Thoughts from an Operations Wrangler; I lead the production engineering team, running one of the largest SaaS observability platforms on the planet. Wavefront started in 2013 (I joined in 2016) and was acquired by VMware in 2017. These thoughts are all mine.

Charity Majors posed a question on Twitter that I felt deserved more words than a tweet would allow.

Being on pager duty and oncall often has the perception of being tossed in the lion’s den. But that should not be. And, at Wavefront it is not.

I could lean into the Netflix “we’re a team” — which is…

Thoughts from an Operations Wrangler; I lead the production engineering team, running one of the largest SaaS observability platforms on the planet. Wavefront started in 2013 (I joined in 2016) and was acquired by VMware in 2017. These thoughts are all mine.

I find myself more and more talking with Wavefront users — both internally and externally — on How Wavefront uses Wavefront to Wavefront.

Or, how Wavefront’s Production Engineers use Wavefront to run Wavefront.

And, in what I hope is a series of posts, I hope to go a bit deeper into how we do what we do.

At…

I have some pretty fond memories of my Dad, a math teacher, bringing home one of the (or maybe it was the) Apple II computers from work when I was in first or second grade. That’s how I got introduced to computers (and where I learned how to spell catalog). It’s also where I spent a lot of time learning economics and running my own lemonade stand (iPhone version here).

Flash forward 30 some years and I find I’m doing the same with my two children and weirdly enough on Apple computers (first computer I owned was Commdore 64 followed…

Non-authentic is a virus in anything you do in life. Non-authentic is not benign. It metastasizes like a tumor. ~ @cookfix

When I first started people managing, I was given some simple advise: always find one personal thing from each person’s life and remember to ask them about it every week.

I’ve always remembered that. I don’t recall how much I put it into practice but as I’m learning how to lean into my strengths, I keep coming back to that.

I’m a little embarrassed but it was probably a forced exercise back then. …

He stepped out into the cold, glad to be through and glad to be out. The cold winter wind slapped him in the face as if scolding. He hadn’t really bundled up too well — just wanted to leave. He stood there now pulling together his jacket, fastening the zipper and throwing his bag over his shoulder. Sure was cold tonight.

“Damn…” he though to himself. “What the hell’s happening to me?” The cold wind stopped and stood still and for a brief moment, there was silence around him. He reached into his bag, felt around, and produced his walkman…

I never had a lot of friends in high school.

Senior year was somehow different. I don’t know why but by graduation I knew and was known by those I considered the “in” crowd.

I’m a believer in recognizing those who do good and as I read George Saunder’s convocation speech — and his realization that his life’s regrets were all failures of kindness — I was instantly brought back 22 years ago to my senior year and a very specific project I was working on with one classmate in particular.

I can’t at all remember what it was. It’s…

“People want to be led by someone they know. Someone they trust.” ~ https://popforms.com/death-to-top-down-leadership/

More than five years ago I started managing a team. Five years later I wasn’t so much as managing a team of 60 as I was leading a team of 60.

There’s a big difference between the two words managing & leading. One is much harder than the other. One is tactical. A means to an end. Book knowledge.

Leader

lead·er [ˈlēdər]
noun: someone who knows where they’d like to go, but understands that they can’t get there without their tribe, without giving those they lead the tools…