Welcome to OAT!
Join us to discuss ideas and tools that make our software and development processes faster, more efficient, and healthy! We talk about performance improvements and valuable optimizations to software development processes like testing, debugging, running in production, open-sourcing or collaborating. Learn from experts how they improved their products, engineering processes or life habi ...
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Tom Wilkie, the CTO of Grafana Labs, talks to us about his professional journey. We cover how he got into software engineering, his first startup, working as an EM at Google, and what motivated him to go back to an IC role. We talk about his time at Grafana from when they were only 25 people to now when Grafana Labs has more than a thousand employees. Tom’s journey cannot be told without diving deeper into the technical side of things - we discuss observability, distributed systems, and hard technical problems. Where to find more about Tom and Grafana Labs: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomwilkie - X - https://x.com/tom_wilkie - Grafana Labs - https://grafana.com/ - Grafana Labs events - https://grafana.com/events/ Where to find Bartek: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwplotka/ - X - https://x.com/bwplotka Where to find Ivan: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-valkov/ - X - https://x.com/ivvalkov As always, feedback and questions are welcome! You can use this form -https://forms.gle/NmUGeqMtyP6H6mMP9 0:00 - Tom’s intro 7:09 - How Tom got into software engineering 15:05 - Tom’s first startup 21:25 - Tom’s experience as EM at Google 28:04 - Joining Weaveworks as employee number 7 38:51 - Tom joining Grafana 45:32 - Grafana’s Third Act 53:12 - Startup advice 59:41 - Perseverance and motivation 1:04:35 - How Grafana acquires startups 1:10:25 - Where to find out more
Monica Sarbu, the CEO and founder of Xata.io, talks to us about her inspiring journey from getting into tech to building Xata - the serverless database platform for modern apps. We chat about the founding of her first company, Packetbeat, its acquisition by Elastic, and her time as a director there. We talk about mentoring, diversity, and hiring engineers that have high agency. We also cover some of the technical decisions at Xata - we even chat a bit about the Zig programming language :) Where to find more about Monica and Xata: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicasarbu - X - https://x.com/monicasarbu - Xata - https://xata.io/ - pgroll - https://github.com/xataio/pgroll - Tupu - https://www.tupu.io/ Where to find Bartek: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwplotka/ - X - https://x.com/bwplotka Where to find Ivan: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-valkov/ - X - https://x.com/ivvalkov As always, feedback and questions are welcome! You can use this form - https://forms.gle/NmUGeqMtyP6H6mMP9 Episode breakdown: 0:00 - Episode intro 2:25 - Monica's introduction 4:00 - Monica's software engineering background 5:52 - Founding her first company Packetbeat 15:30 - Elastic acquisition and being a director there 25:34 - The role of managers 28:38 - Founding Tupu and diversity in tech 38:44 - The founding story of Xata 44:35 - Open source, serverless, and Zig vs Go 51:17 - Hiring high-agency engineers 1:00:37 - Where to find out more
In this episode, we talk with Jimmy Zelinskie, co-founder and CPO of AuthZed, about his journey in building a global scale OSS authorization startup. Jimmy shares insights into the creation and evolution of SpiceDB, an open-source database optimized for authorization decisions. We chat about Jimmy’s story of transitioning from an engineer to a product manager, the importance of open-source in building the business, and the strategies that helped AuthZed find its first customers. Jimmy also discusses the inspiration behind AuthZed, Google’s Zanzibar paper, and the unique challenges of building a startup grounded in cutting-edge research. Where to find more about Jimmy and AuthZed: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jzelinskie/ - X - https://x.com/jimmyzelinskie - Jimmy’s Github - https://github.com/jzelinskie - AuthZed - https://authzed.com/ - SpiceDB on Github - https://github.com/authzed/spicedb - The Zanzibar Paper annotated by AuthZed - https://authzed.com/zanzibar - Discord - https://authzed.com/discord Where to find Bartek: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwplotka/ - X - https://x.com/bwplotka Where to find Ivan: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-valkov/ - X - https://x.com/ivvalkov As always, feedback and questions are welcome! You can use this form - https://forms.gle/NmUGeqMtyP6H6mMP9 Episode breakdown: 0:00 Episode intro 2:05 Jimmy’s introduction 3:53 Jimmy’s software engineering background 9:06 On becoming a founder 14:47 Experimenting with different startup ideas 20:41 The Zanzibar paper and using research in startups 26:44 Finding your first customers 31:56 Building SpiceDB 38:11 Monetization in an OSS startup 42:34 Authorization deep-dive 52:19 Product management in a startup 1:01:47 Where to find out more
In this episode, we talk with Michel Tricot, co-founder and CEO of Airbyte, about his journey in building a successful open-source data movement platform, the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and insights into startup culture and balancing work with family life. Michel shares his experiences from being a software engineer to leading a unicorn company, emphasizing the importance of community, open-source, and the strategic pivots that led to Airbyte's success. Where to find more about Michel and Airbyte: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheltricot/ X - https://x.com/micheltricot Airbyte - https://airbyte.com/ Github - https://github.com/airbytehq/airbyte Airbyte's blog - https://airbyte.com/blog Where to find Bartek: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwplotka/ X - https://x.com/bwplotka Where to find Ivan: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-valkov/ X - https://x.com/ivvalkov As always, feedback and questions are welcome! You can use this form - https://forms.gle/NmUGeqMtyP6H6mMP9
In this episode, we sit down with Frederic Branczyk, founder of PolarSignals, to explore the intersection of advanced profiling techniques, AI-driven optimizations, and the nuances of building a successful startup culture. Frederic shares his journey from a technical contributor to a startup leader, offering insights into both the technological and business aspects of running a tech company. Where to find more about Frederic and Polar Signals: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederic-branczyk/ X - https://x.com/fredbrancz Mastodon - https://hachyderm.io/@brancz Polar Signals - https://www.polarsignals.com/ Parca - https://github.com/parca-dev/parca/ FrostDB - https://github.com/polarsignals/frostdb Polar Signals Seed announcement - https://www.polarsignals.com/blog/posts/2024/03/12/ai-funding-and-exciting-customers Let's Profile YouTube series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tScFlySdSAc&list=PLhTDiyZ1B3JkDCzGKp_3K3J-au054MQ_z Where to find Bartek: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwplotka/ X - https://x.com/bwplotka Where to find Ivan: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-valkov/ X - https://x.com/ivvalkov As always, feedback and questions are welcomed! You can use this form - https://forms.gle/NmUGeqMtyP6H6mMP9