Soft Stars’ Post

For those who have considered transitioning from dev/leadership roles and into Solutions Engineering/Solutions Architecture roles, here are some of the thoughts on things I've experienced and learned thus far in the Solutions Architect role at Kythera Labs. 1) It is very sweet, as a technical individual, to get a front-row seat into what clients are doing with the products your company is serving. This is only true if you heavily believe in the value of the products that your organization serves. 2) No two days are the same. There are days where 80% of my time is spent answering emails from clients, while other days I spend 80% of my time digging into some not commonly used Databricks features that will bring great value to the experience that we deliver. 3) I have to rely on my teammates more than ever before. The clients I serve benefit from me leveraging the fantastic team behind our product. Just because I CAN do something myself, doesn't mean that me doing it is the most beneficial thing for my clients given the additional knowledge and skills my team has. 4) If you can't handle healthy conflict in a healthy way, you will not thrive in the SE/SA world. Healthy conflict leads to better outcomes, including a better client experience and a better product. 5) Talking to others in the SE/SA world before going on this path was very helpful for me. I chatted with two SAs that I respect here on LinkedIn, and in doing so, I was able to validate that I knew what I was signing up for. On that note, if you are considering a similar career transition into the SE/SA world and have some questions, please reach out and happy to answer any questions I can answer.

I am not religious but I always liked the old joke about the devout man who, during a flood, was so convinced God would save him that he ignored the warnings to go to higher ground, ignored a man in a boat offering to save him, ignored a rescue helicopter after he fled to his roof. He eventually drowns and when he gets to heaven he demands an explanation from God to which God replies "I send you a warning, a boat and a rescue helicopter, what more do you want!" I think of this joke when I see the seemingly endless "Agile sucks" and "Kill Agile" posts floating around on social media these days. And when I read the posts what they describe at these companies does sound pretty horrific. Dozens of meetings each week. Lengthy seemingly pointless stand-ups. Planning meetings that stretch well into the evening. I can appreciate that this is not a pleasant experience for engineers. It would certainly feel like something is fundamentally "wrong" in such an organisation, and why at first glance this can seem like this is because of Agile. A key point I think that is often missed though is that a central component of Agile is visibility and when you make things visible you surface dysfunction. This is a feature, not a bug, of Agile. Blaming Agile for this dysfunction, rather than examining what is being surfaced, is a waste of the opportunity. When your company's version of Agile eventually kills you and you get to heaven and demand of God to explain this Agile thing He inflicted upon the world God will not doubt say "I sent you Agile, you saw dozens of meetings, hour long stand-ups, planning meetings that stretched well into the evening and you STILL didn't fix the dysfunction in your company, what more do you want!". The question you should be asking is not "can we dump Agile" but rather "why does this feel awful". What is being surfacing now and how can we tackle it. Because it was always there, it was just invisible before. There are probably dozens of reasons why your stand-up is an hour long and none of them are "... because of Agile". If you work at a company that has no capacity to identify and fix these when they surface, no culture of continuous improvement or desire to tackle the "why" rather than the "what", then simply getting rid of Agile and making this all invisible again is not going to change anything fundamental. Something to think about. If you are interested in working in a company that does embrace this philosophy and is interested in continuously re-examining the "why" then check this out: https://lnkd.in/dHBNyTrG

An individual who understands that using a "queue like tool / data-structure" to handle large amounts of requests is a good candidate for that entry level backend developer job posting at your company. He doesn't necessarily need to know the architectute of RabbitMQ or the message threshold for SQS in US-WEST-1. And SUPPOSING your product is built using microservices (which it's probably not - it's just an SQS connecting 2 API containers running on the same docker daemon), you're only hiring an entry/intermediate candidate to write some code in a certain context, not architect it. Chill out. Evaluate understanding, not memory. #microservicemadness #aws #softwareengineering

🔎 Elevating Search Capabilities at GetYourGuide How did we achieve a quantum leap in search functionality, scalability, and cost-efficiency? In our most recent tech blog, Senior Software Engineer Dharin Shah details our strategic shift from a Kafka Streams-based system to a PostgreSQL + Kafka architecture. 🔗 Follow the link in the comments to get a comprehensive overview of the challenges we faced and the remarkable improvements we uncovered. The outcome? A robust platform poised for exponential future growth. ❓Are you a #softwareengineer passionate about tackling similar tech puzzles? Check out our open Senior Software Engineer positions via the link below. #GetYourGuide #TechInnovation #Developer #PostgreSQL #Kafka

🏅 One of the reasons why we can react so fast in matchmaking you with the right IT and digital talent, is due to our data hub - Feast 👨🏫👩🏫 Feast offers a search feature allowing you to browse the numerous IT talent profiles in our portfolio, based on availability and technologies 💻 In the example below we present one of the most searched positions currently - data engineers with understanding of DevOps + AWS + Snowflake 💥 Imagine the time and efforts we at East – Eastern European IT expertise and market data – with a Nordic touch can save you in searching for the right talents! Links to Feast in the comments! 📞 And don't hesitate to get in touch if you have questions or better yet, talent needs!

🌟 Excited to share some behind-the-scenes insights from our engineering team! 🌟 We're a tight-knit team of just 4 backend engineers, and we've recently welcomed a new member onboard. Despite our small size, we've achieved remarkable things, building a highly reliable and scalable system from the ground up. As the primary architect, I've leveraged the power of AWS Kubernetes, provisioning everything with Terraform and Terragrunt to ensure a seamless infrastructure as code setup. Efficiency is key in our approach, which is why we utilize Redis serverless in front of our RDS Postgres database. Currently, we're taking our scalability to the next level, working on migrating from RDS to Serverless V2 or Neon. The journey has been challenging but immensely rewarding. Summarize: - 4 highly-skilled backend engineers 👨💻👨💻👨💻👨💻 - 0 DevOps 🚫 - 5+ million Monthly Active Users 🌟 - 1.2 million Requests per Minute on the peak load ⚡ - Simple monolith architecture. 🏛️ Stack: Golang 🚀, Postgres 🗄️, Kubernetes ⎈, and Redis 🧠 Here’s to our small but mighty team and the innovative strides we're making in tech! 🚀

Navigating the extensive landscape of AWS can be challenging, given the array of over 100 services. To focus your learning based on your career path, these are key services and essential concepts tailored for Frontend, Backend, Data Engineering, and DevOps roles. Explore these insights to better align your skills with your professional objectives.

Infrastructure-as-Code Just a few years back, if you'd mentioned Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) to me, I would've given you a puzzled look. Fast forward to today, and I'm on the IaC bandwagon at #LendiGroup, surrounded by some of the brightest software engineers in Australia. My goal? To integrate Software Engineering best practices into the realm of Data. With that in mind, I've pulled together an example GitHub repository that showcases how to manage your Snowflake infrastructure entirely through code using Terraform. Imagine deploying warehouses, adding users, databases, roles, and permissions - all with a single button click. The repository is designed to be as accessible as possible, with a detailed README.md to guide you through setup and deployment. Plus, it's all Docker-based, which means you don't even need Terraform installed to get started! I'm sharing this in hopes it might assist others on their IaC journey. Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your skills, I believe there's value to be found. Feel free to star, fork, or share the repo with your data engineering peers. Let's elevate our data management practices together! Repo here: https://lnkd.in/gnFHStuP #InfrastructureAsCode #DataEngineering #Snowflake #Terraform #DevOps #CloudComputing

What Makes a Great Backend Engineer in 2024? Looking to transition into or grow in backend software engineering? Here are 5 skills companies are prioritising in 2024: 🔸 Mastery of Microservices & Event-Driven Architecture 🔸 API Expertise: Whether it's REST or GraphQL 🔸 Database Know-How: SQL or NoSQL 💻 🔸 Cloud Skills Are Non-Negotiable: AWS, Azure, GCP ☁️ 🔸 Soft Skills Are Hard to Ignore: Problem-solving and collaboration 🤝 What do you think is the most critical skill for backend engineers right now? 🚀 #backend #softwareengineering #SoftwareDev #TechTrends

𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝟭 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗮𝘁 𝗢𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗹𝗲. - Full 365 days of challenges, new projects, fun and watching my dream come true🌟 So, here is what a day in my life as an SDE at Oracle looks like: 📌 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴: Stand-ups: Quick team sync-ups to discuss updates and blockers. Planning: Reviewing and prioritizing tasks. 📌 𝗠𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗮𝘆: Coding: Deep diving into projects with Kafka Streams and Apache Spark. Collaboration: Leveraging team strengths to tackle complex issues. 📌 𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗼𝗼𝗻: Learning: Upskilling in OCI, Cloud Applications, and Kubernetes. Problem-Solving: Tackling real-world challenges and finding efficient solutions. Just like you, even I used to smile at such posts and think - when will I get my chance? Here is how you can get this chance easily - connect with an expert and get 1:1 guidance. Trust me, all you have to do is book a FREE strategy call here - https://lnkd.in/gHT4K_sK These SDEs will help you overcome all the obstacles, get 100% interview-ready, offer referrals and job search support. Like me, even they want to see you succeed so do connect with them❤️ #adayinmylife #collab #preplacedcollab #celebration #mnc #tech