Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: So excited to have you on our next episode of Her Heads in the Cloud. It's actually quite a special one as this is our first in person episode.
I'll let you introduce yourself, Ed.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Oh, thank you. I'm really happy to be here.
My name is Ed Kurinche. I lead cyber Liability engineers, Cyber liability engineering teams.
I start out in Linux and networking, in consulting and operational roles for a number of different organizations and industries.
I've also had my own businesses a few times and currently I'm an engineering manager at Xero.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yes, nearly half a year in.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: That's right. Yep.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Sounds good.
And what would be the first thing that you look at when you are building or scaling a site reliability team from scratch?
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Well, over time I've seen how much leadership and culture its outcomes and the experience I've had over time and the leaders I've worked with along the way, they really shaped how I am leading myself. And that's people first, always.
And so looking at how I built a team from scratch, an SRE team or any engineering team really is in the hiring phase.
I probably look less at technical skills than at people's curiosity. The collaboration and the resilience.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: And if I think about people that I've hired over time, some of my best hires were people who didn't fit the bill, who didn't fit the role perfectly from a technical point of view. But most of the time there was something in the interview that I saw, something that I grasped in the eagerness to learn how they communicated, also how they listened that made a difference for me to go, like, I want to see more about this person and I think I can work with this person.
Yeah, that's usually one of the first things I look at when I'm hiring people in engineering teams.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: And just out of curiosity, when it's eagerness to learn, is there anything in particular that stands out? Like is there something that if someone mentions they've read certain books or something, is there a stickler point that stands out for you?
[00:02:45] Speaker A: That's an interesting question actually, because for me it's one. There's not a single thing that I can identify as this is the thing or this is the tip that I would say. But usually when people start talking about something that they've learned something and it might be something that was not technical, not related to the actual role, it could be during COVID This was one of the questions I usually ask when people go, I've been out of work for six months because that happened quite a bit. During COVID is okay, what did you do? What did you learn that you spent your time on?
How excited do they get when they talk about something that they've learned?
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yes, true.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Rather than saying what they have learned or how they did learn this specific thing, how excited do they get about it? And I think that's one. You can see it in facial expressions, you can hear it in how they start talking. Yeah, I think that's probably what I look at primarily.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Yeah. No, the excitement and the engagement you get would definitely be a good test.
And you've also led culture transformations, Ed.
So what practical steps can leaders take to build trust and transparency within engineering teams, would you say?
[00:04:03] Speaker A: I think as a leader you have to lead.
You have to obviously by example. And I think that one of the ones, one of the things that I think is important is that when you make mistakes, that you meet them freely, that you are open about those, that you share the lessons that you have learned from those mistakes.
Showing a bit of vulnerability isn't bad as a leader. It actually, I think it gets people on your side.
Yeah. So for me, that is probably a key point in building trust as a leader.
And the auditing would be clarity in how we are measuring things.
How are we measuring things from a team's success point of view, but also for you as an individual, how can you measure your progress? How do you know that you are living up to the requirements of the current role and potentially the requirements of the next level up?
So having clarity around that I think is very important. Having a career journey, documents that shows you what's required of you in this level of role and the next level of the role gives people the opportunity to self reflect on how they are going.
Usually when people ask in my team, okay, what's going to be next? How am I going to get my promotion?
I asked them to have a look at that document and go, okay, well, identify for me the areas where you're doing really well.
Identify the areas of your current role. So not even one up, but the current role where you can still develop because everyone has some of those areas.
And then also have a look at the next level up and see how many of the points that we've got for that role, for that level of the role are you already satisfying?
Which areas do you need to work on and how can we get there? How can I help you to that point?
And that makes people trust you when they don't get a promotion as well? Because they can see it. They can see clearly a reflection. Yeah.
That can clearly reflect on how they're going for certain areas.
And I think that makes it easier to trust you and be transparent around how we are rewarding progress.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. And almost embracing like a blame free, blameless culture.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that's always very important.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
And how do you balance empathy with accountability when leading high performing site reliability engineers? I know that can be quite challenging.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Yes, it can be challenging.
But I think empathy actually enables accountability. It doesn't replace it.
So to have empathy for someone, you have to understand and share the feelings of that person.
And that requires investment. From my part.
It's not something that is there without investment. And there was something that I read a while ago and it really drives home for me how I approach building relationships with my team members. Am I able to just read that a little bit? Showing interest in others is not just a technique to be mastered. It's a quality of the heart.
It involves how we listen and what we say. It is manifested by the kindness and consideration that we extend to others as well as our demeanor, our attitude and even our facial expressions.
If we truly care about others, this heartfelt concern will show.
And I think that was something that really hit it home for me that you need to have personal interest, genuine personal interest to be able to have empathy for someone.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: And if you have genuine personal interest, that also means that you want to hold someone actually accountable for what they are doing.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And if it comes naturally, it comes from more of an authentic place and the empathy starts to show.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So it can't be something that you just do as a technique. It has to be something that is you. You have to be personally invested in actually building relationships with people in your team. Not always easy. Everyone is different. So with some people it's easier. Not us.
But it's a good challenge for me personally because it means that I just really have to focus on, okay, what can I do to connect with this person and with that if someone, it needs to be held accountable, it's also in their best interest. So I can feel that I don't have to feel bad about holding someone accountable because I know it's in their best interest. They know that I've got their best interests as well.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: They trust you?
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, they trust you. So I think that is a very important one for me. And that and that way you can understand the context of something. But before for judging outcomes and the debt issue as well, then clarity around
[00:09:32] Speaker B: expectations and do you think that that's empathy is something that can Be taught. If someone was stepping into leadership,
[00:09:45] Speaker A: certainly it has to be able to be taught. It can be different for different people, but, yeah, it's an investment you have to make. You have to be willing to develop yourself, develop that. And it is, as I said, what I read, it's a quality of the art. So it's not just a technique. Techniques are easy to master if you just put your mind to it, but if it. If it's not coming from within you, you're actually willing to do this for this other person because you have to give, I think, empathy and personal interest is really. It takes a lot of time and effort.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: So, yeah, it's something that if you want to, definitely you can.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And just in case any of the listeners didn't catch that, but what. Was there a book that. That came from?
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Yeah, there was online somewhere. I can't remember where it exactly was, but I just thought it was very interesting. I took a screenshot back then and still have that.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: But yeah, it was Great.
What does DevOps and site reliability mean to you? There's so many different buzzwords out there. You know, platform engineering, do they mean the same thing? Are they different? What's your stance on it?
[00:10:58] Speaker A: If you would have asked me a year ago versus now, you would see probably what SRE means in one company versus what it means in other. I think it's very, very easily.
It's a very, very, very different definitions of SRE, but I think part of those DevOps is probably more culture. SRE is the practice. That's what I used to say.
So if you look at DevOps, you build it, you run it first. SRE is. Let's define.
But good looks like. So that's how I would compare them. But I think that they are friends of each other.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah, they have to be.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Reliability is learning faster than you fail. I think that's a.
That's a very important one to keep in mind. Failure is not an issue, it's learning from those failures. And that's what reliability really is.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: And not making the same mistake again.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. There was someone a little while ago, someone a few levels above me a little while ago, who said to me, you care more about people than the business.
And that was an interesting line to be thrown at me in a meeting.
But I reflected on that and he was right.
Because for me, people first. Methodality creates an environment where it supports innovation and it results in sustainable reliability.
So I really feel that the best SRE teams or Engineering teams comes from people first and then clarity, compassion, collaboration, all of those things will automatically follow 100%.
So yeah, that was one that was thrown at me and I. And at first it was painful.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: But I'm actually proud that that person said it of me.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And now you can own it.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Definitely.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: That's a very bold statement, but it's true. Put love into your people and then they'll thrive and then the company will thrive. It's like flowering plants.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: It was an interesting one because this was about my night shift at ServiceNow and US. Centric mindset is really different than us over here in Australia.
And we had people over there who were permanently on night shifts four days a week.
And I was recognizing and seeing how these people, people on night shifts, all were more often sick and their performance, sorry, not the performance, their output wasn't comparable to people on day shift. And hey, that's understandable because if you drive from here to Canberra now or during the day, 10 o' clock in the morning, not raining, nothing to Melbourne, maybe an eight hour drive, you do that. Much easier than doing it from midnight till 8am when it's bucketing down.
So your expectations of someone who is doing work during a really difficult hours, in my opinion, should be different, should have a different expectation.
And to combat that, I was actually looking at, okay, how can we change our model to make it better for these engineers?
Interestingly, the mindset in the US is we pay them well for it, so suck it up.
Which goes against everything that I stand for because to me you need to look at, okay, how can I get the best out of people?
Because out of that you get it, they're best for a company as well.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: And yeah, that was just an interesting one where I saw that happening and just one where I go, okay, well, it was a total different view on things.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Sometimes you have to.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: And that's fine, that's fine. But yeah, it was an interesting way I'll be told that without any, without the ability to give context, give a bit more detail on what my attention was. And I was like, wow, that's a very different leadership style, management style, I should say, because I don't believe that's leadership than what I was used to from other leaders I've worked with. But again, I've learned a lot from all these different leaders I work with and I think that's what makes me a better leader.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: You've taken in all the best.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: All the things, yeah, all of the things that you see, like, hey, that's what I want to copy or that's what I want to implement as well, versus things that I definitely want to avoid.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that's an interesting point. You don't hear about that so often. Like the comparison between engineers that do day shift and night shift and the expectations. That's a good analogy to paint a picture of what it can be like.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think if you start looking at impact to mental health, physical health, you can't ignore the impacts to people, regardless of how much money you actually pay them, extra loading, etc. For work on night shift, you need to have a look because you've got a responsibility as a company, as a leader, as a company to ensure that people are looked after, that their health is looked after, that their mental health is looked after. And you can't ignore that. That is. That's a very. That's just a. This. Ethically, I don't think that's right.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's a fine line.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
There's a business that you have to actually run. But that wasn't even in the question because my thoughts, which I didn't get to talk about.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Were actually how we would improve our bottom line by making changes to how people were working.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: But if you can't, if you think more about. Everything has to be the same everywhere.
So parity between Australian regulated markets versus US regulated markets, European regulated markets. We work the same everywhere. You never have a chance to innovate, never have a chance to try out things.
And I think that's an interesting one, especially looking at different markets like us versus Australian, Australian market. Of our government clients that we had in that company, those government clients stop work by 6pm pert time, the WA time, while US government organizations work 24. 7. So their use of the platform is 24. 7. So they may have a different requirement over there, but that requirement wasn't necessarily here the same. So there was a really good opportunity to try out some different ways of working.
How can we do things differently and what impact does it have on our people, on the reliability of our platform, on output of people innovation, on projects that they're actually working on.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's good to have that exposure.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Definitely. Yeah.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Ed, and for sharing your insights and thank you everyone to listening to another episode of Her Heads in the Cloud.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Thank you. Really appreciate it.
