Apr 25, 2022Why Success Is Often Elusive at the Highest EchelonsDuring recent discussions with friends, one common theme that crops up very frequently is how success has remained rather elusive to recent higher level hires at their companies. By “higher level hires”, I’m referring to not just senior managers, directors, and VPs, but also very senior engineers (think principal level)…Engineering Mangement6 min readEngineering Mangement6 min read
Jan 5, 2022know how your org works (or how to become a more effective engineer)A few months ago, exhausted by a constant stream of people perennially disappointed about reward structures at companies, I made what seemed to me a fairly non-controversial statement: Some of the responses to this were, well, rather pointed. Most people’s dismay seems to have stemmed from the exasperation around…Engineering16 min readEngineering16 min read
Dec 31, 2021Best of 2021 in Tech [Talks]Given it took me until October 2021 to post the list for 2020, thought I’d get a move on this year and post the list before the end of the year. A short list this year, inasmuch as I barely spent any time on “extracurricular” tech stuff. The first four…Formal Methods6 min readFormal Methods6 min read
Oct 4, 2021Best of 2020 in Tech [Talks]Every year, I publish a list of best technical talks of the previous year. Usually, these posts are published in the first couple of months of the year. 2020 and 2021, to say the least, haven’t been “normal” years, which explains why I’ve been dilatory in publishing this post. Usually…Distributed Systems6 min readDistributed Systems6 min read
Jan 1, 2021Seamless file descriptor transfer between processes with pidfd and pidfd_getfdA while ago, I wrote about how file descriptors can be transferred over Unix Domain Sockets between processes, when a parent child relationship doesn’t exist between the two processes. One of the use cases for file descriptor transfer between processes is during deployment of network proxies that handle ingress traffic…Linux3 min readLinux3 min read
Oct 15, 2020WaypointA couple of weeks ago, I saw a demo of Waypoint, the new tool Hashicorp announced today, that aims to provide an easy, intuitive and customizable “build, deploy and release” workflow. This post isn’t a tutorial or a guide on how to use the product; the official documentation and tutorials…Deployment Pipelines6 min readDeployment Pipelines6 min read
Aug 17, 2020Bash Redirection Fun With DescriptorsBash Redirection: The Basics A bash script is commonly a set of commands. There are three standard file descriptors of any command: 0 → stdin 1 → stdout 2 → stderr There are two commonly used redirection operators: > output (This is the default operator for fd 1) < input (This is the default…Bash6 min readBash6 min read
Aug 5, 2020File Descriptor Transfer over Unix Domain SocketsUpdate 12/31/2020: If you’re on a newer kernel (Linux 5.6+), much of this complexity has been obviated with the introduction of a new system call pidfd_getfd. Please see the post Seamless File Descriptor Transfer Between Processes with pidfd and pidfd_getfd published on 12/31/2020 for more details. Yesterday, I read a…Unix10 min readUnix10 min read
Aug 2, 2020Tactical Challenges In Hiring Junior EngineersAll too often, I see comments or opinion pieces that read like platitudes about how every team should be hiring junior engineers. Let me start by saying that I’m all for hiring more junior engineers. There seems to be a perennial shortage of competent “senior” talent that seemingly every team…Hiring7 min readHiring7 min read
Jul 14, 2020Write MoreAll too often I see a lot of time and energy expended by people on social media on topics they obviously care a lot about. If the purpose of this energy is advocacy and bringing about real change, then it’s hard to think of a less effective way toward reaching…Writing3 min readWriting3 min read
