Observability, Databases, and Management…OH MY! with Marylia Gutierrez of Cockroach Labs

About the guest:

Marylia is a Toronto-based Engineering Manager and Developer at Cockroach Labs, working on Cluster Observability. Before that, Marylia was a full-stack developer at IBM, working on internal Observability tools for DB2 products.

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Transcript:

ADRIANA: Hey, y'all. Welcome to On-Call Me Maybe, the podcast about DevOps, SRE, observability principles, on-call, and everything in between. I am your host, Adriana Villela. And with me, I've got my awesome co-host...

ANA: Ana Margarita Medina.

ADRIANA: And today, we are speaking with Marylia Gutierrez, who is an Engineering Manager at CockroachDB. Welcome, Marylia. 

MARYLIA: Hello. 

ANA: Welcome.

MARYLIA: Thank you. 

ADRIANA: First things first, where are you calling from today?

MARYLIA: So I'm calling from Toronto, Canada. I'm actually from Brazil, São Paulo, but I've been living in Canada for the past almost nine years now.

ADRIANA: Awesome. Awesome. I'm also in Toronto, Canada. And Ana, you are recently back from SREcon, right?

ANA: Yeah, I actually just got back from Santa Clara over to the Marin, California area. And [laughs] it's really nice and sunny today. But now I'm actually outnumbered by Toronto folks, so this is pretty neat. [laughter]

ADRIANA: Toronto folks and Brazilian folks. 

[laughter] 

MARYLIA: Yes. 

ANA: True, true, true. [laughter] 

ADRIANA: This is an all-Latina cruise, so yes! [laughter]

ANA: Latinas in tech, we're here, and we're proud. [laughter]

MARYLIA: Yes.

ADRIANA: Let's start off our questions round with what are you drinking today, Marylia? 

MARYLIA: So I have hot chocolate with me. Hot chocolate is always my go-to drink. [laughs]

ADRIANA: Very nice. And you were saying that you are quite the hot chocolate aficionado, right? [laughs]

MARYLIA: Yeah. So usually, people have at home their set up for coffee with a grinder and everything. For me, it is the hot chocolate. So I have a velvetiser that actually can melt the chocolate, mix it with the milk, and I put the right temperature. And even the glass that I'm using has the shape to remind of cocoa, like the stripes of it. [laughs] So yeah, it's all chocolate themed. [laughs]

ADRIANA: That is awesome.

ANA: That's so cool. Is there anything special about the flavor profile for today's hot chocolate drink?

MARYLIA: No, not really. Actually, I was having one that I just went to, like, a random store, and I bought it, and it was delicious. And it ended this week. But now I need to go back and actually pay attention to the name and [laughs] where did I buy it. [laughs]

ADRIANA: Oh, that's the worst. You find something awesome, and you can't remember what it is.

MARYLIA: Yeah. [laughter] 

ADRIANA: What are you drinking, Ana?

ANA: I am drinking a strawberry acai refresher with a little bit of sparkling water. I had the Starbucks drink, and I was like, I need it to be fizzy, so I added a passion fruit LaCroix. And it's actually really refreshing because it's actually really hot out here today in my office, so I'm enjoying it. What about you, Adriana?

ADRIANA: I'm drinking some green tea. I just brewed myself a cup just before the podcast today so that I'd have something more interesting to drink. Pretty soon, we'll be into bubble tea season for podcast recording, so I'm excited to bring that. [laughter] 

ANA: I have to get on that, but I'm very excited to learn. [laughs] 

ADRIANA: Cool. Well, let's get started with the serious questions, although we never take ourselves super seriously here anyway. [laughter] So, Marylia, how did you get started in technology? Why don't you share that story with us?

MARYLIA: Growing up, I actually never really knew what I wanted to do. And then, at some point, I got the computer at home, and I thought, oh, this looks cool. But all the applications, everything was gray and square, and stuff, so I was like, why everything has to be this way? Can things be easier to use? So I was always getting frustrated with things. So that caught my attention, and I was like, I want to work on something but make it useful for the user. So I wanted it to be easy to use. So that started to bring me a little to that side. 

And then, I went to university, and I graduated in computer engineering. I also did my master's. So for the master's, I focused a little more on the UX side, so that was an area that I was very interested in from the beginning. And then just going over internships, jobs [laughs], and things just kept evolving on that.

ADRIANA: That was super cool. When we were chatting earlier, right now your current role you're an engineering manager at CockroachDB. It sounds like early in your career UI UX was kind of your thing. But now the type of work that you're doing is very different from that. So what can you say about that?

MARYLIA: My first full-time job was a mobile developer [laughs] so I even continued on the UX side that I was working on. And then, after that, I actually went to IBM. And on that one, I started looking a little more on the observability side. So I was working on an internal tool. And again, we had a bunch of data collecting about usages, things that people were doing. But again, it was hard for people to understand what all those metrics means, what all that information meant. 

So I started creating visualizations on top of that, like dashboards and tools and things that make it easy. Like, I'm about to call a customer now. I need to know everything we know about that customer. So you could filter on just the customer name, and it will have all the information about the cloud storage that they have, how much they're paying, how many tickets they had, and how much time their cloud servers were taking to be created, and all of that. So I started to really enjoy that part. And so I was there for seven years at IBM. 

And then two years ago, I was looking for a change, and then this is why I moved to Cockroach Labs. And then I wanted to continue a little on that area. But I think the important part for me was to continue being a full-stack because I always liked being a full-stack. And when I was choosing even the team, I say, okay, I want one that I can continue being a full-stack. And they didn't have a team for SQL observability at the time, which is the team that I manage. So the team was being created. 

So I saw that opportunity for me to continue working on the two sides on an area that I was interested in. And then I can continue going back to my initial desire of, okay, now you're using a database. You have a problem. How do you want to fix it? Again, I want to make it easier for the user to know what is the problem with the database. I want to make an easy way for them to fix the problems by themselves, or we can already fix for them. So in the background, I still continue with the [laughs]. I want to improve things for the user. 

So when I joined there, I joined as a developer. But very early on, I was helping with a lot of other things, and I just actually became the manager for the team. And actually, just this week, we are migrating two of the observability teams, the SQL observability and [inaudible 7:25] observability, creating just one for cluster observability. Then I actually I'm the manager now.

ANA: That's super exciting. And I think a lot of folks don't realize that when they start in the industry, whether it's front end or back end, you could eventually bring in all your skill sets together, like you said, bringing in that front-end UX mindset to observability. Like, yes, we all care about the information out there and the context this provides. But how is it that we can make sure that the consumer and the user is able to take that and build proper mental models or even just have the right information at the right time?

MARYLIA: Yeah, exactly, because I can give you here all this 20,000 files of logs. [laughter] You're like, okay, what does that mean? [laughter] So I'm there to, like, put in, okay, this is in your face. This is the thing. Fix this. This is what you should care about.

ANA: I think it's that, like, make sure you highlight the information that you should be caring about and defining what that is. 

MARYLIA: Yes, yeah, exactly.

ADRIANA: Yeah. It's kind of funny how we're so used to working with logs. I was part of a webinar a few weeks ago, and one of the questions that was asked was like, what was your first observability thing, observability signal that you were introduced to? And most people basically, their signal was logs because, as software engineers, that is the thing that we use to try to make sense out of our systems. 

And it's one of those love-hate relationships where it's like, yes, you give me the information I need, but, oh my god, [laughter] this was like finding a needle in a haystack. And I love that observability kind of takes it to that next level where now it's like a trace-first approach where logs still play an important part. And now you get a little more context into what's actually happening with relation to the big picture, which I absolutely love.

MARYLIA: Yeah. Even giving the example on CockroachDB, so we collect a lot of metrics. The user they have access. They can go and look by themselves. But my team we're also responsible for the console. So we are creating pages on top of that information. So we have one page that is like SQL activity. You can again see everything there that you want to dig into and decide.

And then we have a page that is insights that will tell you, oh, these are the things that you should be paying attention. These have a high contention. This is having this problem or that problem. Then they can focus on the big ones first, like, okay, these are my main issues; fix them. And then they can continue looking at whatever they need.

ADRIANA: Are you finding that your users are getting a lot of value out of that kind of thing now? Being in a position where you got to see this thing built from scratch, are you seeing your users going [gasps]? [laughter]

MARYLIA: Yeah. So as soon as we created this, I had somebody using it send us a message, "Usually, it takes me ten days to do the thing that now I was able to do in 1 hour," because one of the features that we have is index recommendation. And then they were like, "Oh, I had to actually find what statement was in a bad shape, which one I should be creating an index for, but now it shows right away. This is the one you should be creating." 

At the same time, we show this index you created all of those, and you never actually use it. You should be dropping those. And it is right there on the console and very easy to find. So they're like, "Oh yes, please." [laughter]

ANA: Getting a chance to win a customer or a user like that of I just made your very complex job just a little bit easier, and I'm helping you find that context a lot faster is very satisfying. That was actually going to be my question, like, how is it that your team goes about getting that user feedback from the users on the observability side of stuff? 

MARYLIA: Yeah, because we also have a PM on the team that also goes to the customers just to see how they are liking it, getting any feedback. So we also get the context from that side. But I think even somebody was asking on Twitter or something, and then I explained how the insights part works with the index. And they're like, "Oh, you are making me lose my job as a DBA. This is doing my job." I was like, "No, I'm just making your job easier because now [laughs] you don't have to spend the time." [laughs]

ADRIANA: Like, I spent the first chunk of my career heavy into using Oracle. So performance tuning Oracle, I mean, like any database, really is a heinous, heinous, heinous exercise because you're trying to tune SQL queries and database tables, and the database itself and not knowing where to start is kind of a nightmare. And I think after a while, you develop a certain intuition around it. But isn't it nice now that we actually have something [laughter] here to guide around these things?

ANA: It's like, database is already hard. And if we just make it easier to know the status of them, to know how they're doing, like, we're starting to solve that problem of just bringing in, like, lowering that complexity, I guess. But still, understanding that that's an abstraction layer and the system is still very complex. [laughter]

MARYLIA: I was going to say that when you talk about databases, people are like, "Ah, no, I don't want to have to deal with the database." 

ADRIANA: [laughs]

MARYLIA: So, ideally, you create your application. You have your database there and you never have to think about it. So that is the ideal scenario. [laughs] So if you have to interact with this, let's make them as smooth as possible that you can use.

ANA: Most definitely. You're currently an engineering manager, but you worked as an individual contributor for a bit. How is it that you made the transition, and how do you feel about it? [laughs] 

MARYLIA: It is funny because I always said, "No, I'm never going to be a manager." [laughter] A lot of ICs are like, "No, not for me. I don't want it; go away." [laughter] So I was an IC for almost ten years. And then when I joined Cockroach Labs, I was thinking like, okay, should I be or not? When my manager talked to me about it, he was like, "Oh, you are doing a lot of things that a manager does. Do you have an interest in it?" So he was like, "Spend some time talking with other managers." 

So I talked with a lot of other managers at the company, a few that had already left. And I was like, you know what? I think I want to try. And the good thing is that Cockroach Labs also has some trainings specific for people that are just becoming a manager. So I knew that I was going to have the support that I needed. It was not something that they would spring up like, you know, everything. Go do it. So I will have people backing me up during this development phase. And the manager said, "Worst case is in one year, if you decide you hate it, go back to being an IC if that happens." [laughs] 

I ended up really liking it because, as a manager, I really like being a full-stack because I like to work a little on the back end and then switch to the front end. I like switching a lot. And I was like, okay, now I have a third thing that I can switch with. [laughter] So during the week, I have a rotation of each of the three [laughs] areas. And it's been really nice also helping the team, seeing other people grow. And the other topic was I don't see a lot of women being a manager, and that was also a big point for me. Then I was like, okay, if we have more... [laughter] 

ANA: Yes. 

MARYLIA: Even for example, I was doing some events and we could talk with people that want to become interns and stuff like that. And then I went to one, and I was supposed to stay there. I think we were dividing on slots, and I had half an hour for me or something like that. And then one woman came, and she's like, "Oh, are you the manager?" I was like, "Oh yeah." She's like, "Wait, are you a manager?" I was like, "Yes." [laughter] "Oh, but you still develop." I was like, "Yes. A lot of times, I'm still doing a lot of demos." [laughter] She's like, "Okay," and then she disappears. [laughter] I was like, okay.

And then a couple of minutes later, she came back with like ten other women. [laughs] Like, "It's her. It's her." [laughter] I was like, "Hey, what is happening?" [laughs] And one of them was like, "Okay, I never saw someone like you before." [laughs] I was even a little shocked with all the reactions. And they're like, "Oh, you're my role model." And I was like, "You don't even know me." [laughter] I think that was a big also factor of even if it was something that I was afraid of, just me being there gives the right message to others that want to become.

ADRIANA: Yeah, totally. I do find seeing peers at my level who look like me, whether it's as a Latino or as a woman, I think you kind of take it for granted that it's not something that you necessarily consciously think about, at least not me. But subconsciously, I think we take a lot of comfort in seeing people who look like us in similar positions. And it makes us more comfortable being able to reach out to people like us in similar positions to learn from each other or to get advice, whatever. So it's really nice that you're able to do that for people who want to do this. [laughter]

MARYLIA: Yeah. And I got very lucky because I joke that when I was under SQL observability, I had one meeting with all the managers for the SQL side, and I had one with other managers from the observability side. And both groups, all the managers were women, so I was like, yes! [laughter]

ANA: That's amazing.

MARYLIA: So on the SQL side, it was me and two others, and then on the observability, it's me and one other. So I was like, yeah, all the peers, yeah. [laughter]

ANA: That's pretty badass. [laughter] And, like you mentioned earlier, that aspect of belonging really does make a difference. And when you do have those peers that accompany, it also just gives you such a way better fuzzy feeling of like, we're climbing this corporate ladder and saying, fuck you, tech industry. We belong here too. [laughter] We might not be a high percentage. [laughter]

I definitely wanted to come back to the point that you mentioned on your workplace, encouraging you to be a manager but also letting you know if it doesn't work out, you can go back to IC work. That's super solid. And a lot more workplaces need to have those arrangements with their team of have fun, experiment in the organization, and we will still hold an IC spot for you. It's like, this whole people management and playing politics is not for you. [laughter]

MARYLIA: Yeah, because it's always going to happen. People work for a while and realize, oh, it was not really for me. It's not a matter of competence or anything. It's just like it's not the right fit. So you don't have to feel like, oh, that means I have to leave my company now because it shouldn't have to be this way. It should be like, oh, I was working fine as an IC, so let me just go back to being an IC. That is where I'm happy. And then the company is going to be happy too because then you're doing a better job on the position that you're a better fit for.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's very comforting to have that option. Like, when I was at Tucows, and I joined as a manager, I was also kind of like, I don't know if I want to do this. And they're like, "Just try it for a bit and see how it goes." And it's very comforting to know that. 

And then the other thing that I want to mention is that it's cool, too, that you're not committed to either IC or manager for the rest of your career. You can jump around as many times as you want. I've seen tons of people in the industry do that. Or you can find one that, you know, you love one of the two, great, and stick with that, and that's okay too.

MARYLIA: Yeah. 

ANA: I think in the last three, four years, we've been having a lot more of those conversations because I think a lot of people felt that in order to grow their career, they had to be managers. But we're also just saying like, hey, there are various paths. You can take one path for a while and then go back to another. That discussion of, like, it's okay to pursue staff engineer, distinguished engineer, and then go into management or from senior and jump to management and then eventually come back to staff engineering.

MARYLIA: Yeah. A lot of people are like, oh, I have to become...it's the next step. I never saw it this way. And I don't think a lot of people see it this way. Continue doing whatever is good for you; that is what you should be doing. [chuckles]

ANA: That's definitely the best way to see it. Do things you're passionate about. They bring you joy. 

ADRIANA: In order to make people feel like they're not losing out by not becoming a manager, is this whole idea of actually getting compensated fairly as an IC. You do complex brain-draining work. And it's different from a manager role, but you should get compensated just as well for it. It's nice to see that the industry is finally recognizing that management is not, you know, it's a career track, and things diverge. You can either go as high as you can in the IC track or as high as you want to in the management track. And both are okay, and you're still going to get paid well. And I think seeing organizations compensate people fairly on both tracks is really encouraging.

MARYLIA: Yeah, it's not like one position is better than the other. It's that one position is better than the other for you, [laughs] not being better.

ANA: And it also creates that space where you say we value technical skills; we value soft skills. And it's not like the technical skills are what matters the most or the soft side is what matters the most. It's kind of balancing it out. So you mentioned that you're also from Brazil, like Adriana. And you also live in Toronto. [laughter] What was it like for you to move to a new country? [laughs]

MARYLIA: Of course, when you move...I got super nervous because all my family and friends were in Brazil. And so I knew pretty much my partner, that also came to Canada also from Brazil. [laughs] And I knew another couple from here, and that was it. And at the same time, getting a new job, so that was when I started working for IBM. So I always got nervous, like, okay, what is happening? So many changes. Is that going to work? 

But it was a very easy change in the sense that it was a lot safer here, just the quality of life. I was just feeling a lot of things that just in general feel more calm here and things like that, more safe. And so I think that was a good change. It is easy to get used to something good [laughs], and I think Toronto is a very good city. So, of course, you still miss family and friends, so we try to go and visit them. [laughs] In general, it was a very easy change.

ANA: I get to go to Toronto for the first time in a few months for KubeHuddle, where Adriana and I will be speaking.

MARYLIA: Nice.

ANA: And I'm very excited. [laughter]

ADRIANA: Yeah, maybe we can actually meet in person.

ANA: It would be nice to start having On-Call Me Maybe photos with guests in the cities that they're from.

ADRIANA: Oh my God, yes.

ANA: Like, that's going to be fun. [laughs]

MARYLIA: Yeah, you have to visit all the cities. 

ANA: On-Call Me Maybe meetups are going to be happening, apparently. [laughter]

ADRIANA: Now, speaking of Toronto, one of the things that you have to try when you're here is something called a beaver tail. It's basically a flat doughnut that is shaped like a beaver's tail, and it's covered with cinnamon and sugar or Oreo or apples or whatever. It's delicious. [laughs]

ANA: I wonder if this is similar to what they call funnel cakes here.

ADRIANA: I mean, we have funnel cakes here too. I think funnel cakes are definitely a lot more greasy.

ANA: Okay. I will be very down for this beaver's tail, then. [laughs] I wanted to touch on the part that we just had a discussion on moving to a new country. Like, is there any advice you have for folks that are doing that transition or that are on the fence? Like, for you, was it thinking about moving to a place where you already had a community, or you knew there was a Brazilian community? Or you just knew there was going to be an actual building for your office that you can meet people. [laughs]

MARYLIA: So it's going to vary a lot for people. So I think the first thing is that when you hear a lot of the "Canada is looking for Brazilians," first of all, no, that's not happening. [laughter] I get a lot of messages like, "Oh yeah, they're looking specifically for Brazilians." I'm like, "No, you have to apply normally as everybody else." And it's not an easy process for emigration. There are a lot of things to do. 

And then, again, you have to consider where you're moving. So try first going to the place that you plan to go just as a tourist because a lot of times you have that image of this place that you see in movies. You're seeing stuff, and then you go to the place, and you actually hate it. [laughter] 

So I got lucky enough because I knew people that were here before. So my partner actually came before me, so he came a year before I came. I already knew how things were working. So when I moved here, I had a place to stay. [laughs] It was not that I had to actually look for a place because imagine if you just move, you have to look for something. It's also another issue that you have to think about. 

And again, thinking if you're not coming in with a job, you also have to consider that you might take time to actually be able to get a job. So you need to have the savings enough to survive a few months with rent, food, commutes, and all this extra cost that you're going to have. So it's not going to be super easy if you don't have a support system. 

So it's always easy if you go to someplace that you know somebody that can give you some guidance. Or even like when we came here, they were like two types of buses, one you have to show the pass when you get in, the other you don't. Silly things like that, they're like, you have no idea. Or even the first time, I had to sign a check here, and it was very different from the one from Brazil, and I filled out everything wrong.

ADRIANA: [laughs] Oh no.

MARYLIA: And they were like, "What are you doing?" I was like, "That is the order." [laughter] Just having somebody to help out with, even with the silly things, is very important, I think.

ADRIANA: That's interesting. It's easy to forget the little nuances between countries. I came to Canada when I was 10, so I was riding on the coattails of my parents. [laughter] So I didn't have to deal with any of that stuff. So I essentially grew up on the system here. But yeah, when you're coming from a completely different system, or even I would imagine folks moving from Canada to the U.S., it's a bit of a culture shock too. 

It's so trippy seeing some of the differences, even some of the terminology or the spelling, [laughter] you know, things that you take for granted in Canada or in the U.S. If you're going in the other direction, there are always the little cultural nuances that you forget until you're immersed in that culture.

MARYLIA: When I moved, I pretty much brought two bags of clothes, and that's it. I didn't bring any kitchen supplies or anything like that. So we had to buy the things. And even silly things like can openers, I don't like the ones from here. I was like; I hate this thing. [laughter] It is huge and keeps getting rusty. So when friends came to visit, and they're like, "Do you need something?" I was like, "Yeah, get me a can opener from Brazil." [laughter] So it's always like those little things like, oh no, I need that specific tool that I use that I cannot find here. [laughs]

ANA: I relate to that so much. I grew up in Costa Rica and now living in California. There are still appliances or bowls that I have from back home because, one, it's nostalgic. But there's a part where it's just like, the quality is going to be better. But it is just more like the user experience is better. [laughter] And I'm just like, damn you, America. Like, why don't you also sell this version too? [laughter]

ADRIANA: One of the biggest surprises that my parents were always bitching about when we first moved here was they were using electric stoves here. And they were like, "What the hell is this crap?" [laughs] And so they're like, "Why is it taking forever to boil water?" [laughter]

MARYLIA: I thought electric showers were common everywhere. And then after I moved here, I realized, like, no, it is not common in other places electric showers, and actually, it's a Brazilian invention. I was like, oh, okay. So even at work, I was explaining like, "Okay, but what is an electric shower?" I was like, "Oh, just think about a wire that you put electricity, and you pass the water to make it hot. It's very safe, people; come on." [laughter]

ADRIANA: I remember as a kid having to turn on like a pilot light in the bathroom to heat the water. 

MARYLIA: Yes.

ADRIANA: That's my memory from when I was a kid. [laughs]

ANA: We had to do that in Nicaragua, I think, where it was like you had to power off something else and then run the water for a good like 5-10 minutes, wait for it to get hot, and then you can jump in. [laughter]

ADRIANA: The things that you take for granted.

ANA: So we have two more questions as we're wrapping up. If you had a few more hours in your day, what would you dig into tech-wise?

MARYLIA: It would be more continuing on the UX side. I also like the accessibility area, that I haven't been able to pay too much attention. So that is an area that I would like to study more.

ANA: Nice. That's exciting. Yeah, there's definitely never enough hours, and technology moves so fast that you're like, I want to do all the things.

MARYLIA: Yes. 

ANA: But, wait, I can't. [laughter]

ADRIANA: Yeah, it can be pretty overwhelming. Sometimes you just have to be like, okay, I'm going to focus on one thing. I'm just going to chill with that, and that's it. That's all I have mental space for.

MARYLIA: [laughs] So, in Cockroach Labs, we have what is called Flex Friday, so it's the day that we don't have any meetings. And then, you can work on something or continue on your regular day-to-day tasks but also a day that you can focus on studying something. So I have in the browser I create a tab for Flex Friday like reads and stuff, and I keep putting them. But I have so many that when Friday comes, I don't know which one goes first. And I end up not looking at them. [laughs]

ANA: I love that idea of putting all the things you want to read during the week on a tab on Google Chrome and then coming to it at a dedicated time and being like, this is my learning time. I think you just gave me an aha moment on how to deal with all the things I want to read. [laughter]

ADRIANA: Yeah, that's a really good idea. Good hot tip. 

MARYLIA: [laughs]

ADRIANA: The question I want to ask around Flex Fridays...because even when you have that time dedicated, allocated to doing your own thing on Friday, do you ever feel tempted or pulled into the other day-to-day management-y things, and if so, how do you protect your time?

MARYLIA: Oh, that happens. Since it's the day that I don't have any meetings and it's less likely that people actually message me, I was like, you know what? Let me just...and I actually take the day because we have, for example, on our projects, we have a column for quick wins that are things that you can finish in an hour, a couple of hours that we don't put on our roadmap, just improvements. 

Sometimes I just go there, and depending on the...if I have a really heavy meetings week, I'm like, okay, I just need to code a little. I go to that column, and I just keep going. [laughs] Like, open 10 PRs in a day, like, fix, fix, fix, just get [laughs] the coding in a little. But then I usually get in the mornings to focus on looking, for example, at that tab that I mentioned, so I try to read one or two from that one, and then in the afternoon, I focus on the coding part.

ADRIANA: Well, I think it's awesome that as a manager, you get to still stay hands-on because I think it can be really overwhelming sometimes as a manager or tempting even to deal with the other stuff, the non-technical things which can eat up your time. So I think it's awesome. And I think the takeaway from this is you have to make the time.

MARYLIA: Yeah. So I really organize because when I said that, okay, I want to be a manager, but I said that I don't want to stop coding because I really enjoy coding. And I know a lot of people want to stop, and that is completely fine. But I was like, okay, I don't even want a really big team because it would mean that I will have more time managing this and not enough time for coding. So that was even part of the agreement, not having a super huge team [laughter], and then I can focus. So I have like six people under me now, and then I just focus on the day. 

So, for example, Mondays is a little bit of planning, and I do a little coding. My Tuesday is one on one, so it's kind of like back-to-back. And then Wednesday and Thursday is again dividing through the day, a little of coding, a little related to planning and management. And then, usually on Friday, it's more focused on the coding. But I'm really good at context switching to the point that I am on a one-to-one, and if you finish early and I have five minutes to the next, I'm going to do a little fix. So I can really switch very easily.

ADRIANA: That is very, very cool. I wish I could have that skill set. That sounds amazing. [laughs]

ANA: The concept, like, the ability to context switch all the time, the privilege too in a job to be able to do that, I personally love it. And then to know that your brain is always able to kind of jump in and get like the adrenaline of something new and then be like, okay, done. But I definitely can't do it in five minutes.

MARYLIA: [laughs] On my Chrome, I have groups. So I have one tab like one group for follow, so that is things that my team is working on that I'm looking into, just reviewing, doing stuff. I have one for planning, so all the things related to I need to create time, or these are the things coming in and people are asking me and creating milestones. Then I have the tab for the Friday reads. I have a tab for current, everything that I'm currently working on. So on my day, I kind of go over, depending on the time of the day, to a particular of one of those groups. 

So I start with looking at the following just in case people have something that they're waiting on me, do the reviews, then go to my current tab and focus there. Depending on the day, go to the planning. So I keep [laughs] changing between those groups.

ADRIANA: That is awesome. That is super badass. I think we've got a mini management 101 going on here.

ANA: [laughs] I think you're going to need to follow up this podcast episode with a little blog post on how you stay productive as a manager and IC at the same time. 

MARYLIA: [laughs]

ANA: It is a lot to manage. It's hard to be context-switching all the time. But I know when I talk to a lot of managers, there's a lot of overwhelm. In general, the job is very draining and overwhelming due to having to know a tech stack and then also being a people person. So it's just kind of hard to balance. And we do have technology. We work on technology. There are ways we can use these solutions to make our day-to-day a little bit easier, and we can kind of do our job better.

MARYLIA: Yeah. I'm talking because I've been lucky that I'm really enjoying the things we're doing. But of course, there are times that a lot of things are happening at the same time, and you're just like, ah, I just need a break. [laughs] Again, I have, for example, a lot of empathy. So when things are happening with people in my team, I get really affected by it. 

And I have to remind, oh, it's not something with me, it's just something that is going on, or else I'm like, oh, I should have changed this to be better. So I get affected a lot by that. And it's still a little hard for me to put that line that here are things that I can control and after that, I cannot control. That is something that is still very hard.

ADRIANA: I really feel you. And I think this is a great segue to our last question, [laughs] which is, what are the things that you do to take care of yourself?

MARYLIA: So I have the time for work, and I really try when I'm outside of work to not try to think as much. And even things like taking care of my health. So I go swimming every morning for like one hour. So I start the day with swimming, then I go to work. And then on weekends, like, play video games, watch a bunch of TV. [laughter] I don't want to think. I just want to sit down on my couch and not use my brain [laughs] just to unwind a little. Even the really heavy week, you're just like, I don't want to talk with anyone now. [laughs]

ANA: [laughs] I shut down as a human, and I become a vegetable on the couch, and do not talk tech to me.

MARYLIA: Yes. [laughs]

ADRIANA: It's great that you give yourself permission to do that because I think it's very hard. I need to work on giving myself permission to switch off from work. [laughter] I think it's great. I think it's a really good habit to switch your brain off, become a vegetable.

MARYLIA: [laughs] Yeah. One thing that I also did is when I was working at my previous job I had things like Slack on my phone and things like that. So one thing I did is like, at least on Android, you can have different profiles. So I have a personal and a work one. 

ADRIANA: Nice.

MARYLIA: So all those things related to my email from work or tech, I put it on that one. So I don't get notifications at all. Depending if I know that something might be going on, I was like, okay, I can check, then I go to that one, check a little if there's something going on, and then I go back. So it's not something that I'm constantly looking and checking my messages.

ADRIANA: And I think that's so important is being able to switch off those push notifications so that they don't drive you nutty. I feel like after a while; I had to switch off all my notifications for my day-to-day because otherwise, I felt like I was getting PTSD. I was just jumping at every single little thing. I don't get email notifications. Every so often, I'll check my email. 

And I think the only thing that I have running during the day are my Slack notifications, and even that is not on my phone, just on my computer. And it's very specific, like, if you @ me or if we're having a DM [laughter] because otherwise, it's so easy to get so distracted by all these little dings. So good on you for putting those boundaries in place. And I think that's really awesome advice for our listeners.

ANA: I'm a firm believer of trying to keep that hard line between work and personal stuff. So the idea of putting work apps on personal phone has always been hard for me. And of course, due to the nature of my job of being on social media and being on the road, it always kind of eventually comes back, and you're like, oh, how did we get here? Like, I only had Slack for that one conference, and all of a sudden, [laughs] I have all 20 work apps on my phone, hmm. This was an oopsie. [laughter]

ADRIANA: And you have to pare down again. [laughs]

ANA: Yeah, I guess I should just put out like a bi-monthly reminder of, like, check in with myself [laughter] of like, hey, what do you have for work on your phone, anything you can remove? [laughs]

MARYLIA: Or just create something that, from time to time, you just wipe off everything from your phone, so if you really need it, you have to -- [laughs]

ADRIANA: I've heard of people who'll go on vacation and delete certain apps from their phone, like work-related, which I think is a really good habit. [laughs]

ANA: I have two things that I always say, if you're going on vacation, you cannot take your work laptop. I understand emergency mindset and stuff, and it's just like, you will not disconnect. You're going to be very tempted. You're still tied to that work luggage. And then secondly, it's that, like, I will delete Slack. I will delete Twitter because, just the tech industry, you're going to find yourself trying to go back to the habits that you have back home of just; like it won't hurt to check like, what is my team up to? What are they saying on Twitter?

MARYLIA: [laughs]

ANA: And you're not unplugging, and your brain needs to unplug in order for you to bring your best self forward to your team.

MARYLIA: When I'm on my vacation, I basically tell my team, "In case there is any emergency, call 911. Why are you calling me? It's an emergency."

[laughter]

ANA: Yes, way to do it.

ADRIANA: I love it.

[laughter]

ANA: An emergency means you got to call 911. Like, everything else can wait. Is your life in danger, or someone's life is in danger? Pretty sure 911 can take care of it better than I can. [laughter] I am not on-call this week.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. I completely agree. That's awesome advice.

ANA: I love that we got to end on such good advice of take care of yourself because as an industry, everyone takes care of themselves differently. And the more we talk about it, the more we show folks how everyone else is doing it. Like, we all move forward and being a little less workaholic culture as a generation. 

ADRIANA: Yeah, totally agree.

ANA: Well, with that, thank you so much for joining us in today's podcast. We had a great time chatting about observability management, moving to new countries, and being Latinas in tech. [laughter]

Don't forget to subscribe and give us a shout-out on all social media via On-Call Me Maybe. And be sure to check out the show notes on oncallmemaybe.com for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. For On-Call Me Maybe, we're your hosts Ana Margarita Medina...

ADRIANA: And Adriana Villela, signing off with...

MARYLIA: Peace, love, and code.

ADRIANA: All right!

ANA: Whoo. 

[laughter]

ADRIANA: We did it.