We are getting to know a bit more about our engineering manager Pamela, how she got here and what she enjoys about her job but also her fun creative hobby and her experiences with leading teams when the leaders left.
We are getting to know a bit more about our engineering manager Pamela, how she got here and what she enjoys about her job but also her fun creative hobby and her experiences with leading teams when the leaders left.
Hello, welcome to Artsy Engineering Radio. My name is Kaja, and I'm an engineer at Artsy. Today we will hear from Pamela, and how she became an engineering manager. And we will learn much more about her in our next episode. Who are you and how did you get here? Yep, so please enjoy the podcast with me. Hello, welcome to Artsy Engineering Radio. Today we're having a really cool person here to to introduce to the rest of the engineering listeners or the listener of engineering radio, Pamela? Yeah. So maybe I'll just give a pass it to you to introduce yourself. So with the first question, who are you?
Pamela:Hi, I'm really excited to be here. My name is Pamela. I'm an engineering manager at Artsy I just joined three months ago. Around that time, who are you feels like a very loaded question. I'll say today, I'm an engineering manager, who really cares about people and their safety within teams. I'm also creative, I love to make things. My current obsession is crochet. I'm working on a sweater right now. Many layers to me.
Kaja:Yeah, I'm so I'm so happy that you have time today to do this recording. We already had a one on one. And I was super curious to know more about your kind of path into the career but also like about you personally. And yeah, I know it's a little bit tough to find time together because we're in different time zones. I'm in Berlin, and you are in...
Pamela:I'm in Portland, Oregon. So yeah, it was time and then Berlin time.
Kaja:Yeah, for me right now it's already pretty late. It's
like 6:40pm I don't know what time is it over there?
Pamela: 9:40am? Yeah. Your window right now? And it's it's dark outside? Right? It's yeah. And and here like the sun? Got up not too long ago.
Kaja:Yeah, well, it's like a podcast of the different sides of the planet. Maybe you can tell us about when did you start thinking of yourself as a software engineer, like when was the start of the career?
Pamela:So if that's helpful, I can, I'm going to talk about my background and kind of like how I got to, to the industry. So I have a an unconventional path, which actually, like a lot of us have now. And that makes me really happy. Because it's not like a one shoe fits all type thing. I graduated in architecture. And then well, me and weird in fashion design. And I taught myself how to sew. And then decided to make a blog to show my creations. And that's kind of how I started with code. I started with WordPress and PHP, which was very interesting as like a first, you know, first dig into into code. And then I just got hooked, it was it was really interesting, really empowering. And as someone who really enjoys kind of like making things and having a very quick feedback loop, it just really match my personality. I taught myself some Ruby on Rails, and then went to boot camp to get even more knowledge. And then I became a teacher that boot camp and I think it's around that time that I was kind of like, okay, I feel good about this, right. Like, I can call myself a software engineer. And then I got my first job at Vox media. And yeah, it was it was really awesome to like join a team and kind of like start learning about their stack and you know, all of their systems and contribute to it. Especially something that's user facing that you know, people are looking at. Yeah, that was really cool. So around around the time I was teaching and then got my first job. That's when I was like, I'm an engineer.
Kaja:And do you remember which year it was when you wrote the blog posts and touch your first blog and PHP stuff?
Pamela:I want to say 2014 2014? Maybe?
Kaja:Okay, if you would have said something like 2002, I would think like, oh, yeah, that were different times. And it was like a lot of different things there out there. But now, like, 2014 sounds a little bit more like, what maybe what I found when I started to look into it. So the internet was like, not a complete chaos.
Pamela:Yeah, it was, at least I used to live in DC. So around that area, it was kind of like the start of, I guess, the tech bubble within that region. The bootcamp that I joined, was brand new, and I wasn't the second cohort of that city. So it was still kind of really new within DC. And, and for me, it was the perfect time to, to kind of join the industry. Yeah Everywhere.
Kaja:Yeah, me too. I'm also like, I also started out with a boot camp. So I know a lot of people who come from that background, and it's, I think it's cool. If it kick starts your career, why not? Likely? And can you tell us like, what was the best decision you made in your career? Or is there one that you think is the best?
Pamela:Um, I don't know that there's a best decision. But something that I'm glad I did was moving from like a full stack engineer, to a systems engineer, I felt at the time that I was lacking a lot of kind of like foundational knowledge when it comes to how apps are made. Like, how do they go from, you know, Inception to deploy and like, I was at Vox at the time, and there was just a big question mark, whenever I had to deploy something, and I just did not understand where things went. And back then we had a script that we had to run in the terminal. And then there were a bunch of like, disclaimers, and like, you know, things to make sure like things to ask, Are you sure you want to deploy to production, or, like if something goes off its production. And just it was always very nerve wracking, especially because I didn't know like, if something breaks, I have no idea how to, you know, like, where to really look to fix to fix it outside of my code, obviously. So I decided to go to the Systems team to kind of learn about all of that. And I think that was really great, because it just filled a lot of, you know, knowledge gaps that I had,
Kaja:yeah, it's very reassuring, since I have just done this same step. I've also just like moved to, from back end and engineering, to more like DevOps infrastructure kind of team and trying to fill those knowledge gaps. Still feel more like a Swiss cheese with more gaps than cheese, but I'm going to get there I think
Pamela:I'm really excited for for you to be on the DevOps team that we have, at RMIT you're already leading the Kubernetes peer learning group, which I think is really great. I think you're great. I'm just excited to see all the cool things you're gonna do.
Kaja:Oh, thanks. It's good to have someone like you to look up to, or, like, represent also, you know, women in this area, because, as you can see, they're not so many of us. In especially DevOps in infrastructure, even though like engineering in itself is already like a bit problematic. And yeah, just fear. It's good to have someone like you through you know, alright, you represent. And so I like people like me can already see like, oh, you know, she did it, so I can also do it.
Pamela:And likewise,
Kaja:Thanks, is there anything in your work that gets you like the most excited in any work related situation?
Pamela:Yes, as an em out, okay. First, I'll say that, in my experience, at least, the engineering manager job has many definitions. And a lot of times it really depends on you know, what somebody has as like, you know, strengths and that's what they kind of use in that job for me. I really enjoy gaining a lot of context to be able to help unblock people. So I can talk about something that happened not at Artsy but my previous job. There was just a lot of confusion around around a project. And like folks not really sure about like timelines, and like how to contribute, and how to get all of them in the same room, which like, in retrospect, it all seems kind of like obvious, you know, like, what the steps are to kind of fix the fixer problem. But it was really cool to like, get all of the context. And then just, you know, start holding people accountable. Put people in the same rooms, ask all the questions that I was getting, but like, ask them in the public forum, so that we all have the answers. So that's yeah, that's something that I really enjoy.
Kaja:So it sounds a bit like untangling knots. You know, like, as if, you know, you're trying to find like, through all of this, bits and pieces that people might have, like not communicated well like to find the source of truth between, you know, this communication channels and where things got lost on the way or something.
Pamela:Yes, I love the analogy. I really like clarity. I'm someone who kind of falls apart if there's no clarity. So if I'm able to bring clarity to other people, I'm more than happy to do it.
Kaja:Yeah. Okay. And let's jump back a little bit, because so you said, you transitioned from full stack engineer to more like infrastructure system engineer, and then know, you're an engineering manager. And I feel like, we're, you know, how did you get there from from the system engineer to engineering manager.
Pamela:So at the time, I was still at Vox media. And it was kind of like a weird transitioning period in the company. So my team lost its manager, and then our director left. So it was a lot of confusion and kind of like Limbo, and we were very close to releasing a big project, which was to migrate all of our CI from Jenkins to GitHub actions. And we were so close. And so I kind of saw the, I mean, I took the opportunity as like, you know, Team motivator, and kind of like, holding all of us accountable to get this thing launched. And kind of like, help the team get back on track with their vision, and you know, all of that good stuff. And it worked. We we released the thing. It wasn't, it wasn't like a super smooth release, but we did it. And that's kind of how it started. After that, I kind of took ownership of like, the team ceremonies, and the team itself. I want to add, like outside of the circumstances, I also really, really cared about the team and the team success. And my teammates, right? I just really wanted all of us to do well. So I didn't follow prompts for like, pushing through that situation.
Kaja:It sounds so I don't know, I feel like you need a lot of courage in that moment to step up and say like, Okay, let's do this anyway, you know, like the people who were in charge left and yeah, so props for for the courage.
Pamela:I was I was also very lucky that I mean, my teammates were great. We all had a really good relationship. And we I was I think I'm very good at expressing what I'm good at, and the things that I want to work on. And I was fortunate to have a space where I was able to do that without like any strong pushback or anything.
Kaja:So, yeah, that's an important thing, right? Especially for women and women of color or black women, I guess. You know, you need a safe environment to thrive.
Pamela:Absolutely, yeah. That's something that that I think about a lot safe environments, how to nurture them in like, like, be genuine with it. You know, I find as a manager, sometimes they're like, there's like a bit of a conflict between. Okay, we want to success of the company. That's one thing. Yes. But as someone who cares about the humans first, when I was a kid, there was like a big issue with how they treated people, the people on my team. And I feel in because I felt so strongly about the humans, right, it was a lot of conflict with the entity and the company. And this is why I had to leave, because we just disagreed on this fundamental piece that you have to put people first, in order to succeed. So something that I think about a lot.
Kaja:Yeah, I mean, this is also what like, makes the managing job, I guess, a lot more weight on your shoulders, because, you know, you get the pressure from the execs and from like, the company itself to be like, profitable, you know, like, be productive and performance and all these things. But on the other side, you are like a people manager, and you manage people and they're not robots, and you have to kind of Yeah, give them the perfect environment to you know, like, thrive and like, get the best of themselves. And I feel like this is this job also is kind of like the buffer, you know, like, the person who's like taking the pressure and turning it into something like that is uplifting and inspiring, rather than, like, you know, like, making people feel anxious. That sounds like a rough, rough position to be in.
Pamela:It's not easy, but I don't think it's not rough, per se. It's a position where I'm learning a lot can like all the time in a very different way than I was learning. When I was an IC, it like touches, like the psychology of things a lot. And I find that fascinating.
Kaja:What outside of your work is fascinating for you, or what gets you excited.
Pamela:Outside of work, I have lots of hobbies, depending on when you catch me currently crochet is is what I spend most of my time doing.
Kaja:And how did you find that like, as a hobby? How did you get there?
Pamela:That's a good question. Kaja How did I get there as a hobby? I, I don't remember. I don't remember, I think I don't know, it just it just fell on my lap. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, this as in, I tried. I had tried knitting, this is how I fell up on it. I started knitting, I hated it, it's too hard to hold to things and like, No, it's too hard. So crochet, for me was a good alternative. It's just one hook that you have, and then your yarn or whatever you're using. And it's just so versatile. It's also kind of it's, it was it was like a bit challenging to like get started. But whenever I have this new, this new hobby, I just kind of like hyper focus on it. Until I feel you know that I'm good at it. So this is where I'm at currently with crochet. Outside of that I like to draw, I bake every so often. And whenever I get the bug to code, I will code I started on a tool to read all my emails or I guess mark all my emails as read the Googles that I did did not give me like a Chrome extension or something to make it happen for me. Because I have I'm really bad at with my personal emails. I'm really bad at like keeping up. So I have like 20,000 emails that are unread right now.
Kaja:Oh, my God.
Pamela:Exactly. Problem. It's a problem and I'm trying to solve it.
Kaja:So I feel like I want to be the Marie Kondo. Like go through the mud, like which ones sparks joy for you, like really, you know, say thank you to the rest of your emails, and just let them go.
Pamela:I don't want to do that to finish just, maybe I'll give you maybe I'll give you access to my email, you can do it.
Kaja:I mean, one thing I don't know if that's like, if you even want that advice from me, but like one one thing that has helped me a lot is to whenever I get an unwanted email that is like a newsletter or something that I never subscribed to. I go down the email to the bottom and tip the unsubscribe thing right away and then delete the email. And I feel like that really helps to like keep the problem open.
Pamela:I and I agree that is I sometimes do that. But I'm also in the notifications squad. If y'all are out there. And I don't get notified. Except for like, when I'm working, everything is on my work computer outside of work on my phone, I tried to have the minimal notifications. So I don't get notified when I get emails, I make it important to kind of check my emails daily and kind of see like what's important, but obviously, something's not working because like 20,000 emails, that's just not that's not healthy.
Kaja:So do you think that crochet has like anything to do with code patterns? Because if it like, aren't there different patterns that you can do?
Pamela:Yeah, there are different patterns and different like cooking styles. That's not the exact word, but I'm blanking on it right now. And it's very methodical. Similarly, similarly to working with code, in my experience, at least, like coming up with a concept and kind of like maybe pseudo coding, what you're going to be building with, with your crochet hook getting all your your yarn, you know, put together and organized. Yeah, and then kind of like getting to coding or right now making a sweater. I think it's very similar. I feel like a lot of creative endeavors are very similar to code code is a bit of an art.
Kaja:Definitely. I think, also, if you look at like patterns, also in art, or in nature, you can see a lot of super interesting things. I bet like in knitting, weaving, and crochet, this can also be applied to and I think it's great that, you know, that used to be like, I don't know, not appreciated enough. But now it's like coming back. And it's kind of, I feel like also, it actually does play a role in our society, these like, hand crafts that usually women used to do, and especially maybe women of higher age, and you know, how societies like kind of discriminating them already, you know, because like, Oh, they're just women, and they're older and like, what do they matter? And, I don't know. And now it's like, they're kind of coming back and having like, the stage now, and like, the things that they do are considered cool. And like cool crafts, and like, this is something that actually is super interesting. And, you know, and you can pick it up as a hobby and Nick actually listen to them and like, hear what they have to say, and, you know, learn from their experience. And I think this is so beautiful, that we are learning to appreciate these things again and know, in our culture, and
Pamela:yeah, I totally agree. I feel like during the pandemic, I mean, it could have happened before, but I think especially during the pandemic, I've noticed with people working in tech, and fellow engineers, there was this desire to kind of like go back to tactile art, and that includes like making bread making bread was anything during the pandemic, but it's like, such a satisfying thing to like, you know, kind of directly touch the work that you're you're making something that you're building and then that you get to enjoy later. So Bread, you can eat it if it's crochet or like painting whatever you can like you can see it and feel something from it. And I think that's very cool. Something that I'm working my way towards is making kind of like replicas of African masks with crochet probably you know, we'll see if I get there but I think being from West Africa and not West Africa, Togo more specifically and not getting to go as much as I would like I really really miss home and reconnecting with a through art and and that you know that culture of like the West African mask with this new hobby crochet, I think it would be really really cool.
Kaja:Oh, that sounds really wholesome. And like healing the homesickness through our this is great. This is a great ending, actually to the podcast, at least it leaves us with a with a good feeling. I just have one last question. I don't know if you have like a favorite shortcut keyboard shortcut to share with everyone that's like a traditional last question.
Pamela:Um, one that I use often is command tab on a MacBook just to go from window to window because I usually have too many open but then also to go through all of the tabs that I have open command shift the brackets in either direction. Yeah, those are my favorite ones. That's funny. I've never really thought about it, but like those are the first ones that come to write, what's yours?
Kaja:I think my favorite one is like Command Shift five, which opens the whole screenshot menu. So you can also do screen recordings with it. And for me, that's like when I learned of it, like I knew command to four, but I didn't know that there's like the whole other set of tools and yeah, so I was I was like, oh, cool, you know, like, if you want to explain something quickly, and you need a screen recording for it, I was like, This is so cool. Like such a nice tool, especially for you know, more remote work setups where you can't like sit next to someone and click through the thing, but you have maybe asynchronously share what you're doing.
Pamela:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will try it out today.
Kaja:Cool. Okay. Is there anything else that you want to share with us?
Pamela:This Thank you.
Kaja:Okay. Thank you for coming out for this great conversation. Thank you out there all for listening. And thanks Jesse for editing and here you soon