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charity.wtf

charity.wtf
Corporate “DEI” is an imperfect vehicle for deeply meaningful ideals I have not thought or said much about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) over the years. Not...
a week ago
15
a week ago
I have not thought or said much about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) over the years. Not because I don’t care about the espoused ideals — I suppose I do, rather a lot — but because corporate DEI efforts have always struck me as ineffective and bland; bolted on at best, if...
charity.wtf
On Versioning Observabilities (1.0, 2.0, 3.0…10.0?!?) Hazel Weakly, you little troublemaker.  As I whined to Hazel over text, after she sweetly sent me a...
2 months ago
55
2 months ago
Hazel Weakly, you little troublemaker.  As I whined to Hazel over text, after she sweetly sent me a preview draft of her post: “PLEASE don’t post this! I feel like I spend all my time trying to help bring clarity and context to what’s happening in the market, and this is NOT...
charity.wtf
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking I’ve never been good at “hot takes”. Anyone who knows anything about marketing can tell you that the...
2 months ago
65
2 months ago
I’ve never been good at “hot takes”. Anyone who knows anything about marketing can tell you that the best time to share your opinion about something is when everyone is all worked up about it. Hot topics drive clicks and eyeballs and attention en masse. Unfortunately, my internal...
charity.wtf
There Is Only One Key Difference Between Observability 1.0 and 2.0 Originally posted on the Honeycomb blog on November 19th, 2024 We’ve been talking about...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
Originally posted on the Honeycomb blog on November 19th, 2024 We’ve been talking about observability 2.0 a lot lately; what it means for telemetry and instrumentation, its practices and sociotechnical implications, and the dramatically different shape of its cost model. With all...
charity.wtf
How Hard Should Your Employer Work To Retain You? Recently we learned that Google spent $2.7 billion to re-hire a single AI researcher who had left to...
4 months ago
65
4 months ago
Recently we learned that Google spent $2.7 billion to re-hire a single AI researcher who had left to start his own company. As Charlie Brown would say: “Good grief.” 🙄 This is an (incredibly!) extreme example. But back in the halcyon days of the zero interest rate phenomenon...
charity.wtf
Is It Time To Version Observability? (Signs Point To Yes) Augh! I am so behind on so much writing, I’m even behind on writing shit that I need to reference in...
6 months ago
67
6 months ago
Augh! I am so behind on so much writing, I’m even behind on writing shit that I need to reference in order to write other pieces of writing. Like this one. So we’re just gonna do this quick and dirty on the personal blog, and not bother bringing it up to the editorial standards...
charity.wtf
Pragmatism, Neutrality and Leadership Every year or so, some tech CEO does something massively stupid, like declaring “No politics at...
7 months ago
82
7 months ago
Every year or so, some tech CEO does something massively stupid, like declaring “No politics at work!”, or “Trump voters are oppressed and live in fear!”, and we all get a good pained laugh over how out of touch and lacking in self-awareness they are. We hear a lot about the...
charity.wtf
Generative AI is not going to build your engineering team for you Originally posted on the Stack Overflow blog on June 10th, 2024 When I was 19 years old, I dropped...
8 months ago
12
8 months ago
Originally posted on the Stack Overflow blog on June 10th, 2024 When I was 19 years old, I dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco. I had a job offer in hand to be a Unix sysadmin for Taos Consulting. However, before my first day of work I was lured away to a […]
charity.wtf
The Cost Crisis in Observability Tooling Originally posted on the Honeycomb blog on January 24th, 2024 The cost of services is on everybody’s...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Originally posted on the Honeycomb blog on January 24th, 2024 The cost of services is on everybody’s mind right now, with interest rates rising, economic growth slowing, and organizational budgets increasingly feeling the pinch. But I hear a special edge in people’s voices when...
charity.wtf
Questionable Advice: “My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?” I recently joined a startup to run an engineering org of about 30-40 engineers. My title is VP...
a year ago
38
a year ago
I recently joined a startup to run an engineering org of about 30-40 engineers. My title is VP Engineering. However, I have been having lots of ongoing conflict with the CEO (a former engineer) around whether or not I am allowed to have or hire any dedicated engineering managers....
charity.wtf
Why Should You (Or Anyone) Become An Engineering Manager? The first piece I ever wrote about engineering management, The Engineer/Manager Pendulum, was...
a year ago
38
a year ago
The first piece I ever wrote about engineering management, The Engineer/Manager Pendulum, was written as a love letter to a friend of mine who was unhappy at work. He was an engineering director at a large and fast-growing startup, where he had substantially built out the entire...
charity.wtf
How to Communicate When Trust Is Low (Without Digging Yourself Into A Deeper Hole) This is based on an internal quip doc I wrote up about careful communication in the context of...
a year ago
14
a year ago
This is based on an internal quip doc I wrote up about careful communication in the context of rebuilding trust. I got a couple requests to turn it into a blog post for sharing purposes; here you go.🌈✨🥂 In this doc I mention Christine, my wonderful, brilliant cofounder and CEO,...
charity.wtf
Helicopter Management and Other Mistakes You are a freshly minted manager. You come full of rage and frustration at the poor management...
a year ago
15
a year ago
You are a freshly minted manager. You come full of rage and frustration at the poor management you’ve endured and witnessed in tech, and you are god damn determined not to repeat all of those mistakes. You are tired of reporting to a manager who isn’t transparent with you, who...
charity.wtf
Questionable Advice: “How can I drive change and influence teams…without power?” Last month I got to attend GOTO Chicago and give a talk about continuous deployment and...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Last month I got to attend GOTO Chicago and give a talk about continuous deployment and high-performing teams. Honestly I did a terrible job, and I’m not being modest. I had just rolled off a delayed redeye flight; I realized partway through that I had the wrong slides loaded,...
charity.wtf
Choose Boring Technology Culture Honeycomb recently announced our $50M Series D funding round. We aren’t the type to hype this a lot;...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Honeycomb recently announced our $50M Series D funding round. We aren’t the type to hype this a lot; Emily summed it up crisply as, “Living another day on someone else’s money isn’t business success, even though it is a lovely vote of confidence.” Agreed. The vote of confidence...
charity.wtf
Questionable Advice: “People Used To Take Me Seriously. Then I Became A Software Vendor” I recently got a plaintive text message from my magnificent friend Abby Bangser, asking about a...
a year ago
15
a year ago
I recently got a plaintive text message from my magnificent friend Abby Bangser, asking about a conversation we had several years ago: “Hey, I’ve got a question for you. A long time ago I remember you talking about what an adjustment it was becoming a vendor, how all of a sudden...
charity.wtf
Architects, Anti-Patterns, and Organizational Fuckery I recently wrote a twitter thread on the proper role of architects, or as I put it,...
a year ago
16
a year ago
I recently wrote a twitter thread on the proper role of architects, or as I put it, tongue-in-cheek-ily, whether or not architect is a “bullshit role”. It got a LOT of reactions (2.5 weeks later, the thread is still going!!), which I would sort into roughly three camps: “OMG this...
charity.wtf
Deploys Are The ✨WRONG✨ Way To Change User Experience This piece was first published on the honeycomb.io blog on 2023-03-08. …. I’m...
a year ago
18
a year ago
This piece was first published on the honeycomb.io blog on 2023-03-08. …. I’m no stranger to ranting about deploys. But there’s one thing I haven’t sufficiently ranted about yet, which is this: Deploying software is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way to go about the...
charity.wtf
How to Throw A Company Offsite In A “Post-COVID” World Earlier this month we had our first Honeycomb all-hands offsite in three years … our first one since...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Earlier this month we had our first Honeycomb all-hands offsite in three years … our first one since February of 2020, before the plague. It was wonderful and glorious and silly and energizing and so, so SO much fun. It was a potent reminder of the reality that no virtual...
charity.wtf
Every Achievement Has A Denominator One of the classic failure modes of management is the empire-builder — the managers who measure...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
One of the classic failure modes of management is the empire-builder — the managers who measure their own status, rank or value by the number of teams and people “under” them. Everyone knows you aren’t supposed to do this, but most of us secretly, sheepishly do it anyway to some...
charity.wtf
The Future of Ops is Platform Engineering First published on 2022-09-30 at https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/future-ops-platform-engineering. Two...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
First published on 2022-09-30 at https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/future-ops-platform-engineering. Two years ago I wrote a piece in The New Stack about the Future of Ops Careers. Towards the end, I wrote: The reality is that jack-of-all-trades systems infrastructure jobs are slowly...