Emma Vickery

🚀 Exciting News! 🚀 I just registered for KubeCon in Salt Lake City! 🎉 I’m really looking forward to connecting with industry professionals, especially in the observability space, to exchange ideas, learn about the latest trends, and explore new opportunities. If you're attending, feel free to reach out—let's network! 🤝 Check out the event details here: #KubeCon #Observability #CloudNative #DevOps #Networking

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- Should creators get paid for work they didn't create if it's sufficiently different? - Taylor Swift and the NYT can afford lawyers, but what about micro-influencers and small-time creators? - Where do you draw the line? The history of all creative endeavors is that of taking what others have done and adding our spin on it to make something fresh and original. 🎨 If humans are leveraging AI to augment their efforts with higher fidelity, greater speed, and improved efficiency, but they are still in control of the creative process, is there really a difference? 🤔 Is it not beneficial for society to have everyone become more efficient? Do we not all benefit when more great content is created? 🌐 I believe that if we all have fair and open access, the AI-augmented creative process elevates all of us. ✨ But maybe creators should still see some value for their creations 🤷 Tough call.

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Excited to share Starknet's core values that drive their ethos! 🌟 Lasting Broadness: Broad power distribution is key for legitimacy, ensuring operations and decision-making remain inclusive and transparent. Centralized operation, if needed, should be brief. 🔓 Neutrality: Starknet supports societal functions impartially, leaving creators in charge. It remains neutral towards user transactions without censorship. 💪 Individual Empowerment: Starknet thrives on an autonomous and informed user base. Education and adherence to core values are central to empowering users. Starknet's principles are defined by openness, inclusivity, and empowerment, ensuring a strong foundation for all stakeholders. Starknet Foundation #keepitstrange

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I’ve been playing around with YC Founder Matching and it seems like everyone and their mother is interested either in 2-sided marketplaces or B2C businesses, even though they’re ostensibly the least profitable and hardest-to-get-off-the-ground business models there are. Why do people do this? You only have to take a glance at enterprise vs individual pricing to want to switch gears.

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This! I like the new AI tools and they are great for kicking something off and combining things. But the absolutely worst performing actively used code I've seen recently was AI generated - yes, it built and even did what it was supposed to do in the current use case. But it had horrible bugs hidden, was a memory hog and drove the .Net garbage collector insane. Replacing it with something handcrafted that had only 1/10th of its size resulted in 100x speedup. The time investment for the fix wasn't large, but required a bit of .Net optimization knowledge - you have to actually learn your stuff to gain the most from the new AI tools...

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Anyone have a recommendation for a language that: 1. compiles to native code 2. functional with pattern matching (like to the Haskell degree) 3. But just a little less as crazy as Haskell (don't feel like monad-gonad business) I'm having withdrawal symptons from Haskell.

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🎉 Big News! We've just launched the third book in our System Design Playbook series! I don't want to brag too much because, well, I'm just the guy who created this, but together with my tireless team (shoutout to Rohit Jain and Shubham Chandak!), we've worked hard to make system design concepts simple and digestible. Preparing for FAANG interviews, I remember the struggle of finding comprehensive resources—concepts were all over the place, and explanations often left more questions than answers. We aimed to fix that. Here’s what we packed into this book: 1. 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗶𝗱𝘀: Lots of diagrams because, truly, "𝘈 𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴." 2. 𝗡𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: No buzzwords, no fluff. Just clean, straightforward explanations that make sense. It's tough to write simply, but that's where the real effort lies—𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘺, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 - 𝘈𝘭𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘌𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘪𝘯. We've included a sample from our latest chapter on Designing YouTube to give you a taste of how we approach teaching complex topics in a way that sticks. Download Full eBook: 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲: https://lnkd.in/dzUXgTwb 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: https://lnkd.in/dXPvFzju Happy learning!

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🤔 Test Driven Development: The Unsung Hero of Software Engineering Ever been in that meeting where someone says, "It works on my machine!" and you're thinking, "Yeah, and my coffee machine sometimes makes espresso, but that doesn't mean it's supposed to!" 😅 We've all been there - mysterious production issues, bugs that play hide and seek, and code that decides to throw a tantrum only when it hits the real world. More often than not, the culprit? Missing test cases. But why do we, as developers, sometimes treat writing tests like it's a chore worse than doing dishes? 🍽️ (At least dishes give you clean plates!) My journey with TDD started right out of college. While my friends were wrestling with kernel filesystems, I was writing tests for a storage engine. Sounds boring, right? Wrong! It was like being given the blueprint to a rocket before it launches. 🚀 1️⃣ I understood the components better than my own coffee order. 2️⃣ I became good at predicting where things might go kaboom! Fast forward to my time at StorSimple (shoutout to Guru Pangal Rich Testardi and Ramakrishna Katragadda!). We built a hybrid cloud storage solution that was more stable than my New Year's resolutions. The secret? A test framework so good, it made writing tests as easy as posting a meme. Here's what I've learned: Great products are like great jokes - they have impeccable timing and they've been tested... a lot. 😉 So, next time you're tempted to skip writing tests, remember: Future You will thank Present You for not being a lazy bum. And your code will be more reliable than a pizza delivery on a Friday night! What's your take on TDD? Got any funny testing stories? Share below! Look at how https://jepsen.io/ has become a standard for databases consistency tests :) #SoftwareDevelopment #TDD #CodingHumor #TechTalk

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We’re hiring at Palantir! Apply now: https://lnkd.in/gbvYh4fr It’s difficult to overestimate how transformative the first few months at Palantir are for a new Forward-Deployed Engineer. As an FDE, you’re responsible for it all—from going onsite and scoping out your customer’s toughest challenges to building out the workflows that will drive them to overcome these challenges. Because of Palantir’s flat and mission-driven culture, these responsibilities really do fall on you. The growth I've experienced at Palantir from wearing so many hats and having radical ownership over my team's workflows is both unique and unparalleled. I’ve had the privilege of working with the sharpest people and most fascinating products, all while solving highly complex and impactful issues. What does it take to become an operating system for the modern enterprise? How much impact can you have on some of the world’s most important institutions, all while solving their most interesting problems? How do you zero-to-one solutions that tackle a business’s or government’s most mission-critical workflows? If any of this is of interest to you, let’s chat about becoming a Palantir FDE.

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I'm honored to be mentioned by Werner Vogels in his latest blog post, where he explores the importance of tinkering and the potential of Rust for building efficient and sustainable systems. The post highlights how experimentation and leveraging new technologies can drive innovation in software development. If you're interested in the future of building systems, this is a must-read! 🦀

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Thanks everyone for accepting Invite to Blitz Search LinkedIn gives me 100 a month Things are really warming up, My EV (Extended Validation) certificate seems like it's gone through. If that gets here soon (Physical key shipping), I'll be able to codesign and make it legit. This week I'll be focused on cleaning up the little bugs and making improvements to my Deployment process as well as making the homepage a little more presentable, Updates should be all managed from within Blitz Search and all that. I'm preparing for Launch.. I should be able to get Blitz Free-to-Play out the door and deal with feedback on an internet scale as I continue working on Premium stuff. The next real feature I want to work on is Find/Replace for Premium. Which should blow some minds. Stay tuned. Wish me luck. #softwaredevelopment #blitzsearch

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Today I added stripe integrations (not as hard as I thought) and also finally added placeholder loading.tsx pages (yes it really did take me 6 months to remember you can do that 😭). https://lnkd.in/g2RUfhSh My end goal for the month of June was to be at the point I am now, so I am taking the extra time to clean up the code base and get it ready for more devs to work on. From production toggling to setting up hosted versions of the dev api, I want to make sure the people working with me have the smoothest experience possible. All of this working on a code base stuff in general is still relatively new to me, especially from the perspective of the person running the ship. It's one thing to work on a team when you're responsible for a single branch. But when you are making decisions on how best to orchestrate multiple code bases for use by multiple devs, it's a whole different ball game. Beyond that I also want to sit down and figure out the possible caching optimizations I can be making, as it's one of the big upsides of next.js. Shorter update again today, but as always if you've read this far thank you, and see you all next time <3.

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Pathways to Tech Week #2 at  Headstarter: Being surrounded by people who are building amazing software and companies is a truly inspiring experience. My favorite speakers were: • Tariq Ahmed: First Engineer at AppLovin ($30Billion IPO) • Julian Alvarez 🚀: CEO of Wisdolia • Hamza Ali: CEO of Olostep  Here's what I have learned from them: 𝟭- "𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗶𝘃𝗼𝘁" Tariq, one of the first engineers at AppLovin, shared that AppLovin tried several things in their early stages that failed. However, the company had incredible success when it pivoted to mobile advertising; They didn't have expertise in the field. Today if you've experienced in-app advertising, AppLovin was likely behind it. 𝟮- "𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻." Julian runs Wisdolia a startup aimed at helping college students actively study. By simply asking what types of students they were. His team found that medical students were the ones the ones who converted the most into paying customers. It seemed evident because they were the most overwhelmed by the amount of information they had cram. But the evidence in their face was a lightbulb moment for Wisdolia. 𝟯- "𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗲'𝗹𝗹 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗮𝗿." Hamza, CEO of Olostep, describes his company as "a company that enables AI agents to browse the web just like humans". I was fascinated when I heard that, and as the Olostep team acquires more customers they value scrappy and people that initiative on board. Those qualities set engineers apart when building successful products.

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Since the YC deadline to hear back for W25 is coming up next week, here’s the story of how we went from 2 students coding in an MIT dorm room to being full-time YC founders building Delve in SF. For all you founders anxiously waiting to hear back, just keep building — you’ll be successful regardless of the decision. -- In Fall 2023, my co-founder Karun Kaushik and I were studying AI at MIT and spending all of our free time building an AI medical scribe to help doctors. We had vaguely heard about YC from a friend who had just gotten accepted but had no plans of applying whatsoever. However when the YC deadline rolled around, we spontaneously decided to put in an application on the very last day. We spent that whole day in Karun’s dorm room typing up the application and filming all the required videos. We finally hit submit the minute of the deadline! By the next day we had already moved on. We went back to the usual rhythm of coding in the dorm room, calling with doctors, attending conferences, etc. If anything, we were even more motivated now to get more traction and be successful regardless. Later that week, while we were eating in the dorm kitchen, I noticed I got an email saying we had a YC interview scheduled. My heart rate spiked. I jumped up out of my seat and immediately told Karun. I never seriously considered YC, but for the first time it hit me that it might actually be a possibility. When the day of the interview rolled around, we did mock interviews with former YC founders and focused mostly on calming our nerves. More important than the actual content of the interview, we wanted to show our excitement for building and hacking together as co-founders. Unfortunately the interview caught us by surprise. The group partners didn't seem to care as much about our actual AI medical scribe. Instead, they seemed more curious about a side idea we had listed in our application that we wrote up in a day. The idea was about streamlining HIPAA compliance (since we had to go through HIPAA for our AI medical scribe). By this point, we were already seriously considering pivoting into this and had made a lot of progress on the idea. The YC interview was our tipping point Not too long after, we got an ominous email titled “YC.” We were freaked out. I could not sleep the entire night. Then, in the middle of class the next day, I got a phone call from Karun with Surbhi on the other end of the line. My heart rate spiked. I ran outside of the classroom. That turned out to be our acceptance call:) -- For everyone out there still waiting to hear back, just keep grinding. Build as if you’ve been rejected and you might just be pleasantly surprised. I’m also always here to help with mock interviews/give advice! We’ve helped a handful of friends through the YC app process and are always here to support other founders!

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🚀 Excited to share my latest project built with Next.js! 🚀 I’ve been working on a full-featured web app leveraging Next.js for better performance and scalability. With Next.js, I’ve been able to: Implement server-side rendering (SSR) for improved SEO and faster page loads. Take advantage of static site generation (SSG) for faster performance and pre-rendering pages. Set up dynamic routing for smoother user navigation. Optimize the app using API routes for efficient data handling. One of the coolest features has been the seamless integration of server-side rendering for faster load times and better search engine rankings! 💡 Tech Stack: Next.js, React, Node.js, MongoDB 💬 I’m excited about how Next.js simplifies and enhances the development process. If you’re building scalable, SEO-friendly web applications, I highly recommend checking it out! https://www.pjtechhub.com #NextJS #ReactJS #WebDevelopment #FullStack #JavaScript #WebApp #TechInnovation

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝘄𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝟲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵… …and I’m talking 𝗦𝘄𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝟮 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝘄𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝟯 kind of challenging. To support the community, I’m excited to introduce swiftmigration.info! My goal is to gather and organize helpful articles and videos around the Swift 6 migration, making it easier for fellow engineers to navigate the process. It’s a work in progress, so if you know of any valuable resources or have experiences to share, please reach out. Your contributions can make a difference! #Swift6 #iOSDevelopment #SwiftMigration #SoftwareEngineering #TechCommunity #SwiftLanguage #iOS #Developers #TechResources

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I often get asked about what working at NASA is like. So, here are the top 3 skills I have learned as a Software Engineer at NASA, that every employer is looking for -- 1. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking: Tackling complex problems is a daily task. I've learned to approach challenges methodically, considering multiple solutions and often thinking outside the box to find the best path forward. 2. Collaboration and Teamwork: Working at NASA means being part of a diverse team of experts. Effective communication and collaboration are essential to ensure that projects run smoothly and achieve their goals. 3. Functional/Technical Proficiency: My technical skills have expanded significantly, particularly in areas like system design, code architecture, and dealing with high-volume data. Being exposed to cutting-edge technology and methodologies has been invaluable. These skills have not only enhanced my professional capabilities but have also enriched my personal growth. I'm excited to continue learning and contributing to NASA's mission of exploring the universe. What skills have you found most valuable in your career? #NASACareer #SoftwareEngineering #SkillsDevelopment

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