Shalini Goyal

Thought I would share a personal milestone today. I reached 25 blogs on medium https://lnkd.in/dJc3YsKE This is a short blurb on my journey and process. I had started blogging in 2020 and actively from 2021 partly inspired by people I met along the way and also as a way to express my thoughts better. I changed my focus and approach multiple times, from org design, promotion processes and tech frameworks to in depth content on specific areas like cryptography. Sometimes all it took for me to go past a writers block was to just pen down my thoughts even if it doesn't form a cohesive whole and refine it as I continued writing. I decided I would always put in links to the articles or blogs of the articles I had been inspired by. Most of them have better content than mine. I realised that if I had to explain something complex I had to build concepts around it brick by brick so when I started writing about OPAQUE PAKE, I made sure I had covered cryptography in ample depth even if it meant repeating commonly known concepts. I also wanted to focus on the why rather than the what so that my detailed blog doesn't end up like an abstract white paper with references. I wanted the blog to focus on my own interests instead of clickbait. So I kept it free of prophetic albeit popular articles like AI doomerism. So what's your excuse for not blogging?

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In the hindsight It was a right decision to join the CTO program from Wharton. Learnt valuable leadership skills with executive presence and influence persuasive influence skills. One more course to go to complete the CTO Program.

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CTOtalk - That was one great day worth of interesting sessions on all things AI. Standouts from today's session were the ones from: 1. Freshworks on how AI has been built into their platform on top of which all of their products have been built thereby allowing for seamless AI flow. Another callout from this session was the future of UIs going the conversational way. Key takeaway was the importance of Responsible AI while designing an AI based platform/product. 2. The session from AWS threw light on the capability of their Amazon Q suite of products. Interesting one was the Amazon Q Insight which can generate insights from graphs and charts that has been generated plus the ability to create reports in a jiffy by giving data verbally. Talk about actionable insights!!! Not to mention about Amazon bedrock service which gives the user the flexibility to choose LLMs to suit their need to come up with their GenAI capabilities. 3. Kissflow building their LCNC platform with a multi agent framework catering for different business needs. 4. Google Gemini's amazing capabilities shown as a demo was an eye opener. With the scale of things that can be achieved by Gemini, makes one wonder how many jobs are going to get redundant across industries. Scary but as an end user, the power that you get with what can be achieved is truly astounding and this is only the beginning!!!. 5. Little known company "Appen" but powering the likes of Google, Meta, Amazon with high quality content/data to power their LLM models was another great stuff. 6. The final one by Swiggy with their interesting Tech simplification approaches was a good learning. Please note that the above content I have posted is not through any AI assist tools but pure human effort 😃 😄 . Not willing to fully surrender to the power of AI yet 😁 😆.

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Is our obsession with 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 distracting our focus? In the post ZIRP world where money is no longer free and mass layoffs are prolific we’re increasing seeing organisation's shift towards focussing on “performance”. Not inherently bad in itself. 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺? Naturally talent plays a huge role in this but never has hiring a group of talented individuals made a successful team. Our best people can be easily broken in a bad environment. The obsession with talking about performance needs to stop and replaced with an intent on sculpting the environment for high performance. So how do we create the environment for performance? 🎯 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 “𝗻𝗼” - Inevitably new initiatives or tasks come in from left field that need to be prioritised. As leaders it’s important to ask questions like “what needs to drop to accommodate this ask?”. Check-in regularly with your directs to understand their current WIP (work in progress) to gauge how sustainable their workload is. Make it clear that saying no is not a sign of under-performance but instead a sign of maturity in managing their own workload and being focussed. 🎯𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗜𝗣 - I find you get the best out of people when they operate at about 70-80% capacity - it’s certainly how you get the best out of me. This is often incorrectly confused with going slow. Rather we’re more effective when we focus on fewer, but higher priority initiatives. 🎯𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝗳𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱 - Every leader will say they want psychological safety but that level of trust is earned to the point where the gap between the grapevine and speaking truth to power is near zero. It takes courage, vulnerability and emotional intelligence as a leader to create this environment. The default should be to assume you don’t have it and work tirelessly to build it. What am I missing? What else is critical to building an environment for performance?

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Often, engineers suggest altering business or functional workflows due to technical constraints or extended implementation timelines. However, it's crucial that customer experience drives our technical decisions, not the other way around. When we prioritise output (delivery) over outcome(value), we risk delivering a subpar experience for our customers. My recommendation is to focus on building the product right, even if it requires a bit more time. Stop thinking about the task completion and start prioritizing product outcomes that delight our customers and drive long-term success. After all “The Product Mindset is the Right Mindset” #ProductThinking #ProductFirst #OutcomeOverOutput  

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The secret to great software lies in prioritising user experience and predicting user intent. In this Lex Fridman podcast, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas highlights the importance of reducing software latency, inspired by Larry Page’s approach at Google. It underscores the philosophy that the user is never wrong and the need to predict user intent for a seamless experience. This is especially true when considering how we need to build human interaction with AI in natural language. https://lnkd.in/gc946GJh #SoftwareEngineering #SoftwareDevelopment #UserExperience #NLP #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #GenerativeAI #LargeLanguageModel

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You too can follow along with my new article and load 1 TiB of data / 2 billion rows into a SingleStore Trial cluster in under 20 minutes. In the case of data loads, impatience is a virtue. https://lnkd.in/grFBJvrD

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🚀 The AI Revolution in Software Development is HERE! 👨‍💻 As a tech leader, are you ready for the seismic shift in how we build software? Here's what you need to know: 1️⃣ Rapid Prototyping on Steroids 🏎️ AI turns ideas into functional apps in minutes Example: Farm audit app created with a single prompt! 2️⃣ From Coder to Strategist 🧠 Focus shifts from writing code to crafting perfect prompts New role alert: AI Prompt Engineers 🆕 3️⃣ Legacy Code Gets a Second Life 🧬 RAG systems breathe new life into old codebases Reduce single-person risk and improve understanding 4️⃣ Leadership Challenge 🏋️‍♂️ Guide teams through rapid change Balance AI capabilities with human creativity 5️⃣ Skill Set Evolution 🔄 Adaptability is key Interdisciplinary knowledge becomes crucial The future of tech isn't about competing with AI – it's about collaboration. 🤝 Are you embracing this change or getting left behind? 💡 What's your take on AI in software development? Share below! #AIRevolution #SoftwareDevelopment #TechLeadership #FutureOfWork

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https://lnkd.in/dhkX_Kpm How do we add value to our organisations? Usually, there are four broad areas: some people excel in managing resources. Some excel in their specialised knowledge in a particular field. Some do a great job of managing complexity and then are some who are great at rainmaking. Managing resources is easier to understand as is the idea of excelling in niche areas that are valuable to the organisation. Managing complexity and rainmaking need a little explaining. Managing complexity is about dealing with uncertainty, steering through chaotic situations and handling crisis. Rainmaking is the ability to bring unusual new opportunities of expansion and growth. - Bagachi Sir

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As you get into management or leadership, fostering partnerships to use the might of the entire company to make progress, focussing on hiring to evolve the culture, and communicating to ensure clarity of focus and discipline are your only jobs.

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Well, it's an important life skill after all....

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We all deal with hierarchies in our work. The structure of our teams, of our organisation. Frequently hierarchy is perceived negatively, as a structure of power, stiff management style or bureaucratic bloat. But from natural ecosystems to corporate banks, hierarchy is a crucial element of a successful system. Good hierarchy makes the organisation resilient and adaptable. Bad will drive it into oblivion. Smart leaders should embrace the hierarchy and be able to shape it proactively. To do this, they have to understand what is a hierarchy, how it shapes the organisation and how it can harm it when things go wrong. And to gain this knowledge, they can read my article 🙂 https://lnkd.in/d33YC5_x

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Shoutout to Rudra Pradeep Perugu for pushing GitOps skillset to the next level, well-done! This is great continuation of 50+ technical certifications done by Coles Digital platform squads in FY24 and we just started scratching the surface in FY25, so lets see how far we can go this year! Such a great feeling to see engineers pushing technology excellence, learning new things and applying new skills right away in every day work. Been nothing but pleasure to see recurrent uplift in cloud engineering, Kubernetes and containerization, infra as code with Terraform, security and other spaces. Go, Coles Digital platform teams! #engineering #leadership #culture #cloud #security #devops #devsecops #azure #Kubernetes #containers #cloudnative #culture #engineeringleadership #engineeringculture #platformengineering #microsoft #terraform #coles #colesdigital #microservices #digital #opportunities #ecommerce

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Performace is the direct outcome of Organised and correctly Priortised work. If you are seeking to improve your performance in the current role, start organising your work and then priortise it, and do it regularly for atleast 6 months.

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According to new research from Tech Nation, the UK is cementing its position as an AI powerhouse. UK AI startups raised a record $3.4 billion in 2023, the second highest total on record, and in the first quarter of 2024, 16% of all UK venture funding went to AI companies. The UK now has the largest AI sector in Europe worth $92 billion with 1,800 VC backed AI starts and 20 unicorns 🚀 As AI companies grow, organisations across industries can all benefit from the efficiency gains acquired from using the technology. It’s pretty cool to see our local impact on the global AI revolution and some of the new names out there. https://lnkd.in/eRGYztek #GenerativeAI #UKTech #DataandAI #TechUK

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The first thing that comes to anyone's mind when we say being difficult to work with is being rude or obstructionist or political. However, being difficult to work with can manifest in other behaviours that hinder collaboration, productivity, and team morale as well. In this post, I classify being difficult (or delightful) to work with under communication style, professional conduct, and general attitude. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞 𝑃𝑜𝑜𝑟 𝐿𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑠: Frequently interrupting others, dismissing their ideas, or failing to actively listen during discussions VS waiting, repeating what they said, responding only if you need to 𝑁𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑇𝑜𝑛𝑒: Using a harsh, condescending, or sarcastic tone VS being calm, selecting your words carefully even when animated 𝑁𝑜𝑛-𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒: Information hoarding or failing to communicate updates VS over communicating even the smallest wins/ misses including progress, deadlines, work artefacts 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑒-𝑆ℎ𝑖𝑓𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔: Regularly blaming others for problems or failures VS actively framing problems as system issues & working towards solutions. 𝐼𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦: Being consistently rigid, always wanting your way, unwilling to adapt to changes or consider alternative approaches VS being open minded, presenting alternatives, being objective 𝑃𝑜𝑜𝑟 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝐸𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑐: Demonstrating a lack of commitment, reliability, or effort in completing tasks VS being enthusiastic, energetic, positively committed to your team 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐸𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑠: Overreacting to disagreements, escalating minor issues, not seeking constructive resolutions, having pet-peeves with everyone, fighting in public VS seeking win-win situations, raising issues in a methodical manner, disagree and commit, know what to keep private 𝑁𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦: Constantly complaining, focusing on problems, spreading doomsday scenarios VS focusing on facts, brainstorming solutions, focusing on what's in your control 𝐴𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒: Dismissing others contributions, unilateral decision making, not looping in others VS appreciating efforts of others, celebrating small wins, having a good camaraderie with all colleagues It is important we focus on effective collaboration. The obvious question is how do we push back without seeming difficult? Here is what you do: ask questions out of curiosity, seek to understand others' perspectives, offer constructive feedback, and propose solutions that benefit the entire team. You also don't need to change who you are to become a robot who does not express emotions or is not bringing you authentic self to work. You can be expressive or reserved, dramatic or composed, talkative or quieter. You should also be mindful of others & operate in the greater good. I'll talk more about this in my next post. If you liked this post, you may want to see my podcast with Lenny Rachitsky

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A powerful team is never just a collection of individuals. There is extraordinary value in connections and relationships that are built over time. But how do you quantify these nuanced and dynamic traits? Here are some ideas: ✨ DORA Metrics: While primarily leveraged for assessing software delivery performance, DORA Metrics can offer insights into team efficiency and collaboration. Metrics like deployment frequency and lead time for changes are indirect indicators of how well a team operates together. 🌟 Net Promoter Score (NPS): Going beyond customer satisfaction, internally, NPS can be adapted to gauge team members' satisfaction and willingness to recommend their team to others. It captures engagement, morale, and overall sentiment within the team. ♻️ Feedback loops: How often is the team giving feedback to others? Tracking data points like these over time, and especially showing how changing the team impacts the data can tell a compelling story. It might give a clear voice to a nuanced understanding of the impact of changing the team when there are concerns for doing so. As a leader what metrics do you track to help you understand how change impacts a team?

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