1
00:00:00,100 --> 00:00:03,000
If you have the ability to 
communicate, if you have the 

2
00:00:03,008 --> 00:00:07,000
ability to articulate your goals
and execute on them. 

3
00:00:07,300 --> 00:00:10,900
So these are all examples of why
communication skills are 

4
00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,400
essential for engineers to be 
happy again. 

5
00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:18,300
This is not about making more 
money or being successful or 

6
00:00:18,300 --> 00:00:20,000
something. 
My goal is just to make you 

7
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:21,800
happy. 
I see a lot of Engineers be 

8
00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:24,200
unhappy. 
When I think a lot of that has 

9
00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:28,800
to do with not being able to 
control their environment. 

10
00:00:29,100 --> 00:00:31,500
Even articulate. 
Relate, what they want to have 

11
00:00:31,500 --> 00:00:34,900
change in this environment. 
So I think by becoming a better 

12
00:00:34,900 --> 00:00:37,200
Communicator, you will become 
also happier. 

13
00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:45,000
Hey everyone. 
My name is Henry Surya be Robin.

14
00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:48,900
And you're listening to the 
tekhelet journal. 

15
00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:52,600
The show will be bringing you 
the greatest technical leaders 

16
00:00:52,900 --> 00:00:56,500
practitioners and thought 
leaders in the industry to 

17
00:00:56,500 --> 00:01:00,600
discuss about their Journey 
ideas and practices that we all 

18
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:04,200
can learn and apply to build a 
highly performing technical team

19
00:01:04,599 --> 00:01:07,100
and to make an impact in your 
personal work. 

20
00:01:07,900 --> 00:01:15,800
So let's dive into our Journal. 
Hello, everyone. 

21
00:01:15,900 --> 00:01:17,700
Welcome. 
I'm back to another episode of 

22
00:01:17,700 --> 00:01:20,900
the tekhelet journal podcast. 
This is your host, Henry Surya. 

23
00:01:20,900 --> 00:01:23,400
We are one, and it's really 
great to be back here again with

24
00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:26,100
another great conversation. 
With my amazing guests. 

25
00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:29,100
Thank you for spending your time
with me today, listening to this

26
00:01:29,100 --> 00:01:31,500
episode. 
If you haven't, please subscribe

27
00:01:31,500 --> 00:01:33,100
to Tech. 
Le journal, on your favorite 

28
00:01:33,100 --> 00:01:36,300
podcast apps and also follow our
social media channels on 

29
00:01:36,300 --> 00:01:39,500
LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram,
you can also make some 

30
00:01:39,500 --> 00:01:42,000
contribution to the show and 
support the creation of this 

31
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,600
podcast by subscribing, as a 
patron, at technology know that 

32
00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:49,100
deaf. / Patron and help me to 
continue producing. 

33
00:01:49,100 --> 00:01:52,700
Great content every week. 
Today's episode. 

34
00:01:52,700 --> 00:01:55,600
I'm very happy to share my 
conversation with Chris. 

35
00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,100
Lavra. 
Chris is an experience of an 

36
00:01:58,100 --> 00:02:01,600
engineer and has been a 
technical manager advisor and 

37
00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:05,600
staff software engineer with 
companies, such as IBM Bank of 

38
00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:08,600
America. 
Google, Uber and Source graph. 

39
00:02:08,900 --> 00:02:12,600
He's also the author of a book 
titled communication for 

40
00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:14,800
engineers. 
When we talk about great 

41
00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:18,400
software Engineers, many people 
tend to think that those are the

42
00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:20,600
engineers who are great at heart
skills. 

43
00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:24,300
Such as Solving challenging 
technical problems coming up 

44
00:02:24,300 --> 00:02:27,400
with amazing. 
Technical design being Wizards 

45
00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:31,100
at coding, debugging and testing
and many of Engineers. 

46
00:02:31,100 --> 00:02:33,600
Also think that to succeed in 
their career. 

47
00:02:33,900 --> 00:02:36,400
They just need to focus on 
gaining more and more technical 

48
00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:39,700
skills such as mastering 
numerous number of programming, 

49
00:02:39,700 --> 00:02:44,500
languages Frameworks, trending 
Technologies, Etc, but this 

50
00:02:44,500 --> 00:02:47,900
could not be further from the 
truth in this episode. 

51
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,400
Chris, shared some insights from
his book. 

52
00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:54,100
Communication for our Engineers 
about why communication is such 

53
00:02:54,100 --> 00:02:58,000
an important skill for engineers
and how they should combine the 

54
00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,800
hard technical skills with 
Advanced soft skills such as 

55
00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:04,700
communication, skill, 
influencing skill, collaboration

56
00:03:04,700 --> 00:03:08,500
skill, and so on, in order to 
become much more impactful 

57
00:03:08,500 --> 00:03:12,800
Engineers, Chris also shared 
great insights and tips on how 

58
00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:17,200
to deal with Engineers typical 
source of unhappiness, which our

59
00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:19,700
imposter syndrome stress and 
burnout. 

60
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:22,600
And he gave practical tips. 
That we can use in order to 

61
00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:26,500
become successful, productive, 
and eventually become a happy 

62
00:03:26,500 --> 00:03:29,300
engineer. 
I absolutely love my 

63
00:03:29,300 --> 00:03:32,600
conversation with Chris and I 
hope you will love this episode 

64
00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:34,900
as well. 
Consider helping the show, by 

65
00:03:34,900 --> 00:03:38,200
living it, a rating or review on
your podcast app or leave us 

66
00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:41,900
some comments on our social 
media channels, those reviews 

67
00:03:41,900 --> 00:03:45,400
and comments are one of the best
ways to help me get this podcast

68
00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:49,200
to reach more listeners and 
hopefully they can also benefit 

69
00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:51,100
from all the contents in this 
podcast. 

70
00:03:51,300 --> 00:03:55,000
It's so let's get this episode 
started right after our sponsor 

71
00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:57,300
message. 
Are you looking for a new cool 

72
00:03:57,300 --> 00:03:58,900
swag? 
Taglit Journal. 

73
00:03:58,900 --> 00:04:02,100
Now offers you some swags that 
you can purchase online. 

74
00:04:02,500 --> 00:04:06,300
These wax are printed on demand 
based on your preference and 

75
00:04:06,300 --> 00:04:08,900
will be delivered safely to you 
all over the world. 

76
00:04:08,900 --> 00:04:12,200
We're shipping is available. 
Check out all the cool tracks 

77
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:14,000
available by visiting 
technology. 

78
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:17,500
No, dot f / shop, and don't 
forget to break yourself. 

79
00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:19,700
Once you receive any of those 
tracks. 

80
00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:25,000
Hey everyone, welcome to another
new episode of the tech lead, 

81
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,800
you know, so today, I'm very 
happy to meet someone called 

82
00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:31,000
Chris lavra, creases and 
experienced software engineer. 

83
00:04:31,300 --> 00:04:33,600
You can tell from his career 
Journey so far. 

84
00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:36,400
So he has worked at IBM Morgan, 
Stanley Bank of America. 

85
00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:39,900
Google, Uber And subscribe. 
Chris is very experienced. 

86
00:04:40,100 --> 00:04:42,100
Today. 
We are going to talk a lot about

87
00:04:42,100 --> 00:04:45,900
how to communicate as Engineers.
Also, some of the things related

88
00:04:45,900 --> 00:04:47,900
to that, which is about impostor
syndrome. 

89
00:04:48,100 --> 00:04:50,400
So I'm really looking forward to
this conversation. 

90
00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:52,900
Chris welcome. 
The show Larry. 

91
00:04:52,900 --> 00:04:55,800
Thanks for having me. 
So Chris maybe in the beginning 

92
00:04:55,900 --> 00:04:57,600
for people to know more about 
you. 

93
00:04:57,800 --> 00:04:59,600
Maybe, can you help to introduce
yourself? 

94
00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:02,200
Maybe telling us your major 
highlights or turning points in 

95
00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:03,600
your career? 
Yeah. 

96
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:05,200
Sure. 
I'm originally Dutch. 

97
00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:08,000
I grew up in the Netherlands 
that my computer science degree 

98
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:12,200
there, and the PHD, I lived 
about half of my life in the US.

99
00:05:12,400 --> 00:05:15,200
I've worked at technical 
companies, like, you mentioned 

100
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:19,400
IBM, worked in Wall Street and 
finance, which is not so 

101
00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:21,300
different from typical tech 
companies. 

102
00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,500
Actually, and I worked at 
companies like Google and Uber, 

103
00:05:24,700 --> 00:05:28,200
and I'm a technology advisor at 
source graph at the moment. 

104
00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:32,200
So, my career is, I'm a 
technical contributor and mostly

105
00:05:32,400 --> 00:05:34,200
what? 
I always say, my audience or my 

106
00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:38,300
customer is other Engineers. 
So I've worked on compilers 

107
00:05:38,300 --> 00:05:41,100
analysis, tools, visualization, 
tools ID. 

108
00:05:41,100 --> 00:05:43,700
He's I'm also very interested in
workflows. 

109
00:05:43,700 --> 00:05:45,700
So try to understand what we 
built. 

110
00:05:45,700 --> 00:05:48,900
But also how do we build it? 
So to try and understand all the

111
00:05:48,900 --> 00:05:51,100
different tools that go into the
process? 

112
00:05:51,500 --> 00:05:53,600
We're at opportunities for 
optimization. 

113
00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:56,600
Let us led to a lot of things, 
like trying to understand 

114
00:05:56,600 --> 00:06:01,200
complex systems involving tools,
but also humans and that has led

115
00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:04,200
to capturing all that. 
All the things that I learned 

116
00:06:04,200 --> 00:06:07,800
over, maybe the 30 years of my 
career, how we develop software,

117
00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:12,400
how Engineers are motivated, and
we recognized, they become 

118
00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:15,800
successful or productive. 
I personally haven't discovered 

119
00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:19,100
it yet, but our industry is very
interested in figuring out what 

120
00:06:19,100 --> 00:06:21,300
makes engineer especially 
productive. 

121
00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:23,900
I have some theories that I 
would love to talk with you 

122
00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:25,600
about. 
I capture that in a book. 

123
00:06:25,600 --> 00:06:29,300
I also teach courses on this. 
My main goal here is to make 

124
00:06:29,300 --> 00:06:32,200
other Engineers happy. 
That is always been my driving 

125
00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:34,100
force. 
So that's basically my career. 

126
00:06:34,100 --> 00:06:35,400
I'm back in the Netherlands 
right now. 

127
00:06:35,400 --> 00:06:37,100
So, I live very close to 
Amsterdam. 

128
00:06:37,700 --> 00:06:40,800
Thanks for sharing your story. 
I think you have a very great 

129
00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:42,400
goal. 
I would say, making Engineers 

130
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:44,000
happy. 
Well, I know, like some 

131
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:46,900
Engineers should be happy, but 
some of them might not be 

132
00:06:46,900 --> 00:06:49,800
because of maybe situation in 
their career or their job. 

133
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:52,500
So, first of all, right, 
Knowledge that you actually 

134
00:06:52,500 --> 00:06:55,100
wrote this book called 
communication for engineers. 

135
00:06:55,300 --> 00:06:58,600
I think this is a very 
interesting topic because in 

136
00:06:58,600 --> 00:07:01,800
most parts of the world 
Engineers are probably not 

137
00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:04,400
associated with a very good 
communication skills. 

138
00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,600
So what was the idea behind how 
you actually write this book? 

139
00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:10,900
Yeah. 
That's exactly the observation. 

140
00:07:10,900 --> 00:07:13,400
I made myself. 
I've been a technical 

141
00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:17,600
contributor individual 
contributor and a manager team 

142
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:20,700
leads tlm. 
So I've played the different 

143
00:07:20,700 --> 00:07:22,600
roles in. 
In software development. 

144
00:07:22,700 --> 00:07:25,800
And I've seen a lot of other 
Engineers struggling with 

145
00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:28,000
defining. 
Why are they stuck? 

146
00:07:28,200 --> 00:07:31,500
They reach a certain plateau and
they think I'm just building 

147
00:07:31,500 --> 00:07:34,100
great software. 
Why am I not advancing? 

148
00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:37,900
I've asked myself that question 
for a while now and not over 

149
00:07:37,900 --> 00:07:42,500
generalizing or stigmatizing 
individuals, but most Engineers,

150
00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:47,000
I think are introverted. 
They like solving puzzles. 

151
00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:50,600
They like learning new languages
learning, new compilers they 

152
00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:54,900
fight with Engineers on using 
spaces versus Tab, these are the

153
00:07:54,900 --> 00:07:58,600
kind of things that excite us, 
we get our energy from writing 

154
00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:00,800
code and throw it through 
compiler and it actually 

155
00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:02,700
compiles. 
This is like awesome feeling, 

156
00:08:02,700 --> 00:08:05,000
right? 
Or you have a really complex bug

157
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:07,300
that you're trying to solve and 
it takes you like two or three 

158
00:08:07,300 --> 00:08:09,700
days to do the crime scene 
analysis. 

159
00:08:09,900 --> 00:08:13,400
You build up this entire graph 
in your mind and eventually you 

160
00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:15,800
find it and then you said, oh, 
this is awesome. 

161
00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:18,200
Right? 
So, this is what drives us, but 

162
00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:21,700
probably the most obvious time 
when communication comes it's to

163
00:08:21,700 --> 00:08:26,100
play is during performance time 
or promotion time where you now 

164
00:08:26,100 --> 00:08:29,300
have to explain what you 
contributed to the company or 

165
00:08:29,300 --> 00:08:32,000
the organization. 
And you have to do this in terms

166
00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:35,000
that other people understand. 
And this is surprisingly hard 

167
00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:37,500
for engineers. 
So I started thinking what's the

168
00:08:37,500 --> 00:08:41,100
reason for this and I started 
just reading myself and I think 

169
00:08:41,100 --> 00:08:45,800
that the best way to learn about
a certain topic is to write 

170
00:08:45,900 --> 00:08:48,100
about it. 
So this is a very meta topic 

171
00:08:48,100 --> 00:08:50,700
about communication skills here.
So if you want to learn 

172
00:08:50,700 --> 00:08:54,000
something It right about it, 
write a block, give a 

173
00:08:54,008 --> 00:08:56,900
presentation about it, do 
training about it. 

174
00:08:56,900 --> 00:08:59,400
That's even better or write a 
book about it. 

175
00:08:59,500 --> 00:09:02,600
I'll be very honest. 
The reason I wrote the book was 

176
00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:05,900
not because I'm an expert 
Communicator not because I'm a 

177
00:09:05,908 --> 00:09:09,600
advanced skills in that area. 
But because I wanted to learn 

178
00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:12,800
how to become one. 
So that is really the reason why

179
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:16,400
I wrote the book is to get my 
mind clear on all these things. 

180
00:09:16,600 --> 00:09:19,400
And I think I did pretty well. 
Lots of people like the 

181
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:22,800
structure of the book. 
There's A section of theory like

182
00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:25,700
how our brain works and how we 
have social skills and interact 

183
00:09:25,700 --> 00:09:28,400
with other people, but then 
there's a lot of concrete tips, 

184
00:09:28,400 --> 00:09:30,500
like the engineering part of 
communication. 

185
00:09:30,800 --> 00:09:34,200
So, about tickets about emails, 
about design documents about 

186
00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:36,200
writing, clean code, and code 
reviews. 

187
00:09:36,600 --> 00:09:40,000
So those topics that Engineers, 
find important, especially 

188
00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:41,200
motivation. 
For the book. 

189
00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:44,600
It's selfishly to become a 
better engineer. 

190
00:09:44,700 --> 00:09:48,400
A better communicator, but also 
to share my insights, that I've 

191
00:09:48,400 --> 00:09:51,300
collected over the years and 
give back to the community. 

192
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,700
I understand that you also 
running this as an interactive 

193
00:09:54,700 --> 00:09:58,100
course, so it means that many 
people resonate with the idea of

194
00:09:58,100 --> 00:10:00,600
the book and many people would 
like to learn more about. 

195
00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:03,700
This one thing that I noticed 
when you explain all this, 

196
00:10:03,700 --> 00:10:06,200
right, you mentioned that 
somehow Engineers have a 

197
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:07,900
challenge actually? 
Communicate. 

198
00:10:07,900 --> 00:10:10,100
Well, why do you think that is 
the case? 

199
00:10:10,300 --> 00:10:13,700
Because lots of Engineers, our 
smarts, we know about facts, we 

200
00:10:13,700 --> 00:10:17,000
know about logic and all that. 
Why is it so difficult for them 

201
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:20,300
to actually communicate? 
So I think that it's both 

202
00:10:20,300 --> 00:10:24,000
systemic and its Sure. 
I mean, I'm not a psychologist. 

203
00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:27,800
I haven't done studies in brain.
Actually, I did computer science

204
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,700
and one of the classes that I 
fall was psychology. 

205
00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:33,700
So I did have one credit on 
psychology. 

206
00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:36,500
So I know all the experiments 
but they did with monkeys and 

207
00:10:36,500 --> 00:10:38,500
stuff, but I'm not an expert 
there. 

208
00:10:38,500 --> 00:10:42,500
So I don't know what makes in 
particular individual more in 

209
00:10:42,500 --> 00:10:45,900
tune to be solving technical 
problems versus being 

210
00:10:45,900 --> 00:10:47,400
extroverted. 
Like what makes somebody 

211
00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:49,500
introverted versus extroverted. 
I don't know. 

212
00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:52,800
But there are systemic things 
here like Like, I remember that 

213
00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:56,300
when I went to college, and if I
look at hard skills and soft 

214
00:10:56,300 --> 00:10:58,400
skills. 
We're talking about soft skills.

215
00:10:58,400 --> 00:11:03,100
Now, I think the name of this 
classification, hard and soft is

216
00:11:03,100 --> 00:11:07,400
already a value judgment that we
somehow a tribute to these set 

217
00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:09,400
of skills. 
Like the hard skills. 

218
00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:11,700
You're proud of. 
I know Java. 

219
00:11:11,700 --> 00:11:14,300
I know databases. 
I know Cloud. 

220
00:11:14,300 --> 00:11:17,300
Those are hard skills. 
Apparently, their heart to 

221
00:11:17,300 --> 00:11:19,500
achieve and the other ones are 
soft. 

222
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:21,600
I think the name should be 
reversed. 

223
00:11:22,300 --> 00:11:24,900
Talking with people. 
This actually hard learning 

224
00:11:24,900 --> 00:11:28,200
about programming languages or 
databases is actually easy and 

225
00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:31,300
soft because it's much more 
predictable as Engineers. 

226
00:11:31,300 --> 00:11:34,300
If you know one language is very
easy to learn the Lex language. 

227
00:11:34,500 --> 00:11:36,900
That's much more difficult to 
with people, because everybody's

228
00:11:36,900 --> 00:11:41,000
different developing empathy is 
really difficult, skill for 

229
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:44,800
engineers to get. 
So that's the systemic approach.

230
00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:48,100
I think when I went to college 
about 90% of my classes were 

231
00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:50,500
hard skills. 
So technical skills and maybe 

232
00:11:50,500 --> 00:11:54,000
10% were Soft skills but not 
even focus. 

233
00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:57,400
So I didn't get a class in how 
to collaborate in a team how to 

234
00:11:57,400 --> 00:12:00,300
make shared decisions how to run
a meeting. 

235
00:12:00,300 --> 00:12:04,700
Those kinds of key skills that 
make you more successful in life

236
00:12:04,700 --> 00:12:07,200
and in engineering, I was never 
taught. 

237
00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:09,200
So you're supposed to pick them 
up. 

238
00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:12,600
You have to be very lucky to be 
in an environment where your 

239
00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:15,900
environment actually helps you 
to learn all these kinds of 

240
00:12:15,900 --> 00:12:18,300
skills after you're already 
hired. 

241
00:12:18,300 --> 00:12:20,900
Basically some companies have 
really good mentoring 

242
00:12:20,900 --> 00:12:23,700
environments. 
Internal training and aside from

243
00:12:23,700 --> 00:12:27,800
that, from a personal 
observation Engineers are less 

244
00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:29,800
interested. 
Talking to other people. 

245
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:32,100
They quote unquote hate 
meetings. 

246
00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:36,600
They don't like the present. 
It's like they get nerve-racking

247
00:12:37,500 --> 00:12:39,300
nervous. 
If they have to present about 

248
00:12:39,300 --> 00:12:41,300
their work, even in their own 
team. 

249
00:12:41,700 --> 00:12:43,900
I've really tried to discover 
what that is. 

250
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:48,600
So what I've done is just give a
list of all those skills that I 

251
00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:53,000
think are key and show how easy 
it is to to learn these skills 

252
00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,600
are learnable skills. 
We often think as Engineers that

253
00:12:56,600 --> 00:13:00,100
somebody is just a good 
presenter or they have social 

254
00:13:00,100 --> 00:13:04,200
skills, or they have Charisma or
they're a natural leader. 

255
00:13:04,300 --> 00:13:07,000
Nobody's a natural leader. 
Everybody can learn. 

256
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:10,500
This is a skill and you can 
become a better presenter by 

257
00:13:10,500 --> 00:13:12,900
practicing by using 
methodologies. 

258
00:13:13,300 --> 00:13:15,900
All these things, even though 
they soft skills and very hard 

259
00:13:15,900 --> 00:13:18,300
to learn. 
We think they're not so hard. 

260
00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:20,900
I like the way that you said 
that we should probably think 

261
00:13:20,900 --> 00:13:23,200
about Reba. 
Seeing the hard and the soft. 

262
00:13:23,300 --> 00:13:27,100
I kind of resonate that as well.
Having been an engineer or my 

263
00:13:27,100 --> 00:13:28,200
life as well. 
Sometimes. 

264
00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:32,000
Yes, communicating is hard. 
Which brings us to the important

265
00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:34,000
topic here. 
Why do you think communication 

266
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:36,600
is so important for engineers? 
All Engineers? 

267
00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:37,400
Would think that. 
Okay. 

268
00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:39,900
My job is to write code and I 
talk to the machine. 

269
00:13:40,100 --> 00:13:41,800
I don't talk to people. 
So why do you think 

270
00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:43,800
communication is so important 
for engineers? 

271
00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:48,000
It's very good question. 
I used to work at Google, like 

272
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,200
we said in the introduction, I 
was involved in a project called

273
00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:53,700
tempo. 
Go where we wanted to figure out

274
00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:55,900
how to make Engineers more 
productive. 

275
00:13:56,300 --> 00:14:00,300
Tempo is actually a tool that 
instruments, your desktop and it

276
00:14:00,300 --> 00:14:03,500
just watches, what you're doing 
all the time, using machine 

277
00:14:03,500 --> 00:14:06,300
learning. 
We then try to figure out how 

278
00:14:06,300 --> 00:14:09,900
productive you were and we try 
to correlate that to whether you

279
00:14:09,900 --> 00:14:12,500
were happy of that. 
So, we actually asked, literally

280
00:14:12,500 --> 00:14:15,700
the question randomly, the 
pop-up shows up, how happy are 

281
00:14:15,700 --> 00:14:17,800
you right now? 
We just ask the question and you

282
00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:21,200
get a star 125, right? 
If you have enough data at some 

283
00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:23,400
point. 
Stock correlating using machine 

284
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:24,700
learning, which is great for 
this. 

285
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:28,200
You can start correlating 
situations that make engineer's,

286
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,300
unhappy versus situations that 
make them happy. 

287
00:14:31,500 --> 00:14:34,600
One of the things that we 
figured out, was that deep work 

288
00:14:34,700 --> 00:14:38,500
like long blocks of 
uninterrupted studying time on 

289
00:14:38,500 --> 00:14:42,100
the problem and solving it is 
what makes engineer's happy. 

290
00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:45,800
I mean, they voted more happy 
when they were in this Zone 

291
00:14:45,800 --> 00:14:48,000
phase or in the concentration 
phase. 

292
00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:52,100
We also tried cameras. 
So if you allow And if you are 

293
00:14:52,100 --> 00:14:55,000
an engineer at Google, doing 
this research, that Google does 

294
00:14:55,200 --> 00:14:58,400
your more tempting to do this by
turning on your camera all day, 

295
00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:02,400
and you can do analysis of 
facial expressions. 

296
00:15:02,700 --> 00:15:05,300
And you can actually see if 
somebody is happy or not. 

297
00:15:05,700 --> 00:15:08,500
So then you have a fine-grained 
signal to see. 

298
00:15:08,600 --> 00:15:10,900
What are they doing right now? 
Like how many times did they 

299
00:15:10,900 --> 00:15:14,600
switch between tools? 
And we started finding out that 

300
00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:17,200
context. 
Switching is very expensive and 

301
00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:20,500
they hurt your productivity. 
So these are all like useful 

302
00:15:20,500 --> 00:15:22,900
information. 
To solve our problem, like what 

303
00:15:22,900 --> 00:15:26,300
makes them more productive but a
side effect from that was that 

304
00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:28,800
we also measured. 
What are you doing right now? 

305
00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:32,100
And classify the things that you
were doing, like, sometimes you 

306
00:15:32,100 --> 00:15:35,500
go to email and they spend some 
time, there you go to chat and 

307
00:15:35,500 --> 00:15:38,900
then you go to the IDE type, 
some things and you do builds. 

308
00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:42,700
And then if you do a measurement
of how much time do you actually

309
00:15:42,700 --> 00:15:44,800
spend coding? 
It's about thirty percent of 

310
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:47,600
your time or the average 
engineer that had this tool, 

311
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:49,400
turn on. 
So what do you do in the rest of

312
00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:52,400
the time? 
The other 70% And that's all 

313
00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:55,500
communication that is all 
interacting with other 

314
00:15:55,500 --> 00:15:58,600
Engineers. 
This is all has to do with 

315
00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:01,800
making decisions together, 
planning synchronizing, our 

316
00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:05,600
work, increasing the quality of 
the code that we delivered as a 

317
00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:09,300
team as a organization. 
It's about learning what is 

318
00:16:09,300 --> 00:16:11,300
important for our organization 
right now. 

319
00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:13,500
So a lot of that has nothing to 
do with coding. 

320
00:16:13,500 --> 00:16:17,200
But more about why are we 
building the code or our are we 

321
00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:20,200
doing this certain process? 
So that is one. 

322
00:16:20,200 --> 00:16:23,000
Interesting fact. 
I think thirty percent of your 

323
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:26,800
time is coding and you better be
good at the other 70%. 

324
00:16:26,900 --> 00:16:30,500
Because if you get twice as good
in the communication part, you 

325
00:16:30,508 --> 00:16:33,600
have a lot more opportunity for 
growing your impact, but I've 

326
00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:37,900
seen to is that at some point, 
engineer's become more senior. 

327
00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:42,700
And when you get more senior, 
you tend to spend time in coding

328
00:16:42,700 --> 00:16:47,000
even less, and you spend more 
time into mentoring other 

329
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:50,400
engineers and guiding them in 
trying to understand the bigger 

330
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:53,600
picture as a Junior engineer. 
You're right out of school, you 

331
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:56,600
go to stand up, and to give you 
five tickets and your work, 

332
00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:58,200
these five tickets. 
And that's it. 

333
00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:00,900
You may have some questions 
about what is this mean? 

334
00:17:00,900 --> 00:17:02,600
What does this mean? 
How do I do that? 

335
00:17:02,900 --> 00:17:05,099
But you don't try to understand?
Why are we building these 

336
00:17:05,099 --> 00:17:07,300
tickets? 
Your emphasis is to fix these 

337
00:17:07,300 --> 00:17:10,599
five tickets as quickly as 
possible and get the next five. 

338
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:14,099
So at some point somebody has to
give you these tickets and 

339
00:17:14,099 --> 00:17:17,599
that's what senior Engineers do.
We're all on the scale of 

340
00:17:17,599 --> 00:17:22,000
between like Junior and very 
Advanced but at some point Reach

341
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,700
a position where most of your 
impact is actually measured on 

342
00:17:25,900 --> 00:17:29,900
how you influence other people 
how you show leadership like the

343
00:17:29,900 --> 00:17:34,700
work leadership in itself 
assumes that you transfer your 

344
00:17:34,700 --> 00:17:39,200
experience to other people and 
that by delegating the work that

345
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:41,100
you would normally do yourself 
to others. 

346
00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:45,200
You can actually become much 
more impactful and that requires

347
00:17:45,200 --> 00:17:47,800
a lot of communication to. 
So when you see people 

348
00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:51,200
transition from a more Junior 
role to a more senior role. 

349
00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:54,000
They will also become better 
communicators. 

350
00:17:54,300 --> 00:17:57,100
So in summary, if you want to 
grow, you need to communicate. 

351
00:17:57,300 --> 00:17:59,800
If you want to be productive, 
you want to be impactful, you 

352
00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:03,200
need to communicate. 
So I see this as you explain 

353
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:06,900
when you said that the deepest 
encoding time and 70% is more 

354
00:18:06,900 --> 00:18:09,500
about communication planning 
coordination, and all that. 

355
00:18:09,700 --> 00:18:13,500
And as you get more senior, the 
Lesser time, it is to actually 

356
00:18:13,500 --> 00:18:16,400
spend time in coding. 
I think this is also a lot of 

357
00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:18,400
time. 
A lot of seniors growing 

358
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:22,100
aspiring senior engineer 
struggle as well because They 

359
00:18:22,100 --> 00:18:25,300
thought that when they become 
engineer, they're supposed to do

360
00:18:25,300 --> 00:18:28,100
a lot more coding work. 
But as they progress through 

361
00:18:28,100 --> 00:18:30,300
their career, the reverse is 
true. 

362
00:18:30,500 --> 00:18:33,200
The less time you spend coding 
and more about communication. 

363
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:37,300
What's your take on all this? 
Of course, there are exceptions.

364
00:18:37,500 --> 00:18:40,600
They're always individuals that 
you look at the knowledge of our

365
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:42,600
experience of a particular 
individual. 

366
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:46,100
There is something like the T, 
experience at the structure red.

367
00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:50,200
So you broad but then you have 
one specialist in which you are 

368
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:52,500
really deep. 
Most In ears, if you ask them. 

369
00:18:52,500 --> 00:18:54,600
Like, I am Chris Mulligan, who 
are you? 

370
00:18:54,600 --> 00:18:57,500
And they say, I'm an Android 
engineer, or they say, I'm a 

371
00:18:57,500 --> 00:19:00,200
back-end engineer, or I write go
or whatever. 

372
00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:03,800
This is not you, right? 
This is one of your deep skills.

373
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,700
So as I senior engineer, you 
start to focus more on your 

374
00:19:06,700 --> 00:19:10,500
horizontal skills, like your 
understanding of the full stack 

375
00:19:10,700 --> 00:19:14,000
of problems that customers have 
and how are we solving them? 

376
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:17,800
Being able to break down 
problems into smaller parts? 

377
00:19:17,900 --> 00:19:21,400
Communicating teams? 
Like I said earlier, seeing the 

378
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:24,100
A picture. 
So those skills come up 

379
00:19:24,100 --> 00:19:27,200
automatically. 
Once you get more senior, the 

380
00:19:27,300 --> 00:19:30,300
are many channels in which you 
do this communication. 

381
00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:31,900
I'll just give you some 
examples. 

382
00:19:31,900 --> 00:19:36,600
Here is like emails tickets 
chats design, Doc's, meetings 

383
00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:38,400
and a meeting as 
multi-dimensional. 

384
00:19:38,500 --> 00:19:40,500
You have to learn how to send 
invites. 

385
00:19:40,500 --> 00:19:43,200
It seems like a simple thing but
it's not so simple. 

386
00:19:43,500 --> 00:19:45,100
Somebody has to take notes in a 
meeting. 

387
00:19:45,300 --> 00:19:47,700
How do you set up, Zoom? 
How do you set up a camera 

388
00:19:47,700 --> 00:19:50,200
correctly? 
I was talking in a meeting with 

389
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:51,400
making sure that everybody's 
heard. 

390
00:19:51,500 --> 00:19:55,000
Heard, how do you get diversity?
But some actually Excel and they

391
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,200
treat this as an opportunity to 
sell their brand. 

392
00:19:58,300 --> 00:20:01,500
That's what you see, as well as 
like successful Engineers. 

393
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,800
They have a brand and they 
treated as such I mentioned 

394
00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:09,500
earlier performance reviews 
which are highly stressful event

395
00:20:09,500 --> 00:20:12,700
for engineers because now you 
have suddenly have to write 

396
00:20:12,700 --> 00:20:14,600
about what you've done this 
year. 

397
00:20:14,900 --> 00:20:18,700
Even if you remember, how do you
actually translate it into 

398
00:20:18,700 --> 00:20:21,400
something that other people find
impressive is not? 

399
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:24,400
Easy, even writing, commits code
reviews. 

400
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:27,200
These are all communication. 
I'll just share this to the 

401
00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:29,300
audience. 
Like before we had this call 

402
00:20:29,300 --> 00:20:32,400
Henry and I we had a few minutes
before we hit record. 

403
00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,500
We actually talked about the 
commonalities that we had, like 

404
00:20:35,500 --> 00:20:38,800
our common experience. 
Our common history to find some 

405
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,300
common ground so that we 
interact better. 

406
00:20:41,500 --> 00:20:44,900
Those are very subtle things 
that if you know to apply them, 

407
00:20:44,900 --> 00:20:48,600
you will come over as a better 
communicator and therefore get 

408
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:50,500
more opportunities as an 
engineer. 

409
00:20:50,700 --> 00:20:51,600
This is ideal. 
Ali? 

410
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:53,900
What you want, right? 
You're in a team and you want to

411
00:20:53,900 --> 00:20:57,400
grow, not just get a better 
title, but you want to move to a

412
00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:00,100
project. 
That is interesting, even inside

413
00:21:00,100 --> 00:21:02,100
the company, there are 
opportunities. 

414
00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:05,400
I'll use Google against a your 
work on Google Cloud. 

415
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:07,100
Now, you want to work on Google 
Maps. 

416
00:21:07,100 --> 00:21:09,700
How do you get that opportunity?
How do you find out? 

417
00:21:09,700 --> 00:21:13,100
What you can do, what you can 
add or contribute to Maps? 

418
00:21:13,100 --> 00:21:15,000
How do you know, who's working 
there? 

419
00:21:15,300 --> 00:21:18,300
So, all these things are 
opportunities if you have the 

420
00:21:18,300 --> 00:21:22,400
ability to communicate, if you 
have the ability to Collect your

421
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:26,600
goals and execute on them. 
So these are all examples of why

422
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:30,300
communication skills are 
essential for engineers to be 

423
00:21:30,300 --> 00:21:33,200
happy again. 
This is not about making more 

424
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:35,800
money or being successful or 
something. 

425
00:21:36,100 --> 00:21:37,600
My goal is just to make you 
happy. 

426
00:21:37,700 --> 00:21:39,600
I see a lot of Engineers be 
unhappy. 

427
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:44,300
When I think a lot of that has 
to do with not being able to 

428
00:21:44,300 --> 00:21:48,300
control their environment, even 
articulate what they want to 

429
00:21:48,300 --> 00:21:50,100
have changed in this 
environment. 

430
00:21:50,300 --> 00:21:53,000
So, I think by becoming Aiming a
better Communicator, you will 

431
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,700
become also happier. 
So as you mentioned, all these 

432
00:21:56,700 --> 00:22:00,200
different channels, different 
mediums like emails like invite.

433
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:03,300
Even these days. 
We are all working remotely from

434
00:22:03,300 --> 00:22:05,700
Hope and we don't necessarily 
actually talked a lot with 

435
00:22:05,700 --> 00:22:08,100
different people. 
So all we do is just chat. 

436
00:22:08,100 --> 00:22:10,300
Maybe design document, PR pull 
request. 

437
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:12,900
Thanks for sharing all this. 
So now, we understand that. 

438
00:22:12,900 --> 00:22:15,900
Okay, actually communication is 
not just talking directly with 

439
00:22:15,900 --> 00:22:18,000
people. 
It's also in all these mediums 

440
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,400
and chapters as well. 
So, one thing that I noticed 

441
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,800
when you mentioned before Review
and promo. 

442
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:26,400
This seems to be one of the bane
of software Engineers. 

443
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:28,800
How do you actually sell 
yourself? 

444
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:32,100
So to speak in order to get a 
good promotion or good 

445
00:22:32,100 --> 00:22:34,700
performance review? 
So maybe you can share a little 

446
00:22:34,700 --> 00:22:36,900
bit tips here. 
How should an engineer's 

447
00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:39,700
actually communicate their 
contribution, their performance 

448
00:22:39,700 --> 00:22:41,800
in order to get good performance
review. 

449
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,400
I've struggled with that. 
I've been a manager. 

450
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:46,300
I've seen people struggle with 
this. 

451
00:22:46,700 --> 00:22:51,000
I think by far the most 
detrimental skill that Engineers

452
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,300
have in In general to hurt their
own performance review and promo

453
00:22:54,300 --> 00:22:59,600
is the scale of procrastination.
We know we have to do this and 

454
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,500
we don't like doing this. 
So what we do is we look at it. 

455
00:23:02,500 --> 00:23:04,500
Oh, this is so hard. 
I'll do this tomorrow. 

456
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:07,000
When is the deadline deadline is
Friday? 

457
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:08,500
Oh, okay. 
It's Tuesday. 

458
00:23:08,500 --> 00:23:10,000
I still have four days. 
Okay. 

459
00:23:10,100 --> 00:23:13,300
Before you know, it's Friday, 
the fact that we have to give 

460
00:23:13,300 --> 00:23:15,700
deadlines for these kinds of 
documents is already an 

461
00:23:15,700 --> 00:23:18,700
indicator that procrastination 
is a challenge. 

462
00:23:18,700 --> 00:23:22,300
So don't do that. 
You have months to About your 

463
00:23:22,300 --> 00:23:24,800
contributions. 
So keep a document. 

464
00:23:25,100 --> 00:23:28,600
What I always did is I had a 
live document in which I 

465
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:32,400
collected my contributions, and 
I wrote it almost like in an 

466
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:35,800
advertisement about myself. 
So if you treat yourself as a 

467
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:39,100
brand or a product and you want 
to get other people interested 

468
00:23:39,100 --> 00:23:41,500
in your brand if you have to 
sell it. 

469
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,900
So you have to tell stories. 
So how do you tell stories? 

470
00:23:45,100 --> 00:23:48,300
There are patterns there? 
Everybody has interviewed as an 

471
00:23:48,300 --> 00:23:50,400
engineer and that two kinds of 
interviews. 

472
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,600
Like one of the technical Bones,
and then, they are other one, 

473
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:57,400
the behavioral interviews and 
they often go like, can you give

474
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:00,300
me an example of a situation 
where you had a conflict with 

475
00:24:00,300 --> 00:24:02,000
your manager and how to get 
resolved? 

476
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,000
And that's things like that 
these hard ones, but it's 

477
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,200
actually very easy. 
And there are two, well, known 

478
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:11,400
patterns for telling this story,
one is called Sao and the other 

479
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:15,300
one is star. 
STAAR Sao is situation action 

480
00:24:15,300 --> 00:24:20,200
outcome and star is situation 
title action result. 

481
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,400
So I'll look at Because it's a 
little bit more detailed then 

482
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:25,200
Sao. 
So situation. 

483
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:29,400
As you describe the problem, 
basically, the environment like 

484
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:34,100
I came in, we are losing 30% of 
our customers because the tool 

485
00:24:34,100 --> 00:24:37,500
is always down whatever. 
So that's the situation I come 

486
00:24:37,500 --> 00:24:41,000
in. 
My title is a sari or another 

487
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,200
engineer. 
So you define what your role is 

488
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,200
in this situation, then you 
describe what your action is. 

489
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:48,400
So you did a full analysis of 
the problem. 

490
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,200
You set up meetings with 
stakeholders. 

491
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,200
You generated 12. 
Of tickets. 

492
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,800
We got a new build and the 
result now is that we're only 

493
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:57,900
losing 10% of the customers. 
Something like this. 

494
00:24:58,100 --> 00:25:03,300
You focus on the situation. 
What your role was in this. 

495
00:25:03,500 --> 00:25:06,700
The actions that you did that 
led to this awesome result. 

496
00:25:06,900 --> 00:25:09,900
And that result could be you 
ship something, but it can also 

497
00:25:09,900 --> 00:25:13,300
be something vague especially if
you become What's called the 

498
00:25:13,300 --> 00:25:16,200
leader. 
You're focusing Less on shipping

499
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,300
code. 
So your result will not be 

500
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,300
shipped, 30 dips, or something 
like this. 

501
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:25,400
But it will be more like 
translatable to business 

502
00:25:25,500 --> 00:25:28,200
results. 
So, you will have metrics that 

503
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,800
have to do with improving the 
quality of the products that we 

504
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,100
sell, or a number of them are 
Revenue. 

505
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,600
I think most Engineers are far 
away from having an ability to 

506
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:42,200
express their impact on Revenue,
but you can find 

507
00:25:42,300 --> 00:25:45,700
business-oriented like the 
number of bugs that customers 

508
00:25:45,700 --> 00:25:49,400
report and as a result of my 
efforts that has come down. 

509
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:51,500
So this indicates that you care,
not. 

510
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:53,900
Just about writing code. 
But you care about. 

511
00:25:53,900 --> 00:25:56,200
Why are we writing the code? 
And you have sort of the bigger 

512
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:58,900
picture in mind? 
Let's hit that Engineers like to

513
00:25:58,900 --> 00:26:01,100
solve problems. 
But if we can't articulate, what

514
00:26:01,100 --> 00:26:02,700
the problem is and how we solved
it. 

515
00:26:02,700 --> 00:26:05,700
Then that makes it harder for us
to make a recognition. 

516
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,400
So focus on that. 
Don't procrastinate. 

517
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,800
Keep alive document. 
It's a lot easier to write down.

518
00:26:11,900 --> 00:26:15,500
Once you've done the thing, the 
next day or the next week, 12 

519
00:26:15,500 --> 00:26:17,100
months from now, you're not 
going to remember. 

520
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,300
You're going to forget about 
this crucial detail and add 

521
00:26:20,300 --> 00:26:22,400
links. 
So people like Like seeing 

522
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,600
links. 
So if you mention like you wrote

523
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:26,600
a design, doc, have a link to 
that. 

524
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,300
If you have 12, diffs that went 
into this solution, just linked 

525
00:26:31,300 --> 00:26:34,300
them all in there and especially
for promotion. 

526
00:26:34,500 --> 00:26:37,800
This is also key at Google, for 
instance, when it's time to get 

527
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:40,100
promoted, your manager will not 
tell you. 

528
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,700
This is not your manager. 
Coming to you and saying, I 

529
00:26:42,708 --> 00:26:45,100
think you need to be promoted 
because you're so awesome. 

530
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,200
No, it's the engineer 
themselves. 

531
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:49,700
So they have to identify for 
themselves. 

532
00:26:49,700 --> 00:26:51,400
That they've been acting at a 
level. 

533
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:55,000
Just above their current pay 
great or their current title. 

534
00:26:55,300 --> 00:26:57,600
They've been doing the 
expectations for these levels 

535
00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:59,000
in. 
These are all documented so you 

536
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,200
can look them up and then you 
say like I want to get promoted 

537
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:04,800
and how you prove it. 
You're right 8 promo document. 

538
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:09,100
So the promo document is a 
really interesting exercise. 

539
00:27:09,300 --> 00:27:12,400
I've been on both sides like 
I've written my own promo docs 

540
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:14,300
and I've been in promo 
committees. 

541
00:27:14,700 --> 00:27:18,300
Your motivation is different. 
If you want to get promoted, you

542
00:27:18,300 --> 00:27:21,400
have to convince the committee. 
I've seen the famous. 

543
00:27:21,500 --> 00:27:25,500
Seems like people have written a
thousand pages of information 

544
00:27:25,500 --> 00:27:29,300
about why they think they should
get promoted and this is really 

545
00:27:29,300 --> 00:27:33,100
taxing on the persons that have 
to evaluate this because how can

546
00:27:33,100 --> 00:27:36,800
you read 1000 pages? 
So the skill of being able to 

547
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,700
pick out your individual 
contributions and the impact you

548
00:27:39,700 --> 00:27:43,400
made on the company and I keep 
it simple and condensed. 

549
00:27:43,700 --> 00:27:48,800
So, do not procrastinate use the
patterns like star and then try 

550
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,800
and keep it short. 
You will see that if you Keep it

551
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:56,000
short, emphasize the impact that
you made people will actually 

552
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,000
read your document and 
understand better what you've 

553
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,000
done. 
If you just give them a wall of 

554
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:02,700
text and I'm going to read 
everything. 

555
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,800
If you write a design doc and 
you want other Engineers to 

556
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:09,500
evaluate your opinions and 
solutions for your decisions 

557
00:28:09,500 --> 00:28:11,900
were certain technology. 
They also not going to read it, 

558
00:28:11,900 --> 00:28:14,500
if it's 50 pages, they have 
better things to do. 

559
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,400
So, if you give them five pages,
yeah, you have a chance of the 

560
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,200
actually read it. 
So finding out what words you 

561
00:28:20,208 --> 00:28:22,900
can remove. 
That's it's a key communication 

562
00:28:22,900 --> 00:28:26,100
technique as well. 
So as you are explaining about 

563
00:28:26,100 --> 00:28:29,000
this condensing things, I was 
imagining as well. 

564
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,800
You have a big chunk of code 
that you re fact the into 

565
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,700
smaller and smaller, maybe more 
functions, so that the code base

566
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,400
actually, the written one class 
becomes less, and less a. 

567
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,400
I'm thinking it in the sense of,
you know, for engineers to think

568
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,900
about this, refractory your 
contribution, your impact in 

569
00:28:43,900 --> 00:28:46,400
such a way that actually, when 
people see it, it's a short 

570
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,400
condensed version rather than 
the bigger one. 

571
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,400
I love that metaphor. 
Yes, and if we use other, 

572
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,200
Quality metrics in code as well.
You don't write a function that 

573
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,900
is 1000 lines. 
We know this, it's not going to 

574
00:28:57,908 --> 00:29:00,600
get through code review. 
So you break it up in smaller 

575
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,200
functions, you give the 
meaningful names. 

576
00:29:03,500 --> 00:29:06,500
And if you know this as an 
engineer you write code, you can

577
00:29:06,500 --> 00:29:09,500
do this with Doc's as well. 
Break up your code, into smaller

578
00:29:09,500 --> 00:29:12,700
paragraph at titles. 
Those are like the equivalence 

579
00:29:12,700 --> 00:29:15,400
of writing small functions. 
So then people can decide 

580
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:18,000
whether they want to read the 
individual function or Not. 

581
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,900
So, reading and writing are so 
closely connected. 

582
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:22,900
So, I like that metaphor that 
you mentioned. 

583
00:29:22,900 --> 00:29:26,100
Yes, coding and writing docks 
are very similar. 

584
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,700
You write clean code. 
That is readable for other 

585
00:29:29,700 --> 00:29:31,500
people. 
The same thing, you have to 

586
00:29:31,500 --> 00:29:35,100
focus on writing documentation. 
You have to grow your vocabulary

587
00:29:35,300 --> 00:29:38,000
because often one word can 
replace three others. 

588
00:29:38,300 --> 00:29:41,500
You have to worry about grammar.
How do I break up a long 

589
00:29:41,500 --> 00:29:43,400
sentence? 
What is passive voice? 

590
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,500
All these kinds of attributes of
writing text. 

591
00:29:46,700 --> 00:29:49,400
The soft skill comes back here. 
We don't invest in this 

592
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:51,400
engineer's. 
We actually should as much. 

593
00:29:51,700 --> 00:29:54,800
As we invest in understanding 
and quiet on the difference 

594
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,300
between a for Loop and a list 
comprehension. 

595
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,600
We know and we can argue why one
is much better than the other 

596
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,000
one. 
Can we do the same about English

597
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,800
language? 
And if you notice then yeah, you

598
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,400
become an expert. 
If you notice difference, when 

599
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,600
did use list comprehension went 
to use a for Loop? 

600
00:30:10,900 --> 00:30:13,600
It becomes automatic, right? 
We start forgetting that. 

601
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,200
We actually had to learn this 
skill and now it becomes an 

602
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,300
intuition. 
That's the nice thing about 

603
00:30:18,300 --> 00:30:21,200
communication as well. 
Your investment will at some 

604
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,300
point. 
And turn into intuition. 

605
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,600
Just an example here is I used 
to say a lot. 

606
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:32,600
I still do it when I speak I've 
learned and I taught myself to 

607
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:36,200
not say up, but just say a pause
in the beginning that took a 

608
00:30:36,208 --> 00:30:39,800
long time, but now it's 
automatic and it becomes an 

609
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:41,900
intuition. 
So these things are all 

610
00:30:41,900 --> 00:30:46,000
learnable and every engineer 
picks them up, one picks them up

611
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,200
faster than the other. 
But like coding and like the 

612
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,800
investment that we put into 
making our Clean and refactoring

613
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:56,100
it making a testable as they 
apply to go. 

614
00:30:56,300 --> 00:30:57,900
They also apply to 
communication. 

615
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,000
So you have also another thing 
while we're speaking about this,

616
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,800
there seems to be some Engineers
who are actually good at selling

617
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,200
themselves. 
So to speak like good 

618
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,900
communication skills. 
So what do you think those 

619
00:31:08,900 --> 00:31:11,900
things that make these type of 
Engineers actually more 

620
00:31:11,900 --> 00:31:14,900
impactful than the others? 
Yeah, but I mentioned the 

621
00:31:14,900 --> 00:31:18,800
research done at Google for 
getting more insight into what 

622
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,700
makes an engineer productive. 
They also did research into 

623
00:31:21,700 --> 00:31:25,000
understanding what makes certain
people more productive than 

624
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,200
others or more impactful. 
So what is a highly successful 

625
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,500
individual at Google? 
What are the attributes? 

626
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,500
And if you analyze their 
communication Network, you can 

627
00:31:34,500 --> 00:31:37,700
actually do at Google because 
you have access to all the 

628
00:31:37,700 --> 00:31:39,500
metadata there, anonymized and 
all. 

629
00:31:39,500 --> 00:31:42,400
But you can actually understand 
how they interact with other 

630
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,800
people through all these 
channels that I mentioned 

631
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:47,000
earlier. 
There are breadcrumbs for each 

632
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,500
interaction, every email, every 
meeting, every Jap. 

633
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,400
And then if you put that, All in
one big graph. 

634
00:31:53,500 --> 00:31:55,900
And then you look at this 
individual, the successful 

635
00:31:55,900 --> 00:31:57,900
person. 
They look like what is called, a

636
00:31:57,900 --> 00:32:00,400
super node there. 
The one in the middle, and 

637
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,000
everything connects to them. 
You can see, sort of islands. 

638
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,300
There's a little team in the 
top, right? 

639
00:32:06,500 --> 00:32:09,500
This is like five or six people 
that work on a certain tool and 

640
00:32:09,500 --> 00:32:12,800
then in the bottom left, there's
another team and they don't 

641
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:14,700
connect with each other. 
But they connect through this 

642
00:32:14,700 --> 00:32:17,100
person. 
So you can see, this is the 

643
00:32:17,100 --> 00:32:21,500
typical design interview that 
you do when you go with the A 

644
00:32:21,500 --> 00:32:24,700
company they say like build me 
Twitter, you start drawing boxes

645
00:32:24,700 --> 00:32:26,800
and they said, well isn't this a
bottleneck? 

646
00:32:27,100 --> 00:32:32,000
So, InDesign interviews, these 
bottlenecks are a No-No you want

647
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,800
to avoid them in your designs of
your software, but in real life,

648
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,800
these bottlenecks, if they're 
people they're actually the most

649
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,200
successful ones because they 
monopolize this information. 

650
00:32:42,500 --> 00:32:46,100
So that's one observation. 
So just by communicating a lot 

651
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:50,600
by having a big Network and I 
mean that literally not The 

652
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:52,400
Social Network. 
Kind of network. 

653
00:32:52,700 --> 00:32:56,400
If you have a big network of 
interaction, your graph is big, 

654
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:00,000
the chances are that information
flows through you is higher, and

655
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:04,100
that you control the destiny of 
individual teams, which is put 

656
00:33:04,100 --> 00:33:08,000
this very dramatically here, but
you can filter information and 

657
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,600
share it with others to make it 
very effective. 

658
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:14,600
Very successful people know how 
to do this intuitively, but they

659
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:18,000
learned, this is a skill again. 
So you have to figure out, you 

660
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,700
have to develop empathy. 
You have to understand. 

661
00:33:20,700 --> 00:33:23,000
We are talking. 
To like we do with networks. 

662
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,200
You have a protocol and you get 
in a Json record and you have to

663
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,200
transform it to protobuf. 
You filter out certain things 

664
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:31,600
you extract other things. 
You get some other information 

665
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,000
from a third source and you 
enrich the data. 

666
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:35,500
And then you generate a new 
packet. 

667
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,500
This is what successful 
communicators do as well. 

668
00:33:38,700 --> 00:33:42,200
So this is not a metaphor from 
our common background here, but 

669
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:44,000
I've seen two is very successful
people. 

670
00:33:44,100 --> 00:33:47,500
They treat other people like an 
audience and I don't mean that 

671
00:33:47,500 --> 00:33:50,200
like, they're an influencer on 
YouTube or something. 

672
00:33:50,500 --> 00:33:53,600
But what I mean? 
That is the aim to influence 

673
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:57,400
other people in a profound way. 
So rather than just educating 

674
00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:59,200
them. 
This is what our product can do.

675
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,400
And here are all the features, 
whatever, they try to inspire 

676
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:04,300
other people to use their 
product. 

677
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,700
Instead of motivating them to do
something. 

678
00:34:07,900 --> 00:34:10,699
They fire them up. 
These are like, different levels

679
00:34:10,699 --> 00:34:15,000
of Engagement that you try to 
create with your audience and 

680
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,600
instead of influencing, which 
is, that's what we think. 

681
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,400
If you're a leader, your 
influence others now know, your 

682
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:22,500
goal has to be to to change 
lives. 

683
00:34:22,699 --> 00:34:26,199
How do you actually make people 
feel better just by being there?

684
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,900
And how do you do that? 
So, there are some takes trips. 

685
00:34:29,900 --> 00:34:31,699
You can use, like, how do I get 
to the stage? 

686
00:34:31,699 --> 00:34:33,300
How do you build Charisma? 
L. 

687
00:34:33,300 --> 00:34:36,000
Do I make people like me? 
Like, when I go to a party, I 

688
00:34:36,007 --> 00:34:39,400
just want to sit on the edge. 
The word mole flower is 

689
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:40,400
invented. 
For this. 

690
00:34:40,699 --> 00:34:43,100
Most Engineers are Wallflowers. 
They don't want to stand in the 

691
00:34:43,100 --> 00:34:46,000
middle because then you get 
uncomfortable there. 

692
00:34:46,300 --> 00:34:49,699
But if you do communicate, I 
develop five rules that you can 

693
00:34:49,699 --> 00:34:51,300
apply that. 
I've seen a lot. 

694
00:34:51,500 --> 00:34:54,699
Of successful Engineers use. 
So the first one is facts. 

695
00:34:55,100 --> 00:34:58,700
Your communication should be 
based on facts, not on feelings,

696
00:34:58,900 --> 00:35:02,700
not on assumptions. 
If you meet your director and 

697
00:35:02,700 --> 00:35:06,000
you have to scrape the idea to 
use a new database or some new 

698
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,500
API to go to the direct and you 
say, I think we should use this 

699
00:35:09,500 --> 00:35:12,100
and he says, like why? 
And now you have to explain why.

700
00:35:12,100 --> 00:35:14,100
Right? 
So our transaction rate will go 

701
00:35:14,100 --> 00:35:18,200
up by 200% and this is a great 
thing because it will lower our 

702
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,800
costs, and blah, blah blah. 
Oh, yeah, those are great facts,

703
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,300
so Now your decision-making is 
based on knowledge, not on 

704
00:35:25,300 --> 00:35:27,800
feelings. 
So try and sprinkle in your 

705
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:32,300
facts in your decision-making. 
So don't say, I think, but say 

706
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:34,500
because of these numbers, we 
should do this. 

707
00:35:34,900 --> 00:35:38,400
So that takes me to the second 
point, which conviction, so 

708
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,000
never come over as somebody who 
doesn't know. 

709
00:35:41,100 --> 00:35:44,400
But use the facts that you 
obtained in your previous phase 

710
00:35:44,700 --> 00:35:48,600
and use them to change your 
language, just your posture, the

711
00:35:48,607 --> 00:35:52,200
way you communicate with other 
people and you're The expert 

712
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,200
just assumed that. 
And how do you know? 

713
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:55,700
Because you research that, 
right? 

714
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,300
You looked at all the 
Alternatives and this is the 

715
00:35:58,300 --> 00:36:01,800
best alternative and therefore 
we do this, just sign here. 

716
00:36:02,100 --> 00:36:05,300
This is how you structure a 
design document as well. 

717
00:36:05,500 --> 00:36:08,700
So if you write a design 
document, that explains to the 

718
00:36:08,700 --> 00:36:11,400
rest of the organization, why we
should build something you have 

719
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,300
to tell them. 
And they have to sign off on 

720
00:36:13,300 --> 00:36:16,300
this and approve it. 
What technologies will go into 

721
00:36:16,300 --> 00:36:19,200
the system? 
And what alternatives are there 

722
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:21,200
and why have we chosen for this 
one? 

723
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,400
I do sometimes, this is built 
forces by. 

724
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:26,200
There's an open-source 
technology that almost does what

725
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:27,900
we want. 
But of course, it will not work 

726
00:36:27,900 --> 00:36:30,500
for our environment. 
So we have to build ourselves or

727
00:36:30,500 --> 00:36:33,800
there's an internal system. 
That, like I said, earlier, only

728
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,300
as Json. 
We need protobuf, so we can use 

729
00:36:36,300 --> 00:36:37,700
it. 
So there's some technical 

730
00:36:37,700 --> 00:36:42,000
reasons why you will discard one
alternative and choose for the 

731
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:43,900
other. 
But you have to be showing 

732
00:36:43,900 --> 00:36:47,200
conviction and you can only do 
this if you've actually looked 

733
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,700
at the Alternatives and you 
know, which one to choose. 

734
00:36:50,300 --> 00:36:53,400
So make sure Sure, that you 
become an expert and then 

735
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,100
radiated expertise to others. 
That doesn't mean you have to 

736
00:36:57,100 --> 00:36:59,800
become arrogant. 
I know I really good, right? 

737
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:03,300
So we have to do this, but you 
translate your conviction to 

738
00:37:03,300 --> 00:37:06,700
others by giving the reasoning 
behind us and that takes us to 

739
00:37:06,700 --> 00:37:10,300
transparency. 
So transparency is about showing

740
00:37:10,300 --> 00:37:12,100
other people. 
What your decision making 

741
00:37:12,100 --> 00:37:17,800
Matrix, looks like as Engineers.
We tend to be uncertain in this,

742
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,200
right. 
It's not easy showing yourself 

743
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:22,800
to be the expert because Is home
and I don't know this other 

744
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:25,700
people have way smarter than me.
I want to make the document, 

745
00:37:25,700 --> 00:37:28,900
perfect before I share it. 
That's what a lot of Engineers 

746
00:37:28,900 --> 00:37:31,500
told me, like, when I said, I 
haven't you shared the document 

747
00:37:31,500 --> 00:37:33,000
yet. 
You're working on this for two 

748
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,900
three weeks now. 
Yeah, it isn't done yet. 

749
00:37:36,100 --> 00:37:38,700
Yeah, this is not how we develop
software. 

750
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:40,500
We have an agile approach, 
right? 

751
00:37:40,500 --> 00:37:43,400
We have a running system and we 
incrementally make it better. 

752
00:37:43,700 --> 00:37:46,700
So, treat your documents in the 
same way, make your documents 

753
00:37:46,700 --> 00:37:51,200
transparent and invite criticism
as soon as you can. 

754
00:37:51,700 --> 00:37:54,600
So ask other people to give 
their feedback on one of the 

755
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:58,300
decisions that you have there. 
If it's like on a data storage 

756
00:37:58,300 --> 00:38:01,500
topic, you reach out to an 
individual who has the expertise

757
00:38:01,500 --> 00:38:03,100
on that. 
And you say, like, am I making 

758
00:38:03,100 --> 00:38:05,900
the right decision here? 
If it's about observability 

759
00:38:05,900 --> 00:38:09,700
aspects, you add an SRE in say, 
like, I'm planning to use this, 

760
00:38:09,700 --> 00:38:11,900
in this technology to get a 
daily dashboard. 

761
00:38:11,900 --> 00:38:15,100
Will that work? 
So you very quickly, open up 

762
00:38:15,100 --> 00:38:19,500
your analysis and you're 
discovering things to others. 

763
00:38:19,700 --> 00:38:21,300
You will discover that 
collaboration. 

764
00:38:21,500 --> 00:38:25,100
There becomes much more 
effective and this comes back to

765
00:38:25,100 --> 00:38:28,000
Performance and promo again, 
like one of the things that we 

766
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:31,600
do in promo projects is we look 
at all your dips, of course, but

767
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,800
especially as a senior engineer,
you're expected to have written 

768
00:38:34,900 --> 00:38:38,400
some design Doc's, that describe
your contribution. 

769
00:38:38,700 --> 00:38:41,300
How do you get started with this
as a junior engineer? 

770
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:44,900
What we see often is that 
Engineers think that to get 

771
00:38:44,900 --> 00:38:48,400
promoted, you have to write the 
design doc, like it has to be 

772
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:50,600
your work, but that's not how it
works. 

773
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:52,600
Really. 
What the committee is looking 

774
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,600
for, is your ability to 
communicate, your ability to 

775
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:59,600
collaborate to engage other 
people in the decision making 

776
00:38:59,900 --> 00:39:04,200
and to find mistakes quickly. 
Because if you find mistakes 

777
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:07,000
late, they're extremely 
expensive to fix. 

778
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,900
We notice in software, give a 
bug comes in from a customer. 

779
00:39:09,900 --> 00:39:12,300
This is really expensive. 
So, this is why we do testing, 

780
00:39:12,300 --> 00:39:14,300
right? 
We don't do this enough with 

781
00:39:14,300 --> 00:39:16,200
documents. 
So, if you write a design 

782
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:20,400
document, aim for collaboration 
work with other people, don't 

783
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,500
just put your own name. 
On top, put five people on top 

784
00:39:23,700 --> 00:39:26,900
because if you now have four, 
other people writing this doc, 

785
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:29,900
you only have to spend 20% of it
and then you can spend the other

786
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,500
80% on for more docks. 
And now, you got the promo time 

787
00:39:33,500 --> 00:39:36,100
and suddenly, you have five 
documents that your name is on 

788
00:39:36,100 --> 00:39:39,400
top. 
So this allows you to not just 

789
00:39:39,500 --> 00:39:42,300
learn how other people work, you
grow your network. 

790
00:39:42,500 --> 00:39:46,400
It is actually an indicator of 
your being more senior and 

791
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:48,200
you're not fighting without an 
engineer's. 

792
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:51,300
You're not trying to win this 
game of getting. 

793
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:54,000
Mission, but you aim for making 
the system better. 

794
00:39:54,300 --> 00:39:56,800
So consistency is then the 
fourth area. 

795
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,400
So we talked about facts 
conviction. 

796
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,900
Transparency consistency is all 
about keeping your message, 

797
00:40:02,900 --> 00:40:04,900
simple. 
Because if you make it simple, 

798
00:40:04,900 --> 00:40:07,200
then it's a lot easier to say 
it. 

799
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:08,300
Right? 
The second time. 

800
00:40:08,700 --> 00:40:11,600
This comes back in like we 
selling promo documents but also

801
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:16,000
in design documents in emails, 
even in chats, and then the 

802
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,100
fifth direction, if you want to 
be a successful Communicator, as

803
00:40:19,100 --> 00:40:24,100
an engineer is to show people. 
A positive direction, that's not

804
00:40:24,100 --> 00:40:28,700
easy, but we often focus on the 
problems as Engineers, write, 

805
00:40:28,900 --> 00:40:31,700
all the possible ways that this 
can go wrong. 

806
00:40:31,900 --> 00:40:35,100
If you look at somebody who is 
like a product manager, and they

807
00:40:35,100 --> 00:40:37,500
talked to customers. 
They have a much more positive 

808
00:40:37,500 --> 00:40:40,100
outlook on life. 
They know how to articulate 

809
00:40:40,100 --> 00:40:42,500
goals into something. 
That is a better place. 

810
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:46,000
So as Engineers, we should also 
focus on that because people are

811
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,300
really inspired. 
If you tell them something 

812
00:40:48,300 --> 00:40:51,600
positive, if you just tell them 
the negative things, if You're 

813
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:55,100
in meetings and you're always 
explaining why that won't work 

814
00:40:55,300 --> 00:40:57,600
at some point. 
People start hating you, it's 

815
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:00,000
not because they hate you but 
they want to hear something 

816
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,900
nice, something positive. 
So if you focus on that first be

817
00:41:03,900 --> 00:41:07,300
optimistic, I've always been 
very optimistic in my career in 

818
00:41:07,300 --> 00:41:09,000
my life problems. 
Are there. 

819
00:41:09,300 --> 00:41:12,300
Like I always say a problem is 
an opportunity a problem for 

820
00:41:12,300 --> 00:41:14,000
one. 
It's an opportunity for another.

821
00:41:14,300 --> 00:41:17,500
If you look at the problems than
this is an opportunity for you 

822
00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:20,700
to show how your impact will 
actually turn this problem into 

823
00:41:20,700 --> 00:41:23,300
something positive. 
This, so keep that mind set in 

824
00:41:23,300 --> 00:41:25,400
place. 
So facts, conviction, 

825
00:41:25,700 --> 00:41:30,400
transparency, consistency, and a
positive outlook on life will 

826
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:32,800
make Engineers much better. 
Communicators. 

827
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:36,700
Thanks for sharing this sort of 
framework to think of how you 

828
00:41:36,700 --> 00:41:39,000
can make yourself becoming more 
impactful. 

829
00:41:39,300 --> 00:41:42,000
So I think for all Engineers out
there, think do make sure that 

830
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,700
you understand these tips. 
So, speaking of sharing about 

831
00:41:45,700 --> 00:41:48,800
our impact, I think, just what 
you mentioned as you described 

832
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,800
earlier, is that some Engineers 
think that, oh my Impact. 

833
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:54,000
My contribution. 
I think it's little than the 

834
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,000
others. 
Some other people are smarter. 

835
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:59,400
They did all this great stuff. 
While I just did this small 

836
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:00,900
module, small product or 
whatever. 

837
00:42:00,900 --> 00:42:04,300
That is, which brings back to 
the topic of impostor syndrome 

838
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,600
and you wrote a very good blog 
post about it, which I read a 

839
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,300
few weeks back. 
So maybe, can you share a little

840
00:42:10,300 --> 00:42:12,600
bit about what is imposter 
syndrome? 

841
00:42:12,900 --> 00:42:16,600
Why a lot of Engineers actually 
suffer from this just to start 

842
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:19,800
off with, I will admit that. 
I'm an imposter. 

843
00:42:20,300 --> 00:42:22,800
What that means. 
If you look up the definition on

844
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:26,100
Wikipedia, I'll read it up here.
Imposter syndrome is a 

845
00:42:26,107 --> 00:42:29,500
psychological pattern in which 
an individual has doubts about 

846
00:42:29,500 --> 00:42:33,200
their own accomplishments. 
So this means that you have a 

847
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:37,400
persistent internalised fear of 
being exposed as a fraud as we 

848
00:42:37,408 --> 00:42:40,100
call it. 
I had that when I was hired at 

849
00:42:40,100 --> 00:42:42,500
Google, of course, I spend a lot
of time interviewing and 

850
00:42:42,500 --> 00:42:46,100
whatever and guys spend months 
in exercising, the interviews. 

851
00:42:46,300 --> 00:42:48,800
When I got hired, I was still 
like, I got the offer. 

852
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,200
I was like, wow, it's like you 
win the Lottery or something and

853
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,300
then you go to introduction and 
you meet all these other people.

854
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:59,600
One of them is an Olympic 
Athlete running marathons for 

855
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,300
Sweden, and the other person has
done three companies already. 

856
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,800
And you start seeing all the 
other individuals who are much 

857
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:10,100
more smarter than you are. 
They have achieved so much more.

858
00:43:10,300 --> 00:43:13,800
It just waiting for them to find
out that you're just fake and 

859
00:43:13,900 --> 00:43:16,200
you're going to get fired. 
So this is natural. 

860
00:43:16,500 --> 00:43:18,600
I think this happens at every 
level. 

861
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,000
It's not just Junior Engineers 
or This will Engineers the think

862
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:27,200
that successful Engineers don't 
have this kind of feeling, they 

863
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:30,700
also have it all your Heroes 
have their own doubts. 

864
00:43:30,700 --> 00:43:35,100
Everybody is human often what 
people with impostor Syndrome 

865
00:43:35,100 --> 00:43:38,300
have is they attribute their 
success to luck? 

866
00:43:38,700 --> 00:43:41,200
Like I said, I was hired at 
Google and I was like winning 

867
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:43,300
the lottery. 
I was lucky must have been 

868
00:43:43,300 --> 00:43:45,500
lucky. 
Now, of course, you have to have

869
00:43:45,500 --> 00:43:46,800
luck. 
You have to be in the right 

870
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,400
place in the right time. 
You have to have met this one 

871
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,000
person that gives you the lead 
to another Opportunity. 

872
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:55,200
But a lot of that is actually 
something you can control. 

873
00:43:55,500 --> 00:43:59,100
You should avoid feeling found 
out soon and something like 

874
00:43:59,100 --> 00:44:01,000
this. 
There's an interesting anecdote 

875
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:03,200
is that they did research at 
Google. 

876
00:44:03,300 --> 00:44:06,500
They asked NPS scores. 
So in the last three months, how

877
00:44:06,500 --> 00:44:08,900
did you like your manager like 
125? 

878
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:10,600
How did you like the work you're
doing it? 

879
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:13,400
And at some point, they asked in
the last six months that you 

880
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:17,300
feel like you were on the fear 
of being fired by Google, we're 

881
00:44:17,300 --> 00:44:19,400
talking about engineers at 
Google. 

882
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:21,200
These are the top of the crop, 
right? 

883
00:44:21,500 --> 00:44:25,000
Google gets like 2 million 
resumes a year and the funnel is

884
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:29,600
so narrow that at the end you 
have the best of the best 70% of

885
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:33,600
people that filled in the survey
were afraid of getting fired and

886
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,600
less six months. 
So this means that 70% of 

887
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,600
extremely successful engineers 
at Google have impostor 

888
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:41,500
syndrome. 
So if they have imposter 

889
00:44:41,500 --> 00:44:43,200
syndrome, everybody can have it,
right? 

890
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,300
We are all imposters and that's 
normal. 

891
00:44:46,300 --> 00:44:49,000
This is okay. 
This is a great cartoon or 

892
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,100
diagram that I can share about 
this. 

893
00:44:51,300 --> 00:44:53,700
As a podcast, I can explain what
it looks like. 

894
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:55,900
It's Erin sign. 
So, looking to notes. 

895
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,300
It has a diagram with three 
areas, pie chart, with three 

896
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:01,000
areas. 
And the first one says, people 

897
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,800
who get impostor syndrome. 
So it's about a third of the 

898
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:05,600
dining room. 
And then there's the second 

899
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:07,800
area. 
Other people who get imposter 

900
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:10,300
syndrome. 
And then the third area is, 

901
00:45:10,300 --> 00:45:13,400
literally everyone else who also
gets imposter seen. 

902
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:17,000
This is a very funny way of 
showing that it's normal. 

903
00:45:17,300 --> 00:45:19,900
Everybody gets it. 
Thanks for sharing all these 

904
00:45:19,900 --> 00:45:22,700
thought process. 
Why we Feel this like a big 

905
00:45:22,700 --> 00:45:25,300
challenge for us, especially as 
Engineers for me. 

906
00:45:25,300 --> 00:45:28,700
I'm also imposters, especially I
went to Google that time as 

907
00:45:28,700 --> 00:45:30,100
well. 
I was also feeling the same 

908
00:45:30,100 --> 00:45:31,100
thing. 
Okay, really? 

909
00:45:31,100 --> 00:45:33,400
They want to hire me. 
And after you join, you see all 

910
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,300
these smart people around you. 
Then it will say, okay, really? 

911
00:45:36,300 --> 00:45:38,500
I am I qualified enough to be at
this place. 

912
00:45:38,700 --> 00:45:41,300
So all these things, I think 
what you mentioned is ringing 

913
00:45:41,300 --> 00:45:44,100
true to all people, right? 
We all suffer at one point in 

914
00:45:44,100 --> 00:45:46,500
time that we think we are not 
enough and especially in 

915
00:45:46,500 --> 00:45:48,500
technology. 
That's so many Technologies out 

916
00:45:48,500 --> 00:45:50,300
there. 
You wouldn't be possible to 

917
00:45:50,300 --> 00:45:52,800
understand everything. 
Oh, so there will be areas and 

918
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:54,800
parts where you are not expert 
in something. 

919
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:56,700
And that's probably sometimes we
feel that. 

920
00:45:56,700 --> 00:45:58,300
Oh, we are not an expert of 
everything. 

921
00:45:58,300 --> 00:46:01,400
So we suffer from this. 
So what can we do actually about

922
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,000
this feeling? 
How can we overcome this? 

923
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,500
Because it's such a challenge 
for many people, especially 

924
00:46:06,500 --> 00:46:08,800
intact. 
All right, so we talked about, 

925
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,800
you're not the only one we 
mentioned the 70% of googlers, 

926
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:13,200
you Henry myself. 
Chris. 

927
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:15,000
We acknowledge that were 
Impostors. 

928
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:18,000
So you're not alone. 
We all have this at some point 

929
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,500
in our lives, every engineer 
gets this. 

930
00:46:20,500 --> 00:46:24,800
So This already helps the second
way of dealing with it is fake 

931
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,000
it until you make it. 
That's a nice phrase, but it 

932
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:29,500
actually takes care of imposter 
syndrome. 

933
00:46:29,500 --> 00:46:32,400
So if you're uncertain, what 
you're doing, just do it for a 

934
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,500
while and you will learn things,
you will get better at it. 

935
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,700
You will just keep doing it and 
at some point, you're there, 

936
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:40,800
right? 
So you reached that point that 

937
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,100
you thought you would never 
reach because you've going to 

938
00:46:43,100 --> 00:46:46,200
find out, you should just view 
everything in life. 

939
00:46:46,300 --> 00:46:49,000
We're just on a journey. 
This is a big stage. 

940
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:53,800
We all play our roles and You 
constantly switch between roles 

941
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,400
at the same time, or in 
different phases of your life. 

942
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:58,900
And at every point in time. 
You just playing a role. 

943
00:46:58,900 --> 00:47:02,400
Sometimes you're a parent. 
Sometimes you're an employee at 

944
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:04,300
a company. 
Sometimes, you're in the store, 

945
00:47:04,300 --> 00:47:07,000
trying to get a discount, and 
these are all different roles 

946
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,400
that you play each one. 
You get better at some, you 

947
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,900
don't spend time in. 
I mentioned earlier that our 

948
00:47:13,900 --> 00:47:17,400
goal in life, should be, to be 
happy to get the best out of 

949
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:20,800
ourselves that we can get. 
It's not about winning. 

950
00:47:21,300 --> 00:47:24,200
Not about achieving the same 
thing that other person, that is

951
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:27,300
much smarter than you actually 
gets and you will never get 

952
00:47:27,300 --> 00:47:29,500
there. 
This is detrimental to our. 

953
00:47:29,500 --> 00:47:32,600
You have to think about it. 
That's the famous Dutch football

954
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:36,500
player and Coach Yeo won cuff. 
He is well known for his 

955
00:47:36,500 --> 00:47:39,600
down-to-earth quotes when he 
talks about the game of 

956
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:43,100
football, but there's one that I
really love, so he said like to 

957
00:47:43,100 --> 00:47:45,500
be happy, do things that make 
you happy. 

958
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:48,100
This is what we put on a tile in
the Nautilus. 

959
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,000
You have to understand what 
makes you happy if there. 

960
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,700
Are things that do not make you 
happy, change your environment, 

961
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:57,900
just be fine. 
Be thankful for the luck that 

962
00:47:57,900 --> 00:48:01,100
falls upon you. 
We had the luck of being going 

963
00:48:01,100 --> 00:48:05,000
through the system, be happy. 
I remember like walking around 

964
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:08,100
during my orientation in the 
building, which I spent so much 

965
00:48:08,100 --> 00:48:09,900
time getting there. 
I was. 

966
00:48:09,900 --> 00:48:13,600
So happy just walking around 
there and enjoying and talking 

967
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:17,300
to other people and learning 
from these individuals that have

968
00:48:17,300 --> 00:48:20,800
achieved so much more than I 
thought, learning from how they 

969
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,100
got there. 
So plan to become an Olympic 

970
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,200
athletes and what they had to 
sacrifice for this and now they 

971
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,300
dealt with that. 
There's a lot of things to be 

972
00:48:28,300 --> 00:48:31,200
learned, and if you turn it 
around, then all of a sudden, 

973
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,800
you become somebody who grows in
this environment, I think also 

974
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:39,000
very closely related to imposter
syndrome is being stressed out, 

975
00:48:39,100 --> 00:48:43,400
imposter syndrome can lead us to
become inferior and therefore, 

976
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,800
creates stress. 
Now, I always say, happy 

977
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:48,900
Engineers are productive 
engineer, but the corollary is 

978
00:48:48,900 --> 00:48:53,400
that unhappy ones are Rest, so, 
focus on the things that make 

979
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,300
you happy, we all want to solve 
technical problems. 

980
00:48:56,300 --> 00:48:59,400
We have meaningless meetings. 
So can you find a way to get out

981
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,500
of these meetings or make them 
more meaningful? 

982
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:05,400
There's two approaches to this. 
Make sure that every meeting has

983
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:10,000
a calendar and agenda. 
Somebody takes notes criticized 

984
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:12,800
while you're there, it is 
repeating meeting and it's, 

985
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:16,200
especially some so take control 
of your environment. 

986
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:19,300
If you're stressed out. 
It usually means that you feel 

987
00:49:19,300 --> 00:49:21,800
out of control. 
You don't have to Economy to 

988
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:25,700
make decisions that eventually 
will work down on you and you 

989
00:49:25,700 --> 00:49:28,300
become unhappy. 
You mentioned overwhelming 

990
00:49:28,300 --> 00:49:31,600
complexity in the beginning. 
I think that's a great Point. 

991
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:34,200
All of this stress doesn't have 
to be internalized, right? 

992
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,200
Doesn't have to come from. 
You imposter syndrome, might be 

993
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:41,400
a source of internal stress like
feeling incapable of doing the 

994
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:43,900
same thing that others do. 
But there are a lot of things 

995
00:49:43,900 --> 00:49:47,000
that make a stress from the 
outside just to complexity of 

996
00:49:47,100 --> 00:49:50,300
today's industry. 
Nobody can know all the tools 

997
00:49:50,300 --> 00:49:52,600
out there. 
But if you think that you 

998
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:57,100
should, then it overwhelms, you,
I did a count at some point, a 

999
00:49:57,100 --> 00:50:01,400
tuber to see how many tools did 
we have to develop software to 

1000
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:05,900
go the entire workflow from the 
beginning, from idealization to 

1001
00:50:05,900 --> 00:50:09,600
capturing requirements, to 
writing a design, doc to writing

1002
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:12,800
the code and deploying and 
monitoring and Incident 

1003
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,400
Management, all of this, and I 
gave up when I reached 100. 

1004
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,000
So there were, at least 100 
tools that I had to learn to be 

1005
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,400
effective in an Workflow and 
every tool is different. 

1006
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:27,400
So this is enormous impact on 
your brain, like on your 

1007
00:50:27,500 --> 00:50:31,700
ability, to take pause and 
reflect on this and learn and 

1008
00:50:31,700 --> 00:50:34,400
remove the stress. 
So be careful to not. 

1009
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:38,100
Let the external complexity of 
the system overwhelm you too 

1010
00:50:38,100 --> 00:50:40,400
much. 
So protect yourself from that 

1011
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:44,300
kind of stress because 
repositories now have billions 

1012
00:50:44,300 --> 00:50:46,400
of lines of code. 
Like, how do you start? 

1013
00:50:46,700 --> 00:50:50,800
I remember being in college and 
the way I learned programming 

1014
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:55,600
was By reading the source to 
Unix the Unix operating system 

1015
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,200
back to front like everything in
the operating system today. 

1016
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,800
That is almost impossible. 
You're on a team and Google and 

1017
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:05,200
you say, like, I'm going to read
all the source code that Google 

1018
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,100
is this like impossible. 
So how do you get started? 

1019
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:09,800
So we need better tools for 
that? 

1020
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:11,600
The industry is always 
innovating. 

1021
00:51:11,900 --> 00:51:16,400
Can't make an impact on less. 
You introduce a new solution. 

1022
00:51:16,700 --> 00:51:19,800
What happens to all the other 
old Solutions, somebody still 

1023
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,700
needs to maintain them? 
Don't try to keep up all the 

1024
00:51:22,700 --> 00:51:26,700
time, reaching a state of flow, 
is also very difficult for 

1025
00:51:26,700 --> 00:51:28,700
engineers. 
Like, I mentioned the 

1026
00:51:28,700 --> 00:51:31,800
interruptions that you get the 
context switches. 

1027
00:51:32,100 --> 00:51:35,800
So this is up to you, to make 
sure that you actually have that

1028
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,800
ability to do deep work control 
over your own calendar. 

1029
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:44,900
Some companies generate days off
like uber we have Thursday, no 

1030
00:51:44,900 --> 00:51:46,800
meeting day. 
So that's nice. 

1031
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,400
So then, you know, at least a 
Thursday, I can do work. 

1032
00:51:49,700 --> 00:51:53,100
There are still some especially 
if you become a senior engineer,

1033
00:51:53,100 --> 00:51:55,800
you get still pulled into really
important meetings. 

1034
00:51:55,800 --> 00:52:00,200
That you have to come to so be 
in control of your own agenda. 

1035
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:03,500
Your own Calendar, create blocks
in their figure out. 

1036
00:52:03,500 --> 00:52:07,000
What's the time when you're most
happy to do deep work. 

1037
00:52:07,300 --> 00:52:09,800
Like I mentioned that tool that 
we had at Google Tempo. 

1038
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:13,000
There are commercial tools. 
This tool called rescue time. 

1039
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:15,400
I have no affiliation with them,
but it tracks all you do. 

1040
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,400
So you have to be comfortable, 
sharing, all that private data. 

1041
00:52:18,500 --> 00:52:23,100
It gives you a deep insight into
how you spend your That's useful

1042
00:52:23,100 --> 00:52:26,600
information for discovering. 
When do I do deep work? 

1043
00:52:26,700 --> 00:52:29,700
Is it in the morning? 
Is that the best time or the 

1044
00:52:29,700 --> 00:52:32,400
afternoon us being remote more 
and more? 

1045
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:36,300
Now our interactions with other 
people also become time zone 

1046
00:52:36,300 --> 00:52:40,200
independent, but sort of 
creeping into this complexity 

1047
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:43,800
thing and causing stress. 
That I know if you work in 

1048
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:47,800
Europe is unavoidable, having 
meetings in the evening, to talk

1049
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:51,000
to the people and the u.s. 
You want to get ahead in life. 

1050
00:52:51,100 --> 00:52:52,400
Life. 
You want to make a career. 

1051
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:54,900
You have to talk to these people
and you can only do that when 

1052
00:52:54,900 --> 00:52:56,600
they're awake. 
They're not going to wake up at 

1053
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:57,500
5:00 a.m. 
In the morning. 

1054
00:52:57,500 --> 00:53:00,700
They expect you to have a 
meeting at 10:00 p.m. 

1055
00:53:00,700 --> 00:53:03,500
Or 11 p.m. 
So be careful how you get sucked

1056
00:53:03,500 --> 00:53:07,600
into that kind of communication 
models where this is going to 

1057
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:10,500
cause stress. 
So be in control to timeboxing 

1058
00:53:10,500 --> 00:53:13,300
of the things that caused your 
stress for that. 

1059
00:53:13,300 --> 00:53:16,600
You have to course, first 
develop some emotional skills, 

1060
00:53:16,700 --> 00:53:18,700
like self-awareness. 
You have to understand. 

1061
00:53:18,700 --> 00:53:22,400
This is making me unhappy in. 
This is not Atul asking you are 

1062
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,200
you right now happy. 
It's actually a trigger for you 

1063
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,200
to be more self-aware by which 
you need a tool for this. 

1064
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,700
You can tell if you're happy or 
not, if you're grumpy, but maybe

1065
00:53:31,700 --> 00:53:33,400
you don't have the processor 
running yet. 

1066
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,500
So you need to load a 
programming. 

1067
00:53:35,500 --> 00:53:38,800
The background that monitors 
yourself from time to time. 

1068
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:42,500
Thanks for sharing all these, as
I listen to you explaining all 

1069
00:53:42,500 --> 00:53:44,000
this. 
I think I could relate to some 

1070
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:45,500
of the experience that you 
mentioned. 

1071
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:49,100
So we are all in this industry, 
but we are not alone as well. 

1072
00:53:49,300 --> 00:53:51,000
So increasing our 
self-awareness. 

1073
00:53:51,100 --> 00:53:54,500
Has of this issue knowing how or
what makes us happy. 

1074
00:53:54,500 --> 00:53:57,200
And I like the quote from Johan 
Cruyff to be happy, you have to 

1075
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:00,000
do, what makes you happy. 
And this is such a fascinating 

1076
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:02,400
conversation. 
I feel that we could go on and 

1077
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:04,400
on and on. 
But due to time, probably is not

1078
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:06,000
possible. 
But for people who are 

1079
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:09,100
interested to learn more about 
all these that you explain where

1080
00:54:09,100 --> 00:54:12,100
can they find it? 
So I have a website, which is my

1081
00:54:12,100 --> 00:54:15,600
name, Chris laughs right.com., 
There's a link to my book, which

1082
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,200
I recommend you read because 
there's a lot of thoughts that I

1083
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:20,900
developed over time and that we 
just talked about right now. 

1084
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:24,200
Should in that, there's also a 
link to my other source of 

1085
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:26,200
information that the top has 
biography. 

1086
00:54:26,500 --> 00:54:28,500
And there you can find the 
blocks that I've written like 

1087
00:54:28,500 --> 00:54:30,300
the one you just mentioned on 
LinkedIn. 

1088
00:54:30,300 --> 00:54:32,200
For instance. 
You can find it there. 

1089
00:54:32,500 --> 00:54:35,200
So, that is, if you want to 
learn from me, we haven't talked

1090
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:38,800
about burnout yet, but that's a 
phase where if you cannot escape

1091
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:42,700
the stress and it's like 
consistently causing you to deal

1092
00:54:42,700 --> 00:54:45,400
with that. 
You may come into a situation, 

1093
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:48,100
what we call a burnout. 
So that is, chronic stress and 

1094
00:54:48,100 --> 00:54:50,800
burnout signal. 
So you might discover for 

1095
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:52,600
yourself. 
Now that you're overly cynical 

1096
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:55,700
at work that you're less 
inspired to contribute. 

1097
00:54:55,900 --> 00:54:58,500
Maybe you missing your old 
passion, you wake up in the 

1098
00:54:58,508 --> 00:54:59,300
morning. 
You say? 

1099
00:54:59,300 --> 00:55:01,300
Oh man, I got to get back to 
work. 

1100
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:04,800
I luckily never had that. 
Like for me work is like my 

1101
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:07,500
hobby and I get paid for it. 
I'm very lucky. 

1102
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:10,300
Maybe you have frequent 
headaches or stomachaches. 

1103
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:13,800
You think that your overall work
performance is going down or 

1104
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,600
lacking. 
You find it harder to produce 

1105
00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:18,500
creative things. 
It's just harder to come up with

1106
00:55:18,500 --> 00:55:20,900
good ideas to solve these box, 
so I know. 

1107
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:22,600
Something that took like 
minutes. 

1108
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:26,100
Now, takes you an hour. 
All these things are red flags 

1109
00:55:26,100 --> 00:55:29,400
for you. 
Being on the spectrum of having 

1110
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:32,100
a burnout. 
If you find yourself having that

1111
00:55:32,100 --> 00:55:37,100
then act immediately don't wait 
talk to other people that can 

1112
00:55:37,100 --> 00:55:42,400
help you talk to a professional.
Your company often has a way to 

1113
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:45,800
talk to other people and deal 
with this speak. 

1114
00:55:46,100 --> 00:55:49,000
Get a mentor inside your company
or external. 

1115
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:53,000
So if all of this way, You up 
and saying, yeah, I recognize a 

1116
00:55:53,008 --> 00:55:55,500
lot of things in here and all 
this stress. 

1117
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:57,900
Go talk to somebody else. 
That's very important. 

1118
00:55:57,900 --> 00:56:00,800
So don't just read my book, but 
reach out to other people. 

1119
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,800
Just talking to other people is 
actually stress-reducing as 

1120
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:05,300
well. 
If you want to do that, I 

1121
00:56:05,300 --> 00:56:07,600
recommend you take a walk with 
the other person. 

1122
00:56:07,900 --> 00:56:10,400
I've seen that being very 
successful at some companies. 

1123
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,200
We're about, and I have a 
meeting where you sit down, you 

1124
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:16,500
take a walk because that 
inspires your frontal, lobe to 

1125
00:56:16,500 --> 00:56:20,500
control your emotions and lower 
your stress. 

1126
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:24,700
So, all these things help, so, 
thanks for covering the burnout.

1127
00:56:24,700 --> 00:56:27,900
So I think this is also another 
topic for a lot of Engineers. 

1128
00:56:27,900 --> 00:56:30,500
They feel burn are just turning 
cold out of code. 

1129
00:56:30,500 --> 00:56:32,800
Probably sometimes not getting 
the recognition that they think 

1130
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:34,900
they should have. 
So, I think this is also one 

1131
00:56:34,900 --> 00:56:36,400
thing for all of us to think 
about. 

1132
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:38,300
So, thanks for sharing all the 
resources. 

1133
00:56:38,300 --> 00:56:39,900
I'll make sure to put it in the 
show notes. 

1134
00:56:39,900 --> 00:56:43,200
So Chris one last question from 
me, which is like a custom in 

1135
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:45,900
this show, which is for the 
guest to actually share their 

1136
00:56:45,900 --> 00:56:48,000
three, technical leadership 
wisdom. 

1137
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,900
So would you be able to share 
your so that we all can learn? 

1138
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:54,400
From you definitely. 
I think number one will not 

1139
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:57,200
surprise you and the audience is
a productive. 

1140
00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:00,700
Engineer is a happy engineer. 
If you want to become productive

1141
00:57:00,900 --> 00:57:04,200
become happy, this is not a 
causal relationship, like not 

1142
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:06,800
every happy engineer is a 
productive one, but it is 

1143
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,300
definitely a requirement. 
So a productive, Engineers, 

1144
00:57:09,300 --> 00:57:10,700
happy engineer. 
That's number one. 

1145
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:14,200
Number two is Engineers, should 
communicate with facts and 

1146
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:16,700
conviction. 
I gave 25 things like facts from

1147
00:57:16,700 --> 00:57:18,700
fiction. 
I gave three more, but if you 

1148
00:57:18,700 --> 00:57:22,400
just figure out the first two, 
if you But those to make all 

1149
00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:25,400
your communication based on 
percentages or numbers or 

1150
00:57:25,500 --> 00:57:28,200
Alternatives that you evaluate 
it, and you're making the right 

1151
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:31,900
decision. 
So use facts and Biddy expert. 

1152
00:57:32,100 --> 00:57:34,500
And then the third one is we 
talked about stress. 

1153
00:57:34,500 --> 00:57:36,500
We talked about impostor 
syndrome. 

1154
00:57:36,900 --> 00:57:38,800
So what is this successful 
engineer? 

1155
00:57:39,100 --> 00:57:41,600
So, that's number three. 
Success is about achieving the 

1156
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:43,800
best we can be. 
It's not about winning. 

1157
00:57:44,100 --> 00:57:46,700
So those three are productive, 
engineer, happy engineer 

1158
00:57:46,700 --> 00:57:49,600
engineer, should communicate 
with facts and conviction and 

1159
00:57:49,600 --> 00:57:52,900
success is about achieving the 
Best we can be not about winning

1160
00:57:53,100 --> 00:57:55,900
right now. 
I sound really wise and just 

1161
00:57:55,900 --> 00:57:58,200
found these things on the 
internet, but, no, I think. 

1162
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:00,200
Number one. 
I actually came up with, so I 

1163
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,300
really care about that one. 
Really thankful for sharing all 

1164
00:58:03,300 --> 00:58:05,500
these. 
I like, the last one success is 

1165
00:58:05,500 --> 00:58:08,100
about achieving the best. 
We all can be, it's not about 

1166
00:58:08,100 --> 00:58:11,000
winning trophy or winning the 
promo winning something. 

1167
00:58:11,100 --> 00:58:13,000
So, thanks for reminding that 
for us. 

1168
00:58:13,300 --> 00:58:15,500
So Chris has been a very 
wonderful conversation. 

1169
00:58:15,700 --> 00:58:17,800
I'm really glad that we have 
this conversation. 

1170
00:58:18,100 --> 00:58:20,900
So thanks again for being on the
show really, really happy, too. 

1171
00:58:21,100 --> 00:58:24,100
Have you sharing all this wisdom
for all of us actually to learn 

1172
00:58:24,100 --> 00:58:25,800
from. 
So make the engineers become 

1173
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:28,700
more productive and hence also 
happy at the same time. 

1174
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:31,000
Thank you, Henry. 
It was a pleasure. 

1175
00:58:33,700 --> 00:58:37,100
Thank you for listening to this 
episode and for staying right 

1176
00:58:37,100 --> 00:58:40,000
till the end. 
If you highly enjoyed, please 

1177
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:42,700
share it with your friends and 
colleagues who you think would 

1178
00:58:42,700 --> 00:58:45,500
also benefit from listening to 
this episode. 

1179
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:48,700
And if you're new to the 
podcast, make sure to subscribe 

1180
00:58:48,700 --> 00:58:51,600
and leave me your valuable 
review and feedback. 

1181
00:58:51,700 --> 00:58:55,400
It really, really helps me a lot
in order to grow these podcasts 

1182
00:58:55,400 --> 00:58:58,000
better. 
You can also find the full show 

1183
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:01,500
notes of this conversation on 
the episode page at technology. 

1184
00:59:01,500 --> 00:59:04,900
No, the death website. 
Including the full transcript 

1185
00:59:04,900 --> 00:59:08,500
interesting quotes, and links to
the resources and mentions from 

1186
00:59:08,500 --> 00:59:11,300
the conversation. 
And lastly make sure to 

1187
00:59:11,300 --> 00:59:13,800
subscribe to the show's mailing 
list on technology. 

1188
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:17,300
No, the deaf to get notified for
any future episodes. 

1189
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:20,300
Stay tuned for the next 
technique Journal episode. 

1190
00:59:20,300 --> 00:59:22,000
And until then. 
Goodbye.

