Aditya Palande

A successful systems design and delivery strategy begins by assuming that change is likely the only constant. Be adaptable, or fail.

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We need to move past the idea that knowing everything is the best; asking good questions is a much more critical and underrated skill that we need to embrace. I’ll demonstrate with a case study on how the exact problem to solve can dramatically shift based on answers to basic questions. But first, why does this matter? This is because good questions are the cornerstone to truly understanding the underlying requirements. So many issues would simply not exist if the right questions were asked at the right time - Many products with little to no adoption would not be built - Numerous designs would not be scrapped very late in the game - Countless incidents would be caught before they make it to production Let’s use my favorite leveling question shared previously https://lnkd.in/gxCHTWSu. "Imagine you join our team/company X and discover that our SLAs (Service Level Agreements) are consistently in the red. What steps would you take to address this issue?" Fundamental questions to ask: Q1: Are the customers actually unhappy? If there are no customer complaints, the problem may boil down to a simple SLA update. If there are complaints, changes to the system are likely necessary Q2: What specific SLAs are in red? How long is “consistent”? If multiple SLAs (latency, availability, consistency) have been red for 12 months, it's a deeper systemic problem. If a single SLA is red for 3 months, it’s a simpler problem. Q3: What is the SLA and what is the system performance? If the SLA and system performance don’t diverge that much, it can be solved with incremental steps. However, if the SLA is 99.99% and performance is 99%, then deeper issues must be addressed. To recap… Asking the right questions at the right time can entirely transform the approach and solution, saving a lot of time, effort and grief. It is a critical skill for senior engineers. I’ll leave you with this iconic clip from Margin Call… “Explain, as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever” ~~~ ✍️ Do you agree? Share if you have examples where the right question changed project’s direction. ♻️ Repost if this is helpful.

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In case you missed it: Last week, Clario announced the acquisition of the AI-powered software company, ArtiQ. This is the next step in expanding the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in our Respiratory Solutions portfolio and it will enhance the company’s ability to further leverage and develop innovative uses of AI across its service lines. Read the press release here: https://lnkd.in/etUQHSTz #AI #clinicaltrials #ArtiQ #Clario

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To be a successful leader in today’s fast-paced world, you need to be able to make informed and timely decisions. Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, once said, “The speed of decision-making is critical. In today’s fast-paced business world, timely decisions are a competitive advantage.” “You need to be able to make decisions with incomplete information. There’s always a trade-off between speed and information. The trick is to get enough data to make an informed decision quickly.” Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft It’s important to have the skills to act decisively, even when not all information is available, to keep moving forward and maintain momentum. Effective leaders know that timely decisions drive progress, inspire confidence, and foster a culture of agility and responsiveness. Informed decisions, even under time constraints, can significantly impact an organization’s success and its ability to innovate and grow. #Leadership #DecisionMaking #BusinessStrategy #IndraNooyi #SatyaNadella #Inspiration

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Over the course of each month, I spend a few moments each day or so collecting relevant links, and then, at the end of the month, I bundle them (with the help of some nifty automation scripts) into an easily digestible reading list. Here's everything that I found interesting in June 2024 about the irresponsible use of machine intelligence: #qfm #quantumfaxmachine #blog #irresponsible #ai #machine #intelligence #genai https://lnkd.in/efrC7bEU

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A very timely and Insightful read from #hbr !! Tech is changing at a break-neck speed, product lifecycles are becoming shorter, and along with that, new challenges are coming up on the people management front as well. Today’s leader needs to experiment, fail fast, adopt and adapt faster and still keep the business moving in the positive direction. Go through this informative article and let us know some of the best practices that have worked for you in balancing the “traditional” techniques of mgmt with “emerging” needs.

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San Jose becomes the first city in California to choose to implement AB 1033, allowing homeowners to sell ADUs separately from their primary residences. Representative Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat who authored the bill, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan held a press conference on Friday, emphasizing that this is a new path to affordable housing. "We all know that homeownership has become out of reach for many residents in San Jose and across California," Mahan said. "We need to incorporate the innovation inherent in our region into housing policy to keep the American dream alive, and this new ordinance does just that. San Jose will continue to lead the way, but we can't solve this crisis alone, and I look forward to seeing other cities in California follow suit." “I’m grateful to the City of San Jose for seeing the impact my legislation could have on their community. ADU ownership can provide a pathway to buying a first home and can even help our seniors downsize,” said Ting. “With this more affordable housing option, increased homeownership can help create stronger communities.” San Jose has built nearly 1,400 new ADUs in the past five years, with thousands more under construction. That number represents about 23% of San Jose’s new housing stock during that same period. Now, homeowners in San Jose can sell their ADUs individually, similar to how you would sell a condo. AB 1033 went into effect this year, but cities must take additional steps and opt-in to the law. “Being able to sell my ADU was another reason to build my backyard addition, and it was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done,” said Joyce Higashi, an ADU owner in San Jose. “Not only has it increased my property value, it’s generated more rental income than I ever expected.” The Casita Coalition, a statewide organization dedicated to removing barriers to building more affordable, sustainable housing, was a strong advocate for the legislation. They developed a model ordinance that San Jose used to draft the local legislation needed to take advantage of the new law. “With homebuyers across the state facing an extreme shortage of new home inventory, we applaud Mayor Mahan and the City of San Jose for creating new possibilities for homeownership,” said Rafael Perez, Casita Coalition board chair.#SanJose #California #AB1033 #AccessoryDwellingUnits #HousingPolicy #AffordableHousing #HousingInnovation #PhilTing #MattMahan #HomeOwnership #CommunityBuilding #RealEstate #HousingReform #UrbanDevelopment

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Part of what inspires me at my job is the ability to identify gaps and having the autonomy to create and build. Andy talks about builders as inventors. He then talks about primitives. I have not heard this before so as I read on I became obsessed with the idea and how I can relate it to my work. To sum it up, the idea is to create every process as a separate entity so that they can be mixed and matched as needed to create a new and better process. The criteria is that a primitive can't be divisible. The idea that a new invention, service or process doesn't need to be perfect it just needs to be better is novel. One can take the product then, gain feedback and improve upon it as often as necessary until it becomes the gold standard. Well, that sums it up for me but feel free to read... https://lnkd.in/gZSuhf7T

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I am excited to share the latest blog, co-authored by myself, Junhwi Kim and Vyas Sekar, detailing how we managed to successfully localized and improved LLM by combining Fine-Tuning and RAG. https://lnkd.in/gKDkgGPq

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You know about Tome's awesome AI slide generation tool. Now we’re building a platform for sales teams, powered by our own custom LLMs. We need Applied Researchers and ML Engineers to help us make this happen! Want to join us? Over the last few months, we’ve sharpened the focus of our company to enterprise customers, and the focus of our highly successful slides tool to the most valued presentations in the world: the ones that sales teams use to win new business. We’re building a sales assistant for the work that goes on before that presentation can be created. The deep research to understand your customer, what they care about most, and which aspects of your product can help them succeed. Our domain-specific AI approach outperforms generic LLMs. It’s better at business intelligence, buyer research, and value articulation than general purpose models. And we’re growing our ML team. If you’re inspired by the challenge of building innovative new AI products for people doing serious work, check out these roles and let us know! - Machine Learning Engineer - MLE, Applied Research & Model Development - MLE, GenAI Platform Want to learn more about the next chapter of Tome? Our new site is now up here:

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If you ever wanted a TL;DR on why Axiom prefers to store all your events rather than sample whilst enabling just in time query, all at a super low cost, then this podcast is for you! Listen to Neil Jagdish Patel as he speeds through a shorter history of Axiom and how the path we are on evolved and emerged from customer feedback. We are `tooling around` for your faster, better and cheaper event storage needs. So if you like what Neil says then please check us out, and give Axiom a whirl for your o11y and analytics use cases. And if you are attending Monitorama this year please check us out and say hi! #observability #events #eventstore #streaming #o11y #cloud #monitorama

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Learn how PerfectScale + Karpenter can provide an additional 30 to 50% in cost reductions on top of what can be achieved with Karpenter alone. https://hubs.la/Q02ywfZ90 #kubernetes

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At the core of effective engineering leadership is the ability to stay connected with your team. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect because retaining the respect of your people is difficult unless you remain technically involved yourself. In my journey as an engineering leader, staying true to the individual contributor role that originally earned their respect has kept me close. This approach extends beyond technical expertise; it's about maintaining a deep connection with the core activities that propel product development forward at Gearflow. One of my biggest professional fears is becoming irrelevant or disconnected from my team and our work. This fear motivates me to continually reinvent and retool in response to market demands. Next month, I'll be sharing about my adventures generating synthetic data recently. And while I'm no expert when I start preparing for these talks, the process is incredibly valuable. It's less about delivering a perfect talk and more about how the preparation expands my thinking and exposes me to new capabilities. This helps me connect the dots to opportunities at Gearflow that bring real innovation to our customers. Speaking regularly holds me accountable and pushes me to learn ahead of the curve, ensuring I remain relevant and impactful day-to-day. Every talk is a journey of discovery, helping me to lead with humility, communicate clearly, and inspire a culture of innovation through a deep, technical understanding of our work.

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I was so excited to get to interview Charity Majors! I've been a big fan of her blog content, especially on Engineering Management, for a while. In this episode, I learned a lot about "Observability 2.0," which I'd heard of but didn't really get before. The concepts were really interesting to me and I've been looking into several projects to explore them more. The chatter of this episode also features shoutouts to Julia Evans and Aja Hammerly for their great content about engineering management! You can find links in the shownotes to all sorts of resources mentioned in the episode.

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The link between outcomes of performance management and trust levels within organizations is both astonishing and expected. https://lnkd.in/gtMyS_XV

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We published an article about all the awesome product observability features of Segment we have today and upcoming in the near future. Bookmark this if you are a Segment user!

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Over the course of each month, I spend a few moments each day or so collecting interesting links, and then, at the end of the month, I bundle them (with the help of some nifty automation scripts) into an easily digestible reading list. Here's everything that I found interesting in June 2024 about machines behaving intelligently: #qfm #quantumfaxmachine #blog #machine #intelligence #ai #genai https://lnkd.in/eW5VSgJs

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