20: Ep. 20 | Developing your personal brand as a software engineer

Brittany Ellich (00:00) Welcome to the Overcommitted Podcast where we talk about our commits, our personal commitments, and some stuff in between. I’m your host this week, Brittany. Join, bye.

Erika (00:10) Erica?

Jonathan Tamsut (00:11) Jonathan?

Bethany (00:12) Don’t

bop any.

Brittany Ellich (00:13) We are a group of software engineers who initially met working on the same team a while back, and we found a common interest in continuous learning and building cool things. We continue to meet to share our learning experiences and talk about our lives as developers. So whether you are pushing code or taking on new challenges, we are so happy that you are listening. This week, we’re going to talk about building a personal brand as a software developer. And to set the stage a little bit,

I thought we might talk about what is a personal brand to start with and what are the things that are usually included in that maybe that you may or may not be doing, ⁓ what comes to mind for you. And I’ll pass it over to Erica first.

Erika (00:56) I think of personal brand as everything that encompasses your why and your what. So I’m a pretty visual person. I think of this alongside the visual aspect of any kind of corporate brand that you might see. So like…

One thing that you think of is a logo, like, you know, maybe Pepsi, right? So they have like a logo that like evokes a certain feeling. They’ve gone through like, you know, a huge curation process of like doing some testing of like what works, what communicates our, you know, our values. I don’t necessarily think that.

visual aspect is always applicable to developers and your personal brand, but I kind of use that as my my same thought process for myself of

who do I want to portray myself as, who am I, what’s important to me, what am I interested in. So yeah, really my driving force, my languages, my stack, how I like to treat others even, how I approach my work. Yeah, so that’s how I think of a personal brand as a developer.

What about you Bethany?

Bethany (02:09) Yeah, I think you really hit the nail on the head, in terms of how I view personal brand as well. Basically just how do I want to be seen or when people think of me, what kinds of things do I want them to associate with me as a person? I think a lot of times people hear, developing a personal brand and they think, grindset, you know?

trying to come across as somebody you’re not or being inauthentic. And I don’t think that’s necessarily what it is. I think it’s trying to distill what is important to you and what you believe and what you’re interested in and value and focusing on the important aspects and what you want other people to think of when they talk about you or think about you. So I know.

A lot of this can sound really big scope as well, like, you have to be super in the public eye to have a personal brand. But I don’t, I think that your personal brand can come across even just when talking to coworkers or ⁓ choosing which projects you want to focus on. So I don’t think it’s necessarily something you have to put on blast and be like, this is my personal brand and this is who I am, but rather just a set of guidelines to guide what you.

what you do and what you focus on.

Jonathan Tamsut (03:28) I think it’s interesting, both of you had a pretty broad definition of personal brand that almost to me seemed like identity. Like, I hate the term personal brand, not to be super negative, but like, I guess I just don’t like marketing. I feel like marketing is lying. I feel like developing a personal brand, I mean, I get it. I think, you know,

Like, I don’t know, like, like, I guess I just don’t like thinking about me in terms, like my career in terms of that way. Like, I like to think about, like, my interests building, like, just relationships with people and, and like trying to do something of value. And like,

And so, I don’t know, personal branding just feels like kind of barkety to me. think, and there’s, you know, and we just know so many, there’s, there’s, you go on YouTube and just like everyone has a personal brand and are trying to sell books and courses and stuff. And a lot of it, frankly, it’s just like a name. And it’s like, okay, cool. Like, you know, this is your livelihood. And I get that. But like, I just, I just don’t, I don’t want to, that’s not for me.

Erika (04:27) It’s a good point. Like, we’re talking about what a personal brand is, but I think it’s also important to talk about, like, my personal view of what it isn’t. Because I think you’re totally right. especially externally on, like, social media, everyone’s vying for attention. And, like, I was listening to something this morning about sort of the, like, this is the first time I heard it described this way. Like, the

Bethany (04:27) Thanks.

Erika (04:51) influencer cadence. like if you listen to lifestyle influencer videos, they all have the same way of speaking where it’s like, hey guys, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, And like they use a certain lexicon and like it’s carefully crafted to keep your attention.

like past the first five seconds of the video. So like, I agree with you, like that level of sort of like creation and marketing, like that’s not something that I am focused on in my view of my personal brand. And my mindset shift is more like…

Okay, maybe I don’t like, I’m not necessarily trying to compete with other people for attention, but I do think it’s valuable to share what I’m excited about with other people. And it doesn’t necessarily come naturally to me. Like I am interested in this for me. I would do software engineering like by myself and like not share with anybody and probably be perfectly happy. But I do think it’s a bit of like,

sharing what I’ve learned, like sharing what I’m excited about, like believing that I do have positive contributions to bring and like trusting that other people would want to hear about that is why that brand aspect is important. And it’s curated only to the point where I want to be like,

thoughtful about what I put out there and what I present myself as, but not like over engineered to the point of trying to get so many clicks or, you know, trying to like necessarily, you know, get some specific outcome from it.

Brittany Ellich (06:35) I, full disclosure, completely agree that I actually hate the term personal brand. I think that it was just funny because I chose the topic of this episode. Sorry y’all. But I do feel like it sort of has this negative connotation with it of like this like carefully curated online image that you’re creating that…

really isn’t applicable to like most people in general. So I kind of like the idea of thinking of it as like, these are the things that I’m interested in and just sharing that with, you know, even if it’s just at the level of your coworkers or something like that. think the thing, especially working remotely, there’s…

not a lot of opportunities that you have to like be visible to the other people around you. So whether or not you like put thought into the way that you respond in Slack or the things that you share or whatever, whether or not you put thought into that, there is a personal brand that’s associated with it. And there’s like a way that people think of you at work, regardless of whether or not you’re like, I really want to project this specific image

or you’re just like, I really just want to talk about these video games I’m really into. So.

I think it’s worth taking the time to think about that image that you portray if you’re interested in things like, you know, getting more opportunities or expanding your career or whatever. But I’m also not personally interested in like building a thousand billion followers on Instagram or whatever. We can probably leave those takes out of this because I don’t think any of us are there.

Erika (08:06) Yeah,

and I think it’s also like recognizing that some of that is outside of your control. So part of why influencers have to have a certain cadence or use certain tags or words or lexicon is because it drives views, which then drive promotion on the algorithm. And we can’t control what the algorithm, you know, promotes or doesn’t. So yeah, like

I think they’re kind of two separate things. Gaining a following is different from building a personal brand.

Jonathan Tamsut (08:40) Yeah, and I know we kind of really picked apart or critiqued personal, but building a personal brand is like, it’s a really useful thing to have, right? If you write a book, if you have courses, being able to have an audience, I think is super valuable. And I could see why you want to spend time developing and cultivating that audience.

Right? Like, totally. You know, I also think we all have quote unquote personal brains, which is, you know, people’s subjective experience and perceptions of us. And yeah, and like, yeah, maybe, you know, you know, I really don’t like, I just want to be authentic. but like maybe, maybe I should, maybe I should be, maybe I should be, maybe I should, you know, be.

you know, maybe it’s, you know, especially professionally, it might be advantageous to like cultivate sort of an aura of like expertise or something around you. So like, I get it. Like, I mean, I’m not, I think there are like valid reasons to be like, this is important to me.

Bethany (09:37) Yeah, I think too. I don’t know if this is others’ experience, but I know people will have an opinion of me whether I project something or not, or whether I want to project something or not. And I think also being a woman in STEM or tech or whatnot, I think sometimes they’re not the things that I want people to think about me. So a lot of times I, again,

whether the word is good or not, I want to be in control of the narrative that people like, or perception that people have of me. So that might be why I’m a little more aggressive about it in a sense. I want people to think I’m technical. I want people to know I really enjoy coding APIs and backend systems and things like that, rather than front end or project management or things like that, that people might typically pigeonhole me into.

I think like for me specifically, it might even be less about like, I want to hit this market and make sure that people think this, but it’s like, I have goals for my career and I don’t want people to assume that I’m not interested in various opportunities because I never said that or portrayed that about myself. So I want there to be like no question about what I’m interested in for my career for people who are managing me or above me or anything like that.

so I can be advocated for or helped to get there.

Brittany Ellich (11:00) That is kind of an interesting thing that I feel like coming into this, Erica and Bethany and I had like this one opinion about what it is to be personal branding. And John had a different opinion that I wonder how much of that has to do with like differences and how folks like feel like they have to portray themselves at work based on, you know, whatever their identity is. We can cut that part out if we don’t want to like get into that or anything. But I think it’s interesting.

Jonathan Tamsut (11:26) No, ⁓

no, I, yeah, no totally. I mean, don’t want to be, the risk of mansplaining, but yeah, mean, yeah, no, totally. I for sure have a, you know, a different outward subjective appearance than y’all.

Brittany Ellich (11:41) It makes me think about ⁓ in the Staff Engineer book by Will Larson, he talks, I think it’s in that one, he talks about how there’s, know, generally there’s not for most people, there’s not like an advantage to getting, you know, higher.

career levels. Like yes, you’ll make more money or whatever, but like it doesn’t necessarily give you more social capital necessarily. Unless you are, you know, some sort of minority in the tech environment. If you are, you know, a woman in tech, if you are a person of color in tech, how, you know, actually being recognized as a staff engineer is important for building authority in conversations that you wouldn’t have otherwise if you don’t have that like evidence of a title there.

Anyway, that’s an aside. ⁓

Erika (12:23) No, mean,

I think, yeah, I don’t have too much comment on like where the, like where and why some people care about personal brand and why some people don’t. But I do think that point about like its value outside of your own work being really interesting to dig into where.

I think of people who I want to work with and like projects that I want to work with and

usually the projects, usually they like go together. Like either the projects are interesting because they’re like solving a technical, really interesting technical problem, or they have like a really interesting use case or application, or the people working on them are people that I enjoy working with. And like both of those things are brand. The people are…

who they are, like they’re either really smart or like, you know, really great communicators or really great problem solvers and that’s all part of their brand and I’m drawn to work with them because of that.

So like I think of that from the flip side, like I want that for other people too. I want people to say like, yeah, I’ve worked with Erica. I enjoy these things about her. Like if she’s working on that, like I want to join her. So there’s value in like, yeah, bringing a lot of other people alongside you and like making sure that you are that person that you would want to work with.

Jonathan Tamsut (13:47) Yeah. That’s how you go, Brittany.

Brittany Ellich (13:48) I like.

I like that a lot and I think something that I’ve been thinking recently is I’ve been paying attention to…

messages from people leaving the company. It’s like, you know, we just hit a vesting period or whatever. So it’s normal timing. And every single person always seems to say like it was the people here that made it, you know, fun. Like, yes, I’m interested in the work. I’m interested in blah, blah, blah. But it’s always the people that they’re tagging and saying, like, I loved working with this person and this person made such a big impact on my life. I think even in a remote environment, you know, the people that you’re

working with make a huge difference. so, you know, being that person that people like working with, you’re probably going to get more opportunities to do cool things. thus building that image of yourself, whether you’re doing it like consciously or unconsciously is important.

Jonathan Tamsut (14:36) Yeah. And to your kind of point, mean, you know, Brittany and Bethany, like I think as a guy, I, you know, I mean, I don’t understand like what it’s like to be like a female in a male dominated industry and just have that sort of like bias against you, you know, and I think I am curious if there’s like some trend for like, for

female developers to want to build personal brand more than male developers because they feel like they have to sort of compensate for biases that they’re just up against.

That is it.

Erika (15:07) Yeah, I’m…

to be fair to you though, like I’m not sure if it’s so much a gender divide as like… something that at some point you realize that you need or that you want and like…

You know, I don’t know, maybe that hasn’t happened for you and maybe it’s like, yeah, it’s totally fine too. Like, you know, if you don’t think of it this way, but like coming from a music background too, I definitely like, I know plenty of male musicians who are very conscious about their personal brand. So like, yeah, I think that it’s a matter of like whether you’ve decided that it’s valuable for yourself or not.

Brittany Ellich (15:46) Yeah, sorry to call you out, John. We did not, you’re not here just to answer for all men. ⁓ Okay.

Jonathan Tamsut (15:51) I didn’t feel like all that at all. thought it was sort of an honest

discussion about gender dynamics in the tech industry, which I think is like a really interesting topic. Because I’ve definitely, I mean, I’ve experienced, not to get aside, but I’ve experienced what I perceived as men discounting women’s intelligence many times before. I mean, both implicitly and through like,

you know, comment. I think, I think that, I don’t think, you know, it’s like, it’s like a real thing. And, know, and humans have biases, you know, that’s just even the most well-intentioned ones, most well-intentioned humans.

Brittany Ellich (16:24) Yeah, so we’ve set the stage. I feel like we’ve sort of described what it is at this point. So what are the things that you do to build that brand or that credibility internally or externally? But I guess I think we’ve already kind of established that the average person is probably more useful internally. So maybe we should.

talk about building that internal visibility and how do you make it known what you’re interested in and how do you go about building a personal brand.

Jonathan Tamsut (16:52) I can, yeah, I don’t know if anyone else has stuff to say, but I have stuff to say. I mean, so I’ll go and say stuff. So yeah, I mean, I feel like a big thing is, like now that I’m on like, you know, the interviewing is…

Yeah, I guess actually this is really not interesting what I’m about to say now that I’m thinking about it more, but it’s just like do stuff, which I think it’s just so important to be able to point back to stuff you’ve done and ideally stuff you’ve finished or have followed through, because I think that just holds a little bit more.

know, weight and stuff that’s like partially completed. So I think like doing things you’re interested in, you know, starting projects, finishing projects. And I think like, I think it’s important for all engineers to have a body of work they can point at. And I think that’s something that like, I’ve been thinking more about like, is my body of work? And like, what does it say about me as an engineer?

Erika (17:45) Yeah, think the way that I am approaching this now that we’re talking about it is maybe using the same framework that I used earlier, which I’m realizing does kind of apply for this aspect of building a brand too, is a few things. First of all, recognizing what your values are.

So like you were talking about Bethany, I wanna be technical. I wanna be working in these set of languages for whatever reasons. And for myself, I always wanna be approachable and…

⁓ kind to other people that I work with. So like, those are some things that right off the bat, I think those are very true to myself. I realized that those are values that I hold. So like using like the Pepsi or the Coca-Cola commercial, you know, it’s like, we have these colors, we have this product, like, you know, these are kind of our non-negotiables.

So I think the approach here, like the way I think about it is similar to how companies build and develop their brands where…

You have those values that you identify. like for a company it might be their color palette, their product, like a few key images. For a developer it might be, these are my languages, like this is the personality that I have, I’m maybe really kind and thoughtful, or maybe I’m like more spicy and you know controversial. Like whatever it might be that is true to you, like those are kind of your building blocks, your foundation.

And then thinking like it’s going to grow and develop over time as your interests develop or as you you know like you said John like as you work on things as you find things that you might gravitate towards and like it’s okay to let things go too like maybe you know my color palette needs a refresh maybe I need a rebranding because I’m now like

doing something completely different or I’ve realized that my working style is more entrepreneurial or something like that. It’s okay to recognize that what you said or what you did a year ago maybe isn’t serving you anymore and it’s time to let it go and try something new. I definitely…

I’m always trying something a little bit different in how I approach my work. Those like small experiments that we’ve talked about before, like, and I think that’s part of that building phase. Yeah, so those are kind of my thoughts on, on, yeah, building and developing your brand.

Bethany (20:22) I both of you have really awesome points, like John, with actually showing what you can do and finishing the job and things like that, and Erica with making sure you align with your values. And I think for me, do both of those very much resonate with me? And I think also I try to align with what I’m already good at.

so I’ve always wanted, there’s part of me that wants to be like a super social, like, like, present, like, comedy on tech or something, like something wild like that, but that’s just not me, honestly. and so it’s for, for when I go about things, I try to, I know I’m level-headed about things or I don’t.

panic in the case of incidents or things like that. So try to rely on that skill set and push on with that to really submit what I want people to think of me whenever I do things.

Brittany Ellich (21:26) I think something that John said really resonated with me a lot, which is, you know, you need to show what you’re doing. And I think that there’s this assumption among a lot of people that I’ve worked with that just doing your job well is enough to…

you know, to show like, I should be promoted. I’m doing this job really well. But there’s like this whole aspect of showing your work and presenting it to the right people and saying like why it’s impactful that I think a lot of people miss. And I feel like that is often like the difference between like the people who, you know.

do their job well, but like might not get promoted and the people who, you know, do do their job well and then end up getting promoted. And I think it’s really uncomfortable to show your work and to sit like, to show off in some like authentic way that like, look at this thing that I’ve done. Look at this, isn’t this cool? Is this gonna help all of our customers do all of these things so much better?

But it’s also really important and you know, people aren’t gonna, everybody’s so focused on the thing that they’re doing that like they’re not gonna take the time to look at the thing that you’re doing unless you actually put it in front of them. So making sure that you’re showing your work is super important.

Jonathan Tamsut (22:29) Yeah, I’ve always admired companies that don’t do any marketing. I think like Rolex doesn’t do any marketing or maybe a more spicy example is like Tesla. But it’s like these are companies that at least in their eyes make such exceptional products that they don’t need to market. And I think, I don’t know, there’s something about that that appeals to me.

But I, you know, yeah, maybe that like lacks realism, because there’s also like, obviously, if you want something from someone, you’re gonna have to like, tell them, you know, if you want a promotion, you want a job, you’re gonna have to explain to people like, this is what I’ve done. And this idea that like, your exceptional talent will just shine through is maybe slightly delusional.

Brittany Ellich (23:11) how do you make sure you maintain your authenticity when you are sharing those things, if you have experience doing that?

Jonathan Tamsut (23:18) I guess you’re just, yeah, everybody can go.

Erika (23:18) I like you have the most

experience here, Brittany, so why don’t you take this one?

Brittany Ellich (23:26) yeah, I talk a lot. Online and at work. yeah, I think for me, I just kind of spit out whatever comes to my mind. I don’t know that I recommend that approach, but I feel like it does maintain authenticity because most of it is like only partially filtered.

which is probably why I think podcasting is so fun because it’s just, you just get to talk. But I think on a more serious note, yeah, just making sure that like if you’re doing something, making sure that it does align with your values. Like one thing that I feel really strongly about is, you know, like I, we’ve talked about multiple times. For example, I’m really passionate about building.

the web in a way that is accessible to everybody. That is a really easy thing for me to get behind. Whenever I’m reviewing PRs, I’m always looking at them from the standpoint of how does this impact the accessibility of this product and how do we make it better? And I try to share content that I find interesting related to accessibility to my team. And I feel like that’s sort of part of my personal brand at this point is making sure that that’s a thing that I’m continuously fighting for and trying to improve.

And that doesn’t necessarily speak, I guess, to authenticity specifically, but I didn’t even answer my own question.

Erika (24:36) I think if I’m hearing what you’re saying, it’s like staying true to what you’re interested in and and the more you engage with that then you yeah you will by nature state stay true to yourself. I’m curious like if you have kind of pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone at all and like how that plays into

your ⁓ sense of authenticity with your brand.

Brittany Ellich (25:04) Yeah.

I don’t think that sharing what you’re doing comes naturally to anybody. So I think just the act of like trying to promote the thing that you’re working on. Like for example, one of the things that I work on quite a bit at work is the engineering mentorship program. And it’s a thing that, you know, I’m really passionate about mentoring people and teaching, you know, whatever it is that you have to teach to other people. And that means that in order to get people involved, I have to get it in front of a lot of people to get more eyes on it.

because you can’t really mentor anyone without mentors or mentees. They’re both important to that equation. And so yeah, just trying to promote that I think is really hard. I think it’s really uncomfortable to go out in front of a group of large people and say like, hey, this is a thing that…

I really like and I hope you like it too and if you do come join it. Same thing with the book club I feel like we had to we have to do that a lot to promote it to try to get people to join and you know it’s uncomfortable to go and put those things in front of people but if you don’t then you’re just doing something by yourself and

That’s fine, I guess, if you want to just do something by yourself, but I don’t think it’s necessarily going to… If your goal is to, you know, have more people involved, then that’s not going to get more people involved. Nobody’s just going to come find the thing that you’re doing and say, hey, I want to do that thing too. If they don’t see it, then they’re not going to join it.

Jonathan Tamsut (26:21) I like community building. think that’s cool. And I think we all need a little bit more community in our lives, I feel like.

Brittany Ellich (26:27) Yes, I agree with that. The whole world needs more community. I would say also…

Doing stuff online is something that I’ve never really been super comfortable with and I decided to start doing a lot more of that because I realized if I’m applying to speak at conferences, which is a thing that I feel passionate about doing, nobody’s gonna pick me to speak at conferences if they have no idea who I am and put some random person that doesn’t do anything else on the internet in front of their audience. So that means putting myself out there online a lot more. And so one thing that I’ve done I think is finding platforms

that I really align with. I know last week we talked with Nick about, you know, Blue Sky and the app protocol and like that’s a thing that I can really get behind. There’s no, you get to build your own algorithm around it. You’re not fighting some algorithm to get visibility. It’s all just people sharing other people and what they like ⁓ and I really like that. So I think finding things that fit your values there is also important externally as well as internally.

Erika (27:23) Yeah, I think one thing that is tricky for me about putting myself out on the internet and why I think maybe this group and this podcast is a little easier for me than writing a blog post or something like that is that

when you post something online, you get zero immediate feedback. And any human interaction, like in person or even like some kind of discussion, you do get that feedback. So, you know, it’s a loop of learning what works, what doesn’t. And I think that like this question of authenticity, like…

What is authentic to me? I mean, it changes any given moment based on like, you know, who I’m talking to, like what I’m doing, how I think they’re going to respond. So that’s really hard when you’re sending something into a void because like, what is authentic is like to your point, like, what do I think is interesting right now? So yeah, it’s kind of a different mindset than like,

Jonathan Tamsut (28:09) Thank you.

Erika (28:25) talking to somebody and having an authentic, real conversation. It really is like pure self-expression at any given moment. And it’s hard to really know how that’s gonna play. So like I said, I think that’s a tough mental block for me. I’m not great at posting things and really engaging.

on a website or a blog, it’s kind of always been a goal of mine that I have not really followed through on. So, yeah, but recognizing maybe if anybody else is struggling with that, you’re not alone. It’s hard.

Jonathan Tamsut (29:03) I resonate with, you know, it’s like I don’t even know who I am. So it’s like, how do I be authentic? How am I supposed to be authentic? I also, it’s funny, I’ve like, I’ve posted and deleted multiple times like diarrhea related jokes on Blue Sky and I’m like, I don’t, I don’t want to be known. I don’t know if I bought this out there. But yeah, no, it’s, I…

You know, I think Bethany is the only person on Blue Sky who likes my Blue Sky posts, and I get a little piece of dopamine hit, and I think I’m saying hilarious things. listeners, if you wanna go read my Blue Sky posts, some of them are kinda funny.

Bethany (29:34) I think your blue sky posts are hilarious. I’ll just like be scrolling and see it and crack up. So definitely go follow John.

Brittany Ellich (29:42) That’s amazing. I feel like I’m following too many people to see them. I feel like I miss them because I don’t feel like I’ve ever seen you post on Blue Sky. And that’s probably a me problem and not a you problem. So I’ll go follow less people and make sure I follow you.

Jonathan Tamsut (29:53) They’re all, everything I post

is pretty dumb.

Brittany Ellich (29:55) This is great. If nobody has anything else on this weird meandering episode, maybe we should move on to our fun segment in the interest of time.

But I want you to think about somebody, a software developer, hopefully, whose personal brand you most admire. And why do you think that is? What is it about them that, you know, really I’m asking what your personal opinion about their brand is. It might not actually be their brand, but who is a person that is doing some things that you really like and why do you think it is that you like that?

Jonathan Tamsut (30:24) Do people need time to think? Because I got one. I really like Julia Evans and I think it’s because she is just clearly like just a super nerd, is interested in stuff, wants to understand stuff, like does these things to improve her own understanding and then like you know. So I mean like that I resonate with like you know that’s like I think pretty

Brittany Ellich (30:24) it.

Go for it.

Bethany (30:48) I’m mad I didn’t think of Julia Evans. That is such a good one. My thoughts went to Cassidy Williams, who actually works at GitHub now, but I’ve been following her since like before way before GitHub. ⁓ And I just think she’s really nailed to the short form content for devs side of things. Like her, her TikToks are hilarious and just are always really funny, but also really accessible and unapproachable. And I just really love that.

Erika (31:14) He’s not an engineer himself, he’s an engineering manager, but Gregory from the Pragmatic Engineer.

I’ve gotten more like tangible outcomes and like things to try from his blog and his books than anyone else I can think of. And I really appreciate that because it’s hard. The work we do is hard. It’s great to have some tips and tricks that actually work. So I appreciate him being very practical and

oriented towards really making all of the work that we do better.

Brittany Ellich (31:46) love that. My pick is Charity Majors. I’ve been following her writing for a really, really long time, and I think that she does a really good job nailing authenticity. And she has gotten me more excited about observability than I think I ever would have been otherwise by reading about what they’re doing at Honeycomb. So highly recommend reading her blog if you’re interested in it. She’s very, very funny. All right.

That was fun. I’m gonna go tag each of those people on the internet and hopefully maybe one of them will see it. That would be neat.

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