WEBVTT - Camille Fournier on Building Tech at Two Sigma 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.960 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.639 I'm Joe Wisn't Thal and I'm Tracy all Away. So, Tracy, 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.960 you know, we've had a number of episodes, um, not 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.079 that many, but certainly a handful of them. One of 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:30.840 our themes is like quantitative finance quant stuff. We always 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:32.840 sort of talk about it from a sort of very 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:39.080 big theoretical level, like what's happening with different factors, alpha decay, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.760 stuff like that always sort of like tends to be 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:46.880 at the sort of big picture abstraction level. I would say, yeah, 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:48.720 I think that's right. We talk a lot about the 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:54.240 future of quantitative finance. What's most important, I guess when 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.520 it comes to running a successful quant strategy, like whether 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.200 it's the actual formula or program that you're using, or 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.759 whether it's something like the data set that you're using. 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.080 We've discussed all of those. Yeah, absolutely, And you know, 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.760 so we talked about theoretically, we talked about it academically, 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.800 but one thing that we haven't really discussed is you know, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.840 when you like think about quantitative finance, you think about 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.039 lots of really smart people, mathematicians, people using computers to 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.960 find data, to analyze huge amounts of data. We've never 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.160 really liked talked about it from the bottoms up, like 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:36.759 the actual process of using computers, using technology to uh 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.360 to perform all these calculations and too in theory um 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.520 beat the market. Yeah, I think that's right. And I'm 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.000 going to go ahead and admit that I don't know 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.720 that much about engineering in the financial industry. We can 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.080 talk a lot about what gives a competitive edge when 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:57.440 it comes to quant strategies, but a competitive edge when 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.400 it comes to engineering when it comes to in stalling 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:04.520 particular products or systems. I really have no idea what 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:09.160 that looks like nowadays. No, I literally have have no idea. 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.040 But it's kind of, you know, it's this huge whole 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.640 component of it, and every financial firm, whether it's a 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:18.480 major bank, whether it's a fund, want to advertise their 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.880 tech stack, their tech advantage, uh so to speak. But 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.720 I really I don't really know much about the actual 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.320 process of like building that tech and how you build 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:34.040 a competitive edge from that tech. And Yeah, it's like 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.600 it's a whole sort of facet of this that I 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.000 don't think we've I don't think most people know very 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.400 much about. Yeah, and I'm also interested in knowing whether 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.560 the culture of being an engineer at a financial company 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.120 is different to the culture of being say a trader 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.120 or a banker at a financial company. And I'm definitely 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.120 interested in knowing whether or not the culture of being 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.160 an engineer at a financial company is different to being 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:05.200 an engineer at say Google or Apple or something like that. Right, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.320 I'm extremely curious about this as well, because again, it's 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.040 like one of these things where in theory more and 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.280 more financial institutions would like to be competitive for talent 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.360 against the likes of Google and Facebook and other startups 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.560 and so on. But it raises the question of like, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.120 how similar differences and what how the too, how the 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.360 to compare? Yeah, absolutely, this is going to be a 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.160 fun episode, I can tell. Yeah. I'm super excited about 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:33.520 this one. This is a conversation I've wanted to have 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.560 for a long time. Today, our guest is Camille Fourgnier. 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.960 She is the managing director or a managing director head 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.560 of platform engineering at two Sigma, which is a big 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.320 financial services company. It has a hedge fund and also 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:53.320 does VC stuff. Veryous sort of well known famous firm 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.120 in the space. Camille was previously the CTO at rent, 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.920 the runway, the popular fat and I don't know how 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:02.800 you describe it, but I guess you like people rent 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.040 dresses onto temporary basis or rent clothes on temporary basis. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.400 And prior to that, Camille was at Goldman sach so 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.640 has seen all of this from both sides, the tech 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.440 hemisphere of all these services. So Camille, thank you very 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.080 much for joining us. Yeah, thank you for having me 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.520 excited to be here. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. So, UM, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.279 before we get going, why don't you sort of give 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.640 us the quick summary of your career. How did you 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:32.360 get to be? Uh, your path to being the head 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:37.200 of platform engineering at two Sigma. Sure, I have something 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.839 I have. I guess I have a fairly standard educational background. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.359 So I have a computer science degree from Carnegie Mellon. 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.200 For my undergraduate degree, I worked at Microsoft for a 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.679 hot second. UM went to graduate school at the University 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.720 of Wisconsin. Um decided I didn't want to get a PhD. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.440 I did want to live in New York City, and 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.800 so ended up getting a job at this company that 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.200 I had literally never heard of until I interviewed there, 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.440 called Goldman Sachs, which I'm sure will be very amusing 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.680 to your listeners. UH. You know, went to Goldman UH 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:11.839 and was there for about six and a half years. 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.720 And I worked in risk technology for a long time, 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.000 which was actually like really awesome area to work in, 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:22.040 building a lot of really big scaled systems to do uh, 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.640 you know, really massive risk analysis. UM. And then I 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.040 also worked in similar kind of technology group to the 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.560 one that I run today UM for a couple of years. UM. 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.400 And then around two thousand and eleven, I decided that, 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:37.720 you know, I wasn't quite ready to be settled down 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.440 and like making a career at a giant company like Goldman, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.719 and I wanted to try something new. And the startup 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.880 world was really, you know, getting to be very hot, 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.120 very popular, UM. Even in New York. There were lots 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.960 of interesting startups. And UM, I got approached by Rent 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.720 the Runway and I had also not heard Rent the 0:05:57.760 --> 0:05:59.840 Runway until I I interviewed there, But of course they 0:05:59.880 --> 0:06:02.880 were very small, small startup at the time. UM, and 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.960 I was just so blown away by the product idea. 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:08.640 It was one of those things where every time I 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:13.640 described the product to another woman, she immediately understood what 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.720 I was talking about when it comes to consumer facing startups, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.080 that's really such an important sign of a good idea 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.960 is just how fast your potential customer gets it. So 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.479 I was like, all right, like this company seems like 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.719 it has really shart business people. Right. The founders were 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.960 just incredibly smart, you know, Harvard NBA's um PhDs with 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.680 operations to a starch backgrounds on the data side. So 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.479 it was like they're really smart people in the in 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.960 the leadership team, and the technology was a complete mess um, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:46.680 And so I was like, great, I'm a great engineer 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:48.520 and I want to like, you know, become a leader. 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.960 So this is a great opportunity for me to you know, 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.520 join this company and the fixing the tech will be 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:56.560 easy and you know this is going to be a 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:00.000 slam dunk, and of course life never works out that way. Um. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.599 It was significantly more challenging to come in to a 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.560 startup that's sort of in the growth stage and uh, 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.920 you know, both do a lot of work to really 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.920 turn the technology around and make it really stable and 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.280 scalable and easy to add new stuff too. Because that's 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.120 really a lot of the challenge in a in a 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.640 startup is how fast can you iterate how fast can 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.040 you do new things? UM? And it's also just that 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.600 was a you know, a massively challenging learning experience to 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.600 learn how to become a manager and an executive and 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.080 a leader. But I did that. I did that for 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.760 four years. So I became the CTO UM. You know, 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:42.640 I was there for about four years, and it was 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:47.080 a really it was an amazing, amazing learning experience. You know. 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.200 After after four years, I sort of felt like I 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:51.880 had done what I came to do it. I had 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:57.840 come to learn a lot. I had come to establish 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.840 myself a little bit as as a leader in the 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.200 in the industry. Frankly, I did want to have more 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.440 of a public career than I was able to have 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.120 it Goldman. At the time, Golden was still very secretive. 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.880 They didn't really want you, you know, out there in 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.240 public talking about your work. And I like talking about 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.200 my work. I like sharing my ideas. You know. I 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.160 learned a lot about being a leader. I grew the team, 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.440 I stabilized the technology, UM. And then I decided that 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.360 all right, I wanted to you know, being at the 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:25.680 start ups exhausting. So I was like, all right, I'm 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:27.520 gonna take a break I'm gonna think about starting my 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.640 own company. I actually wrote a book about engineering management 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:32.960 in the year and a half that I was doing 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.320 various things. Was how I like to describe it. And 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.040 then I was like, all right, you know what I'm 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.320 this me starting a startup by myself is not working 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.200 out because I don't have any great ideas and you know, 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:47.160 maybe this is not the right thing for me to 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.000 be doing right now. So I was like, Okay, I 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.920 need a job. And I got approached by two Sigma. 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:54.480 You know, I would talked to a bunch of company 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.000 I talked to Google, I talked to a bunch of 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.880 smaller startups and you know, if I'll be honest, When 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.560 I was approached by two Sigma, UM, my first reaction was, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.000 I don't know. I had actually I know a lot 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.600 of people who worked at two Sigma already, and my 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.559 impression was actually that the company was really academic. I 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.760 wasn't sure how well I would fit in in uh, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.320 in a super academic culture. UM. But I went and 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.520 interviewed and I was actually blown away by just how 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.560 smart and nice everyone was, and you know, the role 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.160 that they wanted me to come in to run their 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:32.320 platform engineering organization was a really interesting role, UM, really 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.920 kind of getting back to my technical roots as you know, 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.800 a large systems developer. It's really kind of the technology 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.839 area that I'm most interested in personally. UM. And it 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.040 was a great, you know, great team I got to 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.160 you know, I'm part of the engineering leadership team at 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.720 two Stigma UM, and so you know, I took the 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.160 job and you know, here we are today and it's been, uh, 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.880 you know, it's been really a great experience so far. 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.480 I've been there for almost four years now. So you 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.040 mentioned when you moved from Goldman to Rent the Runway, 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.920 which was a startup at the time and has really 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.600 I gotta say, like I have used the runway and 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.360 it's blown up a lot since then and pretty much UM. 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.440 All of the women that you might ask about this 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.640 probably no about it. UM. But when you moved from 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.640 Goldman to Read the Runway, you mentioned that it was 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.640 more challenging than you had expected. Can you go into 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.640 a little bit more detail on on why that was 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.600 and what was the difference between either the technology that 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.439 you were actually working on Goldman versus the technology and 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.760 Rent the Runway, or maybe the differences in in the 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:45.679 ways the companies actually operated and did things. There were 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.959 a few things. So first of all, like at at Goldman, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.800 certainly at the time, and the areas that I was in, 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:56.280 I was just not used to working in, So I 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.720 was not used to working in an environment a sort 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:05.960 of combined being very needing to move really really fast, 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.600 right so needing to build new stuff really quickly. There 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:10.200 are areas of Goldmen that are like this, but that 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:14.200 wasn't really where I was working and having really high 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.080 sort of uptime requirements. So I think one of the 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.199 interesting things about the difference between a lot of parts 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.040 of finance and consumer technology is that it is still 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.240 possible in a lot of parts of finance to work 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.280 on systems that actually don't have to be up seven, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.360 meaning that they don't run on the weekend sometimes right 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.280 like you know, the markets are closed, so the system 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.360 doesn't actually need to be running for example. Um, that 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.320 is not the case with consumer technology, right. The the 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.000 expectation is if you're building a product, you're building you know, 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.160 a website or an app or whatever that you know 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.440 consumers are going to use, then it's going to be 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.920 available when they want to use it. And that is 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.560 actually a really big technical difference because it really does 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.880 mean that you know, if something goes wrong on you know, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.800 two o'clock in the morning on the Sunday, you have 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.360 to do deal with it. Someone has to deal with it, right. 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.679 It can't just like leave it until, you know sometime 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.080 when you're more wide awake and all right, like we've 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.720 got to get this ready for you know, open business 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:16.800 open on Monday morning, but we've got some time, right, 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.880 which is often the case in finance. Um, that's really 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.760 not the case in consumer. And so I think that 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.000 is actually a really big different kind of challenge that 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.040 you know, I wasn't totally thinking about, I think when 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:30.599 I when I came in. So I think that was 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.720 a big challenge. UM. And then there's just like a 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:37.800 lot of technology pieces that you know, when you're building, um, 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:42.079 when you're building for consumers, particularly frankly in fashion, where 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.400 things need to look and feel good right in the 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.000 technology there's a you know, there's sort of a spit 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:53.120 and polish and you know, branding and elements to everything 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.800 that you're building that you know a lot of times 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.640 in finance, you know you're building an interface for you know, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.640 a trader or you know, a risk analyst or whatever. 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.440 It just needs to work. It doesn't need to be beautiful. Um. So, 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.800 you know, really having to think much much more about 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.480 you know, the customer who isn't sitting you know, in 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.240 the desk next to you telling you exactly what they need. 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.040 You know, because the customer is you know, thousands and 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.920 tens of thousands of women all over the country who 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.240 you know, each has kind of different preferences, right, so 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.360 how do you figure out what to build for them? 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.000 How do you you know, how do you build something 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:33.520 great without necessarily having you know, the person telling you 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.360 exactly what it is that they want built. Those are 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.440 some of the challenges just on the kind of technical 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.600 side that it was really a very different kind of 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.520 both you know, some of the technical challenges on availability, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.360 but also on you know, the actual way you decide 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.680 what to build is really different. Um. And then you know, 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.160 look big company to small company. You know, obviously you've 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.839 got a lot you don't even notice the things that 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.840 are prepared provided for you in big companies like you 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.320 O HR and training and i T and all of 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.200 that stuff that's just kind of there and working and 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.600 has been established over years and years you you have 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.800 to establish it yourself at a small company, and that's fun, 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:34.040 but it's a lot of work. So you mentioned between 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.040 Rent the Runway and your current job, which will get 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.640 too soon. You did write this book, and I meant 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.360 to plug it in the beginning, and I'll plug it 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:44.760 at the end. But the Manager's Path a guide for 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.040 tech leaders navigating growth and change. And so I have 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.840 to imagine like during that time, like coming to Rent 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.440 the Runway when it was a small startup and then 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.320 leaving when it was this household name. I have to 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.680 imagine that like your role in your evolved a lot 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.560 during this time. My assumption would be that in the beginning, um, 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.240 you were doing a lot more like hands on technical stuff. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.280 By the end, my guests would be a lot more management. 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.880 And per your book, I imagined that that's a really 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.240 tough progression for a lot of people. And engineering and 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.040 management they're very different jobs. It's kind of like in 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.960 our industry, like being a journalist and being sorry, being 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.880 a reporter and being an editor. They're very different jobs, 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.280 even though a lot of people go on that trajectory. Now, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.000 I guess this is you know, this is a book 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.640 length topic. But for you like sort of like what 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.320 are the big pain points that people experience or that 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.800 you experienced on that journey to actually sort of uh, 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:48.240 managing engineers as opposed to building technology directly. Yeah, you're 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.440 you're absolutely right that it is a book length topic. 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.800 But I think some of the highlights are in the 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.800 early days you can still sort of manage and write 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.560 code or you know, be kind of somewhat hands on 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.720 for a while, but as your team grows, you start 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.480 to you have to consciously like ease off and pick 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.760 out what you're going to work on if you're gonna 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:12.240 be hands on. And then at some point you just 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.520 can't be hands on anymore, right, you can't. You know, 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:20.840 you cannot really be writing production quality software if you're 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.720 in meetings six to eight hours a day because you're 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:26.600 you're not going to be focused, and then you're gonna 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.280 be working. You know, maybe you're writing that code at 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.680 night after your day is done. But you know, in 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.880 engineering teams, right, you don't just like write code and 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.280 then it's done. You write code, someone has to review it, 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.720 tell you whether it's good or not. Um, you know, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:41.720 you've got to make sure it actually works. You've got 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.040 to actually get it running in in you know, two customers. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.160 Customers have to be actually using it, um and if 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.320 it breaks, it has to be fixed. And so when 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.400 managers who are really managing very large teams right code, 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:55.400 they may be able to do the writing part, but 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.640 they often can't do the rest of those parts. And 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.200 that's actually really frustrating as an engineer. I've been I've 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.200 been an engineer with managers who have like throwing code 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.920 at me that way, and it's it's really h it's 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.960 really frustrating to experience that. So, you know, I really 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.560 strongly advise you know, managers, once they get to a 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.520 certain point, to stop doing that. Stop writing code, right, 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.439 that's not really your job. You can do it as 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.640 a hobby on the weekends, but don't do it for 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:23.600 like your actual team because they'll probably get mad at you. Actually, um. 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:29.440 But that transition is so painful because as engineers, we're 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:31.920 taught for years and years and years that our value 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.600 is in the software that we create. That like, that 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.640 is what we are rewarded for, is you know, writing 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.720 good software, building good systems and being clever and fixing 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.840 you know, fixing hard bugs and being being smart about 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:51.359 that thing, and it really feels very it's very scary 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:55.080 to stop doing it. Um. You know, also because everyone 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:56.960 tells you, you know, and there's just kind of you know, 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.399 tech is a very ageist industry, right, and there's this 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.359 great sense of like, if I stop writing code, you know, 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.600 I'm immediately on the path to obsolescence and my technical 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.640 knowledge is going to fade and I'm not going I'm 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.439 not going to be taken seriously by the people that 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.840 I'm managing anymore. And you know, that is a very so. 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.320 So it's like you've got all these cultural messages that 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.960 are like your value is in software, but you can't 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.200 really do your job well if you're writing a lot 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.200 of software as a manager of a large team, um, 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.040 and you have to kind of get over that and 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.760 figure out how to feel like you're still staying technically 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:39.280 in the loop. UM. Incredible without you know, having you know, 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.560 writing code being your your main job. UM. So I 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.520 think that was that was a huge transition for me, 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.199 um and a huge transition for a lot of engineers. 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:50.520 I think that's that's that's a huge one. And then 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:51.720 I think, you know, there are a lot of them 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.240 like as your team gets larger, you also have to 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:59.400 you have to develop the skill of helping your your 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:04.400 organization make good technical decisions without knowing every single detail 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.760 of what they're doing. And that's sort of a it's 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.600 sort of a similar challenge but a little bit different. Right, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.119 So when you're actually again writing the code, reading the code, 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.199 very much in the details of the work you and 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:17.240 you're probably an expert if you've been you know, you're 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:19.680 getting into management, you've been doing this for a long time. 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.040 You know, generally speaking, people they get promoted into management 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.960 do tend to be viewed as technically credible by their teams. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.359 You know, I don't think you should always just promote 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.840 the best engineers as managers because they're the best engineers 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.840 they might actually like writing code. But you know, sometimes 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.080 right like there, you know, you do want to promote 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.159 people into management who are technically credible, um and you know, 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.280 have good judgment, because that is part of your job 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.879 as an engineering manager is sort of helping your team 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:52.320 make good decisions. But you uh, you definitely need to 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.399 still be able to help them make those good decisions 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.240 even as a team it's larger and larger, and you 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.479 get farther away from the details of the problems, and 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.760 so I think that's the other really challenging transition that 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.320 a lot of managers go through and that I certainly 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.119 went through, which was like, how do you, like, how 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.120 do you get the right information and get sort of 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.479 about what's going on in a team that's maybe you know, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.280 you don't even you're managing the manager of their manager, uh, 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.560 you know, or whatever you're you're you're like several management 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:32.360 layers away from it, but you kind of need to know, oh, 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.200 something's going wrong here, because if it goes too wrong, 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.120 it could affect, you know, the ability for your whole 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.800 organization to get stuff done right, or it could affect 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.280 it's gonna make you look bad because something is late 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.080 or it's broken, or you know, it's constantly falling over. 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.240 And so you have to still be able to influence 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.240 their technical decisions, but without actually like looking through their 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.800 code and reading it and actually knowing all the details 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:57.160 of their systems designs. So how do you do that? 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.040 Um And I think that is a similar challenge to 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.199 a lot of people go through, and certainly that I 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:03.919 that I went through. And so those are those are 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.359 some of the challenges that I talk about in my book, 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.320 among many others. So I may be projecting here, but 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.960 I see a lot of parallels between the the engineering 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.159 profession and how it um. Sorry, let me rephrase that. 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:20.960 So I may be projecting a little bit here, but 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.560 I feel like there are quite a few parallels between 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.880 journalists who transition from reporters to editors or some other 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:33.480 sort of management job in journalism and engineers who do 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.960 something similar. You know, journalists are judged by their output, 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.840 the quality and maybe sometimes the quantity of the stories 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.680 they produce, and once you move into an editing role 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.320 or a management role, um, it's hard to come up 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.720 with new ways of judging your performance. But the other 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.960 thing that tends to happen in journalism is journalists, in particular, 0:21:54.040 --> 0:22:00.760 reporters are competitive people who often have an anti authority streak, 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.840 like they like calling authority up on the decisions that 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.840