Hi, my name is Charity, and I am professionally caremad about computers.
I am an operations and database engineer and sometimes engineering manager. Right now I am the CEO and cofounder of Honeycomb, where we build observability for distributed systems. (“Monitoring” doesn’t have to be a dirty word; give us a try.)
Until recently I was a production engineering manager at Facebook. I spent 3.5 years working on Parse (both pre and post-acquisition by FB). I also spent several years at Linden Lab, working on the infrastructure and databases that power Second Life. I am the co-author of “Database Reliability Engineering” by O’Reilly.
I was a classical piano performance major in college, but dropped out because it turns out I prefer not being dirt poor. I have been building systems and engineering teams ever since.
I love startups, chaos and hard scaling problems, and somehow I always end up in charge of the databases.
Why do people think that dev and ops goes together. Programmers are artist and System Admins are mechanics. Left brain, right brain. If you are good at one you are not good at the other.
Completely, utterly, vastly and hilariously false. Thank you for playing. 🙂
I concur with you, Charity (mipsytipsy). 🙂
It is good to know that you play the piano and had enrolled for classical piano performance major in college. You are welcome to listen to my three piano sonatas at https://soundcloud.com/soundeagle/
Happy mid-February to you!
woo, thanks!
You are very welcome. 🙂
No way I spend 3 years at Softlayer coding Chef like a MF and honestly it is programming as well.
I’m curious if Brian still feels the same way in 2019. 😀
[…] The Engineer/Manager Pendulum Written by: Charity Majors […]
OMG you are so smart and fun, should be amazing work with people like you. Cheers
I wish I was as good at putting thoughts into words, really enjoyed your writing, and 100% agree with the sentiment.
Your engineering management piece is BRILLIANT!! I just started my year three, completely determined that it’s time to swing back. It was so reassuring to know that the mad feelings of inadequacy of the last two years were normal, and that swinging back is the right thing to do. You are a GENIUS!
thank you <3
Hi Charity,
I am a Research Assist for the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology. I have been tasked with finding data related Engineering Leadership. I have worked on stats with pre and post writing skills of engineers and now developing a certificate curriculum. I am reaching out about your piece on Engineering Leadership. Do you have any data that supports your statement about the demand? I love your humor and writings! Also intellectually entertaining! Thank you.
what statement about the demand?
[…] Testing in production: Yes, you can (and should) Written by: Charity Majors […]
[…] Logs vs Structured Events Written by: Charity Majors […]
[…] For more details about Charity check out : charity.wtf […]
Love your posts. Thought provoking and inspiring.
[…] Test in production? Yes you can (and you should) Written by: Charity Majors […]
[…] Observability — A 3-Year Retrospective Written by: Charity Majors […]
[…] I test in prod Written by: Charity Majors […]
Please add an e-mail subscription button to your blog. I enjoy your content and I don’t want to miss updates.
oh … hm! i will see if i can do that over the weekend. thanks for the request!
[…] Questionable Advice: Can Engineering Productivity Be Measured? Written by: Charity Majors […]
Hello!
I watched the talk you gave this past November for the Ops Show on Observability Driven development. Wonderful discussion. Any chance you would be willing to do another discussion?
of course. email me at honeycomb.io.
Hi Charity
I have been following you since I worked at Lightstep in 2019. Your curiosity is very inspiring and I love that you dont only address technical aspects in a very deep and sound manner but emphasize the importance to bring our humanity (leadership in business speak ;-)) to the table.
I also just listened to the latest pagerduty podcast. Outstanding!! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you!! <3
Hi, some made me curious Bout your posts. So here am I to subscribe 🙂
thank you in advance
& love + peace ..hope so!
well the moral of this thought of you that we dont have to judge the cover by its cover !
Lady, power to you!
I found it hard to get around the rainbows and kitties. But that’s me. My 7 year old twins loved them. (they like to keep a tab on their dad’s reading).
Frankly every blog is a masterpiece and should be framed on the walls*
Several points also sent my primal brain mewling (“that’s too hard”, “when would I get any real work done”) into a corner, esp on diversity and culture, bits I find difficult to champion actively. (Shame on me)
I have forwarded your blog to my team. There is so much wisdom and mentorship distilled here that the ‘great resignation’ generation can learn from.
Thank you for this! Stay awesome.
P.S.: *I might actually do that
aw, thank you <3 !