A Day in the Life of a Silicon Valley Data Engineer
6:05 AM: Alarm jolts you abruptly away from that REM thing that’s so important. Maybe you should buy the sleep tracking ring your roommate keeps raving about
6:15 AM: Finish your morning scroll, taking note of how much more productive, tan and talented the people you follow on Instagram seem than you
6:53 AM: Realize in a panic that you have 7 minutes in which to dress, eat, pack and be out in the door in time to catch the last BART which will arrive at your destination in time to catch the last company shuttle
7:15 AM: Board said BART in winded/disheveled state. Take out copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
7:16–8:12 AM: Sleep on BART with no thought towards consequences of leaving backpack full of cherished belongings unattended on seat beside you. Drool a little.
8:13 AM: Hastily stuff unopened Seven Habits into aforementioned backpack and rush off train to catch shuttle
8:33 AM: Settle into seat in cubicle. Notice all the alerts on Ambari are flashing red.
8:42 AM: Multiple nodes went down due to thermal fault overnight. Ambari suggests “Components require restart”.
8:43 AM: Obediently, you click RESTART. Popup window doubts your choice: “Are you sure?” Imposter syndrome intensifies.
8:46 AM: Decide yes, you are sure.
8:55 AM: Peace is restored and green indicators reign.
9:02–10:04 AM: Read Medium article on Pomodoro technique. Turn phone off, close email and Skype. Well on your way to becoming a 10X Developer. You complete yesterday’s JIRA ticket and fix that intermittent bug in your PySpark job.
10:05 AM: Glowing with accomplishment, you turn Skype back on. Angry messages flood in. You forgot about the 9:30 standup. This is the fault of the Pomodoro technique, surely.
10:15 AM: Check your phone. You’ve missed two spam calls and an email from your alma mater asking for donations. It’s only been two years since you graduated. They should give you a chance.
10:16–10:30 AM: Get a coffee from the break room. Scan hopefully for others that you might have a corporate banter with. No luck. Return to cube, dejected.
10:30–11:10 AM: Attend planning meeting for upcoming project. Resolve to inject discussion with some incisive ideas and suggestions for the proposed new architecture
11:11 AM: Chicken out
11:12–11:30 AM: Internally berate self. Resolve to lean in more next time
11:35 AM: Go for jog with group of colleagues. Get winded, but hide it behind short but enthusiastic “Mmm!” responses to discussion. Foiled when asked to explain what Hadoop is.
11:52 AM: Nobly excuse yourself from run early in order to “attend to some work”.
12:33 PM: Purchase “bagel turkey dog” from workplace cafe. It’s fun to try new things
1:03 PM: Regret bagel turkey dog
1:15 PM: Seriously regret bagel turkey dog
2:00 PM: Rally from bagel turkey dog experience. Log in to Slack and confidently express intention to run end to end test on development cluster
2:29 PM: Encounter “ValueError: Object too deep for desired array.” Giggle to self.
3:00 PM: Continue trying to complete end to end test
3:30 PM: Continue trying to complete end to end test
3:35 PM: Teammate asks whether testing is done. Reply testily
4:00 PM: Continue trying to complete end to end test
4:39 PM: Complete end to end test. Disentangle sticky notes describing encountered bugs from each other. Stick said sticky notes on Kanban board
4:40 PM: Kanban board is looking a little heavy on the “Pending” side.
4:40–4:52 PM: Rearrange Kanban board to give positive, if misleading, impression of project’s progress
4:53 PM — 5:00 PM: Make insightful and wise arguments in defense of your cases on various Reddit forums
5:00 PM: Sign up for six different tech talks and events on EventBrite. Resolve to improve networking skills and knowledge of the field
5:02 PM: On Amazon, purchase a number of technical books with detailed pencil sketches of animals on the front cover. You’ll start these as soon as you’re done Seven Habits
5:15 PM: Realize you’ve been staring into space for 13 minutes and are about to miss shuttle
5:17 PM: Catch shuttle, much to the consternation of beleaguered shuttle driver. She doesn’t like you, anyway.
5:42 PM — 6:40 PM: Sleep fitfully on BART with Seven Habits on your lap.
6:45 PM: Take Uber home from station because you are disgracefully lazy. Uncomfortably evade driver’s increasingly personal questions. Worry that your caginess will harm your 4.89 star rating.
7:15–8:15 PM: Make avocado toast for dinner. Talk on phone with friend, whose company is about to IPO. He talks about buying a house in the Outer Sunset next year. Look dolefully at your avocado toast. It would have been better if one of your two roommates hadn’t used up all your balsamic vinegar.
8:16 PM — 8:19 PM: Ponder whether East Bay really counts as Silicon Valley, anyway.
8:20–9:30 PM: Watch Fyre Festival documentary. Feel freshly emboldened and inspired by their inconceivable hubris. Wonder if such inspiration is problematic.
9:35 PM: Shower and wash self with organic Lavender Whole Foods soap that was delivered to you by Amazon Prime same-day delivery because you are so, so hopelessly lazy.
10:01 PM: Cuddle Seven Habits to sleep, with visions of (finally) upgrading to Spark 2.0 dancing in your head.
