Adil Ansari

Back in my volunteer days at the San Jose Suicide and Crisis Hotline, I stumbled upon a peculiar realization: our emotions are often reflective mirrors of those we interact with. Fast forward to today's remote work era, this understanding has proved invaluable as an engineering manager. In a world where Zoom meetings replace in-person interactions, it's easy to feel disconnected from your team. But, remembering my hotline days, I've learned to check-in with my feelings during remote 1:1's, sensing the vibe from the other end. If I'm bored, they likely are too - time to shake things up. If I'm anxious, they could be feeling the same - let's address it. This "emotional telepathy", combined with genuine curiosity about my team, regular check-ins, and consistent career growth discussions, has enabled me to build trust and maintain cohesion, even from afar. Sometimes, the past holds the keys to our present challenges. Looking to navigate remote leadership? Feel free to drop a message. Let's connect, share, and grow together. #Leadership #RemoteWork #EmotionalIntelligence #EngineeringManagement ----------------------------------- Check out the full article at https://lnkd.in/gmUUHFWX

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Want a preview of what I'm going to be talking about in my keynote for RubyConf? You can catch a glimpse of it here!

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Hey folks! Garrett Milster and I have only posted about Sacramento Labs once, so we figured it's time for an update 😊 **What is Sacramento Labs?** We’re a small team focused on launching software products that solve real-world problems. Think of us as a startup lab—constantly testing ideas, learning from feedback, and building tools that matter, and having an impact while doing it. **How do we decide what to build?** We like to build products that: -         Solve real-world problems in mostly ignored industries -         Are small, highly maintainable, and scalable codebases -         Make the world a better place directly, or by donating a percentage of profits to a relevant charity in that space You can learn more about our philosophy at sacramentolabs.com **What you can expect from us** We’ll be posting product ideas that are in various stages of our pipeline: Early Concept, Customer Development, In Progress, Launched, Scaling. We’d love to hear your feedback! **Our latest concept: Self-Hosted Security** Here’s the problem: - Businesses often use third-party URL shorteners to share internal tools, resources, or campaigns, but these services introduce serious risks. Enterprise companies like Google, Microsoft, and Stripe have built their own internal URL shorteners for this reason – but most businesses don’t have the resources to do that. - Phishing attacks are rampant, and links from external services can be spoofed or abused. - Branding and security controls are limited, leaving sensitive information exposed. - You can’t track link activity—who’s clicking what, when, or why. - When employees leave, their shared links still work, leaving potential vulnerabilities. Our proposed solution: Self-Hosted Security. It’s a plug-and-play solution for businesses to host their own branded URL shorteners with: - SSO for secure access tied to your company’s directory. - Link expirations to ensure old links don’t stay active indefinitely. - Audit logs to track activity and improve visibility into link usage. 📢 We need your input! Would this solve a problem for you? What features would make this indispensable? Check out the landing page and share your thoughts: selfhostedsecurity.com Want to chat? Email me at [email protected] 😊 💡 And here’s something we’re passionate about: a percentage of profits from Self-Hosted Security will go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Your feedback not only helps us create better solutions, but also contributes to making a positive impact. Thanks for being part of the journey!

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A few years ago, I wrote a post on Quora about interview process for Principal Engineer role at Amazon. In that post, I shared my own experiences as the recruiter owning that hiring process, as well as tips from other Principal Engineers who had been through the process. Even today, I get weekly emails and messages from senior engineers who saw that post and want to learn more about the Amazon interview. We often end up talking about more than just Amazon. We discuss career development and interview skills in general. I really enjoy those conversations! Since 2017 (when I wrote the Quora post), Amazon has created several helpful resources to prepare candidates for their interviews. Here below are those "official" interview prep materials. I hope you find them useful. Feel free to share them with your friends who are getting ready for job interviews. The Original Quora post: https://lnkd.in/gGVBsJfn Amazon Interview Prep Repo: https://lnkd.in/gnnanGCz Now that you have a starting point, in coming weeks, I plan to write about the "softer skills" that are hard to measure but can really make a difference in interviews. I will expand on those topics. I will breakdown topics like "technical leadership assessment in interviews", authenticity, dealing with ambiguity, "active listening during interview", and other topics. I will write about 'interview preparation' itself! DM, email me on what other 'non-obvious' topics you want me to write about? PS: I'll try to keep my writing practical and broadly applicable, even though my experience is mostly with Amazon. 😀 #interviewing #careeradvise #careergoals #careertransition #interviewpreparation #interviewtips #principalengineer #amazon #amazoninterview

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“Engineering related projects are the projects the engineering team pushes for. Rebuilding X system, building Y metric system, or switching to Z technology. Even more than product managers, I think engineers can mistakenly look at capabilities before they look at real need.”

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What does it feel like to be an engineering manager at Amazon: Since the RTO announcement it became popular to write shit about Amazon, but it's still one of the best companies around the world. A few weeks ago, Gilad Naor shared with the 'Leading Developers' readers 3 lessons from his time as an engineering manager at Amazon. Here is the first one, read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dHBxv2Ha 𝟭. 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺𝘀 My first meeting at Amazon was baffling. I entered a room with about a dozen Software Development Managers (SDMs) and Product Managers (PMs). Everyone sat in silence and looked at their laptops or the printed papers they had before them. It was my second day at Amazon, and I picked up one of the extra sheets and started reading. After those first ten awkward minutes, everyone finished reading and the meeting began. Why do Amazon meetings always start this way? This is a specific example of how Amazon approaches problem-solving. It is the "Good Intentions Don't Matter" approach. In a famous internal video, Jeff Bezos talks about why good intentions are irrelevant. When things don't work, it does not matter what people wanted. All that matters is fixing the problems with mechanisms. For example, many busy managers come to meetings without first reading the prep material. They all intended to read the 6-Pager before the meeting. They just got sidetracked by the latest emergency. Scolding the managers won't solve the problem. A mechanism will. This is why all Amazon meetings start with a study period. The remaining meeting time is then spent on high-quality decision-making. Meta solves the same problem by creating cultural norms. I can't count the number of times that I heard a senior leader cut off the presenter: "Stop, assume that everyone here already read the slides. Let's get to the point." This is a culture-first approach. I have seen this work well in some teams, and not work at all in other teams. At Amazon, the solution is part of the company's "operating system". ------------------------- Anton here - by now everyone is familiar with the 6-pager concept, but that "operating system" thinking can be used almost anywhere. Think about something annoying that your developers do, and how can you solve it. For example, I remember being annoyed that people don’t update the Jira tickets. Finally, after requesting multiple times, now we just take 20 seconds from the standup to update them.

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🏥 Neurodiversity inclusion done right: The UC Davis MIND Institute created a vaccine clinic that promoted the wellbeing of neurodiverse patients. Beyond administering vaccines, the clinic sought to help patients of all ages become more familiar medical settings and teach them the skills they would need to thrive in such environments. 🧑‍⚕️ Medical providers received training specific to neurodiverse individuals, their unique support needs, and how to work with families on providing safe and effective care. If every hospital could build off of the success of this clinic to create a welcoming space for patients of all needs, imagine how less scary they could be for people! Huge kudos to the team at UC Davis for their attention to detail and thoughtfulness for the neurodiversity community. News article: https://lnkd.in/gmp7QCHA Full paper: https://lnkd.in/gUP3PddZ

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While there are certainly individual variations in skill and experience when discussing modern software development the story is much more nuanced than pure individual effort.  * software development is a team sport -- individual performance is heavily impacted by the system in which they are asked to operate in.  * we pair skill and experience to this model of understanding performance by expecting people to be able to influence and adapt in direct proportion to their seniority, aka the more senior you are the more responsible you are for the outcomes of your work, the less senior you are the more your manager and management chain are responsible.  * humans want to succeed, we're social animals who derive purpose from demonstrating skill, and working collectively. All of which is to say there is no way you have over 1000 people underperforming at your company without senior leadership deeply implicated in.  If nearly 10% of your company is failing, versus just having the market move against you, you need to fire the CEO.

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It’s no secret—I’m obsessed with humanoid robots. Why? Because they’re cool—they’re revolutionizing manufacturing, reshaping the labor force, and pushing humanity forward in ways we’re only beginning to imagine. (and maybe I just need more help in life. Obviously). Here’s what’s happening in the world of my favorite humie heroes: 🤖🚘 Figure has teamed up with BMW, putting their humanoid robots to work in auto manufacturing. 🤖 📦Agility Robotics has introduced Digit, their incredible bot that’s already lending a hand in Amazon warehouses. And of course, there’s 🤖 🎁Tesla’s Optimus, aiming to wrap our Christmas presents (or take over other tedious tasks) by 2025. This article dives deeper into these robotic trailblazers—and my favorite “humies.” Which one’s your favorite? I can't decide, but hopefully you'll weigh in.

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🚨 Check it out - hot off the press! 📰 Sudeep Das, Pradeep Varma and Ying Yang are all hiring as we continue to scale! 🙏 If you have a passion for Machine Learning and expertise within Deep Learning, Computer Vision and/or NLP domains, let's connect! #experimentation #DoorDash #hiring #machinelearning

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🌶🌶🌶 Hot take… Old problem: if we put more devs on the project, we can deliver it sooner. Same thinking, new manifestation: we can hire more overseas devs for less total money to produce the same result as our US staff. Flaw in that thinking: product development is not an assembly line. Devs are not “interchangeable”. Software is as much an art as it is science. It’s a team sport. The people on your team matters. #tech #staffing #management #hiring #jobs #layoffs #software #startup #teamleadership

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If you think that the Trump assassination attempt somehow only affects Republicans, know that for some reason Bernie Sanders also cancelled his rally in Portland, ME for this Friday. The problem isn't that there aren't other candidates with better ideas--there are. The problem isn't that people are dumb and don't want a better future for the planet--I think they do. The best candidates are seldom the ones on the ballot. The higher you go in politics this is true: it is often the richest and oldest that are eligible for Presidency, and those with archaic ideas and that support the status quo, and those that serve for self gain. So once again, I'll be voting for the US Presidential candidate, whichever one is on the ballot whose ideas are more progressive. I will vote for the candidate not trying to topple government as we know it, or shake the hands of the Dictators whose hands snuff out the life of dissent. It was a Historic Meeting when Donald Trump shook the hands of Kim Jong Un, because he shook the hand of a despot that murders his own people for consuming the culture of other people, like the 30 teens North Korea recently executed for watching South Korean shows. Similarly, we must express our outrage at China's treatment of the Uyghur population. The Chinese government has detained hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Uyghurs in what they call "re-education camps." These camps are nothing short of modern-day concentration camps, where people are held without trial, subjected to political indoctrination, forced labor, and even torture. The world cannot stand idly by as an entire ethnic group is systematically oppressed and their culture erased. I get that some folks think we should just respect their Vote, but look, even Hitler and Putin were elected and that's just shit to think someone would vote for that, yet alone enough to normalize it. So this November, Let's Vote! Let's vote not to become America the Scared and Punished; lets not vote for camps; Lets not roll back the clocks of social progress when the hands of the Science clock will not be turned back by such rhetoric. No, we must work together to accomplish the impossible, if we want a future for our Grandchildren and their children on this planet.

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Waymo is probably both more expensive and longer waits on average than Uber or Lyft today, but they are close enough, and rapidly getting better. These markets will flip to fully autonomous when the tech is ready.

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LLMs are going to be commoditized akin to cloud services in the early 2010s. Big companies and startups alike are going to start building agents on top of these offerings. Whoever can solve the latency, guardrails and security issues will come out on top.

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Why Amazon's RTO Policy Misses the Mark: A Growing Opportunity for Software Engineers Amazon’s return-to-office (RTO) policy has sparked heated debates, with leadership asserting that face-to-face collaboration enhances efficiency and innovation. While that may hold true in certain contexts, in a global company as vast as Amazon, the policy feels increasingly out of touch with the realities of modern, distributed teams. Think about it: At Amazon, you're often not collaborating with people in the same room—or even the same continent. Your team might be spread across Seattle, India, and Europe, necessitating virtual meetings regardless of where you log in. Even when everyone is in the same city, logistics like elevator delays in a packed high-rise mean it’s often faster to join a video call from your desk, whether at home or in an office cubicle. So what purpose does mandatory office attendance serve? It doesn't address the core challenges of remote collaboration. Companies like Microsoft are setting an example by investing in tools and systems that enable seamless virtual teamwork, acknowledging the inherently global nature of modern businesses. The irony of Amazon's RTO push is that it’s creating an unintended side effect: more engineers are actively seeking new opportunities. Talented professionals value flexibility and work-life balance, and policies that disregard these priorities push them to consider employers who embrace hybrid or fully remote work. If you’re contemplating your next move but concerned about confidentiality, platforms like Mirajobs offer a solution. Their tagline, “Search for a new job without your SDM knowing,” reflects their mission of enabling anonymous job searches. Platforms like this protect your identity while you explore roles that align better with your personal and professional values. You can engage with recruiters discreetly, without the risk of jeopardizing your current position. Amazon's RTO mandate is a wake-up call for professionals and companies alike. For engineers, it’s a chance to reflect on what work environment best supports their growth. For employers, it’s a reminder that talent retention requires more than just policies—it requires trust, flexibility, and a genuine understanding of how work gets done in a globalized world. What are your thoughts? Are rigid RTO policies the solution to collaboration challenges, or do they simply drive top talent to seek greener pastures? Let’s discuss! #amazon #RTO #anonymousjobsearch #techcareer #faang

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📚 My Book-Of-The-Month for October was "Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon" by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, former Amazon executives that I overlapped with 📚 It wasn’t until I left Amazon in 2020 and spent 4 years at Google that I realized that all the things I took for granted and considered *common sense* at Amazon didn’t necessarily exist outside Amazon. Jeff is disciplined, so Amazon is disciplined. Jeff and the early s-team encoded a number of mechanisms to ensure Amazon’s core DNA would survive the massive scale that it faced: inspection mechanisms like WBR/MBR/QBR, planning mechanisms like OP1/OP2, hiring mechanisms like the Bar Raising program, and of course the crisp encoding of the Leadership Principles and their ubiquity in everyday life. For all of Amazon’s existence we operated on thin margins, so we needed that discipline and efficiency to survive. If you invented a time machine and transported the 2009 Carlos to 2024, he would recognize Amazon and feel right at home. Yes Amazon 2009 was more of an adolescent amazon and Amazon 2024 is more of a grown-up amazon but the core DNA is still very much there and recognizable. I truly believe that Amazon is an exceptional place to work - not because of the perks and pampering (hum, there's never been many of those LOL), but because of the environment around you. #bookofthemonth #carlosbookofthemonth

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