“I understand why we need to be blameless, but I have this person in my team who is often reckless. How can I not blame them when their actions continuously make things worse?” Someone asked me this at the SRE meetup , right after my talk on incidents. Since then I’ve been thinking about it, because it surfaces a concern many people might have. Underneath that question, I actually hear these ones:…
When I first became a manager, I was so enthusiastic. I wanted to do well, as I prepared to be in this role for a long while. More than anything I wanted to build the kind of team I always dreamed of being part of. And I kept circling the same question: What should I focus on first? My own skill gaps? The company’s goals? The team? When you become a manager, your world expands. In my experience,…
This month’s post is different. Most of what I write here is fueled by my personal experiences and shaped into something practical for you take away and use. This one isn’t like that. It is a bit more intimate. It’s a story, the spark of an idea, and an invitation to connect. It Began with a Talk In July, I gave a keynote to a group learning Python for the first time. Some were already in tech…
A clear look at coaching, therapy, and mentoring —what sets them apart, how they work in practice, and how each can help you debug challenges in your career or life.
A practical and thoughtful guide for new software engineering managers. Learn how to build trust, avoid micromanagement, run effective 1:1s, and navigate your first months with clarity.
Recently, I’ve seen this thread on subreddit, and got inspired. What do you wish someone told you when you became a SRE/Platform/DevOps engineer? In this post, I reflect on what it really means to be a software engineer who builds for other engineers. I share stories from my early career, key mindset shifts from SRE and platform work, and three human-centered principles that can help you become a…
Managing up might sound like corporate jargon, something only senior folks or managers in big companies worry about. But in reality, it’s something most of us do, consciously or not, as part of everyday work. In this post, I share what managing up really means, how I came to understand it more deeply after becoming a manager myself, and a set of practical, human-centered ways to build a clearer,…
When it comes to building reliability and resilience, there’s no perfect checklist. But there are a few grounding ideas I keep coming back to, especially when things get messy. In this post, I share three principles that continue to guide my work: focusing on what really matters to users, creating psychological safety around failure, and letting incidents shape what we learn and prioritize.
Burnout doesn’t always hit all at once. Sometimes, it creeps in slowly —so slowly that by the time you recognize it, you’re already running on empty. I didn’t realize how far I’d pushed myself until I reached a point where I literally couldn’t stand the sight of my computer.
First email that was sent to subscribers who want to hear more about Humans in Systems. I started Humans in Systems because I care about the people behind technology. While I’m the one who is coaching/mentoring, and consulting, I didn’t want this to be just about me. I wanted a name that reflects what matters most: how we, as people, shape and interact with the systems we build.