Latest / The Unfiltered Engineer / Ep 10: Permission to Be New (Reflection)
Transcript
- Vishakha (Vish): Hello and welcome back to the Unfiltered Engineer This is my 10th episode. So, like I've said before, the 5th, 10th, 15th, I will do solo reflections. I will look back on my previous episodes and find some takeaways that I can implement in real life What I'm going to do for this episode, I'm going to go back to Summit's Kshitij's Joy and Raj's episode. And before that, I would actually go back to my previous fifth episode where I said that I will do I will pick up a few things and I will try to implement in my life. So this is more of an accountability for me. and the first thing that I said for Eduardo's episode was. I trust myself more. It's very vague, honestly, to say that I trust myself more. But I will s I will tell you that all through my interview processes I've been in this job search from January and I can see myself the more I speak with people, the more I have interviewed. I have also understood that people have a different idea about. How AI is impacting their work. And there are a lot of times where they're not too worried about whether you've used AI to do a coding sample. And what they're more looking for is to explain your solution. But from his episode, like the idea about curiosity and passion is what got me to believe in myself more in combination with this with these experiences that made me feel like, okay, yeah. I was right about that. I do trust myself in a way and now I'm going through that same phase of trusting myself more in system design interviews. So that's a process. I know it takes time. But you know, I will keep that with me for a little bit longer. For Noble's episode, I said I'd invest in measuring impact. So I was thinking maybe I should start investing more in measuring impact for my job search, but that was very restrictive. It was also very stressful. So not that I'm not keeping track of the companies or where I'm applying or where are the interviews. But just not obsessing over it in a way because the impact essentially is What company do I go with? And things like that. So I decided instead to make the impact piece for the podcast. And at first glance, I wanted to say, okay, the number of subscribers would define the success of this podcast. But that again, it's I think it's a wrong number. It's the wrong metric that I'm measuring. So I decided to go with the views and the software that I use gives me the number of views and streams on episodes which really help me. Like I when I started the the podcast it was more to help at least one person and I see like hundred over hundred views on episodes and that makes me really happy. Granted one of them is my view but it's still counts to something. So that's where I kind of identify that this way of measuring impact would be different for at least podcast. And I have measured impact before, so all of it combine boils down to how do I deliver the impact in my interviews and from my previous project. So it's been a really good packaged moment. I do see like I trust myself more and It's I don't see that as bragging, I say that with a lot of conviction that I have done this work and this is what I've delivered for the organization or for the customer. the next episode was with Dan, where I said it like I'd write what I'm thinking, and it has actually worked really well. I stopped using AI because even before I wasn't you using AI to write the actual post, but what I would do is I would dump my thoughts into it and say that hey can you can you create like a post for me and then it would use its language. So once I committed on the previous episode that I'd write what I'm thinking, the first three posts were very hard. I had to make it grammatically correct because I was relying so much even for correction of grammar for LinkedIn posts. But once I started writing, it took off so much pressure. Like it was so freeing that I could open the app on my phone and I could actually write things. And you will see a difference in the writing that there are there are still sometimes I use AI but for very specific phrasing that I need to have. but otherwise I have really gotten down to writing what I'm thinking and absolutely trusting myself more with the content also. lastly with Kate it was I said I'd ask more questions. This is I'm still working on this and it's probably because I am looking towards improving really on my system design interviews and I'm still seeing some tendencies of mine to jump to solutions without getting to the first few questions clearly. Things like, okay, I made the assumption that all of the requirements in the system design problem need to be fulfilled, and I missed the part that it was open for consideration. So I could change the requirement, I could eliminate the requirement, but also I don't have to fulfill all the requirements, which was not too intuitive. It's probably because I missed and if I had stayed with it and asked a few more questions, something like, okay, what does this person want? Is this a wish list or is this a hardcore requirement? So that could have helped, but I'm putting all these things again back into my interview process. for systems is design specifically. for the second part, like for episode fifth to ninth, I have changed a little bit to say like part first part would be what I learned and what I'm going to change a little bit and the next part would be where I'd push back or what I'd ask them like in a follow-up. So the first part is what I learned and what I'm changing. So for Summit's episode, he had talked a lot about listening first and doing your research and walking in with context, but allowing them to finish their requirements, priorities, and get it out of their system. but okay, I will come back to the butt. so I do understand, like I think this is also one of the principles. If you've read the seven habits of highly effective people. there the author also mentions like listen to understand, empathize with the person. And I am a natural empath, so I do listen to understand. The only thing that I would be very keen to implement is not jumping to an answer, not jumping to a solution, which I talked with him on the episode as well. for Kshitij, he he talked about the phone number field and the output. Versus outcome, and I really liked that distinction. So, what I said before about measuring impact in my job search, it's the same thing right now. the outcome of the job search is getting the job, but the output is something in my control, what I can do, and that's something that I have to really figure out in terms of how much do I want to focus on it, or because When such a long time passes by, the hardest thing is to keep going. And right now my goal is to keep going and not give up. So it's been a little hard to just say that okay, I'm not gonna measure the output, but I will keep this in mind. I might come back to it later. but one thing is for sure. The ask why and ask why now it's going to be something very new thing that I would want to implement once I start working or maybe even in the personal projects that I'm doing it might be helpful to understand like why am I implementing a certain feature and trying to create like a MVP, a minimum viable product. So that's about Kshitij's episode. Joy's episode was really a fun one. She said flexible is the right way to go in pretty much everything and what I would like to change with respect to like visual sketch noting is doing it more often and I my god I believe in that so so much that yes visually things stick better visually I'm able to explain better and I just leave it until the day of the interview to to try and practice. So I really need to sit down and do this more often. And by more often, I think I have to start at least once a week. And I want to represent anything. Like it doesn't have to be a system design, it doesn't have to be technical. But what I want to do is sit down and visually represent things in front of me because when the time comes in a system design interview, it kind of is hard if you haven't had the practice. And I don't mean having practice with the tool, it's just framing the problem the way you see it. and I one more thing that stuck with me from her episode was there is no one right way to solve a problem. and I think that should give permission to a lot of people that it doesn't matter how you get to the solution well I can't necessarily say that in an interview setting. There are some things you just have to do. but if you are beating yourself up about like this person does prototyping, but this person directly produces a solution, you have to figure out what works for you. The other thing that I am just thinking of that I remembered was she said that your visual sketchnote is a substitute. No, it's a supplement, not a substitute, and that even back then I had said that it relieves a lot of pressure for me and I still believe that. for Raj's episode, he it was very interesting to hear him say that he thinks about how a system will break, while a developer thinks about how it makes how to make it work. And as pessimistic as that sounds, like how to make a system break. How will a system break? I think it's it's right. Like he needs to think in that way as QA maybe, but you know, when you're designing a system, I'm realizing that right now while literally talking about this is in a system design interview, that's what you're anticipating. And I remember in one of my mentoring sessions with Eduardo, That was not on the podcast, was separately done. He had said something about do you know why we design systems? It's because it's cheaper, it's easier to replace them, it's easier to see the risks when it's all laid out in front of you, and you can pull and put things in the design. And that's what I think his idea works really well in terms of. How will a system break and what things I can change and being a little more proactive about it instead of react reactive about it. So definitely bringing in QA early would be something I would have thought people are doing that already, but maybe not. But now we'll move on to the next part, which is where I'd push back or what I would ask them. It's for Sumit's episode, becoming the expert at something takes a long time and it comes with experience. So the question is how do you build that expertise when you're still new and need people to listen? Right? So he addressed a lot Of the aspects about he was in the company, he had been there, he had built things, and he was pushing that kind of product. Sure, there must be new things, but he was re-architecting and he was in that product for a very long time. So it's kind of a little bit easier when you're in the company with a lot of experience, people trust you a little bit more. for Kshitij episode. This episode he said like he's talked about understanding your why really well and again coming back to the same thing that I was pointing out about Simon's episode that it's a process and the problem with processes is that they take time to put in place and to become second nature. So how do you make why now as a second nature, second nature for the whole team? And how long does it take? And this whole thing about you know listening to your customers, influencing without authority, no matter what, there has to be a trust aspect built into all these relationships. And while Summit indicates that he builds trust through listening, for Kshitij it's just understanding where is the customer coming from. what is the user journey? And maybe everybody around him has done the research. Again, it's a process and what if people are not used to it, it takes time to convince them that this is for the good because things like these do not show instant results that I convinced you to to create something, to make something, or to use something, but then L they have to wait until you get the results that you want. And sometimes if they're not good results, there has to be still some sort of forgiveness in that idea that yes, we did it, we tried it. Let's learn from our mistakes and move on. for joy I didn't really have a lot to push back on or like I did love her idea about doing things like take a pen and paper and just do it. I really need to implement that. and that's something that I'm going to try at least once a week for smaller things, non-technical things, to see how my ideas fit on a paper. for Raj, he his one of his advices was like keep up with the latest and greatest things in the market. So keep yourself up to date and he has a system to do that. What what I'm just pushing back on is if you're hearing this advice and you already feel behind on your journey, on learning new things or with this whole AI bubble going on, this advice can feel extremely challenging to implement. And what I would say is maybe don't keep up with the latest. Like follow, which I think he does, he has a system. So he follows a few people and he knows what he wants to look into, what is going to be useful for him. So for example, if I am doing a system design interview and I went to the conferences also, and I saw a lot of things where people were talking about being in a team or talking about leadership principles and I realize that sure they are great like the content is great but right now my focus is networking and interviewing so I don't really need to follow up with every single leadership talk that I'm going through or every single new AI thing that has come up. And in one of the conferences, they talked about loop engineering and inference engineering. And that just like I understood the terms, and it wouldn't have taken me long to read up on them. But after I attended those talks, I just felt like did I need that? I felt more behind, more bad about myself not knowing these things, than helping myself. So keep that in mind when you're thinking about keeping yourself up to date and trying to learn new things. there was something there was a meme or a video that I saw online and it was so beautiful. It just said that try to be a beginner. Like every tip, every single workshop you attend, everything you see online about workouts and strength trainings, all of that. They just tell you that you should already be there, you should already know all this stuff and you should already be an expert at it, and it steals the joy of being a beginner in that moment. And I think I absolutely loved that idea that it's great to be bad at a few things and it's okay. Like there was a time when I didn't feel confident enough in my usage of AI. And once it took me one hour, barely one hour, to sit and dedicatedly understand what I want from it, what is it producing, how am I taking this output and putting it out on in production? And it just made me feel so relaxed that if I had only given myself a little more time and space and not Beaten myself up about it. I don't know this. I don't know how to use a skill. I don't know how to make a skill. but there are new things coming every single day. So figure out first what you want to learn, what makes sense to you in your current situation. For me, anything interview related is helpful, more so system design interview related. So now I'm past, like if somebody says, this is how you should get recruiter calls or this is how you should frame me or tell me about yourself. I'm past that. Like I don't want more information on that. What I want more information on how to how to talk in system design interviews. I have all these ideas up in my head. I wanted to get it across to the person and that will be my focus. That's how I wanna move forward in learning new things aspect. And I'll move to closing three about me, which is what do I want people to remember from this episode is the very last thing. it's okay to be a big node. It's it's amazing to suck at something and then be good at it and then be amazing at it. So give yourself permission to be new and enjoy the process. what am I reading I'm actually reading Bhagavad Gita, sorry, Shivan Bhagavad Gita. So this was something that Summat had said and then even Raj said it and I was like, okay, you know, I have I have tried reading Bhagavad Gita before and I have just not liked the explanation that was given in the books for those don't know what Bhagavad Gita is, it's a spiritual book just like Bible for a Hindu religion in India. So I started reading it and I didn't like the explanations that were given in the book that I had. But this time I went around and explored online a little bit on if anybody else has put out explanations and there were so many of them. So I did start reading up on it and I did see that there are a lot of apps, it gives a lot of reflections and I personally love journaling so I like that I can take the verses, translate them, and put them into real life. So I absolutely love that. We'll see how long I can stick with it because it's a really, really long book. So but that's what I'm reading and I'm watching The Last Ship. That was Dan's recommendation and I am absolutely loving it. how do I switch off? It's been hard. with all the interviews and with conferences, I really look back to nature, going out on a walk with my dog, with my family. All of it like comes back to being with family and being grounded in nature one way or another. So that's my That's my biggest way. I think it won't ever change on how I switch off. I like to be in nature and I'm not saying I like to go hiking. I'm more so like I would love to sit and have a cup of tea outside on my patio and just look at trees. So that's all there is about the closing three and last thing is I am putting out these small nuggets that I get from the episodes because I like to keep hearing them. Sometimes, you know, you'll see like if it doesn't stick the first time, second time and third time, it will stick the fourth time. And which is why I'm creating these smaller clips, which I will push out on YouTube shots mostly. some of them I'll filter it out to LinkedIn too. But for transparency's sake, that's my plan to push it out on YouTube to get this like this wealth of knowledge for people in bite-sized information so you can consume it and hopefully it comes and lands on your feed exactly when you need it. So subscribe or follow and get the best of the information right here and the next few episodes are going to be amazing. We talk about observability, we talk about scale I would also have someone who will share their interview experience. So tune in. It's gonna be really good. So thank you all. Thank you so much for sticking with me and I will see you in the next one. Bye.