voluntary turnover, there's been this diaspora and it's really nice to get to interact with them and potentially even work with them. At Honeycomb, we just had a former Google SRE who became a platform engineering manager at Honeycomb.Right. Like, so. Yeah. So, you know, I do miss some. I do miss the people, but many of them have followed over into startup world, which is exciting.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's awesome. And one other question that I wanted to ask with regards to your role as Field CTO, do you find coming in to an organization, you know, when you're proposing certain changes, how open are folks to making those changes?LIZ: It's a self selecting bias in that the people that I speak to are the people who have already chosen to engage Honeycomb or to do a trial with Honeycomb or are otherwise investigating us. That means that a leader has a mandate for some kind of change. It may or may not be the change that we're proposing, but they do have a mandate for change. So that means that there is some appetite, at least by leadership. Yes. The people they are leading may or may not want to go along with that change, but that's kind of their job as a leader, is to have the trust of their organization and drive the change through, through the organization. So, yes, I think one of the best times to approach someone on behalf of our sales team is when someone's just made a job change, right. When they've just come in as a director or VP or CTO somewhere.Right. Like, that means that they have a mandate to bring in new practices. And Honeycomb, OpenTelemetry can be some of those new practices.ADRIANA: Yeah. So, so true. And speaking of OpenTelemetry, what's. What's your involvement with OpenTelemetry these days?LIZ: I'm an emeritus governance committee member. So, right now, you know Austin Parker very well. So they're serving as, as a OpenTelemetry governance committee member, and they're very easily accessible to me. As you know, we're both Honeycomb employees. The governance committee state belongs to the individual, not to the company. But I don't see a reason for duplication, though, of having multiple people who work at the same company being on the GC. So I haven't felt the need to stand for the GC.I recently submitted some pull requests to the OpenTelemetry Go project. So, you know, I'm still...I explicitly said I do not want my approver status back. Thank you very much. I don't have enough time to contribute. But, hey, by the way, here's a drive by performance fix.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIZ: Whenever I see a problem that I can help a customer address with my familiar with OpenTelemetry, I'll do it. But we have an entire team, engineering team, that's dedicated to working on OpenTelemetry. Now, I don't have to do that change unless it's something that's super quick and easy for me.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. That's great. And I think it's so great that so many of the observability vendors out there have dedicated teams to work on OpenTelemetry, which I think really speaks to the staying power of OTel, and that they collectively, everybody wants OTel to succeed. And I absolutely love that.LIZ: Yeah. Right. Like, it is our SDK. Right. Like, you know, it is our SDK that we collectively have to maintain in order to make sure all of our customers have a good experience. You know, it's a little bit decentralized, but it means that we're working on the same project despite having our paychecks paid by different people. And that's okay.ADRIANA: Yeah, totally. And one thing that, you know, I always say over and over is I really appreciate the vendor neutrality aspect of OTel because, you know, I interact with folks in OTel who are from different companies, and I don't look at them as competitors. They're just, like, friends, people I work with. Like, we're all working towards the same goal and. And that it's so deliberate that, you know, anytime there's, like, a hint of, like, this might not be vendor neutral, people are like, you might want to reconsider, like, rewording it or, I'm sorry, we can't accept this because it violates our vendor neutrality policy. Super fair. Super fair. And I love that.LIZ: Yeah. The only bug there has been when someone's marketing department releases something without the. Without checking it first with the OTel team at that vendor. Right. When there's no. Yeah, right. People are pretty good about self policing. Unless, you know, unless there's just a lack of communication. Right. And you could say that about engineering, too, right? Like, you know, lack of communication. That's what causes, like, things to go awry more often than not.ADRIANA: Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree with you. Well, we are coming up on time, so before we wrap up, I was wondering if you had any parting words of wisdom that you wanted to share with folks.LIZ: I think my parting word of wisdom is always be trying new things. And if that new thing is OpenTelemetry, great. The starting experience is super easy. But no, but, yeah, just keep on learning. Never just be like, I'm in my abroad, and this is what I do.ADRIANA: Yeah, I love that. And so important for tech as well, right? I mean, you either learn new stuff or you wither away from the industry. Well, thank you so much, Liz, for Geeking Out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...LIZ: 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.
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Jun 4, 2024 • 33min

The One Where We Geek Out on Embracing Your Inner Hotness with Diana Pham

About our guest:With a high spirit and a low sense of mortality, Diana completed her master’s in CS regardless of never having coded prior to grad school. Through her passion for learning and teaching tech, she found her calling in advocacy, where she exercises her creativity through conference talks and content creation. She likes oysters.Find our guest on:LinkedInX (Twitter)InstagramFind us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:KubeHuddle 2024KubeHuddle on YouTubeLunar New YearMiss Vietnam San Diego 2017Brazilian Jiu-JitsuCapybara (capy)Capybaras at High Park Zoo in TorontoCapybaras in Rio de Janeiro, BrazilBalutTranscript: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 from KubeHuddle in Toronto, I have Diana Pham.DIANA: Thanks for having me.ADRIANA: Super excited to have you. I've put it on my to do list for KubeHuddle to like, anyone that I've wanted to interview for my podcast that I haven't interviewed, who is here? I'm nailing them down. So yay.DIANA: I mean, it wasn't really hard to find me because we're both organizers. We more or less had each other's schedules. We ran the schedule, and so we just actually put this entire conference on hold to have this podcast.ADRIANA: That's right, that's right. They're waiting for us right now. Awesome. Okay, so before we get started, I've got some lightning round questions while my lovely daughter Hannah does like ballet in the background just to troll me, which I love. Okay, are you ready?DIANA: Yes.ADRIANA: Okay, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?DIANA: I am a righty.ADRIANA: Okay. Are you iPhone or Android?DIANA: I'm an iPhone-er. Why don't I have to think about that? I don't know. I thought about that less harder than when you asked me like right or left? I looked down.ADRIANA: Okay, next question. Mac, Linux or windows?DIANA: Mac. Just because that's what my company provides.ADRIANA: Fair enough. That's a good answer. What's your favorite programming language?DIANA: I am a Python girly.ADRIANA: Ooh, team Python. And Hannah is like all excited in the background because she loves the Python. I do love Python. I grew up in Java land.DIANA: Oh, same. It was my second language, Java land. Oh, Java land.ADRIANA: Java land. I don't know. I'm getting trolled by Tim. Getting trolled by Tim in the background because of my pronunciation of Java.DIANA: That's pretty accurate. So it was actually my 2nd, 2nd programming language, if not first. And whenever I tweet about me working on something Java related, people would comment. They're like, oh, why are you using Java? Or like, oh, what are you building? And I was like, whatever my company is asking or whatever my company's paying me to build.ADRIANA: So that's fair. That's fair.DIANA: Yeah, yeah.ADRIANA: You like Java? Because I've grown to not like it.DIANA: It's very verbose. But I'm also a very verbose person, as you'll realize as I keep talking when I shouldn't.ADRIANA: Hey there's nothing wrong with that. Okay, next question. Do you prefer Dev or Ops?DIANA: I'm a Dev. I want to learn Ops, but I can barely Ops on a daily basis. I'm going to go with Dev.ADRIANA: All righty. Do you prefer JSON or YAML?DIANA: I'm gonna go with JSON. This readability wise.ADRIANA: That's funny. See, I find, like, JSON not readable for myself. Yeah. I find YAML more readable.DIANA: I think it's also because when I look at JSON, it's like, an aesthetic thing for me, where I visualize boxes that don't exist. But that's just me being a little dululo, but it works for me. So.ADRIANA: So, like, the curly braces kind of, like, frame things.DIANA: Yeah, yeah, exactly.ADRIANA: And Java vibes.DIANA: Java vines. Exactly. Once again, verbose, unnecessary, but they're there.ADRIANA: Okay, next question. Spaces or tabs?DIANA: I'm gonna say tabs.ADRIANA: All right.DIANA: Just out of convenience. Okay, convenience.ADRIANA: Okay, next question. Two more to go. Do you prefer consuming...I can't talk now.DIANA: No, you're good.ADRIANA: Do you prefer consuming content through video or text?DIANA: Ooh, I would say video. Yeah.ADRIANA: All right, final question. What is your superpower?DIANA: Oh, my gosh. So on my. Yeah, so on my slide for our upcoming panel, the closing keynote panel, I put eating oysters and walking and talking in heels.ADRIANA: Nice. Yeah, that is a skill.DIANA: I guess, simultaneously, I can walk, talk, and wear heels and eat oysters. And eat oysters. I've never been asked to do that, but if I was, I'm pretty sure I could.ADRIANA: That could be a special talent at a pageant.DIANA: There we go. So, for those of you who don't know, Hannah refers me as "Pageant Friend".ADRIANA: Pageant Friend. Yeah.DIANA: So I'm not sure how much context you've given her about what I do, but when I was in college, I actually competed in pageants. It was a way of me raising money for school because I went through, like, this whole crisis realizing that I just pulled a bunch of loans without really knowing the value of money when you're 18. And so what do I...ADRIANA: Just give them to you!DIANA: Yeah. Yeah. And...and I was like, oh, college. Everyone does that. And so however much it costs, it was like, oh, loans. Everyone knows, like, oh, you need to take both as an American. "As an American", it's really common to get student loans. And so you just have this preconceived notion that you're going to be spending the rest of your life paying off these loans. But once I started to get a job and have some sort of understanding of what the value of money was. I was like, oh, my gosh, I took a lot of money out, you know, and so that's kind of how I spiraled and decided to do a pageant, which is not a very common way of raising money for your school. But...yeah!ADRIANA: They must pay well enough.DIANA: Honestly, they didn't like, they didn't. But I do have to admit that when I competed in one, I was in Miss Vietnam, San Diego of 2017. I did that one. I ended up winning, even though my parents really didn't want me to compete. They were more like, hey, just focus in school. Focus on, you know, the things that matter. But I went behind their back. Not saying that other kids of that age should be doing that, but I went behind their back. I competed, I won, and they were very upset that I went behind their back because it was also my, like, I'm Vietnamese American, my family, we celebrate Lunar New Year's, and that was the one year that New Year's landed on a weekend.ADRIANA: Oh.DIANA: And so of all years that I could have competed, it was that one. So fast forward. They are really proud that, you know, I had that accomplishment. But where it really, like, paid off, I guess it definitely did not pay off all of school, but I lost my grandpa that same year, and my parents, they're definitely not, like. I don't want to say not in the position, but they do financially support me in school as much as they could. And during that one quarter where the bills were due, they had to fly back to Vietnam for the funeral or just to see my grandpa one last time. And I did not have, like, money from them to pay for school. And so what I do, I cash that check, and that check alone from that one competition paid enough for me to cover my dues for the quarter.ADRIANA: That's so cool.DIANA: Yeah, that's awesome.ADRIANA: Hey, I mean, you got to do what you got to do there to make ends meet. That's so cool. And. But you continued doing pageants.DIANA: I did. After that, it was more like, I definitely wanted to continue to do it for school. I started competing in more, like, the American pageants in the past, I did more vietnamese local pageants. And so miss. I did miss America's organization, and that was actually the first time I did a tech...a tech talent.ADRIANA: Oh, cool. What was it?DIANA: And so you get 90 seconds on stage, and so most girls, you know, they sing, they dance, they play an instrument. And I was like, I'm gonna do a tech demo. And so I did one where I explained how my parents, they're immigrants, and they didn't initially learn English when they grew up. Like, growing up, they just didn't know English. While I, on the other hand, am...ADRIANA: Yeah.DIANA: Like, I was given that opportunity. And so when voice assistants came out, here we are with the means to actually purchase them, while back then, like, they never thought that, you know, Alexa would be in their life or they would even be able to afford it. And then finally they came here, they pursued the American Dream. They finally are able to afford this thing, but it doesn't understand them because of their accents. And so just to give some perspective on that, it's just like, it's not that Alexa is racist or anything. It's just the lack of data that's out there, you know? And so I designed an app where they can just text, like, whatever control command they want for the house assisting, or, like, the home assistant. So super briefly high level explained that in 90 seconds, and then I demoed it.ADRIANA: Oh, my God. So it was like an interview. Yeah, like a job interview. I mean, these things are interviews anyway.DIANA: I mean, they really are. They really are. And the very first time I did it, it was just like trial by fire. I don't even think that was a term. It was more like your. What is it? The right to passage into town is a demo failing?ADRIANA: Oh, my God.DIANA: And so what happened? I didn't...I didn't witness this with my eyes, but I remember I was about to get onto stage, and I hear someone behind me go, oh, there goes the router. When you hear something like that, you're like, I'm not even going to turn around because the lights are going to come up in, like, 5 seconds. And in my mind, I was like, there's no chance this works if someone just unplugged the router and what happened? But it's all right. I had another shot at not that pageant, but I had another shot to do it, and that was really nice. It worked out.ADRIANA: That's so cool. Yeah. That's so exciting. Yeah. And, you know, like, one of the things that I admire about the fact that, like, you still do these pageants and that I really liked when I met you last year at KubeHuddle is the fact that, like, you lean into, like, your girliness in tech, because I think, like, I think a lot of girls are almost conditioned in tech to, like, not be girly because, you know, you gotta, like, be one of the boys and stuff and.DIANA: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely felt that when I was in grad school. If you saw, there's actually a video of me. I tweeted it a while back. It was like someone quoting, oh, you must have partied a lot in college. And then you see the video attached, and it's me, like, curled up in a ball in a big hoodie with my friends around. Everyone's, like, playing video games, and you pan to the girl in the corner, and I'm playing a harmonica with, like, my hair tied up, glasses, no makeup. And so I had my unglamorous moments, and I'm like, no, I'm gonna...DIANA: you know, I'm a pretty feminine person, and I'm not gonna be apologetic about it, or at least I try not to be.ADRIANA: Because why should we be apologetic for who we are?DIANA: Yeah, yeah. And it never really, like, stood out to me that other people weren't like that until you brought it up to me that you're like, I'm gonna wear a dress.ADRIANA: Yeah.DIANA: And I was like, oh, I didn't even realize that other people weren't wearing dresses. I mean, I did, but it wasn't like, because, yeah, no one else is wearing a dress, and I won't wear a dress type of scenario. And I was like, wow, that really sucks, because that definitely is a thing.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, like, I never wear dresses to conferences, and for this conference, I decided I want to, like, embrace my....my....femmeness.DIANA: Yes. And then she had, like, a statement...she had a statement skirt yesterday at her speak...at our speaker/organizer dinner.ADRIANA: Yeah, I did a schoolgirl outfit thing going on.DIANA: I think it was a skirt.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. It was, like, kind of a lime. It was a lime green plaid skirt and then, like, kind of a brightish pink color. No, I know.DIANA: I was surprised after, too.TIM: This is why we did SIG-fashion.DIANA: We were literally talking about this yesterday.TIM: I've been talking about that for a couple years now.DIANA: Oh, my gosh.ADRIANA: There should be SIG-fashion and SIG-makeup.DIANA: Yeah.ADRIANA: We're talking about...TIM: SIG-hair care, right?ADRIANA: SIG-nails.DIANA: So GitHub...TIM: Yeah.ADRIANA: Oh, so beautiful. Oh, there you go. Yeah, my nails. My nails. For this conference.DIANA: Yeah, I think GitHub does a really good job at that. They actually have the press on nails.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, that's right. I remember those.DIANA: Yeah, we need more of that. And we're talking about how we should have a makeup station at tech conferences where you can just glow up and have statement makeup based off of your company colors or not. Whatever.ADRIANA: That could be fun. Yeah. I mean, because they have face painting stations.DIANA: We were talking about that too.ADRIANA: Come on.DIANA: Because how do we get on that topic? Oh, you're talking about clown makeup. And how do we.ADRIANA: I don't wear makeup because I feel like whenever I put it on, look. I look like a clown.DIANA: Natural here.ADRIANA: Yeah. I'm getting, like, looks from Hannah in the background.DIANA: No, it is really funny, because Hannah, she has makeup on, and I feel like you two are just like a copy-paste of each other. And so if you did want to wear makeup, you see the mirror in front of you.ADRIANA: I think Hannah's learned how to do my makeup now that works with my skin tone because my eyes are a little more inset than hers. So let's just say that that makeup experiment was quite interesting and yielded some very fun results.DIANA: Well, we made it. We made it. Yeah.ADRIANA: Yeah.DIANA: I just thought of the idea of, like, you just putting on clown makeup right now. Like, we should just. Oh, my God.ADRIANA: Like a clown for a conference.DIANA: No, we have a...SIG-clown.TIM: Oh, man. Right now you're gonna lose...you lose a lot of people on that one.ADRIANA: Okay.ADRIANA: We got. We got the thumbs down on that.DIANA: Oh, my gosh. Companies. I actually really wanted this because someone brought it up to me. In case you don't know. I wear false lashes to a lot of conferences. Like, I love...No, I take hair and I glue it onto my eyelid.ADRIANA: When you describe it that way, it just sounds so enticing. I know.DIANA: It is. Yeah. And I just styled them differently every time.ADRIANA: There you go.DIANA: Sometimes I snip them. Sometimes, like, layers.ADRIANA: I'm very scared of false lashes.DIANA: Yeah. But I was saying, imagine, like, a company actually had that as swag, and they branded the lashes as swag. I would. I would be on that. It's such a good idea. We got the confirmation. We got an investor. All right, over here.ADRIANA: Well, because, I mean, conference swag. Like, we've bitched about this before. The conference t-shirts. Anyone who's organizing a conference, for the love of God, and thank goodness. I would say, like, the last few KubeCons, Open Source Summits, at least made an effort to have, like, fitted and non-fitted t-shirts.DIANA: Or at least smaller sizes available.ADRIANA: Yeah, smaller sizes. And I prefer the fitted for myself because, I don't know, I like to look cute in my conference t-shirts. And, you know, I was at a thing, a work thing last year where they made these t-shirts, and they were really cool. And so I'm like, oh, I want one. And the guy who was taking orders he's like, what size? I'm like, well, do you have, like, extra small fitted? And he's like, nah, they're baggy, but you can just wear it around the house. I'm like, don't trigger me. Don't say this stuff to me. Like, I want to look cute around the house. Not look like a frigging bum when I'm around the house.DIANA: But even then, why wouldn't you want us to wear it in public? For your thing?ADRIANA: Yeah. So I was like, I was so, so angry. I'm like, forget it. I don't want a t-shirt. Like, no, no, it fits me or not.DIANA: Yeah, yeah. I definitely feel like I end up getting left with the options of, like, oh, do you want a maxi skirt size t-shirt or a, like, clubbing dress? Like a maxi dress or, like, a clubbing dress size t-shirt based on whatever sizes they have left?ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.DIANA: Um, and that kind of sucks, but that is what it is.ADRIANA: It does.DIANA: Although sometimes I don't really blame them, because different, uh, what is it? Vendors, they have different cuts.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is tricky. I've having had to order t-shirts for my teams before. I almost had a heart attack trying to find t-shirts that would appeal to, like, all the people, but, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would like more conference swag. That's like, you know, a little bit of. A little more femininity. I mean, girls attend conferences, too.DIANA: What?ADRIANA: Well, I know, right?DIANA: Oh, my goodness. Recently, I was at a conference, and I was talking to someone who said it was hilarious. The one time that they went to this, like, huge, several thousand people conference, and whoever the performer was, they were like, this one goes out to all the ladies. Yeah, I see all 14 of you. That's right. Yep. I see y'all. And mind you, there's, like, thousands of people, and he and this performer, like, they knew. They knew.ADRIANA: Oh my God, he zeroed in on it.DIANA: Yeah.ADRIANA: That's hilarious.DIANA: Yeah, no, that was great, though.ADRIANA: It's like, the bathroom lines at conferences.DIANA: Oh, yeah. Like, very. It's a good problem to have when the lines are longer.ADRIANA: Yeah, that's true. Although I I have to say that I do enjoy, like, not spending forever.DIANA: Oh, yeah.ADRIANA: But, yes, I I agree. Longer bathroom lines means that we're getting more ladies out. And one thing that, like, I have liked about KubeHuddle is we've had a good percentage of the ladies at the conference, which is really good.DIANA: I didn't want to be, like, predatorial, but I was like, oh, my gosh. These girls, like, dressed in things other than their company tees and jeans. And unfortunately, I wasn't able to hunt them down to, like, do a reel about it, but I would have loved to do that.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. We're kind of all over the place. Yeah, it's been a busy. Yeah, it's been busy organizing KubeHuddle. And this is, like, your second KubeHuddle that you've organized.DIANA: It is. And this is your, like, your first and you. Yeah. In case y'all didn't know, she put together both panels.ADRIANA: Yeah. And in case people don't know, Diana is based out of Denver, right?DIANA: I am. I am. And I'm not as good of a climber than you, for sure. It sucks. I actually started. I did. I had a. I had a movement pass for a couple of months, and then I had, like, some stupid surgery.DIANA: It was, like, super minor, but I also couldn't do physical things. And then I never get my nails done.ADRIANA: Yeah.DIANA: But of course, the one time that I decided to get into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I got my nails done, and so I just like, not doing all these activities that I wish I had done, but I'll come around to it eventually. SIG-climbers. SIG-climbers.ADRIANA: Yeah, I think there is a SIG-climbing.DIANA: Oh, really?ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is. There is. Although usually, like, I'm kind of a lone wolf boulderer, so. But I'll go, like, with a small crew for...actually, Marino's been my bouldering buddy for the last several conferences. Or last two, I guess. So for the last KubeCon and for Open Source Summit, I dragged him out early in the morning because that's the only time you can go when you're at a conference.DIANA: Yeah, I sleep in.ADRIANA: Yeah. I mean, normally I do, too. Like, you know...DIANA: You have, like, so much self control and discipline while I'm here. Like, I sleep.ADRIANA: I normally like to sleep in in the mornings, but for conferences, I'm like. I'm. I'm obsessed enough with bouldering that I'll just like, okay. I'll wake up at some God awful time to go.DIANA: Is that, like, your thing?ADRIANA: That is my thing. That's my, like, center. Yeah, yeah, that and capys. Yeah.DIANA: Have you ever seen one?ADRIANA: Yes. Okay, so here in Toronto, there is a zoo in one of the...we have, like, this big park not too far from here, and there are capys at the zoo, and they're just chilling. Yeah, yeah. And actually, as a birthday present, Hannah and my husband took me to see the capys and. But they didn't tell me where we were going, so, like, we went on the subway, and then they blindfolded me. And so when we exited the subway, I was, like, blindfolded walking to this park, having no freaking clue.DIANA: I would be terrified.ADRIANA: It was a little scary.DIANA: Not...not because of them. Like, you know, if it was anyone else that I didn't know, I'd be like, okay, I might die. But no, even if it was someone I knew, I would get scared just because I'm, like, over sensitive when I can't be or, you know, when I lose some sense. I'm oversensitive in the worst way.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really freaky. And having to trust people to, like, guide you and, like, oh, watch your step when you're walking through here and don't, like, step on dog crap.DIANA: Yeah.ADRIANA: Oh, yeah. They were trying. They tried to, like, disorient me. I kind of figured out what they were up to, like, partway in just because I know them, but it was still a great surprise. And, like, they...honestly, capys are, like, majestic creatures.DIANA: They're, like, giant rat, but they're, like, so chill.ADRIANA: They're so chill. They've got, like, this resting bitch face.DIANA: Of, like, yo, have you seen the reels lately?ADRIANA: Oh, my God. Like, I subscribe to very...to many capy IG accounts.DIANA: Yeah, the ones are just sitting there in the tub, and there's water on them, and they're just.ADRIANA: And they're like, ugh. Or, like, ducks, like, pecking at them, and they're like, come at me, bro.DIANA: You know who I was actually really surprised had never seen a goat.ADRIANA: Who?DIANA: Kunal.ADRIANA: Oh.DIANA: Up until, like, last year, like, a couple months ago, he had never seen a goat. That's why I was curious. If you've ever seen a capy before.ADRIANA: That's a fair question to ask. And they're a super common animal.DIANA: I don't think I've even seen one, but, like, everyone knows what these animals look like.ADRIANA: See it live. Yeah.DIANA: But in. In practice, like, I'm thinking, have I ever seen one? I don't think I've ever seen. No, I've seen a goat for sure, but I've never seen a capy. Is this some state animal?ADRIANA: If you're here in Toronto longer, I don't know when you leave, but there's the High Park Zoo, and they have capys.DIANA: Are capys from Toronto?ADRIANA: No, they're from South America.DIANA: Oh. What?ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.DIANA: What are they doing here?ADRIANA: Chillin in the zoo.DIANA: Okay.ADRIANA: Yeah.DIANA: Like, wandering free. Because I don't get.ADRIANA: No, no, they're not. No, they're. These ones aren't wandering free. Like, they have, like, different animals on display. I mean, yeah, they have, like, a, you know, kind of a pen, a fenced in pen area where they. They wander free. I think there's, like, a pair of them.DIANA: Oh.ADRIANA: And they just chill, and it's...DIANA: But in South America, are they wandering free like the guinea pig?ADRIANA: Yeah. So in. So in Rio, there's, like, a part of Rio called Lagoa where apparently they roam freely, which now I, like, I have renewed reason to return so that I can see them solely for that. Solely for that.DIANA: I mean, morbid question, but are they. Do people eat of them the way. The way guinea pigs are over there, like, as common?ADRIANA: Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. I I've never heard of people eating a capybara.DIANA: Okay. I mean, I didn't know that people eat guinea pigs as commonly as they were until I met or I knew a friend who went to Peru for a hot minute.ADRIANA: Oh.DIANA: And they were just like, yeah, eating Guinea pics.ADRIANA: But they're so cute and cuddly.DIANA: Have you ever had balut?ADRIANA: What?DIANA: Balut?ADRIANA: No, I don't think so.DIANA: Yeah. How would you describe balut? In case I can't hear it, I'll repeat you.TIM: So balut.DIANA: Balut.TIM: A preserved fertilized...DIANA: There we go. Preserved fertilized duck egg. There it is.TIM: And not fertilized, but, like, this duck is basically fully formed.DIANA: Not always. I don't like the fully formed.TIM: I said basically, but almost always. That's what you get, right? It's not a bloody yolk.DIANA: It is.TIM: You got feathers, you got bones, you got bill, you got the...DIANA: You need to try it in, like, cooked in tamarind sauce.TIM: No, stop.DIANA: In tamarind sauce. You don't really taste all that.TIM: I grew up around a lot of Filipinos. When I was coming up in my neighborhood in Virginia, I tried balut several times. Several ways, and not one of them was even close to palatable.ADRIANA: Wow.DIANA: I respect the fact that you're willing to try.TIM: That's like, ever tried it like this? I'm like, y'all...ADRIANA: So balut. So fertilized duck. Developed, Developed, Developed duck in egg.DIANA: Yeah.ADRIANA: So you eat it in the egg?DIANA: Yeah. So you crack the top. So you take a little spoon, and you crack it on top, and then you take a shot of the broth like you would a shot of tequila.ADRIANA: There is a broth.DIANA: There's a broth.TIM: It's not broth..ADRIANA: It's the thing that the duck is in.TIM: I mean, technically, I guess it's a broth. It's the duck juice.HANNAH: What are you talking about? When people do, like, the duck eggs. When the duck is...ADRIANA: Of course Hannah knows about this because of Instagram, right?HANNAH: Probably YouTube.ADRIANA: Sorry, sorry.DIANA: Obviously not Instagram. Speaking of old, like old with social media, I remember back then, this was, like, maybe a decade ago, my niece was telling me how she was telling her friend something. Something Facebook. And her friend was like, who still uses Facebook? And she was like, my aunt. I was still in my twenties then. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure they're like, well, my aunt. And they just made me sound like a dinosaur from that. And I was like, I'm pretty sure Facebook is still hip. Okay, now that I say it out loud...ADRIANA: I mean, Hannah's on Facebook, but she does it to troll my husband. She calls it old people social media.DIANA: It is still happening.ADRIANA: You want to hear something depressing about feeling old? So at the speaker dinner yesterday, Renata and I were talking to somebody, and it happens that she's going to the same university that I went to for school. And I'm like, yeah, I graduated in 2001. And she's like, I was born in 2001. I just died right there. Yeah, yeah, that was uh...DIANA: But I think a lot of things are changing in a very short amount of time. Or at least I saw myself that to make myself feel better, because then I'll talk to someone who now goes to my alma mater, and they'll say something. And I was like, oh, that building didn't even exist when I went there. But that's probably because it got built the next year that I left.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. We were trading stories of, yeah, that building was a parking lot when I was there.DIANA: After I left is when it manifested.ADRIANA: It's always better after you leave. Like, we had dumpy ass facilities at my school, and then it's like, oh, you get two new buildings. I'm like, great, thanks.DIANA: So is there anything that's very specific that, you know, happened like that?ADRIANA: Yeah, we got two new buildings after I left.DIANA: I don't. I'm guessing those buildings got built after I left, but one of the colleges that I was in. So you have, like, your main college, which is UC San Diego, and then within that, you are split up into, like, Harry Potter houses.ADRIANA: Okay.DIANA: Which is, honestly, that's kind of what it was. Now that I'm thinking about it, that is exactly what it was. So my college was called 6th college. It didn't even have a name.ADRIANA: That's sad.DIANA: Yeah. And then by the time I left and I was like, 6th college and like, what is that? I actually don't know what it's called now.ADRIANA: That's when you feel old. I know, I know. But, you know, it means that we've, you know, we've come up in the world. We have. We are like a fine wine.DIANA: I'll take it. I'll take it. Especially, like, you've been around for a while, not like you're just very knowledgeable and I feel like you have a lot to share with the community. And so anytime I see you and just like, your talks are just walking around, I learn a lot from you.ADRIANA: Thank you.DIANA: Yes, yes. And I hope that one day I can pass on the same knowledge outside of people knowing I use Facebook. Are you not on...are you not on the Facebook Tim?TIM: I still have a Facebook account because my water burger account is tied to it.DIANA: Okay. Fair. Priorities.TIM: And for the marketplace and because, like, some, because I still have messenger because of Jiu-Jitsu contact.DIANA: Okay.ADRIANA: I have Messenger. I have a Facebook account that I haven't logged in in ten years.TIM: The only time I ever open up Facebook is to go to the marketplace.DIANA: Yeah. Have you been using, like, have you ever used other platforms to buy or sell use things and had any weird experiences?ADRIANA: No, because, so this is like, my oldness is like, this is too weird for me where I'm like, I don't want to, like, buy and sell stuff.DIANA: Can we give Hazel a cameo?ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, Hazel can make Hazel come. Make a cameo.DIANA: Make a cameo, please. They probably can't hear you because we're mic'd.ADRIANA: Yeah, we're mic'd. But, you know, everyone's like, photobomb video bombed.DIANA: Hazel's glowed up today.ADRIANA: Super, super fancy.DIANA: Oh, yeah. You two are matching.ADRIANA: For anyone who's listening. They're not going to get the visual experience of Hannah and Hazel matching on the green.DIANA: Yes.ADRIANA: Super swank.DIANA: And then just imagine people who are only watching, not hearing the sound.ADRIANA: I know.DIANA: Yeah.ADRIANA: Like this, this conversation is just like gone everywhere, which I love because I think, you know, one of the things about tech is, like, sometimes we take it too seriously and I think we need to have more fun. I mean, we have a mental health panel going on later today.DIANA: Is it coming up? Do we need a...yeah.ADRIANA: Well, I guess we need to wrap up.TIM: I was just going to walk over. Them like, where are this?TIM: Yeah, you know, the girlies, they're doing the selfies for the camera, for the social medias.DIANA: For The Facebook. We'll email you.ADRIANA: This is, like, the most off the cuff, like, episode of Geeking Out, and it's, like, all kinds of wonderful, and I'm embracing the wackiness of it. So since we need to wrap up, because we have a mental health panel that I'm live streaming soon, do you have any words of wisdom for our audience or hot takes?DIANA: Hot takes. Hot takes. Be hot. I mean, I didn't really love it.ADRIANA: Yeah.DIANA: I didn't really think of that as a articulated thing that we do, but ever since, I mean, I. I said before, I'll say it again. Leanne Lee. She literally said this during our all women's panel last year. She just turns to me and she was like, I. What did she say exactly? She was like, I admire your courage to be hot and smart, and those are just things that I didn't really like...those are not adjectives I affiliate myself with in the tech space. Like, I'll have my, like, daily affirmations or whatever. Yeah, the fact that someone said it out loud. No, but the fact that someone said it out loud, I was like, no. If that's what you think about me, then that is definitely, like, what I feel about other women and more, and in some cases, even men who are, like, amazing allies towards us.ADRIANA: I love it. I love it. That's okay.DIANA: Be hot.ADRIANA: Yeah, be hot. Yeah.DIANA: Inner hotness or outer, who knows?ADRIANA: Or. Yeah, that's true.DIANA: That's true.ADRIANA: Awesome. Awesome. All right, well, thank you, Diana, for geeking out with me today, y'all don't forget to subscribe, y'all. I'm getting fun of so badly.DIANA: I don't even know what to do.ADRIANA: 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.DIANA: Until next time, 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.
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May 28, 2024 • 30min

The One Where We Geek Out on Owning the Stage with Lian Li

About our guest:Lian (she/they) is a Developer Advocate and community organizer, probably best known for creating Kuberoke, the first and only Kubernetes Karaoke Community. Earlier in her career, Lian worked as a community manager and quality manager for various browser games. In recent years, she moved into the Cloud Native space, working as a Cloud Native Engineer, and then as an Engineering Manager. In October 2021, she turned her passion for community and developer happiness into a profession, by breaking into Developer Advocacy for Developer Tools. Lian is also an active member in various communities, including being part of the organization teams of DevOpsDays and ServerlessDays Amsterdam, as well as the ServerlessDays core team. In 2023, she was elected Technical Lead for the CNCF Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Cloud Native App Delivery, focused on outreach and enabling new members for the TAG.Find our guest on:LinkedInX (Twitter)Find us on:All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingoutAll of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillelaShow notes:KubeHuddle 2024KubeHuddle on YouTubeYAML is a superset of JSONTAG App Delivery group on CNCF SlackJoin CNCF Slack hereKuberokeDevOps Days Amsterdam 2024KCD Munich 2024Office Space (Movie - 1999)JSConf AsiaWhat is an unconference?Additional notes:Lian at KubeCon EU 2024Lian at the Beyond Coding podcastLian at the KubeHuddle Mental Health panel (Geeking Out Episode 28)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. Geeking out with me today is Lian Li. Welcome.LIAN: Hi. Thanks for having me.ADRIANA: I'm so excited to have you on. And we are actually recording at KubeHuddle today.LIAN: Yay.ADRIANA: Yay. So very exciting. So we are actually both in Toronto. So as we...before we get started into the meaty bits, I always like to start off with my guests answering some lightning round questions. So are you a lefty or a righty?LIAN: Righty.ADRIANA: Do you prefer iPhone or Android?LIAN: I have an iPhone. I prefer...it's more practical.ADRIANA: Fair enough, fair enough. It's funny, some guests are like, no, this is it. Like, I am staunchly in favor of this or the other. And others are like...eh?LIAN: I'm almost embarrassed that I have an iPhone, but I have so many Apple devices. Just made sense. But I don't. I don't want to. I don't want people to think I'm a cult member.ADRIANA: Fair enough. I get it, I get it. Okay, next question. Mac, Linux, or windows? Which do you prefer?LIAN: I guess I just answered my question.ADRIANA: I think so.LIAN: I was very against MacBooks a long time, but then I had one and it was actually...I had to give a presentation. It was so much easier on a MacBook with Keynote and everything. So since then I've been like, it's easier. Why make your life hard just for street cred?ADRIANA: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, next question. What's your favorite programming language?LIAN: I have to say it's probably JavaScript. There's a lot of things that are weird with JavaScript, but it's the first language that I really understood. Yeah, that's, you know, it's like your first love. Yeah, you always feel very special about that one. And I just think that the way that, you know, the, the whole events are working, it's just really cool.ADRIANA: Nice. Awesome. My first language was BASIC.LIAN: Oh, wow.ADRIANA: So from the olden days.LIAN: I wasn't gonna say old, but I mean, does.ADRIANA: Anyone even code in BASIC anymore?LIAN: Like, I don't know, but the people who are making a lot of money, I think because there's no one there anymore, I can maintain it.ADRIANA: Yeah, we are an extinct or endangered species. I don't think I could even remember how to code in BASIC anymore.LIAN: I've never been able to do it.ADRIANA: All right, next question. Do you prefer dev or ops?LIAN: Well, hmm. I think at this point I prefer dev. I haven't been, like, developing production code for a long time, and just the other day I was just solving an engineering problem and it was. Made me so happy really, going in there, reading documentation, finding something out, coding something, and then it works. It really reminded me where I got into this business in the first place. That's so awesome.ADRIANA: I love that. Like, honestly, what makes me happy is like whenever I'm, like, doing actual dev for my job, like, if I go through stretches where I'm not doing it, I actually get really depressed.LIAN: Yeah, I can. I can imagine. For sure. Yeah. This is so much fun. It gives you that sense of satisfaction.ADRIANA: Yes, yes. And even if, like, you're the only one who knows about the problem that you solved, then it's like, I did it!LIAN: You also look at your code afterwards and just be like, oh, that was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they did something well.ADRIANA: Yeah, totally, totally relate. Okay, next question. Do you prefer JSON or YAML?LIAN: What are these questions? Is tabs versus space is the last...Okay, that is JSON, I guess JSON, because again, JavaScript world. Yeah. But also you don't have these weird indentation things where, you know, like, because it made an indenture error, then you. YAML is invalid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn't really happen with JSON. Probably that. Although I think YAML is a subset of JSON.ADRIANA: Yeah, true.LIAN: I know. Oh my God.ADRIANA: I know. Which is a bit of a mind fuck.LIAN: No. Right?ADRIANA: Like, really, you're related?LIAN: Yeah. So really there is no real answer to this, because YAML is JSON.ADRIANA: That's true. That's true. That's a good one. Okay, next question. Spaces or tabs?LIAN: Spaces. Spaces. I did not. I was pro tabs for a long time, but then someone explained to me that was basis...It's better for accessibility, apparently. I forgot why, but, you know, that's good enough for me.ADRIANA: Yeah, I was team tabs for a while, but then I converted to spaces.LIAN: Yeah, and just stick with it, whatever you choose.ADRIANA: Exactly, exactly.LIAN: Okay, is the next question VIM versus EMACS? Because I don't have an opinion on that.ADRIANA: No, it's not. It's not. Okay...do you prefer to consume content through video or text?LIAN: Oh, um, it depends, but probably video mostly. Sometimes though, you know, I. I want to take my time. That's when I want to read something.ADRIANA: Yeah, fair enough. Okay, final question. What is your superpower?LIAN: Oh, okay. Hey, I actually have a podcast myself that is about superpower, like, basically what superpowers people have.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.LIAN: But I only recorded like three episodes. Don't...don't watch. What's my superpower? I think I am...so when people ask me what I do for work and they're not, like, in this...sphere...space...I sometimes tell them I'm a professional friend maker. And I think that's what I'm good at is like making people feel at ease and let them have them open up about things that they love and they're passionate about, about their problems, which I think is a big part of DevRel.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.LIAN: So I feel like that is probably what also, like, sets me apart from other people in tech.ADRIANA: That's awesome. And you know what? Like, I met you last year at KubeHuddle, and I remember, like, right away feeling at ease, chatting with, you.LIAN: I do have a couple of tricks for that. It's not just like, I'm not like a natural people...you know, please or something like that. But I do feel like, especially in this industry, that if you really make an effort to get to know people, you can feel that people are just really open to that and they really want to have that relationship. It's just that for some reason, we're kind of shy about it.ADRIANA: Yeah, I agree. You know, like, one of the things I always think about, and I think I've read this somewhere where, like, introverts just want, like, an extroverted person to adopt them. And for me, like, I'm naturally introverted. And so I love it when I see someone who has a friendly face where I feel like they're super approachable and it's like, oh, come adopt me. Yeah.LIAN: And then, like, you can almost become not an extrovert, but you can get into that same energy also. Yeah, I love to do that after conferences, like, just like, organize a small dinner, for example, there's like, maybe 20 people. Not everyone, obviously. And that's when you can, like, create so many great, you know, relationships. And I love to also then bring in new people, especially, like, maybe there's some...someone who's been at the first conference.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Was very new into this. And I love to, like, bring them into, like, a group of people who maybe, like, are already a bit further along in their career and, like, these small relationships, like, these small things, either the most valuable.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Events like this.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. That's awesome. And I think it's a good segue too, into, like, some of the stuff that you've been doing recently. So. Yeah. Why don't you tell folks, like, some, because you, you've made some big changes in your life. Yeah.LIAN: So, yeah, I've been in tech for most of my professional life, like 15 plus years, and seen a lot. But it is...it can be a grind. It can be very demanding, especially in DevRel. Lots of travel, lots of...it's like people you have to be on all the time. Also at conferences like this, people will approach you because they want to talk about your product, whatever, and you just have to always be approachable, friendly, you know, like, always be there and. Yeah, end of last year, November, I was just, like, really close to burnout, which is something we're going to talk about later.ADRIANA: We are.LIAN: And I just decided to take a break.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: So I quit my job, and, and at the same time, I was doing, like, as a hobby, like amateur stage performance stuff. So I was doing improv theater in the ensemble of a musical group, and that was a lot of fun. And I just kind of, like, decided to just do that for a while.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: The entire time I was thinking this is like a vacation. Yeah, eventually I have to go back to tech.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: But, you know, at some point, I was like, I don't actually have to do anything. You know, I can just do whatever I want to do.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And, you know, as long as it's fun and enjoy it and, you know, like, I can still pay my mortgage and everything, it's gonna be fine. So I have been basically doing only stage performance since November, which is now, I don't know when it's gonna come out, but, like, about half a year almost. And I really enjoy it. I still keep with the tech industry a little bit.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Like, I go to conferences. Yeah, I'm with the technical advisory group of the CNCF on app delivery. So I'm doing some community stuff because I really enjoy community stuff, but I am very happy to not have to always chase the next thing, which is, like, a big part of, I think, what we do in startups as vendors in the Cloud Native space, DevRel specifically. So, yeah, it's taking a bit of a break, but also, like, reorientating myself in the world.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. That's so awesome. And so, like, I'm curious for, you know, you've been part of, like, ensemble cast, so is it like a musical ensemble? So, like, did you already have, like, a background in singing? I mean, you. You do like, Kuberoke, right? That...that's like one of your...that's one of your...LIAN: That's my claim to fame.ADRIANA: Your claim to fame.LIAN: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I did...I always loved...okay, I always wanted to be, like, an actor.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Even as a child. But my parents were not very pro because they're, like, they're Chinese parents, so they're very much, like, you should learn something proper and, like, have a proper job. But I always was very musical. I play, like, multiple musical instruments. I was, like, singing in, like, church choirs, and then the whole karaoke thing started, and, I mean, I'm not a strong dancer, but I do okay. So this is, like, an amateur group. So they were doing, like, boot camps, musical theater bootcamps. You can just try it.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And then they were running open auditions, and to my surprise, honestly, no one was as surprised as I was. I got into the ensemble.ADRIANA: Oh, cool.LIAN: And, I mean, I wasn't...we were all singing, but we weren't all mic'd, so I didn't have a mic, and it was just basically dancing. And one of the things that I really found very interesting is that in that theater world, and I can't speak if that's the same everywhere, but, like, in this particular group, the...it's...it might not seem super diverse in that sense, because it's all about being at the right place at the right time. So obviously going to the auditions, and already people may not like you for whatever reason, like, you remind them of your...of their ex-wife or something that can happen, and it's totally reasonable for them to then say, I don't know...I don't like the vibe or whatever that happens. And I've just gotten really lucky that I was in the right place at the right time. So now, basically, in the ensemble group, I got a featured dancing spot.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: My dance is not that great, but they didn't have enough men, so I was basically playing a guy.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And now I'm doing another musical, which is Monty Python Spamalot.ADRIANA: Oh, cool!LIAN: I love it. So fun. And this similar thing, like, the...because I was there and, like, standing in for Lancelot because he missed some rehearsals.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: They basically asked me, like, if I wanted to understudy for Lancelot.ADRIANA: Oh, cool.LIAN: So now I'm getting, like, one show where I can play Lancelot, and I'm freaking out over it, of course, because it's gonna be, like, a proper kind of leading.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Role. But on the other hand, I was really freaking out, like, feeling all the imposter syndrome stuff, you know, like, because I'm not trained in any way. And a lot of the people, even though it's amateur, they're very good. They have a lot of experience, and they're like, trained. But then I realized, you know, when new speakers come up to me because I also do speaking workshops, I always tell them, you know, if the program committee wants you, there's no reason for you to doubt yourself.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Because they're making the decision. They look at your talk, they maybe look at your speaking experience, and they will say, we think this is great. Why don't you do it?ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And I was, like, just basically telling me the same thing. Like, if the director thinks that I can do it, I can probably do it.ADRIANA: Right. Right.LIAN: You just, like, need to show up and do the work and eventually hope you will...it's always a mix between luck and hard work.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. And it's so many parallels with tech, right? Ridiculous.LIAN: 100% - it's so...there are some things that are very similar, like, you know, the speaking and also the trying to convey something to me. Like, it's always been public speaking has always been stage performance to me.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Because you're really trying to entertain people. It's not just about giving information, but, like, giving information in a way that really engages.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Like, makes people feel things.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah.LIAN: So that. I definitely see that in there. And what I also learned, which was very cool, when you're doing rehearsals, it's not about knowing every single line by heart, always, but it's more like, the director will give you, like, specific directions. Like, I want you to, like, be that kind of character. I want you to, like, convey that kind of feeling.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And then, because on opening night, or, like, all the performances that you have, you will never have a perfect...everyone remembers all of their lines. Everyone stands in exactly the right way, and, like, the lighting is perfect. That will never happen. So instead, we are trying to, like, give everyone enough information that they can be autonomous.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And make the right decision at the right time, knowing what is it that the director wants from me.ADRIANA: Right.LIAN: And I was thinking about. Actually, I'm thinking about, like, a talk about this, where if we did this for very critical situations, let's say, like, feature releases or deployments, you know, instead of just, like, having this process and no one's allowed to move, like, deviate from it.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Give everyone the knowledge and the autonomy and the power to do the best thing that they can in their role and just, like, trust that you will bring it together, because in the end, a show is only as good as its weakest cast member.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Everyone needs to help each other out and make sure that if I see something's missing, right of me, I'm not waiting for the person to step up. I can do it. I'll just step up and bring it together. I really love that.ADRIANA: That's awesome.LIAN: That was a long story.ADRIANA: That's so cool, though. And I guess also as part of that, because no two shows are the same. Like, there's some, I guess, sometimes improvisation that needs to take place because of the unexpected things.LIAN: Exactly. And sometimes that is the best part of the show. So, like, in Cinderella, which is, you know, you would think that Cinderella is, like, a pretty boring, kind of, like, Disney princess kind of show, but it's actually, like, the musical is actually very funny, and there's a lot of space, especially for the characters, to improvise a little bit and to really get into who their character is.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: You know, like, Cinderella has two step sisters. One is kind of, like, not very smart.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: But ditzy. And the other one is a bit more. She, like, she has a character arc. She becomes a bit more of a friend person.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And then they were different every single show. Like, they, like, there were small scenes where they were supposed to react and they reacted differently every single time. And over time, we would also. Because we had six shows in four days.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: So by the third show, we would...we would know, like, this works very well with the audience, so let's, like, build on top of that a little bit. Every ensemble member also got, like, a little bit of a tiny backstory.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: We had this, like, huge marketplace scene, and there was this, like, situation where one guy had, like, four girlfriends and they were finding out about each other.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: So even though they were, like, background characters.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: They had their own thing going, which made it seem much more, like, alive. Yeah.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.LIAN: Multidimensional. And I think that's kind of, like, what I'm feeling with tech also is, like, just because you're not always in doing the most important things or always in the foreground making the big decisions doesn't mean that there's nothing that you can fulfill, you know, in your own little corner. Yeah.ADRIANA: Oh, so great!LIAN: It's so fun! Honestly, if you can do any kind of, like, stage performance stuff, I highly recommend it because it's so much fun to just go out there. Yeah.ADRIANA: And get out of your own...kind of...head.LIAN: Right. Different person. That's a lot of fun because also that will tell you, like, you get to try things and maybe you will also see, oh, I actually enjoy being a bit more extroverted in these circumstances.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And you meet a lot of fun people.ADRIANA: That's true. That's true. Well, you know, I have to say, like, so earlier today, I attended your workshop at KubeHuddle on owning the stage.LIAN: Yes.ADRIANA: And it was like, a series of, like, improv exercises, which were so fun because, so my daughter Hannah had taken when she was younger, she took a bunch of, like, improv classes, and so I was familiar with some of the exercises because I'd see her showcases.LIAN: Nice.ADRIANA: And I'm like, oh, my God, how cool is it to, like, be on the other side of it, not being a spectator, but a participant.LIAN: Yeah.ADRIANA: And it was just so much fun to just, like, do goofy things and, like, you created such a safe space for everyone, and it, like, I. You know, if you ever take your workshop on the road, like, I hope you do, because it was...it was great.LIAN: Thank you. I will give the same workshop in DevOps Days Amsterdam.ADRIANA: Oh, nice.LIAN: And KCD Munich, I think. I mean, it's very different from a tech conference normally, so I'm really glad that, you know, the people who came were very into it because it was a bit like, you know, we were moving and dancing and. Yeah, that's not very comfortable for a lot of...even when we were, like, in the ensemble, in the musical theater cast of people who want to do musical theater, even then, sometimes it's awkward.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: You're not, like, that comfortable with each other yet. Like, it's always the thing about vulnerability and. Am I comfortable showing that side of me? Yeah, because this is a...when we're on stage, and this is something that I'm struggling with a lot when we're on stage, as a public speaker, you're supposed to be serious.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: You're supposed to be trustworthy and, like, professional.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.LIAN: And that is true to some extent, but I think that it doesn't hurt to be a bit goofy and, you know, like, letting loose. I think that works again with the creating this, like, as you say, like, a safe space or just, like. Like, make people feel at ease. Like, let's not take this too serious. Yeah, yeah, I think that's. You're setting the tone when you're on stage, right? Everyone's looking to you, so...Yeah, I think it really. It really just helps to do that. And, like, not taking tech that seriously as a whole is also something that I learned. It's like, you know, like, it's...it's...it's good if you like what you do and you're taking, like, what you do seriously, but in the end, there's much more to life than tech.ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think bringing a bit of levity into tech because, like, I like, as somebody with ADHD who gets bored, like, so easily, like, I have a hard time sitting through a talk.LIAN: Right.ADRIANA: So, like, the fact that your workshop had us up and about and doing things, like, those 45 minutes went by so fast. And, like, for me, as a speaker, when I give a talk, I want to bring, like, my energy and, like, funness to the talk. Like, I've done...I did one where, like, my co-speaker and I did a skit as part of our talk and then another one where we recorded a video, like, in Office Space style, just to break it up a bit. So it's kind of nice to see, like, you know...LIAN: Yeah.ADRIANA: You're doing something similar, like, bringing that funness and breaking the monotony out of tech is, like, tech is fun.LIAN: It is.ADRIANA: Why shouldn't we make our talks fun?LIAN: I know. Why are we trying. This is so weird to me sometimes. Like, why are we trying to make it less fun, more boring, more, like, harder?ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: I think there's, like, this gatekeeping maybe also going on where we're trying to make it seem harder than it actually is.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Programming, I think. Not saying it's easy, but it's not difficult. It's not, like, complicated, actually. Like, you can learn it. And I know a lot of people learned that, you know, in a bootcamp in a couple of weeks, and it's just like, maybe by using less, like, complicated words, like, technical terms, make it more approachable. And, like, also for my workshop, I really want...because there's this whole other thing about diversity, which, you know, you had a panel about this as well, where, let's say, women, that's my experience, are not encouraged to speak up, especially your experience as a woman or as a person of color. You're asked often to hide it because no one wants to hear it. People are tired of it. They don't want to listen to it. So there's a big part of you that you always feel like you can't really show because it's something that people don't want to, you know, don't want to talk about.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: I want also for people to just feel comfortable to take that space again.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And to be that weird version of themselves.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Very unique to everyone. Like, it doesn't matter if you're, like, diverse in that sense. Like, diversity, to me, is more about, like, what is something that you bring to the table that hasn't existed there before. And in theater, diversity looks very different because, like, for example, in the English speaking theater scene in Amsterdam, there's a lot of people who you see everywhere, which is very similar to tech also. Tech conferences. Yeah, you see the same people everywhere. It gets a bit monotonous after a while.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: But it's also for the same reasons. Like, the producers of those musicals, they're like, we know this person. You work very well with that person.ADRIANA: Right.LIAN: We know they're very talented and hardworking, so we're just gonna, you know, not even cast. We're just gonna put them into their role again.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.LIAN: And they are much more women in musical theater, and there's much more, like, queer people in musical theater, but that doesn't mean it's diverse, because now you have...even though they tick the boxes, they have the platform. They're there all the time. There's a lot of other very talented people who we don't know yet who don't get the same chances because, you know, those spots already filled. So that is a huge parallel that I see to tech, and unfortunately, very surprising to me, it seems that they're not as aware of it as we are in tech.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so interesting.LIAN: Right. I thought it was very surprising to me as well. Yeah, there's a lot of, like, there's actually some sexism and racism and, you know, homophobia, transphobia in musical theater, which is, like, really surprising.ADRIANA: That's so surprising. Yeah, yeah.LIAN: But, you know, like, it's. That maybe is also just a misconception.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.LIAN: Every artist is, like, super progressive.ADRIANA: Right, right. Wow. Damn, that's pretty wild.LIAN: But I do have the experience coming from tech now, so.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now you bring a fresh perspective, which is cool. And, you know, just going back to what you were saying about, like, you know, casting directors choosing people that they're familiar with, or even, like, conference. You know, when you're. When you're on a program committee for selecting speakers for a conference, that, you know, like, you have this bias of, like, oh, my God, I know this person. And they're, like, super cool.LIAN: Exactly.ADRIANA: And so, like. And I've found myself on program committees the last, you know, in the last several months, and so I'm trying, like, really hard to, like, make sure that I, you know, put those biases aside, because it can be so easy to fall into those habits and give, like, new speakers a chance. Like, one of the cool things about KubeHuddle is, like, we've got so many students attending, and one of the student speakers, like...what...one of the students was a speaker. Which is very cool. And I think they gave a talk about, like, navigating, like, you know, these big, like, tech events and whatnot, which is so cool. Like, giving, like, these new voices so that they can. They can come up in the industry and have, like, a platform.LIAN: Yeah, exactly. So, like, exactly. Those, like, new perspectives that you couldn't get from, you know, like, a famous speaker who's gone...been around for a long time. Yeah, yeah. And I'm also...I also organize conferences myself, and I know that you always have to find a balance between, like, you need some big names to pull in, sponsorships to pull in attendees.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: And then you, you know, you want to have, like, maybe an open call for paper so people can just, like, send in, and then maybe you reserve, like, five spots for entirely new speakers you've never spoken before, people who would never get a chance to speak. And then, you know, there's always the risk that it's not a great talk. But you know what? A lot of talks aren't great. You don't know before. Yeah, but I think, again, like, if you think about it, if you make conscious decisions about this beforehand, it just makes a lot of things easier, because then you don't have to scramble after the fact when you're like, oh, shit, we have 40 speakers, and, like, none of them are women.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, exactly.LIAN: It always happens. And again, there's never going to be the perfect anything. Like, you're never going to have the perfect lineup. So, you know, sometimes you have the same topic, and there's three speakers. One of them is a white guy. One of them is, like, a non binary person who's very famous, and another person, another third person is maybe a first time speaker.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: So maybe you will make, like, a biased decision for whatever reason, and I think that's fine, as long as you're aware this was a biased decision. And maybe I want to, you know, like, mitigate that somewhere else.ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that's also fine. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think at the end of the day, like, just having a space, too, where you can, like, give...give someone a chance. You know, you and I have been doing the speaking circuit for a while. We had to start somewhere, right? Someone had to give us a chance.LIAN: Exactly. And I was very lucky because my first talk was at a...at an unconference, which is something that you're also having here, which is great, because, like, I would have not dared to go up on stage. I would have never thought that anyone wanted to listen to me, but because at an unconference, you hand in your proposal and the audience votes on it, I was like, oh, my God.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: Then from there, it was recorded, and the organizers from JSConf Asia saw the talk, and they invited me over to Singapore. And then I didn't realized this is, like, a proper career that you could do.ADRIANA: Yeah.LIAN: I was extremely lucky that I got that chance. And I feel like now I almost feel that the need, responsibility to give that. That feeling, because I was an okay engineer. It was fine. But I think once I got into public speaking, that's when I really felt like, this is my space, this is what I'm supposed to do here, that life changing experience for me. So I hope that other people will feel the same way about the public speaking or something. Something else that they love.ADRIANA: Oh, that's so amazing. Well, thank you. We're coming up on time, but before we finish up, do you have any words of advice that you want to impart on our audience members or hot takes? Either or works.LIAN: I mean, like, I guess what I've been saying is just, like, do what you want to do. Don't feel weird about, you know, being weird. Um, it's...it's more fun. Life is more fun when you're weird.ADRIANA: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Embrace the weird. I love it. Cool. Well, thank you, Lian, so much for geeking out with me today.LIAN: Thanks for having me.ADRIANA: Thank you. Yeah, I'm glad we're able to track you down, because normally, like, you're based out of Amsterdam and you're running about, and so I'm like, hey, you're gonna be a KubeHuddle.LIAN: Yeah, I'm not in North America that much because it is kind of exhausting.ADRIANA: It is a very exhausting trip. So I. Yeah, I totally don't blame you. Well, thank you again. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...LIAN: 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.

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