Management Q&A - Revision history

Klenwell: /* Questions */

2022-05-31T17:31:11Z

‎Questions

Klenwell: /* Tell us about a time you received feedback that was accurate but tough to hear? What was it? How did you respond to it? */

2022-05-26T01:26:59Z

‎Tell us about a time you received feedback that was accurate but tough to hear? What was it? How did you respond to it?

Klenwell: /* Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. */

2022-05-26T01:23:47Z

‎Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature.

Klenwell: /* What are your Career Goals / Aspirations? - Where do you want to be in 3/5/10 years? */

2022-05-21T02:06:19Z

‎What are your Career Goals / Aspirations? - Where do you want to be in 3/5/10 years?

Klenwell: /* Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. */

2022-05-21T01:09:00Z

‎Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component.

Klenwell: /* Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. */

2022-05-21T01:08:03Z

Klenwell: /* Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. */

2022-05-21T01:07:22Z

Klenwell: /* Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. */

2022-05-21T01:06:03Z

Klenwell: /* In 1-3 paragraphs describe a time-sensitive situation you faced that had major impact on the overall company. What was it, why was it so important and time sensitive, what did you do, what was the result? */

2022-05-21T01:05:47Z

‎In 1-3 paragraphs describe a time-sensitive situation you faced that had major impact on the overall company. What was it, why was it so important and time sensitive, what did you do, what was the result?

Klenwell: /* Questions */

2022-05-18T18:30:20Z

‎Questions

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 == Questions ==
 ==== In 1-3 paragraphs describe a time-sensitive situation you faced that had major impact on the overall company. What was it, why was it so important and time sensitive, what did you do, what was the result? ====
 Shortly after I started at the first startup I worked at, a fintech startup building a turnkey asset management platform for independent retirement advisors, the CEO sat me down and informed me that he had signed a contract with an API-driven clearing service. This would be the backend for the new investor interface we wanted to build to automate and accelerate client onboarding for our advisor platform. For independent advisors, onboarding new clients with the advisor's broker is a major pain point. CEO wanted to know how long it would take for us to deliver this.
@@ Line 25: / Line 26: @@
 What I find especially interesting is, in the wake of this project, I encountered similar bottlenecks or anti-patterns at two subsequent companies where I worked. The first I dubbed "mind-reading-as-a-service", the second "workaround-driven-development". In those cases, lack of clear service boundaries together with organizational politics made it hard to acknowledge the issues and was the source of ongoing complications in development.
 ==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====
@@ Line 50: / Line 34: @@
 If something else is meant by the term deploy here (e.g. the process of actually deploying the completed code) or you'd like to dig deeper into the process outlined above (say, requirement gathering or user acceptance testing), I'm happy to discuss that.
 ====How do you determine shipping confidence? what tools and/or process do you rely on?====
 A deliberate crafted ever-improving process organized around automated tests, continuous integration, user acceptance testing, and, when needed, postmortems.
@@ Line 72: / Line 58: @@
 https://kinsta.com/blog/php-vs-python/
 ====What are your Career Goals / Aspirations? - Where do you want to be in 3/5/10 years?====
 I'd love to be at the same organization continuing to help it build great products for its users while promoting the well-being of those with whom work.

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 ==== Tell us about a time you received feedback that was accurate but tough to hear? What was it? How did you respond to it? ====
 Here's an incident involving some uncomfortable feedback that ultimately proved instructive. While I was heading Engineering for a fintech startup, I read an interesting book on sleep, [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep Why We Sleep]. For our team's quarterly all-hands meeting, I put together a short presentation about it. At some point in my presentation, I made a joking offhand remark, something like, "This is information that Tucker Carlson and Fox News doesn't want you to know." I may have referenced that guy who does the pillow commercials.
 ==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:23, 26 May 2022
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	What I find especially interesting is, in the wake of this project, I encountered similar bottlenecks or anti-patterns at two subsequent companies where I worked. The first I dubbed "mind-reading-as-a-service", the second "workaround-driven-development". In those cases, lack of clear service boundaries together with organizational politics made it hard to acknowledge the issues and was the source of ongoing complications in development.		What I find especially interesting is, in the wake of this project, I encountered similar bottlenecks or anti-patterns at two subsequent companies where I worked. The first I dubbed "mind-reading-as-a-service", the second "workaround-driven-development". In those cases, lack of clear service boundaries together with organizational politics made it hard to acknowledge the issues and was the source of ongoing complications in development.
		+
		+	==== Tell us about a time you received feedback that was accurate but tough to hear? What was it? How did you respond to it? ====
		+	Here's an incident involving some uncomfortable feedback that ultimately proved instructive. While I was heading Engineering for a fintech startup, I read an interesting book on sleep, [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep Why We Sleep]. For our team's quarterly all-hands meeting, I put together a short presentation about it. At some point in my presentation, I made a joking offhand remark, something like, "This is information that Tucker Carlson and Fox News doesn't want you to know." I may have referenced that guy who does the pillow commercials.

	==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====		==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:06, 21 May 2022
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	====What are your Career Goals / Aspirations? - Where do you want to be in 3/5/10 years?====		====What are your Career Goals / Aspirations? - Where do you want to be in 3/5/10 years?====
−	I'd love to be at the same organization~~. Not one necessarily focused on hyper-growth but on sustainable growth, investment rather than extraction or exploitation, and~~ the well-being of ~~its employees~~.	+	I'd love to be at the same organization continuing to help it build great products for its users while promoting the well-being of those with whom work.

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 Rather than present the customary architectural diagram, I created this sequence diagram to illustrate the complications we discovered:
-* [[sequencediagram.org https://sequencediagram.org/index.html#initialData=C4S2BsFMAIEkDsBukDOwD2AnaB5eAjdAQ0wBMR4BzaAMXHQHcAoQ4DAWwAcTQBjEbvGApoTJkV4ZsCZGizjJWaAEFSiECnndMfAUSHQARKvWbsABSzAi4Q9CIjl5ptt2DgRmaim4CxMhSUdg5wOGJecpgAtAB8JhpYAFzQAMLo8CgAruDWoOliALwF8WbQ9JQiFBj2nJwAdKTo7EQUdbxNRQDE4CCUABbA+OCZkGIlWLFOyWlcUMAwFLLA7JAGnJjonOgoNkzw6PPQ6MjYU6kASgCiygAql9C8PavAABQoAJRMTrGwOMlOsGS5hwAGUbtB1pttrt9odjpBpDhOqQSABrLD6SiQaZXW73IicAD6jxAzzenwiUgAPFFfolLs0QOBkgB1SDgdoraDVX6FAqUpQk3iokQ9eCo6AAMyUIHQDSaLXgbQ6BU6vF4ksl6vCSG8ExiLwAzO86edIJQNPNsC9eJhIERDos9ZhPrCYPDEckQdYdEc-CRyFRoAwQAAvAPiQgADyOJ1CABonJ0MVQEZBSF6AJ7wXgPJ4GAD00CdkXJewO7rjv06ADYa6RSHXkgLsJzOHNUH7CBHfpNzP9zIDoOZbikABJ50lCMu9mIAXUSwLB3PQD0ycnI+hUg6AA]]
+* [https://sequencediagram.org/index.html#initialData=C4S2BsFMAIEkDsBukDOwD2AnaB5eAjdAQ0wBMR4BzaAMXHQHcAoQ4DAWwAcTQBjEbvGApoTJkV4ZsCZGizjJWaAEFSiECnndMfAUSHQARKvWbsABSzAi4Q9CIjl5ptt2DgRmaim4CxMhSUdg5wOGJecpgAtAB8JhpYAFzQAMLo8CgAruDWoOliALwF8WbQ9JQiFBj2nJwAdKTo7EQUdbxNRQDE4CCUABbA+OCZkGIlWLFOyWlcUMAwFLLA7JAGnJjonOgoNkzw6PPQ6MjYU6kASgCiygAql9C8PavAABQoAJRMTrGwOMlOsGS5hwAGUbtB1pttrt9odjpBpDhOqQSABrLD6SiQaZXW73IicAD6jxAzzenwiUgAPFFfolLs0QOBkgB1SDgdoraDVX6FAqUpQk3iokQ9eCo6AAMyUIHQDSaLXgbQ6BU6vF4ksl6vCSG8ExiLwAzO86edIJQNPNsC9eJhIERDos9ZhPrCYPDEckQdYdEc-CRyFRoAwQAAvAPiQgADyOJ1CABonJ0MVQEZBSF6AJ7wXgPJ4GAD00CdkXJewO7rjv06ADYa6RSHXkgLsJzOHNUH7CBHfpNzP9zIDoOZbikABJ50lCMu9mIAXUSwLB3PQD0ycnI+hUg6AA sequencediagram.org]
 The diagram shows basic client onboarding flow for a new client of an advisor. Notes in orange and red highlight problem spots we identified in our original design. We refactored those elements of our architecture to consolidate data around a single source of truth and clearly delineate client and service roles in our architecture thereby simplifying development.

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:07, 21 May 2022
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	==== Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. ====		==== Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. ====
		+
		+	For this question, I discussed a key refactor we made while building the investor interface for the turnkey asset management system we built while I was Head Engineer at a fintech startup.
		+
		+	Rather than present the customary architectural diagram, I created this sequence diagram to illustrate the complications we discovered:
		+
		+	* [sequencediagram.org https://sequencediagram.org/index.html#initialData=C4S2BsFMAIEkDsBukDOwD2AnaB5eAjdAQ0wBMR4BzaAMXHQHcAoQ4DAWwAcTQBjEbvGApoTJkV4ZsCZGizjJWaAEFSiECnndMfAUSHQARKvWbsABSzAi4Q9CIjl5ptt2DgRmaim4CxMhSUdg5wOGJecpgAtAB8JhpYAFzQAMLo8CgAruDWoOliALwF8WbQ9JQiFBj2nJwAdKTo7EQUdbxNRQDE4CCUABbA+OCZkGIlWLFOyWlcUMAwFLLA7JAGnJjonOgoNkzw6PPQ6MjYU6kASgCiygAql9C8PavAABQoAJRMTrGwOMlOsGS5hwAGUbtB1pttrt9odjpBpDhOqQSABrLD6SiQaZXW73IicAD6jxAzzenwiUgAPFFfolLs0QOBkgB1SDgdoraDVX6FAqUpQk3iokQ9eCo6AAMyUIHQDSaLXgbQ6BU6vF4ksl6vCSG8ExiLwAzO86edIJQNPNsC9eJhIERDos9ZhPrCYPDEckQdYdEc-CRyFRoAwQAAvAPiQgADyOJ1CABonJ0MVQEZBSF6AJ7wXgPJ4GAD00CdkXJewO7rjv06ADYa6RSHXkgLsJzOHNUH7CBHfpNzP9zIDoOZbikABJ50lCMu9mIAXUSwLB3PQD0ycnI+hUg6AA]
		+
		+	The diagram shows basic client onboarding flow for a new client of an advisor. Notes in orange and red highlight problem spots we identified in our original design. We refactored those elements of our architecture to consolidate data around a single source of truth and clearly delineate client and service roles in our architecture thereby simplifying development.
		+
		+	This is really a discussion of cost-benefits and strategic trade-offs. We refactored the two applications involved around a strict client/service relationship bounded by a conventional REST API. This required delaying release of the product by 3 or 4 weeks. But it ended up a paying off when, a couple months later, we had to swap out our backend custodial service provider due to an unexpected shake-up in the online broker industry.
		+
		+	What I find especially interesting is, in the wake of this project, I encountered similar bottlenecks or anti-patterns at two subsequent companies where I worked. The first I dubbed "mind-reading-as-a-service", the second "workaround-driven-development". In those cases, lack of clear service boundaries together with organizational politics made it hard to acknowledge the issues and was the source of ongoing complications in development.

	==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====		==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 This was all highly speculative as we hadn't even hired the team yet when the request was presented to us. I made this clear to the CEO when I presented him our estimates. In the end, the product took about 15 months to release to production (less than 12 months if measuring from when the 4-developer team was fully assembled). Our company negotiated some minor concessions on the monthly fees. A major unexpected development in the online broker industry, as the project was readying to exit beta, ended up requiring a major pivot away from our original API vendor (which went pretty smoothly thanks to the care we took in developing our code.) Our company was acquired a year later. A few months after that, the new owners laid off me and most my team and ended up abandoning the platform. I learned several lessons from this experience I'd be happy to talk about in more detail.
-== Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. ==
+==== Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. ====
 ==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:05, 21 May 2022
Line 11:		Line 11:

	This was all highly speculative as we hadn't even hired the team yet when the request was presented to us. I made this clear to the CEO when I presented him our estimates. In the end, the product took about 15 months to release to production (less than 12 months if measuring from when the 4-developer team was fully assembled). Our company negotiated some minor concessions on the monthly fees. A major unexpected development in the online broker industry, as the project was readying to exit beta, ended up requiring a major pivot away from our original API vendor (which went pretty smoothly thanks to the care we took in developing our code.) Our company was acquired a year later. A few months after that, the new owners laid off me and most my team and ended up abandoning the platform. I learned several lessons from this experience I'd be happy to talk about in more detail.		This was all highly speculative as we hadn't even hired the team yet when the request was presented to us. I made this clear to the CEO when I presented him our estimates. In the end, the product took about 15 months to release to production (less than 12 months if measuring from when the 4-developer team was fully assembled). Our company negotiated some minor concessions on the monthly fees. A major unexpected development in the online broker industry, as the project was readying to exit beta, ended up requiring a major pivot away from our original API vendor (which went pretty smoothly thanks to the care we took in developing our code.) Our company was acquired a year later. A few months after that, the new owners laid off me and most my team and ended up abandoning the platform. I learned several lessons from this experience I'd be happy to talk about in more detail.
		+
		+	== Tell us in detail about the architecture of a project you’ve led and/or designed. Lay out the high level components (e.g. front-end, web servers, database) and then drill down and review the design of each component. ==

	==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====		==== Describe the process you used with your team in deploying a major product feature. ====