Posts in tech culture
On showing up to the table

Think about the meetings that you’re in, the tables that you sit at, and I want you to count how many of the people sitting at those tables are people like you. And then ask yourself what you can do to make the tables you sit at more inclusive of and welcoming to people who aren’t like you.

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On breaking out of echo chambers

I know that it can feel awkward to start moving outside of your normal circles and comfort zone. But don't expect other people to do this work for you for free as their second or third shift. Let's all help to make our community a stronger and more diverse one, but please don't ask the marginalized individuals in our community to do all the heavy lifting.

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On distributed teams and (not) being remote

Not only are there benefits for individual employees by allowing them to work wherever is best for them, allowing for remote workers allows access to a bigger pool of candidates. It's time for companies and hiring managers to take a good look at their cultures and job requirements. What things are actually required to do a particular job well?

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On interrupting interrupt culture

In an interrupt culture, the ideas that win aren't necessarily the best ideas, they're just the ideas that were voiced the most loudly over somebody else's. And the kinds of people that stay in an organization with an interrupt culture are those who are willing and able to constantly interrupt others.

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blog, tech cultureRyn Daniels
On disconnecting

Take a look at what your work habits actually are and consider the expectations that you are setting, intentionally or not, for the people around you. None of us work in a vacuum, and our behaviors do affect the people we work with, whether we realize it or not. Those kinds of expectations can lead people to work longer and longer hours to the detriment of their health and happiness.

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On devops and team structure

Everyone has different skills and strengths and individual responsibilities, but what everyone has is a shared responsibility to the customer and the company. We should be asking what can we learn from each other, and how can we use that to improve the customer experience even more.

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On the idea of a devops team

The cloud is not DevOps. Configuration management is not DevOps. Shiny new virtualization tools and containers and frameworks are not DevOps. MongoDB in all of its webscale glory is not DevOps. Automation is not DevOps. These things can be (and frequently are) awesome when used appropriately, but all of the tools and config management and automation in the world cannot fix a broken culture or a broken mindset.

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