That custom gift for your mom takes more work than you think
Etsy is a global marketplace that keeps human connection at the heart of commerce.
Connect with Mahir on LinkedIn.
This week’s shoutout goes to user jsignell, who won a Populist badge for their answer to How do I tell if a column in a pandas dataframe is of type datetime? How do I tell if a column is numerical?.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Leading leaders who lead engineers (remastered) (Interview)
This week we’re bringing you a remaster of our epic 2021interview with Lara Hogan – author of Resilient Management and management coach / trainer for the tech industry.
The majority of our conversation focuses on the four primary hats leaders and managers end up wearing; mentoring, coaching, sponsoring, and delivering feedback. We also talk about knowing when you’re ready to lead, empathy and compassion, and learning to lead.
Join the discussion
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Sponsors:
Heroku – The Next Generation of Heroku “Fir” is coming soon — Fir is built on a foundation of cloud native technologies and open source standards, ensuring portability, interoperability, and a vibrant ecosystem for your applications. Cloud Native for everyone, for the next decade and beyond.
Depot – Build faster. Waste less time. Accelerate Docker image builds, and GitHub Actions workflows. Easily integrate with your existing CI provider and dev workflows to save hours of build time.
Retool – The low-code platform for developers to build internal tools — Some of the best teams out there trust Retool…Brex, Coinbase, Plaid, Doordash, LegalGenius, Amazon, Allbirds, Peloton, and so many more – the developers at these teams trust Retool as the platform to build their internal tools. Try it free at retool.com/changelog
Featuring:
Lara Hogan – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Jerod Santo – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
An excerpt from Resilient Management on A List Apart
Paloma Medina
Core Needs: BICEPS
Lara’s book
The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Your brain on progress – Increment
Voltron!
I’m a cog
The Changelog #342: From zero to thought leader in 6 months with Emma Bostian
Lara Hogan on mentorship and sponsorship
What does sponsorship look like?
Linchpin from Seth Godin
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
“Just in Case” vs. “Just in Time” with Aditya Bhargava
How you learn is important. Corey Quinn is joined by Aditya Bhargava, a Staff Software Engineer at Etsy and the author of Grokking Algorithms. They talk about the nuances of technical learning and the contrasting philosophies of "just in time" versus "just in case" learning. In this episode, Aditya emphasizes the importance of effective teaching methods and the value of incorporating fun things like drawings into technical explanations. This approach also bleeds into his illustrated Substack, DuckTypes. As Corey and Aditya discuss, a good, informative book doesn’t need to drag on, and this quick, insightful, 30-minute conversation is no different.
Show Highlights
(0:00) Intro
(1:24) The Duckbill Group sponsor read
(1:58) Corey's admiration for Aditya's writing
(5:40) How Aditya clearly explains AWS networking
(8:06) “Just in case” vs. “just in time”
(10:15) Why business books don't need to be hundreds of pages long
(14:19) Reading for pleasure vs. reading for work
(16:57) The Duckbill Group sponsor read
(17:24) Explaining Aditya's book on algorithms
(20:07) The great editor behind Aditya's book
(22:20) DuckTyped and how Aditya got into AWS networking
(25:16) Where networking folks fall in the era of the cloud
(28:12) The importance of staying up-to-date in your field
(31:46) Where you can find more from Aditya
About Aditya Bhargava
Aditya Bhargava is a Software Engineer with a dual background in Computer Science and Fine Arts. He blogs on programming at adit.io.
Links
Aditya’s blog: https://www.adit.io/
Grokking Algorithms, Second Edition: https://www.manning.com/books/grokking-algorithms-second-edition
DuckTyped: https://www.ducktyped.org/
Last Skeet in AWS: https://lastskeetinaws.com/
Sponsor
The Duckbill Group: duckbillgroup.com
Replay - Finding a Common Language for Incidents with John Allspaw
On this Screaming in the Cloud Replay, Corey is joined by John Allspaw, Founder/Principal at Adaptive Capacity Labs. John was foundational in the DevOps movement, but he’s continued to bring much more to the table. He’s written multiple books and seems to always be at the forefront. Which is why he is now at Adaptive Capacity Labs. John tells us what exactly Adaptive Capacity Labs does and how it works and how he convinced some heroes to get behind it. John brings a much-needed insight into how to get multiple people in an organization on the same level when it comes to dealing with incidents. Engineers and non. John points out the issues surrounding public vs. private write-ups and the roadblocks they may prop up. Adaptive Capacity Labs is working towards bringing those roadblocks down, tune in for how!
Show Highlights
(0:00) Introduction
(0:59) The Duckbill Group sponsor read
(1:33) What is Adaptive Capacity Labs and the work that they do?
(3:00) How to effectively learn from incidents
(7:33) What is the root of confusion in incident analysis
(13:20) Identifying if an organization has truly learned from their incidents
(18:23) Gitpod sponsor read
(19:35) Adaptive Capacity Lab’s reputation for positively shifting company culture
(24:22) What the tech industry is missing when it comes to learning effectively from the incidents
(28:44) Where you can find more from John and Adaptive Capacity Labs
About John Allspaw
John Allspaw has worked in software systems engineering and operations for over twenty years in many different environments. John’s publications include the books The Art of Capacity Planning (2009) and Web Operations (2010) as well as the forward to “The DevOps Handbook.” His 2009 Velocity talk with Paul Hammond, “10+ Deploys Per Day: Dev and Ops Cooperation” helped start the DevOps movement.
John served as CTO at Etsy, and holds an MSc in Human Factors and Systems Safety from Lund University
Links
The Art of Capacity Planning: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Capacity-Planning-Scaling-Resources/dp/1491939206/
Web Operations: https://www.amazon.com/Web-Operations-Keeping-Data-Time/dp/1449377440/
The DevOps Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/DevOps-Handbook-World-Class-Reliability-Organizations/dp/1942788002/
Adaptive Capacity Labs: https://www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com
John Allspaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/allspaw
Richard Cook Twitter: https://twitter.com/ri_cook
Dave Woods Twitter: https://twitter.com/ddwoods2
Original Episode
https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/finding-a-common-language-for-incidents-with-john-allspaw/
Sponsors
The Duckbill Group: duckbillgroup.com
Gitpod: http://www.gitpod.io/
#218 CEO Etsy, Josh Silverman: Second Acts
Guest: Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy
When Josh Silverman joined the board of Etsy, he had one condition: “Don’t ask me to the be the CEO.” And technically, they didn’t ask. One day, he got a phone call informing him the board had elected him as the new CEO, just days before an earnings miss. He knew the odds were against him — layoffs would be necessary, and “I was going to have to be the villain” — but decided to say yes out of a sense of duty to Etsy’s users and workers. “If I can be helpful, I have a responsibility to do it,” Josh says.
Chapters:
(00:55) - Energy management
(02:42) - Meetings
(09:56) - Etsy’s strategy
(13:36) - Learning to delegate
(17:10) - Setting an example
(24:17) - Evite’s rise and fall
(27:46) - Self vs. company
(30:22) - Legacy
(34:21) - Control and agency
(37:44) - Joining Etsy’s board
(40:40) - Becoming CEO
(46:16) - Culture shock
(48:09) - “We need you, trust us”
(51:25) - eBay and Skype
(57:15) - Pushed out
(01:00:40) - Accountability and family
(01:03:53) - Time horizons
(01:05:55) - Gen AI-supported art
(01:08:29) - Who Etsy is hiring and what “grit” means to Josh
Mentioned in this episode: Ken Chenault and American Express, Nick Daniel, Rachana Kumar, Ticketmaster and IAC, Etsy Studios, Silverlake, Shopping.com, Google, Microsoft, and Austin City Limits.
Links:
Connect with Josh
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
Scaling Creativity: Josh Silverman on Etsy's growth, AI integration, and market strategies | E1985
This Week in Startups is brought to you by…
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Todays show:
Etsy’s Josh Silverman joins Jason to discuss the marketplace business model (2:54), UX challenges (4:58), company operations during the pandemic (36:57), AI’s impact on team size (50:56), and more!
*
Timestamps:
(0:00) Etsy’s Josh Silverman joins Jason
(2:54) The marketplace business model and Etsy's growth
(4:58) Maintaining Etsy's unique marketplace and UX challenges
(10:34) Defining handmade and GenAI art on Etsy
(11:53) Coda - Empower your startup with Coda’s Team plan for free—get 6 months at https://www.Coda.io/twist
(13:18) Preventing inauthentic sellers and the seller approval process
(20:14) Etsy's star seller program and the importance of artisanal items
(26:26) Intercom - TWIST listeners can get 90% off Intercom’s platform at https://www.intercom.com/twist
(27:55) Durable products, warranties, and customer loyalty
(35:47) Micro1 - Visit https://www.micro1.ai/twist to open a talent search and get a 2 week free trial per hire.
(36:57) Company operations during the pandemic and efficiency era
(44:11) Global talent, remote work, and productivity at Etsy
(50:56) AI's impact on team size, productivity, and customer support
(55:10) SEO strategies, organic traffic, and handling IP issues
*
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Check out the TWIST500: twist500.com
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Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp
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Follow Josh:
X: https://x.com/jgsilverman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuasilverman
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Follow Jason:
X: https://twitter.com/Jason
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
*
Thank you to our partners:
(11:53) Coda - Empower your startup with Coda’s Team plan for free—get 6 months at https://www.Coda.io/twist
(26:26) Intercom - TWIST listeners can get 90% off Intercom’s platform at https://www.intercom.com/twist
(35:47) Micro1 - Visit https://www.micro1.ai/twist to open a talent search and get a 2 week free trial per hire.
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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Etsy: Rob Kalin
Rob Kalin founded Etsy for people like him: makers and hobbyists. In 2005, he was kicking around New York trying to find buyers for his hand-made furniture, when he noticed that other craftspeople had the same need. So he and a few friends built a website where makers could sell a wide range of goods. Rob named it after an Italian phrase he heard in a Fellini film, and within three years, Etsy passed $10 million in sales. But as a young founder, Rob struggled to manage the rapidly-growing company; and in 2011, after being fired without warning, he returned to a quieter life as a maker and small-businessman. Meanwhile, Etsy has become one of the most popular online marketplaces in the world, with $2.5 billion in revenue.
This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei.
Edited by Neva Grant, with research from Sam Paulson.
Our engineers were Gilly Moon and Maggie Luther.
You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com.
This episode is brought to you in part by Canva, the easy-to-use online design platform for presentations, social posts, videos, websites, and more. Start designing today at Canva – the home for every brand.
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Inside Etsy’s product, growth, and marketplace evolution | Tim Holley (VP of Product)
Brought to you by Productroadmap.ai—AI to connect your roadmaps to revenue | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments | OneSchema—Import CSV data 10x faster
—
Tim Holley is VP of Product at Etsy where he leads the Etsy buyer experience. With a tenure spanning more than a decade, Tim has seen the company through many transitions (both in culture, in leadership, and in growth), and his team’s product changes have had a significant impact on buyer retention, conversion, and global expansion. In this episode, we discuss:
• Lessons from navigating corporate culture shifts
• How Etsy capitalized on the explosive growth of e-commerce during the pandemic
• Marketplace learnings: when to focus on supply vs. demand, optimizing conversion, and more
• How Etsy solves the “graduation problem”
• Tips for hiring product managers
—
Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-etsys-product-growth-and-marketplace
—
Where to find Tim Holley:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timholley/
—
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
—
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Tim’s background
(04:23) Tim’s time away at SoulCycle and what led him back to Etsy
(06:34) Lessons from the 2017 culture shift at Etsy
(12:15) Etsy’s guiding principles
(13:32) How Etsy adapted to increased demand during the early days of mask mandates
(16:38) What Tim learned about managing stress with his team during the pandemic
(18:46) Lessons from building a thriving marketplace
(21:47) Prioritization at Etsy
(24:37) Supply constraint vs. demand constraint
(28:43) Conversion wins
(33:27) Experimentation at Etsy
(37:58) Acquisition and top-of-funnel tactics
(39:44) The seller referral program
(40:33) Etsy’s habit loop framework
(44:11) How they set themselves apart from other marketplaces
(51:23) Retaining sellers
(53:23) The defunct Etsy studio
(55:18) Running the product team
(57:20) Who the decision maker is
(1:01:20) What Tim looks for when hiring PMs
(1:03:03) A reflection exercise Tim does with his teams
(1:05:08) Lightning round
—
Referenced:
• Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/
• SoulCycle: https://www.soul-cycle.com/
• Inside the Revolution at Etsy: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/business/etsy-josh-silverman.html
• Ronny Kohavi on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-ab-testing-ronny-kohavi-airbnb-microsoft-amazon/
• How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business – Part 3: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-kickstart-and-scale-a-marketplace-911
• Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World: https://www.amazon.com/Team-Teams-Rules-Engagement-Complex/dp/1591847486
• Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman: https://www.amazon.com/Let-People-Surfing-Education-Businessman-Including/dp/0143109677
• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Broker-Robert-Moses-Fall/dp/0394720245
• Yellowstone on Paramount+: https://www.paramountnetwork.com/shows/yellowstone
• Nara Baby app: https://naraorganics.com/nara-baby-tracker
• Huckleberry app: https://huckleberrycare.com/
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
S22:E3 - Demonstrating curiosity kindly with Matt Newkirk (Matt Newkirk)
Joining Saron today is Matt Newkirk, Engineering Director at Etsy. Matt talks about his coding journey, his current role at Etsy, leadership tips and advice for people on their coding journey. Matt's found a career in paying forward the help he received along the way, starting as a volunteer MUD developer and finding a path to becoming a director of engineering at Etsy. His engineering efforts cover Quality Engineering, Infrastructure and Operations, with the most value coming from finding improved collaboration across teams.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Peer One-on-Ones
LPC
APIs
Fullstack
Asynchronous Calls
PHP
JavaScript
C
A+
CI System (continuous integration)
Observability Tools
Unit Tests
AWS
Selenium
VoIP
Telnet
Multi User Dungeon (MUD)
Apple 2C
Matt Newkirk
Matt Newkirk cares a lot about code quality, having started in a Code/Design Review position in 1997 for The Two Towers LPMud. Since then, he's worked in a variety of industries, always preaching testability and always building tools to support that philosophy. He now is the Director of Engineering at Etsy, where he leads the charge focusing on market localization, international search, and internal localization platforms such as machine and human translation.
Mike Fisher of Etsy talks AI and E-commerce
In the second episode of Season Two of The Robot Brains, Pieter Abbeel interviews the Chief Technology Officer of Etsy, Mike Fisher. Etsy is a global online marketplace, where people come together to make, sell, buy, and collect unique items. It was founded in 2005 as an accessible listing site for DIY crafters and artists to sell their wares before blossoming into a widely-respected and mainstream online shopping site.
It still maintains its whimsical brand balanced by its listing on the NASDAQ and in 2021, it generated an impressive $1.7B in revenue. The CEO recently shared with Forbes that he's determined to keep growing bigger. One of his strategies? Using AI and machine-learning to keep improving the 1:1 selling and buying experience its so well-known for.
Mike sat down with Pieter to share the transformation the site has gone through starting with rebuilding its search engine capabilities all the way to designing more intelligent algorithms to provide better and more accurate recommendations. With the same number of items equivalent to 2500 grocery stores and inventory that changes every day, the site processes a lot of data!
Mike shares how Etsy manages it all and continues to innovate in the e-commerce space.
| SUBSCRIBE TO THE ROBOT BRAINS PODCAST TODAY | Visit therobotbrains.ai and follow us on YouTube TheRobotBrainsPodcast, Twitter @therobotbrains, and Instagram @therobotbrains.
| Host: Pieter Abbeel | Executive Producers: Alice Patel & Henry Tobias Jones | Audio Production: Kieron Matthew Banerji | Title Music: Alejandro Del Pozo
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Gitting After It with Katie Sylor-Miller
About Katie
Katie Sylor-Miller, Frontend Architect at Etsy, has a passion for design systems, web performance, accessibility, and frontend infrastructure. She co-authored the Design Systems Handbook to spread her love of reusable components to engineers and designers. She’s spoken at conferences like Smashing Conf, PerfMatters Conf, JamStack Conf, JSConf US, and FrontendConf.ch (to name a few). Her website ohshitgit.com (and the swear-free version dangitgit.com) has helped millions of people worldwide get out of their Git messes, and has been translated into 23 different languages and counting.
Links:
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/
Design Systems Handbook: https://www.designbetter.co/design-systems-handbook
Book of staff engineering stories: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RMSHYGG
staffeng.com: https://staffeng.com
ohshitgit.com: https://ohshitgit.com
dangitgit.com: https://dangitgit.com
Finding a Common Language for Incidents with John Allspaw
About John
John Allspaw has worked in software systems engineering and operations for over twenty years in many different environments. John’s publications include the books The Art of Capacity Planning (2009) and Web Operations (2010) as well as the forward to “The DevOps Handbook.” His 2009 Velocity talk with Paul Hammond, “10+ Deploys Per Day: Dev and Ops Cooperation” helped start the DevOps movement.
John served as CTO at Etsy, and holds an MSc in Human Factors and Systems Safety from Lund University
Links:
The Art of Capacity Planning: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Capacity-Planning-Scaling-Resources/dp/1491939206/
Web Operations: https://www.amazon.com/Web-Operations-Keeping-Data-Time/dp/1449377440/
The DevOps Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/DevOps-Handbook-World-Class-Reliability-Organizations/dp/1942788002/
Adaptive Capacity Labs: https://www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com
John Allspaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/allspaw
Richard Cook Twitter: https://twitter.com/ri_cook
Dave Woods Twitter: https://twitter.com/ddwoods2
Leading leaders who lead engineers (Interview)
This week we’re joined by Lara Hogan – author of Resilient Management and management coach & trainer for the tech industry. Lara led engineering teams at Kickstarter and Etsy before she, and Deepa Subramaniam stepped away from their deep roots in the tech industry to start Wherewithall – a consultancy that helps level up managers and emerging leaders.
The majority of our conversation focuses on the four primary hats leaders and managers end up wearing; mentoring, coaching, sponsoring, and delivering feedback. We also talk about knowing when you’re ready to lead, empathy and compassion, and learning to lead.
Join the discussion
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Sponsors:
InfluxDB – InfluxDB empowers developers to build IoT, analytics, and monitoring software. It’s purpose-built to handle massive volumes and countless sources of time-stamped data produced by sensors, applications, and infrastructure. Learn about the wide range of use cases of InfluxDB at influxdata.com/changelog
Retool – Retool is a low-code platform built specifically for developers that makes it fast and easy to build internal tools. Instead of building internal tools from scratch, the world’s best teams, from startups to Fortune 500s, are using Retool to power their internal apps. Learn more and try it for free at retool.com/changelog
Sentry – Working code means happy customers. That’s exactly why teams choose Sentry. From error tracking to performance monitoring, Sentry helps teams see what actually matters, resolve problems quicker, and learn continuously about their applications - from the frontend to the backend. Use the code THECHANGELOG and get the team plan free for three months.
LaunchDarkly – Ship fast. Rest easy. Deploy code at any time, even if a feature isn’t ready to be released to your users. Wrap code in feature flags to get the safety to test new features and infrastructure in prod without impacting the wrong end users.
Featuring:
Lara Hogan – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Jerod Santo – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
An excerpt from Resilient Management on A List Apart
Paloma Medina
Core Needs: BICEPS
Lara’s book
The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Your brain on progress – Increment
Voltron!
I’m a cog
The Changelog #342: From zero to thought leader in 6 months with Emma Bostian
Lara Hogan on mentorship and sponsorship
What does sponsorship look like?
Linchpin from Seth Godin
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
20VC: Etsy CEO, Josh Silverman on 2 Defining Traits of Great Leadership, The Danger of Attaching Happiness To Milestones, How To Structure Teams To Optimise for Experimentation and Agility &Whether You Learn More From Success Than Failure
Josh Silverman is the CEO @ Etsy, leading the company as it builds a platform that empowers creative entrepreneurs around the world. Prior to their IPO, Etsy raised funding from some of the best in the business including Danny Rimer @ Index, Albert Wenger @ USV and Jim Breyer @ Accel to name a few. Prior to Etsy, Josh served as President of Consumer Products and Services at American Express, was the CEO of Skype, and CEO of shopping.com, and he held various executive roles at eBay. Josh is also currently on the board of directors of Shake Shack.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Josh made his entry into the world of startups, came to be CEO of Skype and how he came to be CEO of Etsy? How did Josh's political background prepare him for being a public markets CEO?
2.) How does Josh think about 10 year plans? What is the right alternative? What does Josh do when he does not know what to do? How does Josh think about head vs heart in decision-making? How does Josh think about downside protection and risk mitigation with decisions?
3.) Why does Josh believe that you should, "never let a crisis go to waste"? How does he interpret that? Does Josh believe you learn more from success than failure? Why does Josh believe many succeed in spite of, not because of? How does Josh connote happiness to a milestone of success? What is true happiness for Josh?
4.) How does Josh think about winning today? What is the framework Josh believes founders need to put in place to optimise their chance of winning? How does Josh structure his team at Etsy to optimise for speed and experimentation? What has worked? What has not worked?
5.) How can leaders create a system where failure is minimised? How does Josh implement a "red hat vs green hat" decision making process around new ideas at Etsy? What question does Josh and the team ask with every experiment? How should one analyse the cost of rolling back a decision?
6.) How does Josh determine between dogma and good practice in a company? What is the right way to remove antiquated dogma without damaging morale? What were some of the biggest challenges from his doing this on entry at Etsy?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode
Josh's Favourite Book: Grant
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
435: Scaling Up Machine Learning
Erica Greene joins us to discuss her work as a machine learning manager at Etsy, how they tackle problem-solving, how they implement ML scaling, and more.
In this episode you will learn:
Erica’s role at Etsy and problem solving between platforms [2:28]
Interesting failures Erica has navigated [25:40]
How does Erica’s team select problems to solve [33:07]
Engineering at scale [40:15]
What does Erica’s working day look like? [46:30]
Etsy is hiring [53:00]
Diversity in hiring [57:12]
Do data scientists need PhDs? [1:01:26]
Additional materials: www.superdatascience.com/435
When to zoom in, when to zoom out, w/Josh Silverman (Etsy/eBay/Skype/Evite)
When do you see the forest? And when do you see the trees? Building a company to scale requires a delicate balance of macro and micro focus – and the skill to know where to focus when. Josh Silverman has built that skill in leadership roles at Evite, eBay, Skype, and now Etsy. What he’s learned: Success isn’t just about zooming in on the details or taking the long view – but about knowing when to switch between perspectives.
Read Nik Money's book The Selfish Ape: Human Nature and Our Path to Extinction.
Watch Scott Suko topple dominoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IuUp-rI0VU&feature=youtu.be
Read a transcript of this interview at: https://mastersofscale.com/josh-silverman-when-to-zoom-in-when-to-zoom-out/
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
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AI for search at Etsy
We have all used web and product search technologies for quite some time, but how do they actually work and how is AI impacting search? Andrew Stanton from Etsy joins us to dive into AI-based search methods and to talk about neuroevolution. He also gives us an introduction to Rust for production ML/AI and explains how that community is developing.
Sponsors:
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Featuring:
Andrew Stanton – GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
Yahoo learning to rank challenge
NEAT approach to neuroevolution
OpenAI evolutionary strategies for Atari
Rust
PyO3, Rust binding for the Python interpreter
Buzzsaw: A System for High Speed Feature Engineering
LinkedIn at KDD
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Modernizing Etsy’s codebase with React
KBall connects with Katie Sylor-Miller to talk about migrating OhShitGit to the JAMStack, migrating legacy codebases to modern front-end technologies, and design systems.
Join the discussion
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Featuring:
Katie Sylor-Miller – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Kevin Ball – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Show Notes:
OhShitGit
Eleventy
Netlify Branch Previews
Next.js
Hypernova
Design Systems Handbook
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
S10:E5 - How to be a good manager and a good employee (Lara Hogan)
You can be an amazing developer, but a terrible manager. We chat with Lara Hogan, former VP of Engineering at Kickstarter, co-founder of Wherewithall, a company that coaches and levels up managers, and author of the new bestselling book, Resilient Management, about her background going from web developer to manager, why becoming a manager isn’t necessarily a promotion, and some of the most important skills people need to not only be good managers, but in any supporting role.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
BASIC
Dyn
Kickstarter
Etsy
HTML
Resilient Management
Responsive web design
Wherewithall
Lara Hogan
Lara is the former VP of Engineering at Kickstarter, co-founder of Wherewithall, a company that coaches and levels up managers, and author of the new bestselling book, Resilient Management.
Episode 43: Here’s a Document on How to Best Deal with My Foibles
A Manager README is a document designed to establish clarity between a manager and those who report to them. These documents are especially useful for onboarding content. For example, if you have someone new starting on your team, there's so many things you need to share with them - pieces of advice and guidance that help them to make the best decision about what to do in specific situations. A Manager README sets some expectations in advance to make things easier and reduce friction and anxiety for team members.
Today, we’re talking to Matt Newkirk, who manages Etsy’s localization and translation group. He explains that even if your company has an intensive onboarding program and review process, some things are still left out. A Manager README is a helpful and proactive piece of content that prompts conversations about how people perceive things.
Some of the highlights of the show include:
Avoid writing READMEs that are extremely self-centered/arrogant
READMEs clarify what to do until a relationship is established between the manager and their employee
Get feedback early on to make sure that what you include in the document is helpful; it should reflect reality and be discussed
Share README with your manager to make sure you’re both on the same page about team philosophies and expectations
README is a living document that needs to be updated occasionally because things change
README adds context; it’s not designed to make employee feel like they’re back in school and panicking because they’re not prepared
Manager README - Not Matt’s best selection of terminology
Who’s the best boss you ever had? Why? They can be a force that shapes your life and career from the right perspective
Philosophy of Management: Don’t do what terrible managers have done; be transparent about strategic reasons for priorities changing
Links:
Matt Newkirk
Matt Newkirk on LinkedIn
Matt Newkirk on Twitter
Share your Manager README
Etsy
Etsy’s Job Openings
Shane Garoutte on LinkedIn
Kubernetes
Everbridge
Digital Ocean
.
S2:E4 - What makes a good speaker? (Lara Hogan, Kelsey Hightower)
This is the last week to submit a talk to Codeland, our annual tech conference, so we wanted to give you some insight on what makes a good talk, a good speaker, and a good proposal. You'll hear from Lara Hogan, who literally wrote the book on public speaking, and Kelsey Hightower, speaker and chair of many tech conferences. They share their personal speaking stories (and nightmares!), how they prepare their talks, and the common mistakes they see first-time speakers make.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Demystifying Public Speaking (code: NEWBIE for 10% off)
OSCON
Codeland CFP (submit by Nov 26)
Codeland Conf
Codeland 2019
Lara Hogan
Lara is the former VP of Engineering at Kickstarter, co-founder of Wherewithall, a company that coaches and levels up managers, and author of the new bestselling book, Resilient Management.
Kelsey Hightower
Kelsey is an open source advocate and toolsmith and spends most of his time working with people and solving their problems.
S1:E7 - Why is my website slow? (Lara Hogan)
You've got an amazing website. It's beautiful, functional, but it takes forever to load. What do you do? Where do you even begin to debug that? Lara Hogan, VP of Engineering at Kickstarter and author of the book, Designing for Performance, breaks down common web performance issues, tools you can use to diagnose the problem, and how to use AB testing to measure your results. We also have another episode of the Coding Corner, where we unpack three common mistakes newbies make when trying to speed things up!
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Which Test Won
New Relic
PageSpeed Insights
My Fonts
Font Squirrel Font Face Generator
Web Page Test
Skylight
ImageOptim
Designing for Performance (Lara's book)
Codeland Conf
Codeland 2019
Lara Hogan
Lara is the former VP of Engineering at Kickstarter, co-founder of Wherewithall, a company that coaches and levels up managers, and author of the new bestselling book, Resilient Management.
S1:E6 - How to ace a technical interview (Tiffany Peon, La Vesha Parker)
Technical interviews are the worst. They’re hard, they’re scary, and they often feel like they’re designed to make you feel stupid. But no worries! We’re here to help. We take a behind-the-scenes look at the interview process at two very prestigious companies, Etsy and the New York Times. Developers La Vesha Parker and Tiffany Peon break down each part of the interview process, giving you examples and explanations of exactly what they’re looking for, and share their own stories of how they got their roles. We also have a second edition of our Coding Corner where we share more interview tips and dissect how to solve a popular interview question, FizzBuzz.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Go (programming language)
CoffeeScript
Recurse Center
CSS Grids
Geeks for Geeks
Codeland Conf
Codeland 2019
Tiffany Peon
Tiffany is a Software Engineer for cooking.nytimes.com. She lives in Manhattan with her fiancé and guinea pig, Zardulu.
La Vesha Parker
La Vesha (she/her) is a NYC-based engineer at Etsy and an organizer of Progressive HackNight. When not at work, she splits her time between her two passions: tech activism and pottery.
Russ Taylor, Part Two: Bulletproof Vest
During today's second half of our two-part interview, Russ Taylor and I talk about the importance of testing. We dive into methods for testing like Happy Path Testing, and how to stay productive using techniques like Kanban.
If you missed the first half of my interview with Russ, and listen to more episodes, you can head over to Developer Tea.com and hit Subscribe through our RSS feed, Stitcher, on iTunes or another podcasting platform that you prefer.
Don't forget to vote for Developer Tea as podcast of the year in the 16th Annual Net Awards!
Thanks to today's sponsor: imgix
imgix is real-time image resizing as a service. It’s backed by a CDN with global presence, with response times for images averaging 70ms.sizing as a service. It’s FREE to sign up and easy to get started. Go to imgix.com and let them handle your images, today.
As always, thanks for listening. Until next time,
Enjoy your tea.
Russ Taylor, Part One: Continuous Integration
During today's first half of a two-part interview, I have the pleasure of talking with Russ Taylor. Russ works on the continuous integration team at Etsy.
We had a chance to talk about test driven development, all of the processes that Russ is involved with at Etsy, and how big applications like Etsy come together.
If you don't want to miss out on the second half of my interview with Russ, you can head on over to Developer Tea.com and hit Subscribe through our RSS feed, Stitcher, on iTunes or another podcasting platform that you prefer.
This episode is sponsored by OneMonth.com. Head over to OneMonth.com/developertea to get started learning Ruby on Rails in just one month, and receive a limited-time 25% discount!
I hope you enjoy the show, and until next time,
Enjoy your tea.
Ep. 23 - Ask CodeNewbie (Scott Hanselman, Tiffany Peon)
In our first live broadcast of the podcast, we brought on developers Scott Hanselman and Tiffany Peon to chat about hot topics in the CodeNewbie community. We talked about finding a dev job, code mentorship, and our thoughts on Zed Shaw’s critiques of programming bootcamps. We recorded live on http://twitch.tv/codenewbie, and we loved having you in the chatroom to ask questions, comment, and join us in the conversation. And we’ll definitely do another live edition of Ask CodeNewbie soon. Hope you can join us then!
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
CodeNewbie Episode with Zed Shaw
Office Space
CodeNewbie Episode with Scott Hanselman
John Sonmez's Soft Skills
User group
Qdoba
Betamax vs. VHS
Constant Contact
Rock Tumbler
Service Objects
Code Death March
XML
Mainframe
Object Oriented Programming
POODR
Codeland Conf
Codeland 2019
Scott Hanselman
Scott is a web developer who has been blogging at http://hanselman.com for over a decade. He works in Open Source on ASP.NET and the Azure Cloud for Microsoft out of his home office in Portland, Oregon.
Tiffany Peon
Tiffany is a Flatiron School grad turned Ruby developer at Constant Contact in NYC. She'll talk your ear off about testing API integrations, southern food, and TV sitcoms.
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