Real Talk with Alan Johnson

Meet Alan Johnson, Engineering Lead at Artsy and Charter Member of /dev/color New York.

Location: New York City

Education: Princeton University, The Johns Hopkins University, New York University, and Iowa State University

A Quote to Live by: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” — MLK Jr. I love this quote because it emphasizes the need to be above cynical tit-for-tat.

Connect with Alan: on his LinkedIn

Tell us a bit about your early years.

I grew up in Naperville, IL, a mostly white, mostly wealthy suburb of Chicago. I have the perspective now to see how much of privilege that was. But it was very difficult for me growing up there, in a culture very alien to my parents, who were children of the Great Migration. I felt somehow either not Black enough or too Black in basically all situations. I know now that this situation is pretty common to being a child of the Buppie Generation, but I didn’t yet have the context for understanding this growing up, let alone guidance.

By the time I left high school, through much trial and error, I had become effective at reading nuanced social situations. I began to feel comfortable as an outsider and able to leverage my diversity to my advantage. This has served me very well as an adult.

“I began to feel comfortable as an outsider and able to leverage my diversity to my advantage.”

How did you get started in software?

I found refuge learning to program. My dad was an early adopter of the PC, so we always had one around. By the time I was in high school, I was already programming Visual BASIC, HTML+Javascript, and Z80 assembly for my TI-83 graphing calculator. So studying computer engineering in college was the obvious choice for me.

I got my professional start as a programmer during college internships. Coming out of grad school, my focus in programming was around digital signal processing for audio technology and music information retrieval (machine learning applied to music). However, my journey pivoted me to full-stack app development when I attempted to launch a music startup, and that’s been my profession ever since.

What are you focusing most of your time on now?

I became a father in July! I spent the remainder of the summer at home on parental leave. Going into a fall season loaded up with work and extracurricular commitments, it’s going to be a challenge to find the right balance. But I feel very well set up for success.

What is the most interesting technical challenge you’ve worked on recently?

We’re spending a lot of time working out how to eliminate tech debt from Artsy’s real-time art auction platform. Doing so while still maintaining quality of service is proving much trickier than building the original product.

Please state 2–3 of your current career goals? Why are these important to you?

• My major goal is to make my auctions engineering team successful by becoming the biggest revenue generating business unit in the company. To do this, we need to scale our user base and create a product offering that is unmatched in our industry, and I need to build my effectiveness as a force-multiplier in my role as a manager.
• Another goal of mine is to make my impact felt elsewhere in our business by executing on another product idea that I have. This will require me to get buy in and pull together resources in a small company that already has a wide portfolio of priorities.

Give an example of a recent time you’ve helped a fellow engineer. What lessons can be taken from their situation?

One of my engineers was working on a major refactor to convert some of our legacy Backbone-based code to React. He did a phenomenal job working through the plumbing of our codebase, but ended up overcomplicating part of his solution. I initially had a tough time coaching him through a simplification that would involve actually using the old technology, but in a new way, rather than trying to use React all the way down. I think he saw it as a step backward, without immediately seeing the benefits. Eventually, I made a pull request to his pull request, which sparked the light bulb, and he was enthusiastic about embracing the tweak to his solution.

I learned a couple lessons. First of all, show-not-tell is what ended up getting my message across. This has worked for me in really spectacular ways at several points in my career. Secondly, I could have made the mistake in assuming his reluctance was coming from opposition to feedback, rather than simple misunderstanding. By assuming his best intentions and that I was simply not explaining it effectively, I avoided falling into that trap.

In what areas can /dev/color members reach out to you for help?

• Web Engineering
• Navigating job changes and career shifts
• Managing
• Hiring
• Writing

As a member of /dev/color you are also committed to developing yourself. Can you share some areas you are looking to improve?

I can get caught up in process. I want to get better at efficiently delivering change in all the things that I do.

Can you speak about any passions outside of programming?

I’m extremely passionate about politics and economics. In particular, I’m interested in figuring out how we can revise democracy and capitalism to solve the problems of the last century, address the new ones that face us in the coming years, and improve the human condition.

Why is being a part of an organization like /dev/color important to you?

Although I’m outwardly pretty social, I’m kind of a lone wolf type at heart. /dev/color gives me a structure to collaborate with my Black engineering peers in a way that doesn’t happen for me organically. It’s truly inspiring to be in a community that so exemplifies Black excellence.

“It’s truly inspiring to be in a community that so exemplifies Black excellence.”

Anything else you’d like to say/express?

We’re in an era where our society’s differential privilege and systemic disadvantage are front-and-center, in a visceral way. But what’s missing is real alliance between disadvantaged groups. The result is cynical tribal politics. Nihilism is growing, and we’re all losing out, fighting over table scraps, even as our country evidently becomes increasingly wealthy.

We need solidarity of the underprivileged to build a more equitable society. Even as we continue to speak our own experiences as Black engineers, we should make sure we’re engaging with other communities and actively backing them in their struggles. Challenge yourself to help the struggle for someone lacks privilege in an area where you have it. As a straight man, I need to be finding ways to be an ally to LGBTQ folks, veterans, women, the undocumented, Appalachian folks, homeless folks, and so on.

“Even as we continue to speak our own experiences as Black engineers, we should make sure we’re engaging with other communities and actively backing them in their struggles.”

/dev/color is a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower Black software engineers to help one another grow into industry leaders. We create environments where Black software engineers can learn from one another and hold one another accountable for reaching ambitious career goals. To learn more, check out our website and follow our blog & twitter account.