Meeting Title: Uttam Kumaran’s Personal Meeting Room Date: 2025-04-14 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Caio Velasco
WEBVTT
1 00:01:58.920 ⇒ 00:01:59.950 Caio Velasco: Hey!
2 00:02:00.760 ⇒ 00:02:01.540 Uttam Kumaran: How are you?
3 00:02:01.540 ⇒ 00:02:02.060 Caio Velasco: Are you?
4 00:02:02.560 ⇒ 00:02:03.920 Caio Velasco: Good, nice.
5 00:02:05.200 ⇒ 00:02:07.249 Caio Velasco: It looks like a nice place over there.
6 00:02:07.540 ⇒ 00:02:12.660 Uttam Kumaran: I know it’s in my yard. See, I have. I have this horse in the field.
7 00:02:12.660 ⇒ 00:02:14.896 Caio Velasco: I mean oh, wow!
8 00:02:18.520 ⇒ 00:02:20.670 Uttam Kumaran: Spend some time outside.
9 00:02:20.840 ⇒ 00:02:26.115 Uttam Kumaran: I usually spend like 10 h inside. So I’m just trying to
10 00:02:26.830 ⇒ 00:02:31.530 Uttam Kumaran: to just do a little. Do a little bit today while I have some meetings outside. So.
11 00:02:32.470 ⇒ 00:02:33.845 Caio Velasco: That’s nice. That’s nice.
12 00:02:34.190 ⇒ 00:02:34.625 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
13 00:02:35.370 ⇒ 00:02:37.239 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything going? How’s life?
14 00:02:38.190 ⇒ 00:02:41.600 Caio Velasco: Good good as well. I’m back in Barcelona.
15 00:02:41.980 ⇒ 00:02:42.550 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
16 00:02:42.980 ⇒ 00:02:45.190 Caio Velasco: So yeah, weather is better.
17 00:02:45.670 ⇒ 00:02:49.099 Caio Velasco: So I think it’s a yeah good. Everything is good.
18 00:02:49.610 ⇒ 00:02:50.380 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome.
19 00:02:50.740 ⇒ 00:02:53.409 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. How was how was getting back? Settled?
20 00:02:55.190 ⇒ 00:03:06.160 Caio Velasco: It’s not. It’s not never easy, but at least I already know the place, and I already know some people, so it’s at least easier than a completely new place.
21 00:03:06.370 ⇒ 00:03:09.689 Caio Velasco: But yeah, it’s still like a work in progress.
22 00:03:09.930 ⇒ 00:03:17.950 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah. So I’ve been to Barcelona what now? Twice I loved it, I liked. I’ve been to Barcelona. I’ve been to Madrid.
23 00:03:18.260 ⇒ 00:03:23.520 Uttam Kumaran: but I. Still my favorite place is like going more to like Bilbao, or that area.
24 00:03:23.920 ⇒ 00:03:24.540 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.
25 00:03:25.980 ⇒ 00:03:37.540 Caio Velasco: Yeah, I still have to go there and visit, and I I think I might understand why, Barcelona, it’s it’s an interesting place for me, I mean half of the city.
26 00:03:38.040 ⇒ 00:03:45.419 Caio Velasco: I don’t really like it the other the other half. I like it more probably because the way
27 00:03:45.420 ⇒ 00:04:01.610 Caio Velasco: it looks to do stuff in Brazil like it’s a bit more open and have, like more bit more modern things, better infrastructure. But the other half it’s like it’s the genuine Barcelona. But then I feel that’s just to.
28 00:04:02.473 ⇒ 00:04:06.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, make sense. Yeah.
29 00:04:06.790 ⇒ 00:04:07.950 Caio Velasco: There’s less.
30 00:04:07.950 ⇒ 00:04:08.329 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, we’re.
31 00:04:08.330 ⇒ 00:04:10.400 Caio Velasco: Here much less than the normal.
32 00:04:10.880 ⇒ 00:04:12.159 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
33 00:04:12.330 ⇒ 00:04:30.809 Uttam Kumaran: great. Yeah. Let me know. I know I’m a little bit far from my Wi-fi. So let me know if it’s on my cutting out. But hopefully, that’s just my, maybe it’s just my video. But yeah, I’m just gonna pull up on our side. I know I sent sort of that document last week, like what did you? I guess before that? What did you think about
34 00:04:31.658 ⇒ 00:04:34.251 Uttam Kumaran: the document structure and
35 00:04:35.530 ⇒ 00:04:39.069 Uttam Kumaran: you know, just like the process in general, when you were going through it.
36 00:04:39.750 ⇒ 00:04:44.440 Caio Velasco: No, I liked it. I think I’m losing your your image a bit, but I can hear you.
37 00:04:44.440 ⇒ 00:04:44.890 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
38 00:04:46.569 ⇒ 00:04:55.849 Caio Velasco: So I like this structure. I think it gives a nice idea and a nice flow about like how 1 0, 1 could be, and I think you address it like
39 00:04:56.140 ⇒ 00:04:59.739 Caio Velasco: most points that I would expect it. Look good for me.
40 00:04:59.940 ⇒ 00:05:06.849 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. Yeah. I’m hoping that. You know, I’ve been in a lot of companies where, like, yeah, we do one on ones. But then it’s just like
41 00:05:06.980 ⇒ 00:05:32.829 Uttam Kumaran: we just come in and chat. And then we never end up getting to like core issues. Or so, I wanna make sure that we can do this, and then we use this as a running log. So I’m kind of leveraging this for everybody, and then sort of for us. This will be the process by which anyone who’s a manager sort of you know, works through and and is able to speak with their folks. So yeah, maybe I’m happy to just I took a little bit of a look. But maybe if you just want to
42 00:05:33.210 ⇒ 00:05:46.109 Uttam Kumaran: walk through quickly, if there’s like, if you just want to give a quick summary of of items, and we can just work work down the list. And yeah, I’m happy just to discuss any item and then make sure we can get everything addressed.
43 00:05:47.200 ⇒ 00:05:49.946 Caio Velasco: Okay. So let me take a look here.
44 00:05:51.300 ⇒ 00:05:56.430 Caio Velasco: the 1st one is about like the let’s, let’s suppose, like the last week of work.
45 00:05:57.010 ⇒ 00:06:11.829 Caio Velasco: And I think in my on my end it went well. I had like a 1st task to work with Gladview, which was a new source for me something similar to happen with to what happened with gorgeous
46 00:06:13.080 ⇒ 00:06:14.760 Caio Velasco: in my 1st 2 weeks.
47 00:06:15.300 ⇒ 00:06:19.620 Caio Velasco: But I think this time I had a a better idea of
48 00:06:20.250 ⇒ 00:06:28.820 Caio Velasco: what is the expectation for at least a 1st version of a data model given what I saw before and what I saw that Pias also did
49 00:06:30.220 ⇒ 00:06:35.040 Caio Velasco: although I might, had even less.
50 00:06:35.400 ⇒ 00:06:42.319 Caio Velasco: or maybe like almost the same like kind of information from the business side or from the Po, like what? What should be in there?
51 00:06:42.876 ⇒ 00:07:05.679 Caio Velasco: Or what’s the idea? And it was an interesting process, because at the end of the day, since no one had built something for Cloud View yet. And the client doesn’t really know. Then it’s all about going to, you know, Cloudview website like the Api Docs. And you start, you have to really learn what is Cloudview. What are their Api endpoints.
52 00:07:06.240 ⇒ 00:07:10.879 Caio Velasco: how they kind of expected a data model should be.
53 00:07:11.490 ⇒ 00:07:24.260 Caio Velasco: because well, they build those things, and and I assume that they would have an idea for the future if people want to use those things. So I had never done this before. So it was quite interesting to see
54 00:07:24.520 ⇒ 00:07:29.340 Caio Velasco: that the have to spend a lot of time really understanding, bit by bit.
55 00:07:29.786 ⇒ 00:07:36.029 Caio Velasco: and then, on the other side. The request is, it’s simple as like, join email data with orders.
56 00:07:36.530 ⇒ 00:07:41.570 Caio Velasco: And then it’s like, Yeah, but there is like a hundred tables coming from different endpoints, etc, like.
57 00:07:41.570 ⇒ 00:07:41.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
58 00:07:42.210 ⇒ 00:07:44.789 Caio Velasco: I don’t know what would be an email.
59 00:07:45.050 ⇒ 00:07:45.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
60 00:07:45.510 ⇒ 00:07:49.659 Caio Velasco: Campaign, and then there’s flow. There’s many things.
61 00:07:49.900 ⇒ 00:07:50.280 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
62 00:07:51.050 ⇒ 00:07:59.339 Caio Velasco: It was nice to like, understand, and then I I did the best I could to use the 10 HI had for a bit less. But for that
63 00:07:59.888 ⇒ 00:08:02.260 Caio Velasco: and also I’ve been talking to Mike
64 00:08:03.095 ⇒ 00:08:08.780 Caio Velasco: every now and then, and I think it was clear it became clear for me that.
65 00:08:09.470 ⇒ 00:08:14.280 Caio Velasco: I understand what it means to deliver something as soon as you can.
66 00:08:14.410 ⇒ 00:08:21.110 Caio Velasco: you know, like you will lose quality. You will not necessarily be right, and even
67 00:08:21.940 ⇒ 00:08:25.960 Caio Velasco: there won’t. There won’t be even a person to say if it was right or wrong. So
68 00:08:26.350 ⇒ 00:08:27.369 Caio Velasco: both sides right?
69 00:08:27.990 ⇒ 00:08:38.642 Caio Velasco: So yeah. So I think it was in those 2 last weeks. I say, I learned a lot, and and I delivered something. I’m happy about it, but if it’s right or not. Then we’ll see.
70 00:08:39.070 ⇒ 00:08:42.390 Caio Velasco: So I think I’m more comfortable with that. So
71 00:08:42.630 ⇒ 00:08:46.739 Caio Velasco: that would be my my check in for for the last week.
72 00:08:47.080 ⇒ 00:08:57.659 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, I feel very similarly, I think, looking back at your process. And I reviewed sort of the Prs and talking to Akash, talking to
73 00:08:58.000 ⇒ 00:09:25.639 Uttam Kumaran: talking to Robert. I think everybody in the team, you know, is definitely happy with with what they saw in terms of that project. So I think that went well, I think you know for me. I just compare if we’re getting as everyone getting better every week, right? And I think certainly I think everybody sort of approaches these problems in different ways, whether you are a perfectionist or whether you’re more just like, get something out and everybody sort of learns differently. So I think for me it was interesting, working closely with you.
74 00:09:25.960 ⇒ 00:09:40.370 Uttam Kumaran: To find out how we can enable you to see that part of this is just a constant evolution like we. We may not get it right, and also some. Sometimes we have full requirements. Sometimes the requirements come after. There’s something to sort of.
75 00:09:40.680 ⇒ 00:09:59.919 Uttam Kumaran: Take a look at and have a discussion around. Right? There’s some like basic exploration that needs to happen. And then a discussion has to be hosted with the business, because you’ll be surprised in that the business may not even have ever thought about measuring emails. Right? They may just have started sending emails. So
76 00:10:00.060 ⇒ 00:10:27.759 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the sort of thing that I try to convey to everybody is data issues and requirements. This is like a constant evolution. 100%, right is not a hundred percent right up front. Is that expectation, I think, will give you a lot of stress. But for us, the stress I try to reduce is that, hey? We just get something out. And then we discuss, and then we move forward right? And we, I think the biggest thing you’ll find.
77 00:10:27.980 ⇒ 00:10:40.889 Uttam Kumaran: especially from clients like that or and from the team is, you’ll find that I think there are opportunities where okay, maybe you should push back and say, I need a little bit more time, but there’s also opportunities to say, Hey, I have something. I’m going to push it. Take a look.
78 00:10:41.170 ⇒ 00:10:53.600 Uttam Kumaran: and people will be happy. People will be okay with that, you know. And and we’re we’re sort of in the Zone where something is better than perfect. And then we sort of work towards like the best solution longer term. So I’m glad you sort of
79 00:10:53.850 ⇒ 00:10:56.153 Uttam Kumaran: you sort of saw that. And I think that’s
80 00:10:56.810 ⇒ 00:10:58.240 Uttam Kumaran: That’s really helpful.
81 00:10:59.560 ⇒ 00:11:01.530 Caio Velasco: Nice. Yeah, yeah, I think I have like
82 00:11:01.770 ⇒ 00:11:04.710 Caio Velasco: better understanding about it this time.
83 00:11:05.220 ⇒ 00:11:06.720 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, and then I.
84 00:11:06.720 ⇒ 00:11:07.060 Caio Velasco: I know.
85 00:11:07.060 ⇒ 00:11:13.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I took a look at the next sort of perspective check. I’m glad. I think this sort of helps
86 00:11:13.820 ⇒ 00:11:43.639 Uttam Kumaran: helps me look at like what different people see, because I I tend to. We tend to share. But I’m in a position where I see from my perspective, and I share on Friday I share. And and we, you know, we actually this this past weekend we did, and me, Robert, and a few people in La met, and we did like a company offsite where we spoke a lot about. I think some of the issues that you actually wrote down here, which I’m very, very happy about.
87 00:11:44.130 ⇒ 00:12:00.770 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m definitely glad to see that. You know, you recognize that. Yeah, we’re working hard and trying to implement new tools that I also agree with your position on the department like very, very thankful. We have, like a very great patient.
88 00:12:01.090 ⇒ 00:12:16.790 Uttam Kumaran: a group of engineers, as you can tell. It’s not like a business team where, like people are yelling. In fact, probably the only people like that are going to be me and Robert, you know, who like, find ways to just
89 00:12:16.870 ⇒ 00:12:43.249 Uttam Kumaran: get us a little bit faster, right? Or or have to for us. There may be times where it’s like, okay, this has to go. Let’s figure it out. But I hope that you can appreciate and everybody appreciates it, especially if you worked in an environment that there isn’t a lot of empathy for engineering talent here is that’s not the place mostly, and that’ll mostly be the way where at least even the management, like Akash, is. Actually he has a background in data, analytics.
90 00:12:43.300 ⇒ 00:12:50.189 Uttam Kumaran: amber as well. On the Pm. Side. She has. She’s done data work and is pretty technical as well.
91 00:12:50.490 ⇒ 00:13:05.357 Uttam Kumaran: So I would say, like, apart from like the design team, and like the mark, like marketing team, there’s really like not many non engineers like at the company. So I think that helps a lot. And then, yeah, I think
92 00:13:05.930 ⇒ 00:13:12.777 Uttam Kumaran: to give you, I think a lot of your your frustrations and concerns around billable time around.
93 00:13:13.570 ⇒ 00:13:20.410 Uttam Kumaran: full time around just time available. Definitely. Hear that to give you a sense of like
94 00:13:20.810 ⇒ 00:13:27.339 Uttam Kumaran: what our expectations were. So our okrs, we we hit our sales Okr last
95 00:13:27.510 ⇒ 00:13:32.890 Uttam Kumaran: last quarter. But I would say, for the month of April.
96 00:13:32.930 ⇒ 00:13:56.860 Uttam Kumaran: a lot of my time in the last 4 weeks was ramping up Pm’s, and really just making sure that we we even have expectations of allocation versus what? Who’s on clients? And so sales is starting to pick back up as well for me. My number one goal is to get everybody who everybody who’s core. Now up to 48, 48, 40 h minimum
97 00:13:56.860 ⇒ 00:14:17.190 Uttam Kumaran: and then ideally get everybody who’s part time towards the opportunity for salary. And that’s my number one goal. Right now, I think, in your situation. And this is a situation, for everybody is as we bring on new clients. I’m basically able to give you more billable work
98 00:14:17.210 ⇒ 00:14:32.780 Uttam Kumaran: right now. I know your we pool parts. I sort of expected a bit more. It’s been a little bit lighter. We have a new client seller that’s starting as well. However, I’m also gonna leverage some of your time to work internally.
99 00:14:32.970 ⇒ 00:14:47.850 Uttam Kumaran: I definitely don’t want you to consider this as just a part-time opportunity, like I mentioned in the beginning that I think there’s going to be opportunity to grow and stretch, and so certainly, I think, having your time continue with Javi, but also
100 00:14:48.050 ⇒ 00:14:52.220 Uttam Kumaran: being able to spend some time with me and think about our internal documentation, I think out of
101 00:14:52.330 ⇒ 00:15:11.320 Uttam Kumaran: out of everyone in the in the core engineering team. And we’ll talk about this in the data platform meeting today. I think you have a really good, patient eye for tech debt and for documentation, I think where I can be very helpful in that is giving you direction on
102 00:15:11.400 ⇒ 00:15:36.489 Uttam Kumaran: what are the core things we need to do? And how can? That’s how can we consider those as things we need to scale across all of our clients. But I would say, this is a. This is the opportunity where we make. This is where it’s we have the availability to go slower right? Because we need to make decisions that will scale across 10 clients, then 20 clients, right? And so I definitely would love your help
103 00:15:36.510 ⇒ 00:15:42.459 Uttam Kumaran: right now, I would say me, I’m spending a little bit of time away. She’s spending a little bit of time. But
104 00:15:43.090 ⇒ 00:16:01.370 Uttam Kumaran: as a data platform team I want to think about all like 10% of each of our time to go towards helping the business right working on the business over time, you know at many companies. You see this as like 20% of time goes like tech debt or whatever. It’s sort of just what we can afford right now, but I think
105 00:16:01.540 ⇒ 00:16:25.129 Uttam Kumaran: I know that when you 1st started I could certainly tell that that was like, you know, and correct me if I’m wrong. But that was definitely like a passion of yours, and something that gave you energy, which I think for other people doesn’t give them energy which is rare for me. I’m a little bit of both like I love working on the documentation. I love working on thinking about systems that scale.
106 00:16:25.360 ⇒ 00:16:37.829 Uttam Kumaran: I actually think you’re now in a much better position, especially with the items we talked about earlier to understand, like, what’s nice to have versus what what’s need to have right? And.
107 00:16:37.830 ⇒ 00:16:38.240 Caio Velasco: Yes.
108 00:16:38.240 ⇒ 00:17:06.010 Uttam Kumaran: Like anything. I think we will have a discussion about what’s nice to have. But then implement the what’s needs to have right? So this is everything around documentation for every client this is around what a client receives from us. This is around anything from like how Pr reviews happen. So I think you’ll be a really really core partner to me in a lot of that efforts. And so certainly, I think we’ll talk today where I think some of your time will go
109 00:17:06.010 ⇒ 00:17:10.736 Uttam Kumaran: billable to there, and that will be billable just directly to the company.
110 00:17:11.890 ⇒ 00:17:16.730 Uttam Kumaran: but let me know what what you think about that, you know. Certainly don’t wanna.
111 00:17:16.910 ⇒ 00:17:27.300 Uttam Kumaran: I think out of everybody in the in the team for for everybody this will become a requirement to spend time thinking about this. But of course, like for the people that I know
112 00:17:27.400 ⇒ 00:17:49.580 Uttam Kumaran: love to think about structure, I want to loop you in as so that the decisions are not made in isolation, so that we all know. And I’m I’m now further and further from the ground. But I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. But interested in your perspective, you’d be interested in that. And yeah, any any comments or feedback.
113 00:17:50.330 ⇒ 00:18:03.450 Caio Velasco: Yeah, no, I think I would definitely be interested in. It’s I don’t. I don’t even know how to to put in terms of let’s let’s like, let’s say, causality like, what bring? What brings my energy when?
114 00:18:03.450 ⇒ 00:18:04.880 Caio Velasco: Yes, doing those things right?
115 00:18:04.880 ⇒ 00:18:16.190 Uttam Kumaran: The energy. The energy is a good way of putting it, you know. It’s like one day, I would think is like you have friends where you meet them, and they give you a lot of energy. And then you have people you meet. And then you, they take a lot of energy.
116 00:18:16.190 ⇒ 00:18:16.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
117 00:18:16.740 ⇒ 00:18:41.139 Uttam Kumaran: to work. And for different people, different things like for me, like sales is really hard for me, because I’m not naturally like a salesperson. But having conversations is easier. So now for me, selling is more just like my meet people. I talk to them about what we do. I don’t think about it like, oh, I have to pitch, and then I have to do this. I have to put them in a corner, and I don’t think about like that.
118 00:18:41.140 ⇒ 00:18:41.620 Caio Velasco: I mean.
119 00:18:41.620 ⇒ 00:18:43.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, please, continue.
120 00:18:43.650 ⇒ 00:18:47.400 Caio Velasco: No. So then, I think the the
121 00:18:48.040 ⇒ 00:18:51.240 Caio Velasco: the energy I get out of it is because
122 00:18:52.800 ⇒ 00:18:57.400 Caio Velasco: I think most of my achievements are kind of
123 00:18:58.070 ⇒ 00:19:04.609 Caio Velasco: pointing to to the same thing like it’s when I have the opportunity to start something from scratch.
124 00:19:04.610 ⇒ 00:19:05.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
125 00:19:05.100 ⇒ 00:19:10.879 Caio Velasco: And when I started to do those things, I think the
126 00:19:11.740 ⇒ 00:19:13.459 Caio Velasco: How can I say, like the
127 00:19:13.960 ⇒ 00:19:31.639 Caio Velasco: the highlights of the work was organization, and making sure that whoever is on the other side, let’s say, if you’re teaching, or if you’re writing something, really understand that without putting a lot of time into it, you know, like, just be, you know, as simple as you can, and and
128 00:19:31.890 ⇒ 00:19:33.390 Caio Velasco: and and
129 00:19:33.600 ⇒ 00:19:44.480 Caio Velasco: and put everything you have there. So when I was teaching and like people would really appreciate that. And and I also saw that even more in the Us. Because I see that you guys are
130 00:19:44.590 ⇒ 00:19:45.520 Caio Velasco: very
131 00:19:45.990 ⇒ 00:19:51.080 Caio Velasco: fast, and a lot of things you do like it. It makes sort of sense for me why the Us. Is so like.
132 00:19:51.080 ⇒ 00:19:52.050 Uttam Kumaran: Forward!
133 00:19:52.490 ⇒ 00:19:54.489 Caio Velasco: Because I used to see those things. But then.
134 00:19:54.490 ⇒ 00:19:58.413 Uttam Kumaran: You know, but that’s that’s maybe from like a fear mindset.
135 00:19:58.770 ⇒ 00:19:59.310 Caio Velasco: Isn’t it.
136 00:19:59.310 ⇒ 00:20:02.260 Uttam Kumaran: You guys don’t make money. It’s over like I can’t.
137 00:20:02.260 ⇒ 00:20:02.940 Caio Velasco: Yeah, yeah.
138 00:20:03.060 ⇒ 00:20:05.099 Uttam Kumaran: Part of that is that. But yeah, I hear you.
139 00:20:06.030 ⇒ 00:20:11.459 Caio Velasco: Yeah, no. So when I was, for example, I I tutored like 2
140 00:20:12.040 ⇒ 00:20:22.090 Caio Velasco: yeah, 2 courses in in Ucla. And it was like, 1st year master’s student. I was a second year master student, and the way I was conducting the class was based on my Brazilian
141 00:20:22.480 ⇒ 00:20:50.509 Caio Velasco: education, and we was like with very important people in Brazil, etc. But it is old style. But then, somehow, they appreciated that because the amount of time that I was putting to just answer a question. People so like, okay, so this is not superficial. You really want you to learn this, this and that. So I think this is my way of doing things and doing things. And and I think documentation is more or less related to that. So if I start that data model
142 00:20:50.770 ⇒ 00:20:54.439 Caio Velasco: and I deliver it to Andy. I cannot understand.
143 00:20:55.150 ⇒ 00:21:08.900 Caio Velasco: I couldn’t understand if she would be always like. But what is this like? What does it come from like. No, this is supposed to be done by me, you know I have to put hours to make this work for her. I cannot just like do whatever I think is right, and
144 00:21:09.040 ⇒ 00:21:09.909 Caio Velasco: it’s yours.
145 00:21:10.170 ⇒ 00:21:14.629 Caio Velasco: I don’t pass the ball like that. It’s like that’s the ball in a smooth way.
146 00:21:14.630 ⇒ 00:21:15.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes.
147 00:21:16.260 ⇒ 00:21:23.170 Caio Velasco: So that’s how I see. So I like it. I can help with it as long as you can guide me in. What is more more important.
148 00:21:23.695 ⇒ 00:21:26.079 Caio Velasco: I’m happy to do for sure, like no, no.
149 00:21:26.080 ⇒ 00:21:39.899 Uttam Kumaran: And then how like? So that, yeah, I mean, I didn’t. I didn’t realize that you also were very like interested or like had a background in like teaching like, how important is that to you? Is that something you’re also like interested in doing like, how can I enable that.
150 00:21:40.880 ⇒ 00:21:57.970 Caio Velasco: So this is something I like, for sure. I’ve been always teaching something, or even like doing stuff on the side in education, philanthropy, and or even like trying to make money with digital products. I don’t know if you know about the Gmat and Gre exams.
151 00:21:57.970 ⇒ 00:21:58.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
152 00:21:58.500 ⇒ 00:22:04.979 Caio Velasco: You know. So I have a platform I used to have at least that I teach math for those exams, because I had to take that.
153 00:22:04.980 ⇒ 00:22:05.480 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
154 00:22:05.480 ⇒ 00:22:07.190 Caio Velasco: When I when I apply
155 00:22:07.701 ⇒ 00:22:25.380 Caio Velasco: so I like those things. I think I have. Let’s say a talent for it, because it’s been like long, long time since I started but then, nowadays, what I what I think this could help in terms of the world of data. It would be on the other side, maybe, like on the
156 00:22:25.780 ⇒ 00:22:33.249 Caio Velasco: if someone is trying to understand a regression model or or whatever kind of model, in a more advanced way.
157 00:22:33.360 ⇒ 00:22:51.849 Caio Velasco: Those things are things that interest me. Personally, I’m not sure about, like Dbt or data set or other things I can. I can structure things to teach. I believe I I could even show you like when when I had my last client, they wanted me to build like an Scd type, 2 table for some models, and
158 00:22:51.950 ⇒ 00:22:54.520 Caio Velasco: and I did it. But I had to. I use
159 00:22:54.660 ⇒ 00:23:04.980 Caio Velasco: Chatgpt to build a markdown file that would guide them through an example of if a role comes in, what happens in the role function like just to teach them, because I had no idea if they knew or not
160 00:23:05.633 ⇒ 00:23:10.750 Caio Velasco: and also like each part of the Dbt, what is happening when you run when you build when you do this.
161 00:23:11.530 ⇒ 00:23:19.549 Caio Velasco: So this is something I like. If there’s a space to do that, I for sure it could also try to do something along those lines. But
162 00:23:19.930 ⇒ 00:23:22.799 Caio Velasco: it it depends on what you have available.
163 00:23:23.130 ⇒ 00:23:29.919 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And then, I guess, taking that one step further, how interested are you in publishing that publicly.
164 00:23:32.740 ⇒ 00:23:37.690 Caio Velasco: I usually do on my own, close it.
165 00:23:37.980 ⇒ 00:23:41.119 Uttam Kumaran: To give you the reason, you know.
166 00:23:41.540 ⇒ 00:23:55.939 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I happen to also be the Pm. Of the marketing team. I also happen to be our Cmo. And one thing that I’ve been doing in the past few weeks, as you may have noticed, is like we’re doing more talks and events.
167 00:23:56.000 ⇒ 00:24:11.859 Uttam Kumaran: And in particular. I did an event last week where I talked to a lot of executives about using AI and consultancies, and it was like an incredible hit, and you know, it gave me a lot of like energy. But also I realized that, wow.
168 00:24:12.410 ⇒ 00:24:15.589 Uttam Kumaran: this is how again, my engineering brain works is like, I’m like
169 00:24:15.790 ⇒ 00:24:40.110 Uttam Kumaran: it took a lot of effort to get me in that position, though, like we, we spend a lot of time on Linkedin connecting with people, we got a space to do it. We partnered with somebody. So for me, my next piece is like, Okay, how can our marketing team support everybody in our company to go publish externally whether that is webinars, whether that is just publishing, hey? Today, I’m going to review this technology or this process. It could be like
170 00:24:40.320 ⇒ 00:25:02.859 Uttam Kumaran: it could be a generic thing, or like it could be a fake client. We could publish it on Youtube or publish on your personal Linkedin one of the things that we spent a lot of time talking about. This weekend is that. And you know it’s like for your personal career and for your personal resume and your personal growth teaching is a really really great way to solidify your learning, but also bring yourself promotion.
171 00:25:02.860 ⇒ 00:25:14.099 Uttam Kumaran: And for me Brainforge is a really amazing vehicle for everybody in the company to leverage to go do that. Of course it’s an amazing win-win, because
172 00:25:14.520 ⇒ 00:25:27.219 Uttam Kumaran: I’m right now the only person publishing things, and there’s no way we can sort of get more eyeballs on our company right? And so if that’s certainly interesting for you, maybe that’s another thing that we can consider is about.
173 00:25:27.760 ⇒ 00:25:47.720 Uttam Kumaran: you know both how you, as an individual, can take advantage of our marketing resources, which is ability to publish blogs, ability to publish videos online. Like again, make sure all of that is edited. So for me, you know, it’s like the hardest part is actually probably not the teaching. It’s like everything around it, or at least for me.
174 00:25:47.720 ⇒ 00:25:48.290 Caio Velasco: Yes.
175 00:25:48.630 ⇒ 00:26:14.560 Uttam Kumaran: Like, oh, what do I post on Linkedin? How do I get people to the thing? All of that we figured out like we built the processes around because I told them like, that’s the hardest thing for me, too. You can put me in a room, and I’ll talk about data right, but what’s harder is like posting on Linkedin a week before than a day before, and then following up with people, and then having the diagrams having the deck ready. And so for me, I think a lot about for the folks in
176 00:26:14.610 ⇒ 00:26:44.360 Uttam Kumaran: one. I try to motivate everybody to think about promotion and promoting their career and what they’ve learned. But it’s also it’s a great opportunity to showcase what we do here at Brainforge. So maybe that’s another thing that if you have energy for that. Or if you think that’s curious, I think one way of doing that also. Another thing we’re doing is we’re going to be finding local events where everybody lives, in case you’re interested in going and running a workshop, or presenting at a conference, or presenting at a meetup.
177 00:26:44.430 ⇒ 00:26:50.093 Uttam Kumaran: and then we will enable you, with whatever resources, decks or materials, or
178 00:26:50.730 ⇒ 00:26:57.180 Uttam Kumaran: or preparation, or whatever. But I can certainly see that as an opportunity, as well.
179 00:26:57.670 ⇒ 00:27:21.029 Caio Velasco: Nice, nice. Yeah. I think that we can try to do something about that for sure. I can give you an example. 2 weeks ago I had this person that I know here in in Spain, and he has a like a client that he wanna help with the diagram like, just like, I want to. I have all these sources. I want to do this for them. We we build the Api manager. But we have no idea about data.
180 00:27:21.350 ⇒ 00:27:33.019 Caio Velasco: So what do I do in this in this? More like, I know a bit. But I don’t know a lot, because I’m not a senior. So I have my mentor like you had Mike. I had. I have also one. It’s a it’s a very good friend.
181 00:27:33.210 ⇒ 00:27:42.789 Caio Velasco: and I go to him like, hey? There’s an opportunity here. It’s interesting. He just needs help, help in this. What do you think? And then he like gives me a very nice idea, because the guy is super senior.
182 00:27:43.120 ⇒ 00:27:49.107 Caio Velasco: And then it’s like, okay. And then I start to like, build something and learn along those lines.
183 00:27:49.660 ⇒ 00:27:56.679 Caio Velasco: and the 1st thing I do is like, when I finish understanding like end to end, like from source to dashboard.
184 00:27:56.880 ⇒ 00:28:05.459 Caio Velasco: I go on Scottish draw, and I start to like, just draw, because I like that part because it. If I cannot do that, I don’t understand like what is happening.
185 00:28:06.670 ⇒ 00:28:08.790 Caio Velasco: And then I just
186 00:28:09.080 ⇒ 00:28:16.530 Caio Velasco: after a few, a few days I sent to the guy. He liked it. And then I was like, Okay, I’m just gonna post it without putting the name fine
187 00:28:17.223 ⇒ 00:28:20.210 Caio Velasco: and people liked it a lot, and I.
188 00:28:20.210 ⇒ 00:28:20.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
189 00:28:20.600 ⇒ 00:28:22.889 Caio Velasco: I just posted it with, like
190 00:28:23.200 ⇒ 00:28:28.809 Caio Velasco: the flow like sources. This this is. It was like data, bricks, azure, whatever.
191 00:28:28.960 ⇒ 00:28:31.170 Caio Velasco: And that’s it. And and
192 00:28:31.280 ⇒ 00:28:39.749 Caio Velasco: people were talking about it. And people liked it. So I think the data engineering community they like, even though they don’t like to post, because maybe
193 00:28:39.970 ⇒ 00:28:40.840 Caio Velasco: we are.
194 00:28:40.840 ⇒ 00:28:43.249 Uttam Kumaran: Engineers. It’s shy. Yeah, yeah.
195 00:28:43.780 ⇒ 00:28:46.700 Caio Velasco: But they like to comment him, you know.
196 00:28:47.080 ⇒ 00:28:50.030 Caio Velasco: So those are interesting things that. And then
197 00:28:50.210 ⇒ 00:28:58.499 Caio Velasco: the most interesting thing that I’m super honest with those say, super open. So the most interesting that happened is that my mentor called me and said.
198 00:28:59.020 ⇒ 00:29:06.639 Caio Velasco: So you know what happened. I was in the meeting today and the top top top solution architect opened the
199 00:29:07.120 ⇒ 00:29:09.330 Caio Velasco: the computer like the. And then
200 00:29:09.630 ⇒ 00:29:17.210 Caio Velasco: I saw exactly your picture over there. So so they use it to say that. Yeah, see how people are using data bridge.
201 00:29:17.730 ⇒ 00:29:27.170 Caio Velasco: So you know it, it helps. And and and it was just simple, like a simple post about like a new architecture.
202 00:29:27.170 ⇒ 00:29:31.010 Uttam Kumaran: You know, think about. Think about how many of those types of things we have
203 00:29:31.140 ⇒ 00:29:34.689 Uttam Kumaran: right. And you know, like, you know, coming from other situations.
204 00:29:34.800 ⇒ 00:29:40.909 Uttam Kumaran: and I know we’re like pretty advanced. We like do a lot of things that are like
205 00:29:41.200 ⇒ 00:29:59.609 Uttam Kumaran: way above what you would expect in a typical consultancy in terms of engineering like I feel, but like we keep that to ourselves. And that’s not. That’s not like. I don’t consider that like IP. I don’t consider that like, see a lot of people they’re like, Oh, you shouldn’t share, because it’s like blah blah! I’m like, that’s a fear mindset
206 00:29:59.760 ⇒ 00:30:12.340 Uttam Kumaran: like you know for me. If people, it’s all public, none of this. I’m we didn’t invent any of this. So this is just process and flow. And in fact, this is hard to do. You can’t look at the diagram and go do anything with that. It’s like it’s.
207 00:30:13.090 ⇒ 00:30:15.989 Caio Velasco: Exactly days and days exactly.
208 00:30:15.990 ⇒ 00:30:17.960 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, for me, I’m much more of like like this.
209 00:30:17.960 ⇒ 00:30:33.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And you know, we have this. We have the diagrams we did for Javi, right? So all of those to give you a sense, our our design team now has a kit. So we can now do these. We can turn these around in one day.
210 00:30:33.490 ⇒ 00:30:43.669 Uttam Kumaran: So if you give, if you give like, hey, I have these sources. They go through this tool they will put, and this is like very high quality. They will put this together in one day.
211 00:30:44.510 ⇒ 00:31:03.739 Uttam Kumaran: And so what we’ve actually done is we’re because and again, this is for me. Now, if your Cmo is like an engineer, I think of process, I’m like, Oh, we did this 3 times. Okay, we need, like a scalable process to do any sort of diagram. And so the team is working on a diagram kit where they have all the Logos.
212 00:31:04.190 ⇒ 00:31:09.639 Uttam Kumaran: all the Logos, all of the core components, right? All the categories
213 00:31:10.151 ⇒ 00:31:23.250 Uttam Kumaran: like high level, basically like structure. And then we’re gonna basically accumulate all the different high quality logos. Because, you know, if me and you go to do this, or I don’t know. For me it’s gonna be so ugly. It’s like.
214 00:31:23.250 ⇒ 00:31:25.860 Uttam Kumaran: bye, the time I get it done it’ll be 3 weeks.
215 00:31:26.280 ⇒ 00:31:28.829 Uttam Kumaran: The designers do this in like a few hours.
216 00:31:28.960 ⇒ 00:31:38.610 Uttam Kumaran: but what they lack is like what exactly. It is. Right. So for me, I’m like cool. I want us any any diagram anybody in the company wants to make.
217 00:31:38.950 ⇒ 00:31:43.429 Uttam Kumaran: we? There’s a clear submission, and the and the design team will build for us.
218 00:31:43.540 ⇒ 00:31:52.569 Uttam Kumaran: But think about it. Scale this to like any deck, any sort of one pager, any. Pdf, you want to take any sort of like slide presentation like
219 00:31:52.760 ⇒ 00:32:14.940 Uttam Kumaran: you can use Ryan to put together content schedule. All of those are resources. I think we’ve only now gotten to the point where, like, because I’m the guinea pig. We’ve been using that team to support me publishing that I’m going to make. You can think about it like Apis. I’m going to make those Apis more publicly available where people can tap in and get these.
220 00:32:15.090 ⇒ 00:32:30.300 Uttam Kumaran: If you have ideas like that, I think we will start to. We’ll start to write those down. And again, just take it slow, and you can try to aim for like one a month or one a week, or whatever, and and just get something out there, you know. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
221 00:32:30.480 ⇒ 00:32:33.999 Uttam Kumaran: but I think it’ll be helpful. So I think that’s that’s a really good.
222 00:32:34.770 ⇒ 00:32:39.120 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a really good takeaway. I think you know. For me in this conversation
223 00:32:39.240 ⇒ 00:32:43.499 Uttam Kumaran: I definitely learned a lot, I think sort of my biggest takeaways is is
224 00:32:43.630 ⇒ 00:32:56.819 Uttam Kumaran: leveraging your expertise in areas where we can start from scratch, not sort of start from what we have, which I do think is thinking about our data platform and our and our overall data architecture. I think.
225 00:32:57.593 ⇒ 00:33:09.209 Uttam Kumaran: One of the things I appreciate about you is that you have a lens of from the starting from scratch mentality, which is where a lot of our clients view us from.
226 00:33:09.630 ⇒ 00:33:14.030 Uttam Kumaran: Unfortunately, in the past, as you can tell, we worked as fast as
227 00:33:14.210 ⇒ 00:33:32.399 Uttam Kumaran: we had like as much coffee as I had it worked. And so for me, I think a lot about now, you know, and a lot of companies think about this as slowing down, but I just consider it like building up our foundation, like really making sure that we are indispensable, that the value people are getting from us.
228 00:33:32.540 ⇒ 00:33:49.350 Uttam Kumaran: They think we’re like cheap, you know, that will allow us to increase prices. There’s a lot of opportunities there, attract the best people and make this a really great home for all of our engineers. And so I think I can definitely, I will definitely leverage your time helping me sort of build that internally.
229 00:33:49.390 ⇒ 00:34:06.009 Uttam Kumaran: And then the last piece. Yeah, I think there’s certainly a lot of opportunities to teach internally to teach clients and also to to do some of this stuff externally. So I think we can continue to talk about how to enable you to do that.
230 00:34:06.420 ⇒ 00:34:06.810 Caio Velasco: Screen.
231 00:34:06.810 ⇒ 00:34:08.868 Uttam Kumaran: That helps. So I think,
232 00:34:09.920 ⇒ 00:34:13.140 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I would love. I would love to make that happen.
233 00:34:13.850 ⇒ 00:34:19.770 Caio Velasco: Okay, cool, cool, perfect. We can definitely think about something. I’ll start putting some ideas in here.
234 00:34:20.130 ⇒ 00:34:21.643 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
235 00:34:22.510 ⇒ 00:34:30.960 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. I know. The last piece was this, like, when I had more guidance on a new request. Yeah, one of the pieces I’m thinking about doing there
236 00:34:31.389 ⇒ 00:34:58.019 Uttam Kumaran: is thinking about like, either. We have this office hours process. But we also have the data help channel. I want to get people to conversate more and ask questions right? And this is something that I know for us. A lot of that may happen in. Stand up, but stand up is really not the best place for those long form discussions, I’m sure as you’re finding out. So I want to create more avenues for that. So one thing is, I’m holding office hours, usually like twice a week, where I’m just there chilling.
237 00:34:58.240 ⇒ 00:35:27.019 Uttam Kumaran: working. And then any questions I think I’m also going to ask, like demolati and awaii to both sort of be available at different points. I know sometimes it’s hard to ask those things over slack. You want to have more of a discussion. So I think I’m going to try and prioritize that we have that for me. It’s it’s easier to batch that way. I at this point can’t be available in every stand up. But I want to just say, Hey, I have 2 h here, 2 h on on Tuesday and Thursday, where I’m
238 00:35:27.360 ⇒ 00:35:49.549 Uttam Kumaran: if no one comes and I’m just going to get work done. But similar office hours like from college. So I think I’m going to be available there, and Annie has come to some. Ryan has come to some, and I think just the senior leadership can just make themselves available that way. I can answer any question across the company that way, you know, and people can come and get their questions answered. And it’s just a block
239 00:35:49.700 ⇒ 00:36:01.250 Uttam Kumaran: that way I can for me. It helps me, because then I don’t have to be available, maybe every 15 min in slack. Instead, I can make sure that I know that when I during this time the questions will come, and
240 00:36:01.530 ⇒ 00:36:05.260 Uttam Kumaran: you know I’ll do my best to answer. So I’ll I’ll.
241 00:36:05.260 ⇒ 00:36:05.860 Caio Velasco: No problem.
242 00:36:05.860 ⇒ 00:36:21.809 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll continue to prioritize that. And then again, my hope is that all these things that I’m doing, we test it as a system, and then we make it available like as more people become senior. Then more people can host office hours or or or that rotates across people like maybe across the senior team to host and
243 00:36:23.810 ⇒ 00:36:28.280 Caio Velasco: One thing that I also would like to to say that I that I noticed.
244 00:36:28.450 ⇒ 00:36:32.920 Caio Velasco: which I think could be leveraged, is.
245 00:36:33.230 ⇒ 00:36:45.860 Caio Velasco: I didn’t. I haven’t had much to chance to talk a lot with a wish. I have some time, because he had sometime he helped me with some things, but the few times I did, I could see that he
246 00:36:46.050 ⇒ 00:36:54.040 Caio Velasco: has the potential, or, I mean already has the potential to go from beginning to end and explain something in a very clear way. I felt it was a.
247 00:36:54.040 ⇒ 00:36:54.360 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
248 00:36:54.360 ⇒ 00:36:56.080 Caio Velasco: This could be leveraged for sure.
249 00:36:56.560 ⇒ 00:36:59.470 Caio Velasco: somehow, because he’s also very fast.
250 00:36:59.700 ⇒ 00:37:04.629 Caio Velasco: which I understand. But I think somehow, if you would
251 00:37:04.850 ⇒ 00:37:08.909 Caio Velasco: put him in a situation where he has to like okay, like like an officer or whatever.
252 00:37:09.220 ⇒ 00:37:14.879 Caio Velasco: I think that would be very helpful, because he has a lot of knowledge, and he knows how to explain very well.
253 00:37:15.490 ⇒ 00:37:33.409 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, awesome. I think. Let’s talk about it in our data platform meeting today, I want to talk about as many of these items as possible. That’s really, really amazing to hear. It makes me so happy that we have people that are interested. I worked at so many companies where, if I ask people to host office hours. They’re like.
254 00:37:33.740 ⇒ 00:37:36.949 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, like, you know. And so for me.
255 00:37:37.110 ⇒ 00:37:53.769 Uttam Kumaran: I try it first, st and then I think about like, okay. But again, people have to be bought in and what gives them energy. So certainly, I think, let’s talk about that today with him. And then, yeah, I would love to lean on him. And I think we have several points of discussion there.
256 00:37:54.110 ⇒ 00:38:08.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I love this meeting. This is great. I think I’m gonna try to do. I’m gonna try to do this like maybe every 2 weeks if I can do it. But at the moment I have it every 3 weeks. I 2, 4 weeks seem far. 2 weeks seem too short. Cycle in the middle.
257 00:38:09.035 ⇒ 00:38:09.729 Caio Velasco: Yeah.
258 00:38:09.975 ⇒ 00:38:23.944 Uttam Kumaran: But let’s plan on that, and then, of course, like we can talk. And then again, I think for me, I will look to see whether we’ve implemented some of these items that you know we did. And then I think we’ll keep this running log is just a reflection. You know of how things are going.
259 00:38:26.480 ⇒ 00:38:27.020 Uttam Kumaran: okay.
260 00:38:27.645 ⇒ 00:38:28.270 Caio Velasco: Perfect.
261 00:38:28.760 ⇒ 00:38:29.490 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
262 00:38:30.034 ⇒ 00:38:33.209 Caio Velasco: Thank you, Tom, appreciate that it was really helpful. It was nice.
263 00:38:33.210 ⇒ 00:38:35.620 Uttam Kumaran: Of course. Yeah, please let me know if you need anything else.
264 00:38:36.050 ⇒ 00:38:38.859 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, bye, bye.