I was recently talking to a friend who, through a dramatic turn of events, has found herself as the senior-most data leader at her company. Where she previously managed a small team, she is now abruptly responsible for supporting and growing the careers of every individual contributor in the organization, roadmapping and coordinating across three separate data teams, and generally trying to create a sense of stability for the everyone else during a chaotic time. It’s the type of situation t...| wrongbutuseful.substack.com
Previously: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 After the past two years, it’s odd to write an annual reflection where my first thoughts are happy rather than bleak. The truth is that there is a lot of bleak out there right now–just look at the layoffs and the funding environment–but while last year was an unusual and challenging one for me, this one was relatively quiet for me and my family. That said, even a quiet year is worth a bit of introspection, so here is my annual note.| lethain.com
In my early career roles, I worked at companies that never worried about their infrastructure costs at all. They were simply too low a cost and growing too slowly for the Finance team to pay much attention to it. This “ignore it until it’s too large to ignore” approach served me well. Until it didn’t. Working at Uber, I was caught me off guard when a new Director joined and overnight infrastructure costs were recategorized from insignificant to requiring urgent, detailed review every ...| infraeng.dev