Meeting Title: Engineering Leads Weekly Sync Date: 2025-09-02 Meeting participants: Samuel Roberts, Shreya Chowdhury, Awaish Kumar, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:03:36.620 ⇒ 00:03:37.500 Awaish Kumar: Hello.
2 00:03:40.660 ⇒ 00:03:41.459 Shreya Chowdhury: Hi, how’s it going?
3 00:03:41.460 ⇒ 00:03:42.360 Samuel Roberts: Oh, hey.
4 00:03:44.330 ⇒ 00:03:46.060 Awaish Kumar: All good, how about you?
5 00:03:47.390 ⇒ 00:03:50.149 Shreya Chowdhury: Pretty good, not too bad.
6 00:03:50.780 ⇒ 00:03:52.069 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, about the same.
7 00:03:57.360 ⇒ 00:03:59.510 Samuel Roberts: Excuse me.
8 00:05:46.640 ⇒ 00:05:54.260 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, sorry, I was keeping it on mute because my son was asleep, and I was waiting for his mom to come grab him. So I apologize.
9 00:05:54.260 ⇒ 00:05:55.579 Shreya Chowdhury: No worries.
10 00:05:55.580 ⇒ 00:05:58.840 Samuel Roberts: Ugh, were we waiting on new time still? That’s what happened?
11 00:05:58.840 ⇒ 00:06:00.369 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I think so.
12 00:06:00.370 ⇒ 00:06:03.560 Samuel Roberts: You know, kind of… let’s get something before this, I’m guessing.
13 00:06:04.470 ⇒ 00:06:05.040 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
14 00:06:05.040 ⇒ 00:06:07.529 Shreya Chowdhury: Did you guys do anything for the long weekend?
15 00:06:09.630 ⇒ 00:06:13.259 Samuel Roberts: I honestly forgot. It was a long weekend,
16 00:06:13.660 ⇒ 00:06:17.650 Samuel Roberts: I was traveling last week a little bit, so I kind of made up for it yesterday.
17 00:06:18.610 ⇒ 00:06:19.590 Shreya Chowdhury: Fair.
18 00:06:19.590 ⇒ 00:06:20.399 Samuel Roberts: How about you?
19 00:06:21.190 ⇒ 00:06:25.009 Shreya Chowdhury: No, I just tried to relax as much as I could.
20 00:06:25.010 ⇒ 00:06:26.400 Samuel Roberts: That’s good.
21 00:06:28.880 ⇒ 00:06:31.830 Samuel Roberts: That’s, yeah, that’s a good way to do it, especially Labor Day.
22 00:06:33.470 ⇒ 00:06:35.810 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, you all can fill in the…
23 00:06:36.610 ⇒ 00:06:41.040 Awaish Kumar: managers, which I think Notion talk, if you have anything to discuss.
24 00:06:41.470 ⇒ 00:06:44.770 Uttam Kumaran: Hey guys, sorry, I just was, appreciate a sales call.
25 00:06:45.240 ⇒ 00:06:45.780 Samuel Roberts: freaking.
26 00:06:45.780 ⇒ 00:06:46.490 Awaish Kumar: Hello?
27 00:06:50.410 ⇒ 00:06:54.699 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, Wish, go ahead, sorry, I interrupted.
28 00:06:55.890 ⇒ 00:07:01.569 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I was just saying, everybody, to fill in the document if there is anything to discuss.
29 00:07:07.170 ⇒ 00:07:08.629 Awaish Kumar: We can take 5 minutes.
30 00:07:09.070 ⇒ 00:07:09.710 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
31 00:08:04.560 ⇒ 00:08:11.240 Uttam Kumaran: So I just had my notes, that I sent earlier, so I just pasted them in Notion. That’s all I had, kind of, from my side.
32 00:08:13.200 ⇒ 00:08:14.260 Awaish Kumar: Okay, what…
33 00:08:18.510 ⇒ 00:08:19.320 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
34 00:09:53.200 ⇒ 00:09:54.010 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
35 00:10:02.360 ⇒ 00:10:05.009 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, we can start, like,
36 00:10:08.420 ⇒ 00:10:14.390 Awaish Kumar: If… unless Sammy… Simon, if you need any time for writing down anything.
37 00:10:14.390 ⇒ 00:10:17.479 Shreya Chowdhury: No, I don’t think I need any more time. Thank you.
38 00:10:19.810 ⇒ 00:10:22.759 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, so I had just a few updates, like,
39 00:10:23.110 ⇒ 00:10:27.509 Awaish Kumar: For… on the internet side, we…
40 00:10:27.620 ⇒ 00:10:33.329 Awaish Kumar: don’t have any anymore, and now we have Henry. So we have started,
41 00:10:34.050 ⇒ 00:10:44.519 Awaish Kumar: Like, from… like, this week, starting this week, we are, like, visualizing him for 30 hours on it, on, like, maybe 24, 5 hours of eating, and…
42 00:10:44.960 ⇒ 00:10:47.480 Awaish Kumar: 5 hours on default.
43 00:10:49.980 ⇒ 00:10:53.279 Awaish Kumar: And we have started assigning Tableau,
44 00:10:53.490 ⇒ 00:10:58.379 Awaish Kumar: And I’m monitoring that, so I will see, like, if everything goes well, I can just,
45 00:10:59.840 ⇒ 00:11:10.990 Awaish Kumar: give everything to Henry, or maybe we can have a split between Henry and Tamilade, for Tableau work. But, hopefully we can manage with, with the current staff.
46 00:11:12.680 ⇒ 00:11:13.400 Uttam Kumaran: Go back.
47 00:11:14.490 ⇒ 00:11:26.949 Awaish Kumar: And, then for Cassie, I’m meeting with him tomorrow, to finalize SOP and extra issues, but yeah, I will need some backup there.
48 00:11:27.180 ⇒ 00:11:33.060 Awaish Kumar: Like, if… like today, if… in case he’s sick or something,
49 00:11:34.040 ⇒ 00:11:41.569 Awaish Kumar: We need, like, a secondary person who at least knows the process, and have done one or two times.
50 00:11:41.980 ⇒ 00:11:45.840 Awaish Kumar: Because it is going to take some time to automate that.
51 00:11:46.340 ⇒ 00:11:53.180 Awaish Kumar: We have… we have already automated getting thing, all the values from different,
52 00:11:53.890 ⇒ 00:11:57.530 Awaish Kumar: Platforms, but the kind of structure they have.
53 00:11:57.720 ⇒ 00:12:01.999 Awaish Kumar: Putting all of this data into that structure is going to…
54 00:12:02.490 ⇒ 00:12:09.340 Awaish Kumar: requires some time, because, like, they have a lot of different inputs, which are… I don’t know whether they’re…
55 00:12:09.500 ⇒ 00:12:11.710 Awaish Kumar: Those inputs are coming from.
56 00:12:11.820 ⇒ 00:12:16.990 Awaish Kumar: So I need to find a way, to fully automate, but yeah, we are semi-automated, and
57 00:12:17.260 ⇒ 00:12:20.970 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, and in that case, we need an…
58 00:12:21.330 ⇒ 00:12:28.040 Awaish Kumar: Backup, person who can basically fill in… Yep.
59 00:12:29.090 ⇒ 00:12:31.550 Awaish Kumar: Apart from that,
60 00:12:32.790 ⇒ 00:12:39.839 Awaish Kumar: Okay, I actually reviewed your… saw your comments earlier, but yeah, I wanted to discuss,
61 00:12:40.100 ⇒ 00:12:45.559 Awaish Kumar: Few things, and like… like, for the first one you mentioned, That, like, it is.
62 00:12:45.560 ⇒ 00:12:51.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe we can look through… I think we’ll look through OKRs as a crew after this, after updates.
63 00:12:52.080 ⇒ 00:12:52.900 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
64 00:12:53.890 ⇒ 00:13:03.990 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, so that’s… I think… That’s it from my side. Few other things, like… I’m working on,
65 00:13:04.820 ⇒ 00:13:13.150 Awaish Kumar: For example, the plan for mayoring engineering productivity, and then on the side, I’m also looking
66 00:13:13.260 ⇒ 00:13:15.910 Awaish Kumar: Utilizing, maybe, real.
67 00:13:16.400 ⇒ 00:13:20.000 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So, like, we already have linear data, so I will see, like, if we…
68 00:13:20.030 ⇒ 00:13:34.339 Awaish Kumar: can get these numbers of linear ticket time, and when it’s done, created, and things like that. So you can actually see, for all the clients how, if we are meeting the deadlines for most of the tickets.
69 00:13:35.100 ⇒ 00:13:39.249 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so that would be great. I mean, ideally, like, on a weekly basis, we can just look at, like.
70 00:13:39.460 ⇒ 00:13:45.770 Uttam Kumaran: either PRs pushed, or tickets closed, or, like, time to resolution, stuff like that.
71 00:13:46.530 ⇒ 00:13:49.309 Uttam Kumaran: I think something’s better than nothing, so…
72 00:13:49.610 ⇒ 00:13:51.419 Uttam Kumaran: However far you get on that is fine.
73 00:13:52.650 ⇒ 00:13:55.790 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, that’s… that’s all from my side.
74 00:13:56.510 ⇒ 00:13:58.430 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, agree.
75 00:13:59.050 ⇒ 00:14:00.190 Uttam Kumaran: Sam, do you want to go?
76 00:14:00.770 ⇒ 00:14:05.780 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I mean, we’re trying to get a little more of the platform stuff, done this week.
77 00:14:05.960 ⇒ 00:14:14.420 Samuel Roberts: But Casey’s been sick as well. But with that, Mustafa has some time, it seems.
78 00:14:14.600 ⇒ 00:14:22.219 Samuel Roberts: And he wanted to jump into the… the monorepo that I’ve got mostly… or not mostly, a lot of it caught up.
79 00:14:22.330 ⇒ 00:14:26.400 Samuel Roberts: But I feel like we need to get those client hubs done, so he’s gonna look at that.
80 00:14:27.030 ⇒ 00:14:31.609 Samuel Roberts: I’m gonna prioritize that before jumping into the monorepo stuff, but,
81 00:14:32.380 ⇒ 00:14:38.960 Samuel Roberts: I’m running into some weird issues with Copilot Kit and, like, tracing and observability stuff, which is making me a little…
82 00:14:40.430 ⇒ 00:14:44.410 Samuel Roberts: worried about Copilot Kit, but I’m trying to sort it through, so…
83 00:14:44.690 ⇒ 00:14:45.550 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
84 00:14:46.090 ⇒ 00:14:52.990 Samuel Roberts: But that’s… my concern there is a little broader than just, like, if the co-pilot kid is not playing well with some of these other things that…
85 00:14:53.180 ⇒ 00:14:57.300 Samuel Roberts: we should be doing for tracing for LLM stuff, I’m not sure.
86 00:14:57.300 ⇒ 00:14:57.790 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
87 00:14:57.790 ⇒ 00:15:02.190 Samuel Roberts: I’m just… I’m trying to figure it out, but that’s a whole other… Deeper dive.
88 00:15:02.580 ⇒ 00:15:03.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
89 00:15:05.720 ⇒ 00:15:15.829 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. And then I know, Shreya, on your side, just working on the playbooks still, right? So that’s, I don’t think… I don’t know if you had a chance to…
90 00:15:17.250 ⇒ 00:15:28.170 Uttam Kumaran: sort of, see any of the stuff that Henry’s doing for Eden, or I don’t… I haven’t, we could talk about default stuff today as well, but…
91 00:15:28.170 ⇒ 00:15:28.590 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
92 00:15:28.590 ⇒ 00:15:29.780 Uttam Kumaran: other updates on…
93 00:15:29.780 ⇒ 00:15:40.779 Shreya Chowdhury: So, no, mostly just been working on templates since last week. Like, on Friday, Amber, gave me the A-B template to finish up, so I’m, I’m, like.
94 00:15:41.070 ⇒ 00:15:45.680 Shreya Chowdhury: 80% there, so I’m trying to get that wrapped up today. But…
95 00:15:46.170 ⇒ 00:15:52.270 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I haven’t had a chance to look at, any of Henry’s stuff, but…
96 00:15:52.420 ⇒ 00:16:05.849 Shreya Chowdhury: I… I don’t know if, like, any link was shared in the thread, but if not, I can ask for it and then, take a look at that stuff. But yeah, I also did take a brief look at default after our conversation on Friday,
97 00:16:05.880 ⇒ 00:16:14.949 Shreya Chowdhury: I have some thoughts and ideas, but I don’t know if you have any existing, like, links or anything to look through, or any ideas yourself, but yeah, we can talk about it.
98 00:16:15.470 ⇒ 00:16:16.980 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, okay, okay, great.
99 00:16:17.970 ⇒ 00:16:30.150 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, so maybe, yeah, like, if we could just maybe start a little bit high level today, I’m wondering if I can get everyone’s feedback on this, like, monthly delivery review doc?
100 00:16:30.390 ⇒ 00:16:33.620 Uttam Kumaran: that I put together, maybe we could start there.
101 00:16:38.480 ⇒ 00:16:42.649 Uttam Kumaran: Did everyone have a chance to take a look or leave any comments here?
102 00:16:42.650 ⇒ 00:16:43.700 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I…
103 00:16:45.470 ⇒ 00:16:57.379 Awaish Kumar: I reviewed it, I had only a few things about, like, like, although it looked good, just a few thoughts about, non-tangible, things.
104 00:17:00.090 ⇒ 00:17:13.390 Awaish Kumar: Like, the quality of messages sent to the client, or the relationship which has been established with the client, and how the person is overall,
105 00:17:13.589 ⇒ 00:17:16.159 Awaish Kumar: Part of, like, the customer success.
106 00:17:16.480 ⇒ 00:17:18.550 Awaish Kumar: Apart from just ticket closing.
107 00:17:19.270 ⇒ 00:17:22.849 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel like, in terms of non-tangible, like.
108 00:17:23.190 ⇒ 00:17:28.889 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like this is probably fine. I think we can evolve this later.
109 00:17:30.310 ⇒ 00:17:35.769 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I would like to start to look at things like Slack messages and things like that, but again, like.
110 00:17:35.890 ⇒ 00:17:40.350 Uttam Kumaran: We should be opinionated before we report on, like, what good is what bad is.
111 00:17:40.460 ⇒ 00:17:44.579 Uttam Kumaran: But if we can take a look at, like, hey, this is how many hours, this is how many tickets…
112 00:17:44.880 ⇒ 00:17:53.109 Uttam Kumaran: And then we just get feedback from the client and the team on a monthly basis, I think that’s fine. You know, I think that’s probably easy enough for now.
113 00:17:54.160 ⇒ 00:17:55.680 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, that’s…
114 00:17:56.460 ⇒ 00:18:02.519 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, another concern I had on story partial tickets, but yeah, you already replied about that, so…
115 00:18:03.260 ⇒ 00:18:07.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, feedback I got is, like, look, you can kind of game story points.
116 00:18:08.120 ⇒ 00:18:13.189 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s kind of hard to gain, like, number of tickets, because there is a smallest unit.
117 00:18:13.330 ⇒ 00:18:20.029 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, so, looking at both is… Probably best for now.
118 00:18:21.660 ⇒ 00:18:29.360 Awaish Kumar: Okay. Yeah, but like, I’m not sure, like, Sometimes the, the…
119 00:18:30.000 ⇒ 00:18:31.780 Uttam Kumaran: Tickets are so vague.
120 00:18:33.150 ⇒ 00:18:38.790 Awaish Kumar: And they can easily consume, you know, like, 8 to 10 hours of their… And if we only have…
121 00:18:39.290 ⇒ 00:18:44.549 Awaish Kumar: person for 10 hours on a client, like, he can only work on one ticket, so at least we should…
122 00:18:44.550 ⇒ 00:18:46.499 Uttam Kumaran: That’ll be on his points, right? The points will be.
123 00:18:46.500 ⇒ 00:18:46.830 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
124 00:18:46.830 ⇒ 00:18:48.500 Uttam Kumaran: Point should be clear, yeah.
125 00:18:50.870 ⇒ 00:18:59.340 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I also… I looked through it, too. I thought it looked good, I didn’t really have too many comments or anything on it.
126 00:18:59.620 ⇒ 00:19:05.110 Shreya Chowdhury: But I was also just gonna say, like, sometimes, like, certain tasks get, like,
127 00:19:05.990 ⇒ 00:19:13.810 Shreya Chowdhury: I don’t know, hidden, or they’re, like, they don’t get documented as well, so as long as, like, whoever’s working on it, like, we can just encourage them to keep, like.
128 00:19:13.990 ⇒ 00:19:29.090 Shreya Chowdhury: track of everything they’re working on. So, like, when you do this monthly review, then if there’s things that did take up a significant chunk of time, or even non-significant chunks of time, like, if it was multiple stuff, it adds up.
129 00:19:29.470 ⇒ 00:19:34.649 Shreya Chowdhury: As long as, you know, there’s some documentation of it, that should be fine.
130 00:19:34.650 ⇒ 00:19:39.300 Awaish Kumar: But I think this will automatically
131 00:19:39.560 ⇒ 00:19:46.060 Awaish Kumar: Like, encourages everybody to create a ticket, because they will see the number of tickets done,
132 00:19:47.480 ⇒ 00:19:54.480 Awaish Kumar: is less, and they have worked more, like, they will, like, if they work or anything, they are going to create the ticket, right?
133 00:19:54.990 ⇒ 00:20:00.730 Uttam Kumaran: So this is, like, really the accountability piece. Previously in the company, like, we had no mechanisms for…
134 00:20:01.310 ⇒ 00:20:06.920 Uttam Kumaran: like, accountability on the engineering side. So, kind of, like, my goal for this review process is that
135 00:20:07.530 ⇒ 00:20:16.889 Uttam Kumaran: The ability of getting your stuff done has a direct impact on, this meeting and, like, future opportunities, so this is, like, the first mechanism for that.
136 00:20:19.840 ⇒ 00:20:28.740 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, basically, like, if you don’t… if you don’t have tickets, it’s gonna come up in this meeting, and then you’re gonna be like, okay, I should start logging all of this stuff.
137 00:20:31.070 ⇒ 00:20:34.350 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I think that makes sense.
138 00:20:34.530 ⇒ 00:20:47.270 Samuel Roberts: There definitely is, like, I get a sense that there’s sometimes things that it’s like, oh yeah, that was included in this, or that was… that one was vague, and as we do a better job, hopefully, breaking that out, and grooming the tickets a little bit more. That’ll happen, but I think also, like.
139 00:20:47.810 ⇒ 00:20:58.550 Samuel Roberts: I guess my question is early on in this employee feedback, like, are they… what are… what’s the idea here for them prepping for this meeting? Are they gonna see, sort of, these numbers and stuff?
140 00:20:59.030 ⇒ 00:21:11.150 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, so the… to kind of, like, walk through, I put on the bottom here, like, what the point of this is, is this is for, actually, all three of y’all to go to meet monthly with the people in your function.
141 00:21:11.150 ⇒ 00:21:13.879 Samuel Roberts: Right. So, like, Shreya, this would be you meeting with.
142 00:21:14.440 ⇒ 00:21:25.419 Uttam Kumaran: probably Zoran and Henry. This would be, Sam, you meeting with AI folks, the OH meeting with data folks. And yeah, this is, like.
143 00:21:26.330 ⇒ 00:21:41.199 Uttam Kumaran: this is just, like, a check-in, right? Right now, previously in the company, I was meeting with everybody one-on-one every two weeks, and we sort of removed that because I just don’t, like, no time to do that. But I want to give people at least one
144 00:21:41.210 ⇒ 00:21:52.119 Uttam Kumaran: opportunity for feedback a month. Seems, like, probably easy enough to handle now, given our size. And yeah, I’m actually, to give you my bias, and this is where, like.
145 00:21:52.560 ⇒ 00:22:11.230 Uttam Kumaran: I… I hope that the feedback from y’all isn’t just like, okay, let’s do whatever he says, like, give me what you think. But I… I like how transparent this is. I think if you are someone that’s getting your stuff done and is able to crush through work, it’s very, very clear.
146 00:22:11.340 ⇒ 00:22:20.320 Uttam Kumaran: I also think, on the flip side, if you’re someone that’s struggling, it’s also very clear. And I… I don’t have a fear of…
147 00:22:20.990 ⇒ 00:22:24.540 Uttam Kumaran: Putting these in front of people, and having them,
148 00:22:24.650 ⇒ 00:22:31.360 Uttam Kumaran: look, type, like, look at this stuff. Ideally, yes, the employee feedback is something they can fill in before, ahead of time.
149 00:22:31.360 ⇒ 00:22:32.070 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
150 00:22:32.070 ⇒ 00:22:41.069 Uttam Kumaran: Same with you. I think that can help reduce awkwardness, but also, like, just a nice way to prep. But yeah, that’s kind of, like, how I feel about this.
151 00:22:41.990 ⇒ 00:22:42.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
152 00:22:43.980 ⇒ 00:22:50.329 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I think the… the whole, like, target actual thing, like, can be a little,
153 00:22:50.750 ⇒ 00:22:57.720 Samuel Roberts: scary, maybe, to people, and if then… but hopefully that will spur them on to, like, make sure the tickets are… are good, but also, like, as long as it’s not…
154 00:22:58.150 ⇒ 00:23:05.779 Samuel Roberts: So rigid that… they’re worried about that… overly worried, I guess?
155 00:23:06.280 ⇒ 00:23:21.109 Samuel Roberts: But I think it’s going to be a discussion. I think as long as they’re not coming into it being like, oh god, my numbers are here, and I want them here, but it’s because of this, you know, if they can explain that, I’m less worried. And if it’s a back and forth, I’m less worried, too.
156 00:23:21.570 ⇒ 00:23:26.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this is less of a mechanism of extracting more work from people, it’s more of a mechanism of…
157 00:23:27.090 ⇒ 00:23:29.740 Uttam Kumaran: Can we find people that are struggling and identify them?
158 00:23:30.210 ⇒ 00:23:32.230 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, in that sense, I think it’s fine.
159 00:23:32.670 ⇒ 00:23:45.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so if we want to remove target, we can do that, but as long as this group has an understanding of, like, what people should be going for, that’s it. Like, I’m not here to be like, cool, you hit everything, now next month you gotta do 20 more hours, like.
160 00:23:45.290 ⇒ 00:23:46.060 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, yeah.
161 00:23:46.060 ⇒ 00:23:52.080 Uttam Kumaran: like, what this is. This is more of, like, I want to give… everybody, I think, deserves feedback.
162 00:23:52.300 ⇒ 00:24:00.679 Uttam Kumaran: If I could give feedback to people every week, I would do it every week, but I don’t think we have the time to do that. But I am aware that I don’t think we have enough
163 00:24:00.960 ⇒ 00:24:06.950 Uttam Kumaran: opportunities where we give the engineering team feedback, and so I want to create
164 00:24:07.060 ⇒ 00:24:23.759 Uttam Kumaran: a mechanism by which we do that. I also want this to go into our ability to move people on to more clients, and to, you know, see if we can renegotiate rate. Like, I want to make sure that we pay the people that are doing the best, the most, that we can.
165 00:24:24.040 ⇒ 00:24:33.289 Uttam Kumaran: I also want to know, that if people are crushing on one client, that they’re going to be… that they could be considered to move on to the new clients, right? So…
166 00:24:33.290 ⇒ 00:24:33.740 Samuel Roberts: That’s…
167 00:24:33.740 ⇒ 00:24:42.720 Uttam Kumaran: what I would like to share for the individual engineers is, like, look, your ability to crush these, like, these reviews go directly into
168 00:24:42.970 ⇒ 00:24:52.050 Uttam Kumaran: our PM and delivery team making decisions on this. So, like, that’s the… that’s the overall mechanism. Before, it’s… it’s super willy-nilly, like.
169 00:24:52.050 ⇒ 00:24:52.580 Samuel Roberts: Right, right.
170 00:24:52.580 ⇒ 00:24:57.399 Uttam Kumaran: It all basically goes through me, so now we sort of have more of a committee-based approach for this.
171 00:24:57.800 ⇒ 00:25:04.159 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, I think it’s good. I just want to make sure that it’s not, like, overly, you know, sometimes just numbers can sometimes be like, oh.
172 00:25:05.100 ⇒ 00:25:13.230 Samuel Roberts: I don’t know. I think it’s fine, though. As you’ve explained that, I think we’re on this call all getting it, that I’m less worried about that, but I could just see how someone might…
173 00:25:13.410 ⇒ 00:25:20.790 Samuel Roberts: you know, see this and be like, oh, shit, you know, my… I did all this work, but it wasn’t logged in the tickets the right way, and wanna, you know…
174 00:25:20.970 ⇒ 00:25:28.500 Samuel Roberts: try to do something, but I think as long as we’re making it clear to them that we’re just… this is a kind of a snapshot, we’re trying to see how they’re doing and everything, different than…
175 00:25:28.670 ⇒ 00:25:30.520 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, pretty good.
176 00:25:38.410 ⇒ 00:25:44.420 Uttam Kumaran: So, I mean, if all of us are good, then my next ask is gonna be, can I go ahead and try to get
177 00:25:44.630 ⇒ 00:25:49.090 Uttam Kumaran: just set up, for everybody this morning. What do you guys think?
178 00:25:50.780 ⇒ 00:25:52.070 Awaish Kumar: Yep.
179 00:25:54.450 ⇒ 00:25:59.419 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I think that… Oh, yeah, I was gonna say…
180 00:25:59.560 ⇒ 00:26:01.359 Awaish Kumar: At the end of September?
181 00:26:03.060 ⇒ 00:26:05.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, probably sometime.
182 00:26:06.420 ⇒ 00:26:13.920 Uttam Kumaran: Either end of September, or… End of September or earlier, but yeah.
183 00:26:16.140 ⇒ 00:26:17.160 Samuel Roberts: Yes, definitely.
184 00:26:19.820 ⇒ 00:26:20.610 Uttam Kumaran: Go ahead, Trey.
185 00:26:21.140 ⇒ 00:26:32.169 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh, I was gonna say, yeah, that should be fine. I also… I haven’t really fully finished, like, meeting everyone that I think I need to meet, so…
186 00:26:32.470 ⇒ 00:26:38.170 Shreya Chowdhury: I’ll probably have to do that fir- like, yeah, but we can definitely get it set up this week, and I think, I assume…
187 00:26:38.750 ⇒ 00:26:43.250 Shreya Chowdhury: soon enough, I’ll meet everyone that I will be working regularly with.
188 00:26:44.360 ⇒ 00:26:49.679 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Yeah, I, I, I think that, part of this is, like.
189 00:26:49.990 ⇒ 00:27:01.989 Uttam Kumaran: this could be a good way to meet people in your function, but also, one of the other things we’re exploring… I think we talked about this last time, to do one of these, like, coffee chat or some automations, I need to look into
190 00:27:02.110 ⇒ 00:27:14.579 Uttam Kumaran: which one to use. But also, this is just an… I just… even if we don’t get this right, what I’m hopeful for is that it… it allows you guys to start to build a relationship with the people in your function.
191 00:27:14.610 ⇒ 00:27:28.460 Uttam Kumaran: But also, like, I want… these are, from the executive standpoint, and from us as engineering leaders, this is, like, what I’m thinking about. I’m trying to think about who’s efficient with their time, who should we start to invest more in, who’s struggling.
192 00:27:28.690 ⇒ 00:27:33.080 Uttam Kumaran: And I want that to be a shared issue now.
193 00:27:33.450 ⇒ 00:27:50.020 Uttam Kumaran: versus me, but I also really believe in trying to give people feedback. Like, I think we’ve made mistakes in the past with people where they struggled, and we never did anything about it until, they left. And I don’t… I want there to be an opportunity for a really clear feedback loop.
194 00:27:50.020 ⇒ 00:27:51.000 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
195 00:27:51.000 ⇒ 00:27:52.200 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so…
196 00:27:55.690 ⇒ 00:27:56.320 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, cool.
197 00:27:56.320 ⇒ 00:27:57.010 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
198 00:27:57.010 ⇒ 00:27:57.630 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
199 00:27:59.310 ⇒ 00:28:00.450 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
200 00:28:00.860 ⇒ 00:28:08.530 Uttam Kumaran: And, okay, so, like, I think we’re kind of good on this, so I’ll work with Rico, and I’ll make sure to see… I’ll sort of get a document somewhere about…
201 00:28:09.830 ⇒ 00:28:19.470 Uttam Kumaran: like, who’s mapped to who, and when we could start this, but I’ll work with him on a little bit of a plan there. The other document I wanted to go over was this, like,
202 00:28:20.110 ⇒ 00:28:22.000 Uttam Kumaran: leveling guide.
203 00:28:22.290 ⇒ 00:28:23.670 Uttam Kumaran: Again, like.
204 00:28:23.710 ⇒ 00:28:25.839 Awaish Kumar: I guess I didn’t know how many people.
205 00:28:25.840 ⇒ 00:28:42.969 Uttam Kumaran: in, like, of the four of us, I mean, I know, Sam, you’ve hired before, but I guess, like, we all probably have opinions on levels. We’ve all worked at various sized companies, where this is less important or more important. Maybe to give you my perspective on this is…
206 00:28:44.300 ⇒ 00:28:48.620 Uttam Kumaran: To be very honest, I care that our clients are happy.
207 00:28:48.880 ⇒ 00:28:55.839 Uttam Kumaran: So that is, like, what is in the DNA of every decision I make, is, like, are we delivering the best work for clients?
208 00:28:55.960 ⇒ 00:29:04.929 Uttam Kumaran: But in the way to do that, we are gonna get people from various different levels, and we need to share understanding of
209 00:29:05.060 ⇒ 00:29:15.019 Uttam Kumaran: the scope that people can take on, and the responsibilities on a client. So this is probably… this is less about the,
210 00:29:15.310 ⇒ 00:29:20.670 Uttam Kumaran: this is less about the scope on a client. For example, we have solution architect, we have other things.
211 00:29:20.830 ⇒ 00:29:28.089 Uttam Kumaran: More about within a specific, within a specific function, what are the various roles.
212 00:29:28.200 ⇒ 00:29:32.800 Uttam Kumaran: This sort of a chance to, like, look at this, you’re going to take 2 seconds to look at this.
213 00:29:33.300 ⇒ 00:29:38.150 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, give me a second. I had looked at it, but not as in-depth as, the other one.
214 00:29:48.510 ⇒ 00:29:50.489 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, okay, that’s awesome. Yeah.
215 00:29:51.650 ⇒ 00:29:54.379 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe just take a quick scroll through this.
216 00:31:04.010 ⇒ 00:31:05.929 Uttam Kumaran: And I had some questions here.
217 00:31:07.460 ⇒ 00:31:10.710 Uttam Kumaran: So these are, like, kind of helpful discussion questions.
218 00:31:40.390 ⇒ 00:31:47.190 Samuel Roberts: I guess the question I have, kind of gets down to maybe this… Titles, you know, external-facing titles.
219 00:31:47.360 ⇒ 00:31:53.040 Samuel Roberts: Where… so it says, what, about 15 people right now? Is that… yeah.
220 00:31:53.040 ⇒ 00:31:54.480 Uttam Kumaran: That’s… yeah, yeah.
221 00:31:54.480 ⇒ 00:32:03.130 Samuel Roberts: Where do you, like, where do you see the headcount going as this, like, 2 to 5 million scale? Like, where, I mean, obviously, like, we’ve talked a little bit about, like, trying to automate more things and hiring less, so I’m curious…
222 00:32:03.130 ⇒ 00:32:11.600 Uttam Kumaran: Sounds good to go. Yeah, so right now, our OKR for this quarter is 80,000.
223 00:32:11.680 ⇒ 00:32:14.280 Samuel Roberts: Okay. And if you take our average…
224 00:32:14.280 ⇒ 00:32:18.889 Uttam Kumaran: Client, like, monthly revenue of, like, let’s say it’s…
225 00:32:19.150 ⇒ 00:32:21.860 Uttam Kumaran: let’s say we’re being conservative, it’s 10K.
226 00:32:21.970 ⇒ 00:32:25.119 Uttam Kumaran: That means we’re gonna add another 3 clients.
227 00:32:25.300 ⇒ 00:32:27.820 Samuel Roberts: If you take our existing clients.
228 00:32:27.820 ⇒ 00:32:31.020 Uttam Kumaran: On most climbs, we at least have 3 people.
229 00:32:31.170 ⇒ 00:32:34.420 Uttam Kumaran: Right, we have a PM, we have an engineer, and we have a lead.
230 00:32:34.770 ⇒ 00:32:42.989 Uttam Kumaran: So that should give you a little bit of a sense of if we were to bring on 3 additional clients.
231 00:32:43.010 ⇒ 00:32:43.740 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
232 00:32:43.740 ⇒ 00:32:48.179 Uttam Kumaran: We do have some people that are part-time, right? But I would say we probably would need
233 00:32:48.480 ⇒ 00:32:58.789 Uttam Kumaran: like, an additional 2 people. But that’s kind of the math, is that, like, for every client, we need probably 3 people, so…
234 00:33:00.480 ⇒ 00:33:04.760 Uttam Kumaran: what is that? Like, there’s some math there on, like, how… kind of, like, what are…
235 00:33:04.760 ⇒ 00:33:05.330 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
236 00:33:05.330 ⇒ 00:33:08.850 Uttam Kumaran: how, how it scales. But…
237 00:33:09.920 ⇒ 00:33:15.369 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s probably safe to assume that for every client or two clients we bring out, we have to bring in another person.
238 00:33:15.570 ⇒ 00:33:16.140 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
239 00:33:16.140 ⇒ 00:33:16.970 Samuel Roberts: That’s… that’s…
240 00:33:18.250 ⇒ 00:33:23.489 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, like, let’s say if we were to double From 10 to 20 clients.
241 00:33:23.710 ⇒ 00:33:28.110 Uttam Kumaran: Will you… We would have to probably bring on another 5 people.
242 00:33:28.450 ⇒ 00:33:29.240 Samuel Roberts: Right, okay.
243 00:33:29.240 ⇒ 00:33:35.500 Uttam Kumaran: so it’s not linear, but it does grow pretty quickly.
244 00:33:35.500 ⇒ 00:33:37.989 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, that’s kind of what I was wondering, because it’s… I mean…
245 00:33:39.620 ⇒ 00:33:47.309 Samuel Roberts: it’s… like, nothing seems terribly off here. You know, it seems pretty, pretty good. I’m just wondering if it’s, like.
246 00:33:47.800 ⇒ 00:34:04.420 Samuel Roberts: more than is necessary at this point, but that’s why I was just wondering where the plan was, you know? How, like, you know, I’m thinking long-term and everything, I wasn’t sure… because I would say, like, external-facing titles are probably not critical at this point, but I also don’t necessarily know the consulting game as well.
247 00:34:05.380 ⇒ 00:34:08.430 Samuel Roberts: But that’s also me coming from a different background.
248 00:34:09.659 ⇒ 00:34:11.440 Samuel Roberts: But I don’t know.
249 00:34:15.550 ⇒ 00:34:19.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess… yeah, curious if anyone else has any comments on that.
250 00:34:19.620 ⇒ 00:34:24.280 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I was gonna say, I think most of these look pretty good to me.
251 00:34:24.280 ⇒ 00:34:33.980 Uttam Kumaran: It’s sort of weird, because it’s not… it’s not like our typical engineering, like, internal engineering.
252 00:34:34.230 ⇒ 00:34:34.630 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
253 00:34:34.639 ⇒ 00:34:40.029 Uttam Kumaran: Because part of this is related to, like, how we structure Like, a consulting engagement.
254 00:34:40.300 ⇒ 00:34:40.620 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
255 00:34:40.620 ⇒ 00:34:41.739 Uttam Kumaran: a sense of, like.
256 00:34:41.940 ⇒ 00:34:46.939 Uttam Kumaran: To give you a sense of, like, what the common practice is, I’ll just jot down some notes. Typically, on a project.
257 00:34:47.659 ⇒ 00:34:53.009 Uttam Kumaran: You have, an AE, right? So this is, like, account exec, so this is sales.
258 00:34:53.469 ⇒ 00:34:55.779 Uttam Kumaran: You have a solutions architect?
259 00:34:56.840 ⇒ 00:35:00.010 Uttam Kumaran: You commonly have a PM, you have a tech lead.
260 00:35:00.130 ⇒ 00:35:01.759 Uttam Kumaran: And then you have engineers, right?
261 00:35:01.760 ⇒ 00:35:02.559 Samuel Roberts: Hmm, okay.
262 00:35:02.560 ⇒ 00:35:08.720 Uttam Kumaran: This is… this is, like, the pristine, ideal… Type of account.
263 00:35:08.830 ⇒ 00:35:18.110 Uttam Kumaran: Problem with us is, like, we are taking… not all of our deals are, like, this big. Like, Eden is, like, this big, right? But, like, for a smaller comp… for a smaller account.
264 00:35:18.380 ⇒ 00:35:23.339 Uttam Kumaran: we typically have, like, a PM, We have an AE.
265 00:35:24.260 ⇒ 00:35:40.040 Uttam Kumaran: And then we have, like, a TL and engineers. Sometimes we just have engineers, sometimes we have a tech lead. So kind of, like, something that I’m trying to think a little bit about is, like, okay, how do people… given that we’re going to have so many smaller clients, how do people spread across, right?
266 00:35:40.650 ⇒ 00:35:48.740 Uttam Kumaran: A solutions architect, for example, maybe a client just needs 5 hours of Solutions Architect Like, every week.
267 00:35:48.860 ⇒ 00:35:55.900 Uttam Kumaran: Or less, right? Versus, like, tech leads are always required to do, like, a little bit longer, and engineers or something.
268 00:35:56.090 ⇒ 00:36:00.410 Uttam Kumaran: So, I would say the most important roles here, though,
269 00:36:00.730 ⇒ 00:36:05.950 Uttam Kumaran: are probably these three. It’s the person who’s, like, sole and owns the relationship.
270 00:36:05.950 ⇒ 00:36:09.289 Samuel Roberts: It’s the solutions architect who comes in as, like.
271 00:36:09.290 ⇒ 00:36:16.110 Uttam Kumaran: okay, I have this scope, how do I build… how do I work with the PM team to build out, like, the roadmaps?
272 00:36:16.280 ⇒ 00:36:25.679 Uttam Kumaran: And then the tech lead is who works directly with the PM to scope tickets, to point, to size things, and to on-block engineers.
273 00:36:25.940 ⇒ 00:36:29.770 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, because we don’t have that many people.
274 00:36:30.450 ⇒ 00:36:49.119 Uttam Kumaran: we’re like musical chairs, like, me, Awash, Sam, right? So, like, Robert, right? Where, like, Robert and I are AE on everything, so let’s just, like, we not consider that. I think Awash plays solutions architect on some places, he plays tech lead on some places, I’m PM on some clients.
275 00:36:49.460 ⇒ 00:36:53.969 Uttam Kumaran: I think… Same, you’re not getting looped in a Solutions Architect.
276 00:36:54.120 ⇒ 00:36:57.769 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, all of us do a little bit of engineering work here and there.
277 00:36:57.890 ⇒ 00:37:04.880 Uttam Kumaran: what is this tech lead? So this is where I’m, like, trying to just decide on, like, Yeah.
278 00:37:05.340 ⇒ 00:37:14.530 Uttam Kumaran: again, I… I think I rapidly wrote a lot of this, so this may not be perfect, but this is sort of, like, how I’m thinking about it. Again, I’m, of course.
279 00:37:14.790 ⇒ 00:37:24.679 Uttam Kumaran: personally, I care more about, like, the internal functions and expectations we can have on each of the people, and more about, like, okay, who’s gonna be…
280 00:37:24.790 ⇒ 00:37:28.679 Uttam Kumaran: Like, architects versus who’s gonna be,
281 00:37:29.000 ⇒ 00:37:31.630 Uttam Kumaran: Tech lead versus who’s, like,
282 00:37:31.990 ⇒ 00:37:41.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s… those are the sorts of things I’m thinking about, and maybe we wear different hats. For example, I may play solutions architect on some client, I may just tech lead on another.
283 00:37:41.960 ⇒ 00:37:42.530 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
284 00:37:42.530 ⇒ 00:37:43.040 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
285 00:37:43.040 ⇒ 00:37:51.050 Uttam Kumaran: opportunity for this crew, while we don’t have all these people, to play multiple hats, but I just want the expectations to be really clear.
286 00:37:53.970 ⇒ 00:37:54.920 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
287 00:37:54.920 ⇒ 00:38:04.430 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, so I was just saying that, like, tech lead should be able to Monit… mentor other engineers?
288 00:38:05.750 ⇒ 00:38:12.780 Awaish Kumar: Even if he’s not a direct, like, manager, but should we…
289 00:38:12.960 ⇒ 00:38:18.759 Awaish Kumar: Should be able to mentor, unblock people, and…
290 00:38:20.190 ⇒ 00:38:25.079 Awaish Kumar: Like, drive the communication, collaboration in the team.
291 00:38:31.770 ⇒ 00:38:33.059 Uttam Kumaran: I see, okay.
292 00:38:37.460 ⇒ 00:38:43.839 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I would agree. I think that’s a good responsibility to add for leads, especially if we are,
293 00:38:45.110 ⇒ 00:38:51.999 Shreya Chowdhury: Like, especially if we’re planning on also implementing the other, like, monthly… Like, check-in, whatever.
294 00:38:52.210 ⇒ 00:38:56.169 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I think that’s a good thing to add.
295 00:38:56.920 ⇒ 00:39:00.269 Uttam Kumaran: So, one kind of debate I was having, which is,
296 00:39:00.910 ⇒ 00:39:03.860 Uttam Kumaran: Like, should we have, like, dual track?
297 00:39:05.250 ⇒ 00:39:06.899 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Because…
298 00:39:07.170 ⇒ 00:39:15.199 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of what happens in other big consultancies is you have some people that are peer managers, but they also, like, do solutions architect work.
299 00:39:15.450 ⇒ 00:39:19.389 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, like, I don’t know whether I want to do that, like.
300 00:39:19.610 ⇒ 00:39:29.309 Uttam Kumaran: on some level, I kind of fundamentally believe that everybody should, like, help people that are lower. Is that, like, management in the way we could typically think about it? I don’t know, like…
301 00:39:29.830 ⇒ 00:39:34.090 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to think about, like, big tech managers, what do they do, sit in one-to-ones all day, like, do performance.
302 00:39:34.090 ⇒ 00:39:34.770 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
303 00:39:34.770 ⇒ 00:39:36.560 Uttam Kumaran: That’s not what this is.
304 00:39:36.730 ⇒ 00:39:40.509 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we’re not gonna… I’m not gonna hire that person until we’re, like, a bajillion people.
305 00:39:41.250 ⇒ 00:39:46.059 Uttam Kumaran: So, but I also want to… I don’t want it to be a surprise that, like.
306 00:39:46.630 ⇒ 00:39:50.729 Uttam Kumaran: hey, you’re doing tech lead stuff, and also some… People stuff, right?
307 00:39:50.730 ⇒ 00:39:51.370 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
308 00:39:53.080 ⇒ 00:39:57.759 Awaish Kumar: Like, I have worked at different companies where the person is a…
309 00:39:58.420 ⇒ 00:40:06.360 Awaish Kumar: kind of a tech lead, but also manages, like, he’s… he’s responsible for hiring, managing…
310 00:40:06.700 ⇒ 00:40:09.370 Awaish Kumar: The performance of the team, also…
311 00:40:10.830 ⇒ 00:40:14.379 Awaish Kumar: Like, tick leading the team as well.
312 00:40:17.120 ⇒ 00:40:21.380 Awaish Kumar: maybe, like, he has the PM support, or delivery manager also.
313 00:40:23.090 ⇒ 00:40:29.050 Awaish Kumar: In the team, yeah. But, yeah, that’s… that’s what I’ve seen, like, I have worked with enterprises and…
314 00:40:29.050 ⇒ 00:40:30.450 Samuel Roberts: startups…
315 00:40:37.040 ⇒ 00:40:38.409 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Shreya, go ahead, what do you think?
316 00:40:38.410 ⇒ 00:40:56.480 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I was gonna say, I, like, I don’t know if this is a cop-out, but maybe it’s better to just leave that as a backburner decision until we feel like it’s something that, like, it’s a decision that makes sense for us, like, just proportional to growth, I guess? Because for right now…
317 00:40:56.480 ⇒ 00:40:58.319 Uttam Kumaran: Our decision would be collapsing.
318 00:40:58.510 ⇒ 00:40:59.200 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
319 00:41:01.720 ⇒ 00:41:02.490 Shreya Chowdhury: Well, I mean…
320 00:41:03.020 ⇒ 00:41:04.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, go ahead.
321 00:41:04.200 ⇒ 00:41:06.749 Shreya Chowdhury: Well, I was gonna say, yeah, but if, like…
322 00:41:07.380 ⇒ 00:41:15.520 Shreya Chowdhury: I don’t know, I guess it’s like, like you said, like, you don’t want it to come as a surprise, like, if there does arise a need for it at some point, but I don’t…
323 00:41:15.760 ⇒ 00:41:18.909 Shreya Chowdhury: Based on what I see now, I don’t know if I see…
324 00:41:19.370 ⇒ 00:41:24.859 Shreya Chowdhury: a need for it right now, but maybe that’s just me.
325 00:41:25.130 ⇒ 00:41:33.359 Samuel Roberts: I agree. I was… I probably would say just… I don’t think it’s… it feels like over-optimization a little bit, to worry about the dual track thing.
326 00:41:33.720 ⇒ 00:41:34.280 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
327 00:41:34.280 ⇒ 00:41:34.830 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
328 00:41:35.050 ⇒ 00:41:42.820 Samuel Roberts: And, like, yeah, maybe it becomes important later, but I wouldn’t even… yeah, just backburner, or just collapse, or whatever it is, just, like, not include it now.
329 00:41:42.820 ⇒ 00:41:49.849 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like, what… if I could be clear, like, what management-type stuff do I expect? Mainly, it’s just doing those feedback stuff.
330 00:41:49.960 ⇒ 00:41:53.649 Uttam Kumaran: And then… Everything else is, like, technical.
331 00:41:53.880 ⇒ 00:41:59.740 Uttam Kumaran: like, being, like, a good technical leader, which is, like, reviewing PRs, doing pair programming stuff.
332 00:41:59.740 ⇒ 00:42:00.120 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
333 00:42:00.120 ⇒ 00:42:04.920 Uttam Kumaran: But if I was just thinking about people management, it’s really just the…
334 00:42:05.220 ⇒ 00:42:12.590 Uttam Kumaran: can you… can you run those… these monthly delivery reviews? Because I’m… I’m handling conversations about
335 00:42:12.740 ⇒ 00:42:14.830 Uttam Kumaran: Rate about.
336 00:42:14.830 ⇒ 00:42:15.400 Samuel Roberts: and…
337 00:42:15.400 ⇒ 00:42:20.459 Uttam Kumaran: Like, expansion, like, things like that, and those are all recommendations that would come from this.
338 00:42:20.490 ⇒ 00:42:23.449 Samuel Roberts: But certainly, I don’t expect you guys to handle…
339 00:42:23.570 ⇒ 00:42:29.339 Uttam Kumaran: Like, anything beyond the scope, probably, like.
340 00:42:29.530 ⇒ 00:42:32.810 Uttam Kumaran: Probably this, and just being a good, like, leader within your function.
341 00:42:32.990 ⇒ 00:42:37.149 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and in terms of recruiting.
342 00:42:37.530 ⇒ 00:42:41.600 Uttam Kumaran: really what I expect out of this leads group is that you guys are the first
343 00:42:41.820 ⇒ 00:42:45.419 Uttam Kumaran: If there’s recruitment happening within your function.
344 00:42:45.810 ⇒ 00:42:55.090 Uttam Kumaran: you would pair with me and the… and Rico, who kind of leads the recruiting ops, on… sourcing…
345 00:42:55.640 ⇒ 00:43:10.850 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, probably doing the screens or setting up what that process is like. But that’s because I was doing that alone before, so it would be like, hey, we’re hiring for a product analyst, because Shreya and I are going to think about what is the recruiting process, what do we want the JD?
346 00:43:11.590 ⇒ 00:43:18.599 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s, like, that’s, again, not, like, on, you go hire this person, it’s, like, just be involved with me on doing that. So those are the only two, like.
347 00:43:18.860 ⇒ 00:43:24.399 Uttam Kumaran: I would consider, like, typical management stuff, that’s what… I’m more focused on…
348 00:43:26.630 ⇒ 00:43:29.780 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there may be times when you need to…
349 00:43:29.990 ⇒ 00:43:35.470 Samuel Roberts: you know, move that, and then… then that’s when the dual track might have to be more relevant, or it just… it’s just…
350 00:43:35.770 ⇒ 00:43:38.909 Samuel Roberts: applies to whoever is that level. You know, I think…
351 00:43:39.260 ⇒ 00:43:41.300 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I think you’re good. I, I…
352 00:43:41.300 ⇒ 00:43:41.940 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
353 00:43:42.260 ⇒ 00:43:45.600 Samuel Roberts: If you’re good handling the… those things, and we’re…
354 00:43:45.600 ⇒ 00:43:48.059 Uttam Kumaran: I’m fine with that, yeah, we’re not big enough for me to, like.
355 00:43:48.060 ⇒ 00:43:48.730 Samuel Roberts: Exactly.
356 00:43:49.470 ⇒ 00:43:50.170 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
357 00:43:50.670 ⇒ 00:43:51.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay.
358 00:43:52.420 ⇒ 00:43:55.059 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I think just collapsed them into one is probably fine for now.
359 00:43:55.310 ⇒ 00:44:02.750 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s really, really helpful. The other thing is, like, did we, one, even have L1 or L2?
360 00:44:03.410 ⇒ 00:44:08.040 Shreya Chowdhury: I was gonna say that, I feel like L1 feels very, like… like, I guess.
361 00:44:08.040 ⇒ 00:44:10.570 Uttam Kumaran: Why would I bring that brave person on at all?
362 00:44:10.570 ⇒ 00:44:17.110 Shreya Chowdhury: I think that would just be, like, very intro part-time work, like, maybe if we want to take, like, interns or something.
363 00:44:17.110 ⇒ 00:44:17.520 Samuel Roberts: Hmm.
364 00:44:17.520 ⇒ 00:44:19.709 Shreya Chowdhury: But it, it, it feels like…
365 00:44:20.280 ⇒ 00:44:22.679 Uttam Kumaran: We tried to take interns, it was so painful.
366 00:44:22.680 ⇒ 00:44:27.820 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, no, it definitely is, like, a pain. I mean, I think we can leave it just…
367 00:44:27.950 ⇒ 00:44:37.190 Shreya Chowdhury: like, to be thorough, because that one, I feel like there might… there… like, a need for that might arise sooner than dual-track leadership. Like, if, for example, we get, like.
368 00:44:37.430 ⇒ 00:44:53.829 Shreya Chowdhury: I don’t know, a client where there really is, like, not a lot of work, but everyone else is so strapped that there’s, like, very little bandwidth. Like, technically it does fall into the category of, like, someone will be doing L1 work, but I feel like most often we probably won’t…
369 00:44:54.780 ⇒ 00:44:55.540 Shreya Chowdhury: Needed.
370 00:44:55.540 ⇒ 00:45:05.169 Uttam Kumaran: That makes sense. Yeah, because really, like, the… kind of what I hope for is that eventually we should be using AI to do stuff that would be pure L1.
371 00:45:05.170 ⇒ 00:45:11.789 Samuel Roberts: That’s exactly what I was gonna say. I wouldn’t… I would think if you would need to hire no one, that’s the type of stuff you want to be saying. How do we do this some other way?
372 00:45:11.790 ⇒ 00:45:12.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
373 00:45:12.430 ⇒ 00:45:15.129 Samuel Roberts: Specifically that role, or that outlet.
374 00:45:15.130 ⇒ 00:45:19.480 Uttam Kumaran: Again, I would say, like, typically, if we bring on someone as an L2,
375 00:45:19.700 ⇒ 00:45:33.689 Uttam Kumaran: and they only qualify L1, that is a great way of saying, like, hey, like, we… we don’t… we’re not… we’re not bringing on anyone at this level. Like, none of… the thing is, I’ve tried to… we’ve tried to bring on people that are so junior, and it’s really, really hard.
376 00:45:33.780 ⇒ 00:45:40.249 Uttam Kumaran: Sometimes for them to context switch and to, like, execute. So we’re really… there is no, like…
377 00:45:40.450 ⇒ 00:45:53.580 Uttam Kumaran: We have taken on interns, but we really are… we’ve always struggled to take on people that… this is their first job. It’s very rarely that it’s worked out, and it’s… it’s a very big risk for the company.
378 00:45:53.910 ⇒ 00:46:00.729 Uttam Kumaran: Because it takes a lot of time to train the people, and so it’s just not something that, like, I am fully committed to doing, because
379 00:46:01.650 ⇒ 00:46:05.960 Uttam Kumaran: It will require us to have a really great training and enablement program.
380 00:46:06.200 ⇒ 00:46:11.800 Uttam Kumaran: Which we don’t have today, you know, like, can we take anyone who’s, like, this is their first job at a college.
381 00:46:12.310 ⇒ 00:46:17.260 Uttam Kumaran: and then turn them into something great. We don’t have the resources to… No, no. Yeah. You know?
382 00:46:17.500 ⇒ 00:46:25.760 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, in my experience, like, the size and stage that we’re at, that’s, like, not even worth… that’s… let someone else deal with the…
383 00:46:26.040 ⇒ 00:46:28.699 Uttam Kumaran: I know, you should have told me that, like, you should have told me that 2 years ago.
384 00:46:28.700 ⇒ 00:46:31.939 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, well, I had to learn that myself, so, you know, you gotta go through the ring.
385 00:46:31.940 ⇒ 00:46:32.530 Uttam Kumaran: Figure.
386 00:46:33.480 ⇒ 00:46:40.339 Uttam Kumaran: I just, like… some people really wanted to work with us, and then I just gave people… it just was such a bummer.
387 00:46:40.340 ⇒ 00:46:40.840 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
388 00:46:40.840 ⇒ 00:46:41.960 Uttam Kumaran: But, okay.
389 00:46:42.980 ⇒ 00:46:50.890 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, so I have some clear action items here. I think probably… A next step…
390 00:46:51.230 ⇒ 00:47:00.059 Uttam Kumaran: like, we can talk about this next week, so don’t worry, this isn’t something that, like, needs a ton of action on, but ideally, I would love to map out where everybody is.
391 00:47:00.590 ⇒ 00:47:04.469 Uttam Kumaran: Should be pretty easy, there’s not that many people.
392 00:47:04.850 ⇒ 00:47:07.980 Uttam Kumaran: But also, I want to start to look at where the gaps are.
393 00:47:08.220 ⇒ 00:47:08.930 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
394 00:47:09.240 ⇒ 00:47:17.330 Uttam Kumaran: And then… Lastly, what’s important to me, is to start to…
395 00:47:17.600 ⇒ 00:47:22.539 Uttam Kumaran: Map these to, like, job descriptions, where we have a job description for every level.
396 00:47:22.730 ⇒ 00:47:24.450 Uttam Kumaran: And for.
397 00:47:24.450 ⇒ 00:47:25.040 Awaish Kumar: for you.
398 00:47:25.040 ⇒ 00:47:25.850 Uttam Kumaran: function.
399 00:47:27.750 ⇒ 00:47:32.230 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so we can work on that, but thanks. This feedback today was really, really helpful on this.
400 00:47:33.320 ⇒ 00:47:41.889 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, maybe it might be also helpful if we can figure out… yeah, not just mapping of, like, where everyone is, but, like, also if we have, like, an org chart, just to see.
401 00:47:41.890 ⇒ 00:47:42.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
402 00:47:42.550 ⇒ 00:47:44.969 Shreya Chowdhury: Where everyone…
403 00:47:44.970 ⇒ 00:47:45.890 Uttam Kumaran: Do you have one?
404 00:47:46.430 ⇒ 00:47:47.690 Uttam Kumaran: Relative to each other.
405 00:47:47.790 ⇒ 00:47:52.919 Shreya Chowdhury: Well, yeah, I just… okay, yeah, I didn’t… I wasn’t aware that we already had one, but maybe one that’s, like.
406 00:47:53.140 ⇒ 00:47:57.000 Shreya Chowdhury: Easily viewable and shareable for everybody, so if you need to see, like.
407 00:47:58.610 ⇒ 00:48:05.079 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, it’s my fault, like, it’s in Figma, it’s in FigJam somewhere, I just have not updated it. I need to. It’s a good… it’s a great reminder.
408 00:48:11.540 ⇒ 00:48:14.230 Uttam Kumaran: It’s something that the operations team can also own.
409 00:48:15.700 ⇒ 00:48:18.839 Samuel Roberts: I wonder if there’s a good way to get that in the platform somewhere, like, keep that…
410 00:48:18.840 ⇒ 00:48:19.370 Uttam Kumaran: I agree.
411 00:48:19.370 ⇒ 00:48:20.220 Samuel Roberts: something…
412 00:48:21.850 ⇒ 00:48:22.780 Uttam Kumaran: the truth.
413 00:48:24.170 ⇒ 00:48:24.970 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
414 00:48:26.640 ⇒ 00:48:30.669 Uttam Kumaran: Great, okay, so then the next item I had,
415 00:48:31.380 ⇒ 00:48:40.800 Uttam Kumaran: was… okay, so that’s locked in. Maybe I just can talk… I just wanted to… share briefly these OKRs.
416 00:48:41.390 ⇒ 00:48:45.440 Uttam Kumaran: That way, everybody here can…
417 00:48:45.940 ⇒ 00:48:49.329 Awaish Kumar: Start to get a sense of, like, how we’re gonna measure ourselves.
418 00:48:49.740 ⇒ 00:48:53.980 Uttam Kumaran: I think… probably starting…
419 00:48:54.340 ⇒ 00:48:58.889 Uttam Kumaran: This week, and moving forward, we will look at this every time we meet.
420 00:49:00.340 ⇒ 00:49:13.769 Uttam Kumaran: And I will sort of ask the folks whose names are next to stuff to give me an update on status. Sort of where we landed, is these are kind of the two areas, related to
421 00:49:13.840 ⇒ 00:49:28.770 Uttam Kumaran: to engineering. So, kind of like all of, sort of, the core engineering OKRs are mostly on Awash, just because Awash has been here the longest, and I want to just make sure that we have some things around both engineering success,
422 00:49:29.440 ⇒ 00:49:33.640 Uttam Kumaran: engineering, engineer happiness, like, PR cycles, things like that.
423 00:49:33.900 ⇒ 00:49:47.180 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve also assigned to Sam OKRs around AI and automation. This is around how we’re using AI as a company. I could see this easily starting to get split up by functional teams.
424 00:49:47.500 ⇒ 00:49:49.020 Uttam Kumaran: Where, like.
425 00:49:49.110 ⇒ 00:50:05.329 Uttam Kumaran: then we have, you know, away, Treya, and Sam, you guys listed here. But I think for this quarter, this is fine. Like, I don’t want to overcomplicate this. I also have been part of a lot of companies where OKRs are, like, completely useless, and so the goal is not for this to be useless, it’s to give us some
426 00:50:05.410 ⇒ 00:50:11.240 Uttam Kumaran: North Star ideas of what matters in the company, so I’m really excited to be
427 00:50:11.580 ⇒ 00:50:22.109 Uttam Kumaran: up to this point, where in the past, we’ve just had OKRs where it’s just been assigned to Robert or I, now we have some… some shared responsibilities. So yeah, I think,
428 00:50:22.640 ⇒ 00:50:39.740 Uttam Kumaran: Main thing, a ways that I gave feedback on is just to consolidate. Like, some of these, I think, are duplicated, and I want to make sure that we can achieve all of these within the next two months, and that everything is measurable. So that’s probably my only
429 00:50:40.290 ⇒ 00:50:42.920 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of, like, my rough feedback.
430 00:50:45.540 ⇒ 00:50:52.470 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, for example, this one is, like, ensure the client deliverables are shipped on time. I would just change this to…
431 00:50:53.980 ⇒ 00:50:59.130 Uttam Kumaran: 80% of cli… 80% of tickets have a due date.
432 00:50:59.310 ⇒ 00:51:02.140 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, are delivered before.
433 00:51:02.140 ⇒ 00:51:03.210 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I…
434 00:51:03.540 ⇒ 00:51:04.230 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
435 00:51:04.720 ⇒ 00:51:10.720 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I wanted to do that, but for now, I didn’t have all that data, so I started…
436 00:51:10.720 ⇒ 00:51:17.820 Uttam Kumaran: Just say it. Just say one out loud. Just say 50%, and just put it on there, because if you don’t hit it every week.
437 00:51:18.080 ⇒ 00:51:21.020 Uttam Kumaran: that we know it’s not possible, right? Then we can readjust.
438 00:51:21.220 ⇒ 00:51:23.819 Uttam Kumaran: But, Moore is, like.
439 00:51:24.010 ⇒ 00:51:33.230 Uttam Kumaran: for example, this is, like, just shift the dashboard. This could be create and approve engineer. It’s like a binary, you know you accomplished it, or you did it, right?
440 00:51:33.950 ⇒ 00:51:34.540 Awaish Kumar: -
441 00:51:42.800 ⇒ 00:51:44.969 Uttam Kumaran: And then for the AI… Yeah, go, go ahead.
442 00:51:44.970 ⇒ 00:51:52.340 Samuel Roberts: Oh, I was gonna say, like, the same, like, just very similarly, like, getting some numbers down and just getting something out, like we were talking about earlier, like…
443 00:51:52.580 ⇒ 00:52:00.649 Samuel Roberts: There’s gonna be a bunch of things that are gonna have to happen for a few of these anyway, and we’ll get some good sense of if this is even realistic as we start to do that.
444 00:52:01.660 ⇒ 00:52:02.360 Awaish Kumar: And like…
445 00:52:02.360 ⇒ 00:52:02.980 Samuel Roberts: in.
446 00:52:04.240 ⇒ 00:52:12.179 Awaish Kumar: I added… most of things out of our engineering management side. I’m not sure how should I add, for example.
447 00:52:12.280 ⇒ 00:52:20.320 Awaish Kumar: deal of lead objectives, or… Things, things which are we, which we are doing, like…
448 00:52:20.670 ⇒ 00:52:23.089 Awaish Kumar: Apart from just the management.
449 00:52:27.030 ⇒ 00:52:28.469 Uttam Kumaran: Wait, say that one more time?
450 00:52:30.600 ⇒ 00:52:43.190 Awaish Kumar: So I said, like, the kind of… the OKRs I… I mentioned here, mostly related to engineering management. I see. But I think I’m missing some, like, tech lead kind of stuff here. Maybe add that as well.
451 00:52:43.500 ⇒ 00:52:44.500 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
452 00:52:46.560 ⇒ 00:53:02.300 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, I know I… there’s some… there’s a couple things that I’m gonna edit today, I just didn’t have a chance to look at this, last week, towards the end of the week, so I’ll… I’ll make sure that some of the changes here are… are here, and then, Sam, I’ll clean up ours based on our conversation today.
453 00:53:02.300 ⇒ 00:53:02.760 Samuel Roberts: Cool.
454 00:53:04.060 ⇒ 00:53:11.340 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, when we… when we have our leads meeting, we’ll look through these and make sure that we have statuses and that… take a look at stuff that’s
455 00:53:11.550 ⇒ 00:53:15.419 Uttam Kumaran: Consistently lagging or not on track, and then, yeah, we’ll go from there.
456 00:53:16.220 ⇒ 00:53:22.520 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, we’re doing this across the company, so delivery team is doing this, marketing and sales are doing this.
457 00:53:23.860 ⇒ 00:53:28.390 Uttam Kumaran: So, very, very happy. This is, like, a really great view of the whole company, and yeah, I have…
458 00:53:28.590 ⇒ 00:53:35.220 Uttam Kumaran: Of course, I have some that I need to finish up now, so… Cool.
459 00:53:35.470 ⇒ 00:53:42.410 Uttam Kumaran: Let me see… So I think probably the last…
460 00:53:43.820 ⇒ 00:53:49.529 Uttam Kumaran: I wanted to probably spend just a brief time, Shreya, on, like, default.
461 00:53:50.130 ⇒ 00:53:57.449 Uttam Kumaran: So I added you to the channel there. We do have some data in Rill.
462 00:53:57.620 ⇒ 00:53:57.990 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
463 00:53:58.130 ⇒ 00:54:07.019 Uttam Kumaran: to kind of be explored. I don’t know if you got… I think you may have got the invite, or just want to kind of confirm what you have or don’t have access to.
464 00:54:07.020 ⇒ 00:54:15.409 Shreya Chowdhury: Let me see, I’m not sure if I looked through anything I got invited to, I was mostly just looking through their website, and then,
465 00:54:15.930 ⇒ 00:54:17.240 Shreya Chowdhury: I…
466 00:54:18.150 ⇒ 00:54:35.109 Shreya Chowdhury: I just made, like, a really, really rough draft outline of, like, I think last week when we talked, like, you said just look through and think about, like, what data inputs we would need, to, like, drive product analytics and strategy, so I just had a couple of brainstorming stuff, but…
467 00:54:35.180 ⇒ 00:54:43.389 Shreya Chowdhury: I think it might be… yeah, like, I can definitely go through… did you see, it was in a Slack channel, or it was an invite to some.
468 00:54:43.390 ⇒ 00:54:48.520 Uttam Kumaran: There should be an invite to a dashboard, but also, yeah, I mean, maybe…
469 00:54:48.660 ⇒ 00:54:53.049 Uttam Kumaran: I have to jump in, like, 5 minutes, but I’m gonna be free later. Like, I can call you and give you the.
470 00:54:53.050 ⇒ 00:54:59.050 Shreya Chowdhury: Do you think… yeah, maybe it’ll be better if we, like, sync on it after, and then… Okay. That way we don’t.
471 00:54:59.050 ⇒ 00:55:05.120 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll just give you the lowdown on, like, what the engagement is, and, like, yeah, that’s perfect. And then…
472 00:55:05.420 ⇒ 00:55:11.270 Uttam Kumaran: Probably my only other thing is, yeah, I just wanna… I think Henry’s been doing a lot better job, too, on, like, product analytics.
473 00:55:11.300 ⇒ 00:55:26.539 Uttam Kumaran: Across Eden and across, default stuff. I sort of just want to make sure that, if you guys haven’t met yet, that y’all meet, and that you can sort of review his work, and if he can be helpful,
474 00:55:27.120 ⇒ 00:55:28.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah.
475 00:55:28.170 ⇒ 00:55:36.100 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, okay, cool, sounds good. I’ll be free to call later, too. I think it might be better if we, like, carve out a little more time to sync on it, beyond just 5 minutes, probably.
476 00:55:36.100 ⇒ 00:55:40.989 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s, well, yeah, let’s do that for sure. I’ll, I’m, I’ll be free after…
477 00:55:41.140 ⇒ 00:55:43.989 Uttam Kumaran: I have a meeting for the next hour or so, and then I’ll be free, so…
478 00:55:43.990 ⇒ 00:55:46.580 Shreya Chowdhury: Okay, sure, just ping me whenever you’re ready, I’ll be online.
479 00:55:46.770 ⇒ 00:55:47.910 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect.
480 00:55:48.140 ⇒ 00:55:48.800 Shreya Chowdhury: Alright.
481 00:55:49.420 ⇒ 00:55:52.170 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, awesome. Thank you guys, appreciate it.
482 00:55:52.350 ⇒ 00:55:52.820 Shreya Chowdhury: Bye.
483 00:55:53.050 ⇒ 00:55:54.540 Awaish Kumar: Okay. Bye.