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This year marks my twentieth year in the industry. I get messages on LinkedIn from college students who want to work in software engineering but feel like their degree, school, or background puts them at a disadvantage. This is for them. I was in a similar position. My degree was in a different engineering field, and I had to be intentional about every step to get where I wanted to go.
What happens when you take a classic dice-and-word game and turn it into a global, daily challenge? I built WorDice, a 3-minute daily word game my family loved, and put it on the web. Each day, you get a set of 10 letters (like rolling dice), and your goal is to form the highest-scoring words possible before the timer runs out. Building it was a good learning experience in adapting a physical…
These are anecdotal observations on how AI, specifically LLMs, was used in software engineering in 2025, particularly within the context of an existing complex system with a large user base. Good and High-Impact Use Cases Automation This was one of the most successful use cases. AI was used to automatically group customer support requests to detect larger systemic issues and to enrich incident…
The key difference between senior and staff software engineers comes down to the nature of their impact: Senior engineers efficiently solve complex problems and lead teams. Staff engineers not only solve problems but also identify important problems worth solving, driving high-impact business outcomes. In interviews, I focus on these four areas to distinguish the two: Domain Knowledge A staff…
Strategies for Navigating Central Mandates Central mandates often arise in large organizations—top-down requests to implement horizontal changes across various departments. These directives can range from compliance with new government policies to adopting different technologies or improving overall efficiency. While these mandates aim to streamline operations or ensure compliance, they can…
Insights from the Apache Beam Summit 2024 The Apache Beam Summit 2024 (https://beamsummit.org/) in Sunnyvale, CA, has concluded, and it’s clear that this year’s event has substantially impacted the data processing and machine learning communities. Here’s an overview of the key insights and reflections from the summit: Key Takeaways: 1. Keynote Reflections: The summit started with…
Exploring the Bay Area: Top Picks for Your Next Conference Visit Hey everyone! I wanted to share some of my favorite things to do in the Bay Area. Even if you’re heading to the region for a future conference or event, these recommendations will help you make the most of your visit. Here are a few spots that I’ve really enjoyed: Computer History Museum in Mountain View (computerhistory.org) – If…
No, You Won’t Need These Backup Slides In the world of presentations, it’s common to see decks cluttered with backup slides—extra slides that presenters keep just in case they need to delve deeper into a topic or answer potential questions. Instead of deleting these slides, authors often choose to “skip them” during the presentation or stash them away in a backup section.…
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I work on data processing and AI. I am an Apache Beam PMC member, member of Apache Software Foundation, and Engineering Director for Google Cloud Dataflow, leading a team that develops open-source data processing systems. I am passionate about building user-friendly, efficient, and reliable frameworks for Machine Learning. Interested in having me speak at your next event? Or write a guest post for…
Should you open-source your new excellent product? You are almost ready to launch your product and wondering if open-sourcing would help with its success. There are generalized articles about the benefits of open-sourcing. However, this question often comes in different contexts, and considerations will differ for each case. For example, hobbyists building a side project could benefit by improving…
Have you ever started a numbered list in Google Docs, only to find yourself needing to continue it after adding some text in between? I did! Here’s a quick guide on how to seamlessly continue your numbered lists: Option 1: Manual Continuation (Easy) Begin your numbered list as usual: 1. First item 2. Second item Insert additional text or paragraphs. When you’re ready to continue the numbered…
This article was originally published on LeadDev.com on 06 December 2023. It is challenging to build successful open-source teams inside traditional and large organizations. This challenge stems from major differences between organizational processes, business goals, and the personal career goals of the people involved. In this case, your task as an engineering leader would be to harmonize these…
Santa Fe and New Mexico have been one of our family’s most enjoyable places to visit. We have compiled a list of recommendations on activities, food, and art in New Mexico for our friends back in 2017. I am re-publishing it here with a few minor changes and hope you will find it helpful when you visit the land of enchantment. Sightsee Santa Fe Plaza: lovely during the day for sightseeing and…
I recently tested Gemini, a large language model, on a simplified Python spreadsheet coding task, simulating a potential interview scenario. While the process revealed areas for improvement, Gemini’s performance was overall impressive. The final output was quite good. It had all the basics, like correctness, tests, caching, etc., in place. It was good at following guidance. It made many…
Giving feedback, especially hard feedback, could be tough and even painful. You might be dreading and avoiding giving feedback despite knowing deep down that it is one of your core responsibilities as a senior leader or a manager. At the same time, you are here reading this article because you know that good, actionable feedback is one of the main ways we learn and grow. Feedback is a gift we can…
Apache Beam is an open-source, popular streaming data processing framework. These are my thoughts, reflections, and insights from the 2023 edition of the Beam Summit. This was the 6th year of Beam summits, and it was the biggest event yet with 500+ Beamers in attendance at a brand-new waterfront venue in New York City with amazing views. The total number of attendees was 1000+ with the virtual…
I have had a leading role in organizing an open-source summit since 2018. In total, that is 6 years and more than 8 summits (multiple locations in some years). In 2023 Beam Summit reached more than 500+ people in a beautiful waterfront venue in New York City. Organizing a summit of that scale requires careful planning and coordination. Here is a checklist of the key tasks involved, along with some…
I have been using Google Sheets for a long time now, and I recently learned two new features that I think are really cool. 1. Click on a cell in a pivot table to create a new table with all the data that is represented by that cell. This is a great way to drill down into your data, and get more insights. For example, if you have a pivot table that shows sales by product category, you can click on…
40 things I would like to do once I get over 40.1 I will check out most of these things before I publish my next list for the following decade. Grow Get a new degree in a new field. 🎓 Make and ship a game with 100+ users 🎮 Learn and try 10 different software technologies I have not used before. 🧑💻 Learns Spanish to the intermediate level 🇪🇸 Learn to play guitar 🎸 Read 120 books 📚 Write…
The short answer is yes, but you may need to be persistent and navigate a complicated process. Recently, I made a complex reservation on Booking.com with multiple rooms for adults, kids, toddlers, and babies. At the time of booking, I knew another website offered the same reservation for 22% less, but I opted for Booking.com due to their reputation and advertised price match guarantee (called…
Update - I published a more complete version of this article at LeadDev: Leading open-source teams in large organizations (Archive) Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer I have been a member of an open-source team for Apache Beam since its inception at my current employer. Over the years I took on different responsibilities and eventually led the team. During this time,…
First a little of my digital history before the interwebs I got my first computer in 1990. It was an 80286 with 1MB RAM, a VGA color graphics adaptor, and a 20MB hard drive (although it could have also been in 1991 with a 40MB hard drive; I’m not certain about these details). Before that, I had an Atari. In fact, I had many Ataris because my dad was in the business of operating an Atari…
This is a story I wrote for our 2-year old and he loves it. I might one day generate some artwork to make it a children’s book. Until then, hope you will tell this story to the younger ones around you. Click here to read the English translation. for Evren… Bu, 2 yaşındaki oğlumuz için yazdığım bir hikaye ve çok seviyor. Belki bir gün, bunu çocuk kitabı yapmak için bazı resimler…
As an engineer turned engineering manager, I understand the appeal of making the switch to management. However, before you take the leap, there are a few things to consider. In this post, I’ll share some of the most important factors you should weigh as you contemplate a career move into engineering management. What Does It Mean to Be an Engineering Manager? First, let’s define what we…
Open source is a powerful tool for making an impact on the world and building valuable skills. As an open-source contributor, I often receive questions from enthusiastic newbies seeking guidance on how to get started. In this guide, I’ll share my insights and resources to help aspiring contributors jump into the world of open source. Three quick notes before we begin: This guide focuses on…
Last year, I was honored to become a member of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). The impact of ASF and its open-source projects is truly remarkable. The foundation is governed by merit, with its members discussing and voting on matters, and nominating and electing new members based on their contributions. The unofficial motto of the foundation is “community over code”, emphasizing…
Every year 1234, I like to take a moment to reflect on the past year and set some goals for the year ahead. This year is no different, and I have a few things I’d like to focus on in the coming months. First and foremost, I want to continue expressing gratitude for the important things in my life, including my family, health, happiness, friends, and work. While last year had its ups and…
Team match calls are an important part of the hiring process, as they provide an opportunity for both the candidate and the team to determine whether there is a good fit. As a hiring manager, I have conducted hundreds of team match calls (or “fit calls”) for positions ranging from junior to senior roles in software engineering and software engineering management. I have also been on…
Yesterday I woke up after a good night’s sleep, something that doesn’t happen often with a toddler at home. This inspired me to think about the beginnings of a poem. I made a mental note to write it down and polish it later. It was something as simple as: I love waking up next to you your smell is sweet like pancakes on a gorgeous Sunday morning I thought about passing that to an AI 1…
I have been part of a team that piloted code review interviews at my workplace several years ago. Over time, code review interviews have become a standard part of the interview process. I have also trained other engineering leaders on conducting and evaluating code review interviews. Code review interviews help companies hire great software engineering managers by hiring individuals who are both…
Last week was a strong reminder of how short life is, and how life is just an illusion. First, I heard of the tragic news of the passing of an acquaintance. Young, very unexpected, about my age, living a happy life. There is no explanation of why that happened to that person now, and there is nothing to do about it either. Second, I had a conversation with another acquaintance who is past…
Let’s say you got stuck on a new problem, that is new and unique to you, and you also do not know who could help you with this. For example, this could happen if you are a people manager, and you are trying to address a concern related to a person in your team. You may not know where to start, you may not be able to share all the details with others, and even though you feel stuck you might feel…
I wanted to write down a list of things I care about in life. I am borrowing the catchy title format and using it for listing life principles instead of people. Even though I am borrowing, it will still be technically the truth. I will list 40 items, which sounded like a good amount, and I am still under 40. The curated list would reflect the way I approach life, however, the items on this list…
These are my thoughts, reflections, and insights from Beam Summit 2022. Good planning and hard work made a dramatic difference. I was not one of the organizers however I worked very closely with most of the organizers in the past year. I have seen how much effort went into making this a highly successful event. Those people deserve the biggest credit. The event had an amazing group of attendees.
I needed a straightforward way to calculate error bars for a histogram distribution. I did not have access to the raw data but only to the histogram. There was not a built-in function to do this. One way of doing this would be to expand the histogram into “raw data” and use the built-in statistical function on that. That would be a messy and cumbersome way to do it. In the end, I was able to…
I have been practicing setting and tracking goals year after year. I came to a few helpful practices to do this effectively. It might be common sense, but I found them useful and would like to share them: Processes and habits are more practical goals than outcomes. Surely outcomes (“what”) are important. And there needs to be a reason (“why”) for a goal. But it is the process, and the repeated…
May: time to reflect. Days go slow, but years go fast; yet another past. There you go; I combined my curiosity in Haikus with my desire to reflect regularly. It was a challenging year as it was for most of us. It was also a year of change for us. So, what happened last year? Living through a pandemic with a newborn away from our families was hard. We have experienced loss.
Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer Open source is a large part of my current job. I participate in a specific project along with most of my team. Beyond development, we do also participate in planning, advancing, evangelizing the project. The project is fun, my fellow contributors are smart and kind folks, and we have lots of users making it a rewarding experience. I…
It was a challenging year, starting with lots of hopes for the new decade, and ending with lots of canceled plans instead. It was the year of paranoia. It went by so fast, yet it progressed so slowly. I would like to wrap up the year with an unordered but noteworthy list of thoughts, things I have done, experienced, enjoyed, learned in 2020. Reflecting is a good way to re-evaluate…
A few months ago, we welcomed a new member to our family. And our lives changed permanently for the better. Meanwhile, the environment around us was (and still is) changing considerably. It feels like the world is changing for the worse with the virus, fires, natural disasters, unrest, economic uncertainty, and divisive politics. It is not easy to reconcile the different moods in our internal and…
Another year older(*). I could vent or reflect. I choose to reflect on and share some of my thoughts here. I started building some valuable habits this year. One of them was to read 3% of any book everyday. I wanted to read at least one book a month and I simplified it to this daily habit. It worked out really well. I am able to read more than one book/month.
Recently I built a free text analysis tool to help with simple user research tasks. This tool initially started as a shared ipython notebook to count and sort words for a text input copied from a spreadsheet. Its one and the only user so far tested this out with a few real-life examples. It turned out to be useful and I decided to take the experiment to the next step by incorporating the user…
We had a short day-trip to Sacramento for a brief chance to meet with a family member. It is about 2-hour drive from where we live. The timeline exactly coincided with the wildfires :(. The visibility was low and it was really hard to breathe outside without masks. We managed to get some brief relief by staying inside the car, a testament to the air filters of modern cars. Sacramento does not have…
I recently watched Tina Seelig’s TED talk The little risks you can take to increase your luck and found it interesting. The short summary is that it is possible to increase your “luck” by making a few changes in your life: Taking small risks whether it is emotional, physical, social, financial etc. (Try Identify areas of your life where you are risk averse and take on some little…
We recently had to spend 2 nights in two separate hotels due to some unplanned maintenance work in our home. Coincidentally we got the same room number in both places: 221 and that inspired me to write this post. On both nights, we did not know whether we can go home or not until late, so we used hotels tonight late in the evening (around 8 pm) to book these hotels.
Southwest now has offers an online registartion option for A-List status match. The new offer is much better than the previous one even though the process stays about the same. In the new process, you can get your status match immediately after the verification and will gain A-List status for 90 days. If you complete 6 one-way flights within that period you will get to maintain your status for an…
Our February stop was Las Vegas. Initially, our plan was to go there before our wedding for a joint bachelor and bachelorette party but later on, we decided to do a post-wedding party. We went there just after Valentine’s day weekend and also joined by two of Rose’s sisters. As much as Vegas does not sound like a family destination we had lots of fun together. There is a variety of things to do in…
Austin was the first real destination of our honeyyear with Rose. We picked Austin for a few reasons: We have never been to Austin. It was also my first time in Texas, and I always wanted to see it. It is a reasonably warm place to travel in January, averages about 60°/40°. We were intrigued by its live music culture. We decided to stay near downtown (close to the 6th street area), and it was a…
We married with Rose on the first day of the new year (2018). Instead of going to a traditional honeymoon we have decided to spread our vacation time over a year. One additional motivational factor for us was that we had an offer for Southwest’s Companion Pass. It is a travel benefit that allows us to travel anywhere with Southwest for the cost of a single ticket. We both think it is great,…