Tim Berglund

At the core of effective engineering leadership is the ability to stay connected with your team. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect because retaining the respect of your people is difficult unless you remain technically involved yourself. In my journey as an engineering leader, staying true to the individual contributor role that originally earned their respect has kept me close. This approach extends beyond technical expertise; it's about maintaining a deep connection with the core activities that propel product development forward at Gearflow. One of my biggest professional fears is becoming irrelevant or disconnected from my team and our work. This fear motivates me to continually reinvent and retool in response to market demands. Next month, I'll be sharing about my adventures generating synthetic data recently. And while I'm no expert when I start preparing for these talks, the process is incredibly valuable. It's less about delivering a perfect talk and more about how the preparation expands my thinking and exposes me to new capabilities. This helps me connect the dots to opportunities at Gearflow that bring real innovation to our customers. Speaking regularly holds me accountable and pushes me to learn ahead of the curve, ensuring I remain relevant and impactful day-to-day. Every talk is a journey of discovery, helping me to lead with humility, communicate clearly, and inspire a culture of innovation through a deep, technical understanding of our work.

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In building robust, scalable distributed systems, it’s tempting to lean on events as a primary abstraction. But are they really the best approach? In this blog post I explore why events often fall short for complex systems and how a reimagined abstraction can simplify development and reduce failures: 👉 Covered topics * The pitfalls of an event-driven approach. * How durable execution offers a better path for distributed architectures. * Why this rethink could simplify and improve your distributed system. If you’re working with distributed systems, this article might just offer the perspective shift you need. #DistributedSystems #SoftwareArchitecture #EDA #Temporal #Rethink

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Ha. The "Grumpy Customer Problem" is a new one. This is a great blog by Colt McNealy about how to use the SAGA pattern to prevent data loss and Grumpy Customers. Interesting how much simpler the flow is with LittleHorse than if you just wired all the message queues together by hand. Give it a read. https://lnkd.in/giaB6kB6

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In this Mob Mentality Show episode, we dive into the journey of Jeff Morgan, a coach in Continuous Delivery (CD) and lean thinking. Known for his role in advocating for CD within companies, Jeff shares how his experiences with software development and his recent shift into the café business have shaped his philosophy on people and just-in-time. This discussion explores how Jeff’s approach to Agile and CD evolved, his journey into Extreme Programming (XP), and how mob programming impacted his perspective on teamwork and Continuous Integration (CI). https://lnkd.in/gaQKVkPa https://lnkd.in/gCvuhEQr **Jeff’s Agile and CD Journey** We start with Jeff’s introduction to Agile, discussing the early days of his career when dev practices didn’t include CD and the impact of adopting CD in high-stakes projects like Y2K. Jeff describes how learning from Thoughtworks influenced his views on XP and CD, and how he became an advocate, eventually taking CD to different organizations. He also shares what it was like discussing with Woody Zuill and Llewellyn Falco and reflects on the transformative role mob programming has played in his career. **From Pairing to Mobbing**   For Jeff, mob programming was not initially appealing, but over time it became his preferred approach for helping teams. We explore how mobbing enhances CI, tightens communication, and fosters collective learning. Jeff explains how mobbing enables "just-in-time" discussions that align teams on what to build and how it allows real-time feedback on other team members’ learning. Jeff also examines the transition from pairing to mobbing, the challenges of mob programming with CI/CD, and why mobbing helps him “get the whole system in the room” for tackling complex problems. **Quality Without QA?**   We dive into the controversial idea of achieving high quality without traditional Quality Assurance (QA). Jeff opens up about years spent wrestling with the role of QA in Agile/CD environments and shares experiments with “test-infected” developers—who took full ownership of quality. He reflects on the pitfalls of relying on “heavyweight” traditional QA processes and automated tests, which often create lean waste, add handoffs, and introduce brittle, flakey tests. Jeff and hosts Austin and Chris discuss whether “shift left” is merely a shift away from QA, the Deming Red Bead experiment’s relevance, and whether there’s a happy journey for QA professionals on CD teams. Chris Lucian

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Observability by design has really helped our serverless teams avoid costly delays and unexpected problems. Daniel Furman and I are sharing tips for how you can keep your serverless functions healthy. We’re on a mission to share our serverless expertise so others don’t have to reinvent the serverless wheel. Check out our observability video and explore more about Capital One Software serverless-first approach: Link: https://lnkd.in/e67dJZ4r

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Another excellent post from our own ShemTov Fisher, this one offers some insights in the business of monitring platforms and optimization tools. And ends with a nice list if recomeded tools to rock your infra. Enjoy! #castai #datadog #perfectscale #kubernetes #keda

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And still it is hard to convince programmers, teams and organisations to use TDD and pair/mob/ensamble programming. With this kind of empirical experiences why don't more developing organisations mandate it? #tdd #pairprogramming #ensamblework #roi

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New blog post: The little things that got me into stream processing (https://lnkd.in/gU7Ba5Ym)

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In this episode of the Mob Mentality Show, join us as we delve into "The Discovery of Ignorance in Product Development: Time for a Smarter Way to Deliver Customer Value" with our special guest, Gary Cohen 🟦: https://lnkd.in/ggGMHyfu https://lnkd.in/gx2tXEu6 Drawing on his rich experience across diverse sectors—from government agencies to startups—Gary brings a wealth of insight into optimizing product discovery and delivery for true customer impact. ### **Key Topics Explored: The Product Discovery and Delivery Intersection** Even if a team is familiar with the 80/20 rule (e.g., where 80% of features go unused), how does it determine the right 20% to deliver? Gary shares strategies to tackle this challenge, advocating for a shift from traditional roadmap fixation to embracing dynamic, continuous discovery that keeps customer value at the forefront. Together, we examine the effectiveness of "strict" roadmap discipline (the practice of adhering to set timelines and objectives) and if it becomes a barrier to true innovation and customer value. We also briefly touch on the FAST framework and its relevance to product discovery, emphasizing how collective discovery through mobbing allows teams to stay closer to evolving customer needs. ### **The Role of GenAI in Modern Product Development** Is AI is reshaping product discovery? We explore how GenAI can be a collaborative asset for mobs, not only for code development but also for bringing value by uncovering insights into customer behavior and streamlining feature prioritization. We compare "introverted" AI and "extroverted" AI in mob environments and discusses how developing refined AI inquiry skills is key to leveraging AI’s full potential. From training mobs in nuanced prompt engineering to using AI to help drive a more lean delivery, we share ways to maximize AI's impact while maintaining expert human oversight. ### **Unpacking Behavioral Expectations: A Smarter Approach to Product Decisions** Beyond the technical, we look at the behavioral side of product monitoring, asking, “What responses do we expect from our users?” Gary emphasizes the importance of behavioral prediction in discovery, cautioning against information bias and providing ways to gauge responses to feature experiments in real-time. We highlight the importance of monitoring usage data and what it reveals about customer engagement—whether a feature elicits a “wow” or a mere “meh.” Chris Lucian

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I recently got a question on what Execs can do to better understand and improve software delivery? DORA metrics! 💪 What's that? No worries, I've got you covered. 😊 1. 🌍 DORA stands for DevOps Research and Assessment, a research program that helps organizations understand and improve their software delivery and operational performance. The four key DORA metrics are: a. Deployment Frequency (DF): How often your team deploys to a production environment. 🕒 b. Lead Time for Changes (LTFC): The time it takes from submitting code to getting it deployed into production. ⏳ c. Time to Restore Service (TTRS): The recovery time from system or product failure to full functionality.🔧 d. Change Failure Rate (CFR): The number of incidents resulting from deployed changes by your teams. ⚠️ 2. 📈 Why should you care? Understanding these metrics can help you collaborate better with your tech teams, make informed decisions, and improve overall business performance. After all, who doesn't want faster, more reliable software delivery? 😎 3. 🎯 How can you use DORA metrics? a. Set goals: Encourage your tech teams to aim for higher deployment frequency, shorter lead times, quicker recovery times, and lower change failure rates. b. Track progress: Regularly review DORA metrics to see how your teams are improving and where they might need more support. c. Celebrate success: Recognize and reward your teams for achieving their goals, after all, a little appreciation goes a long way! 🏆 By keeping DORA metrics top of mind and working closely with your tech teams, you'll be well on your way to achieving software delivery success! 🎉 If you want to learn even more, checkout the great info below. 📚 #dora #softwareengineering #devops #continuousdelivery #quality #metrics #agile #teamwork

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In this clip from Orb's Tractable podcast, WarpStream's Richard Artoul talks about how WarpStream is a drop-in replacement for Apache Kafka and its zero disk architecture means you never pay interzone networking fees. Check out the full episode.

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Glide has written a great post explaining what #NoCode is and how it can help your organization. https://lnkd.in/gaSdJWTx

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🔍 Navigating the complexities of observability? We break down everything you need to know about Datadog’s Flex Logs, highlighting how Sumo Logic's advanced log management solutions stand out in comparison: https://ow.ly/tcgs50TrwxQ

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I had the opportunity to discuss some basic principles for building sustainable software. One is pretty basic - if you aren't using a resource (e.g., a VM) turn it off. In this era of cloud services it is still running, still taking up resources, still using power. This also helps when you are trying to convince others of the value - if it is still running, it is still costing you money. The second is more challenging, design your software to use fewer resources. The fewer the resources, the lower the cost and the lower your carbon footprint. It is amazing how often developers neglect these two basic principles and write code as though the resources were free and had no impact. A little focus can go a long way. #sustainability #atrius #acuitybrands #esg https://lnkd.in/erwsQwxN

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🚨 Critical security and regression fixes are out for PostgreSQL! Make sure to update ASAP to keep your data safe and your applications running smoothly. #PostgreSQL #security #database #update

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Large Language Models (#LLMs) are evolving rapidly, and the demand for running them at scale is skyrocketing. #Ollama is stepping up to meet this need with its official container image on Docker Hub, excelling in local #deployments. However, there’s a catch for containerized environments: downloading #models requires the ollama serve command to be running within the #container. This extra step complicates automated deployments via #CI #CD #pipelines, making seamless model access challenging. To take your #model to production, it needs to be #container-ready—a feature Ollama has yet to fully support. The gap in #AIOps for smooth deployments gets blurred with the inference services available as an easy way to take it to production. Goal is to overcome obstacles and deliver solutions 😉 so here is to get you started on having your (O)#llama #production ready in a private #deployment from your #local to #cloud all in #oneshot . Enjoy Medium: https://lnkd.in/g9jqBQ8d dev.to: https://lnkd.in/gi_gGwam #AI #LLM #Ollama #llama3 #phi3 #mistral #S6overlay #AIOps #CI #CD #oneshot #container #docker #podmanEnjoy

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97% of tech professionals report challenges with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), from managing multiple tools to enforcing consistent configurations. The 2024 Stacked Up: IaC Maturity Report highlights these pain points—and more importantly, shows the way forward. Curious how your organization compares? Download the full report to explore how IaC is impacting teams across industries. #IaC #CloudNative #Infrastructure #TechLeadership #InfrastructurefromCode Download the report https://lnkd.in/ehMFjDde

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I've appreciated all the folks who have suggested I look at System Initiative this week. The great thing is, I've been tracking them for a bit now. I've even written about them and the other companies who are changing how we work, for the better. All the Next Wave companies are focused on context, helping teams navigate the current level of complexity, and preparing teams for what comes next. Huge believer in this problem and the companies that are solving it. Including my own. We're like dependabot for your entire technical stack. I don't know if you are aware but unplanned work is a big pain point for our Ops friends and it's only getting worse. So why not start with the small stuff no one has time to get to, Automate that away and give teams peace of mind while reducing toil. Don't worry Security, there will be checks and balances including an audit trail. It'll make staying in compliance a snap! All that to be said, SI's GA announcement is cool, and the approach of moving from a factory to a team. A pipeline to something more organic to manage infrastructure is timely. The team has worked hard and it shows in their GA offering! While you are checking out SI, I'd highly recommend checking out some of the other companies in the Next Wave of DevOps, if you haven't already. The number of companies is growing and the founding teams are passionate about this space and the problems. We are better together and all of the companies are amazing! + Anyshift.io + AppMap + CloudTruth + DryRun Security + Overmind + Prequel.dev + RunWhen + Stakpak + Stanza New companies are making the hard parts more approachable with our complex and ever-growing technical stacks. From code to deployment and everything in between #opservations

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