Tweaking the newsletter this week. I’m hoping to keep going until I find a structure that works and feels good to me.
As always, if you have any feedback, let me know!
Now, close your social media and let’s get to it.
Things I liked this week#
Smart People Doing Smart Things#
Podcast featuring the founders of WarpStream, both worked at Datadog on Husky which is Datadog’s event store. These guys do some really difficult engineering and it’s interesting to hear how they came into these unique roles without a CS degree.
Dopamine Detox!#
I’ve noticed that I’ve been in a rut recently, and feeling like I’m not contributing to my best ability. This video was a nice reminder of how and why we should get rid of dopamine-stimulating products, and get back to the basics.
There’s something very attractive about not using any social media and just detaching, but it is quite difficult to do. This week, I’m planning to delete all social media from my phone and hope that I regain some natural zen.
Engineering Career Growth#
Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook (firstround.com)
Interesting article on career growth. A key takeaway was that your career can go much faster when the company you are in is also growing. As the author mentions, being early at FB or Stripe would set you up for growth simply because the company is growing so rapidly.
This idea is consistent with the career advice that suggests young people join Series B stage startups, as they are gearing up for these kinds of growth trajectories. Just make sure you pick the right one 😉
Things I Learned About this Week#
Exception Control Flow#
We went through this idea in our CSI class this week. It’s an interesting concept and one that is fundamental to how your computer works.
Similar to the above, this article is recommended: What happens when you switch on a computer?
Kedro#
Spent a little while learning about Kedro as a data pipeline tool. It has some basic primitives but seems to be capable of creating some cool pipelines. I’d like to dive into this further at some stage!
Life Updates#
The first module of Bradfield CSI is complete! Computer Networking will start later in September
I’ve recently returned to my HouseAndRent repository where I’m scraping all the listings on flatmates.com.au. I’ve built a barebones model and frontend for it. The eventual goal at this stage is to turn it into an MLOps project
That’s all for this week! I’ll see you again next time