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Empathy Engineering with Ajuna Kyaruzi
26:44 with TreehouseHow to set yourself up for success by asking questions, how to interact successfully with your team, and the importance of building for everyone.
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[MUSIC]
0:00
All right, so now I'd like to welcome
up our next speaker, Ajuna Kyaruzi.
0:06
Ajuna Kyaruzi works in developer
relations at Datadog and
0:12
is based in Brooklyn, New York.
0:16
Ajuna was born and
raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
0:19
And as an international
black woman in tech,
0:23
she often finds herself
navigating diverse cultures.
0:25
She loves community building and
volunteers as the program manager for
0:29
Africode, a nonprofit aiming to help
all Africans in tech be successful.
0:33
Ajuna manages their mentorship program
that matches African college students with
0:38
tech professionals as mentors for
their early career development.
0:43
Ajuna has also worked at Google for
close to four years as a software engineer
0:47
on Google Maps and as a site
reliability engineer on Google Cloud.
0:52
All right everyone, please welcome Ajuna.
0:57
>> Thanks for such a great introduction.
1:01
Like Quil said, my name is Ajuna,
1:02
I currently work in developer
relations at Datadog.
1:05
I've been there for
just a little less than a month now,
1:09
currently working on just creating content
for various developers who work there.
1:12
And then like he also said I work
as a program manager for Africode.
1:18
So, I know you came into this talk
probably just wondering what is empathy
1:22
engineering?
1:26
And I appreciate all of you coming in
with just this vague notion in mind.
1:27
As I was transitioning out from
being a software engineer,
1:33
I was very much wanting to write
a little bit about my experiences.
1:37
And I wanted to group together
everything that I learned as a software
1:40
engineer that didn't
kind of go into coding,
1:45
kind of just being a great coder, and
that's where empathy engineering is.
1:48
It's a topic that's important to me.
1:53
That's kind of what does it mean
to be a good community member and
1:55
a good teammate in an engineering team.
1:59
And I think that to be a good community
member you have to be an empathetic one.
2:02
So while we start thinking about that,
let's sort of talk about what is empathy?
2:07
And this is the definition,
I kind of screenshot this from Google.
2:13
So empathy is defined as
the ability to understand and
2:17
share the feelings of another person.
2:20
I definitely like to bring up the fact
that it's very different from sympathy.
2:23
Bernie Brown who is an American
researcher, and she researches and
2:28
talks about vulnerability and
shame and empathy.
2:34
She has this great little stamp
that talks about how empathy is
2:38
feeling with people versus sympathy kind
separating them a little bit from you.
2:43
And she says, empathy never starts
with at least where sympathy does.
2:50
Because when you're being
sympathetic to someone,
2:56
you're like, at least it's not worse.
2:59
Whereas empathy is I feel what you're
feeling and I've been there as well.
3:01
And I think that's incredibly
important in engineering teams.
3:05
You're working with other people in your
building for so many different types
3:09
of people, understanding each other,
including their feelings can be super
3:13
important because you're trying to build
for as many different people as you can.
3:17
So this idea of empathy has built
up in me for quite a while.
3:23
This is a screenshot from
the Strengths Finder kind of
3:27
personality quiz that I
did when I was in college.
3:31
I took a computer science degree and
3:35
in my first kind of big computer
science class, I was a sophomore.
3:39
We took a class that was team software
development where we were building tools
3:44
for non-profits in that area,
and I was super excited about it.
3:48
And we were trying to figure out how to
best work with each other in the team.
3:52
So, we had to take this
personality quiz from Gallup.
3:55
So these are my top five themes, they
kind of gjve you after you did the quiz,
3:59
kind of your strengths.
4:02
And mine were harmony, consistency,
connectedness, relator, and positivity.
4:04
So as you may kind of think about it,
4:10
they all kind of sound
pretty similar to empathy.
4:12
And the reason for that is Gallup kind of
has four groups for their themes, one of
4:15
which is strategic thinking, relationship
building, influencing, and executing.
4:19
And four of the five of mine
fall into relationship building.
4:25
And at the time I was like, my gosh,
this is awful, I'm trying to show
4:30
that I am advanced, this is my first
kind of advanced computer science class.
4:35
I'm working with teams of people and I'm
trying to show them that I can be a great
4:40
team member, yes,
that I can bring something in.
4:44
Why didn't I get one of the core strategic
thinking ones like futuristic or ideation?
4:47
My one non relationship building one was
consistency which falls under executing.
4:53
But to me that was just like yeah,
I'm a consistent team builder,
4:59
like what the hell?
5:02
But I kind of talked to my team and
my professor at the time and
5:05
we kind of discussed why all
strengths are equally important.
5:08
I personally feel like
you can learn anything.
5:12
And I really, really fell back on how
important it is that these are my
5:16
strengths and I am comfortable with them.
5:20
I'm sure if I took this now I have changed
from there but I hope these come up again.
5:22
Because you can learn anything and
5:26
I'm really glad that I have
these sort of to fall back on.
5:28
Because I want to be connected
to my team members and
5:32
I wanna keep a positive environment and
be related, feel connected to them.
5:35
So it's super important that I kind of
I'm hoping this feels kind of like my
5:39
diploma of why I can kind
of talk about this and
5:44
why I've been thinking about this
in engineering teams for a while.
5:47
So we're gonna kind of split this talk
into three parts, empathy for yourself,
5:53
which I know I'm kind of stretching
the definition of empathy a little bit.
5:58
Empathy for your team, so
the people that you work with.
6:02
And lastly,
I'll talk very briefly about empathy for
6:05
your consumer or
a person using your tools.
6:08
Because in engineering,
6:11
I'm sort of thinking about us
as being folks who are builders.
6:12
That are building technology for
other people, and ourselves, and
6:16
the people that use it are our consumers,
our users, or
6:19
customers depending on
what you think about it.
6:22
So starting off at first,
we're gonna go with empathy for yourself.
6:25
And I know that, like I said, I'm kind of
stretching this because we defined empathy
6:32
first as sort of the ability to share and
understand feelings of another person.
6:36
But I think that it can be really hard
to do that if you're unable to sort
6:41
of know what your feelings are with that,
right?
6:45
So it's really important to
figure out what you need so
6:48
you can ask that of your teammates and
people around you.
6:51
And I really love this thing that
you can't pour from an empty cup.
6:53
And I have this little picture here of
someone kind of with an empty cup being
6:57
like what?
7:00
Because you really, really need to kind
of build yourself up to be in a position
7:02
where you can be successful and
thriving, as well as you can move back,
7:06
obviously with the situation that allows.
7:10
But the more that you can
fulfill yourself, I mean,
7:12
this is sort of the excuse for
self care, right?
7:15
The more important it is
to build yourself up so
7:19
that you can also help others around you.
7:21
And I'm gonna really spend a lot of time
talking about setting yourself up for
7:24
success and empathy for yourself.
7:28
Because you definitely need to be in the
best possible position that you can put
7:29
yourself in in order to be able to build
the tools that we're trying to build.
7:34
Cuz it is can get stressful, you
are building yourself as much as you can,
7:38
and you are learning from yourself a lot.
7:44
So in setting yourself up for success,
7:47
I think the most important part is
being open and able to ask questions.
7:50
A lot of people around you,
they all have different strengths like
7:56
we talked about earlier, and
they all have a lot of varied knowledge.
7:59
Because of that, you don't know anything
or everything so to speak, sorry.
8:03
And asking questions is the fastest
way to find out about things.
8:08
If you're joining a new code base, and
you just don't know where to find it, and
8:12
you're like, well, I know GitHub,
I can just go look it up.
8:15
People name things very strangely.
8:18
[LAUGH] Computer scientists
are still bad at this,
8:21
especially like what if your team that
you work on in maps is called geo?
8:24
What if they named themselves after
like Bakery Treats, you don't know.
8:28
And because of that, just asking questions
will get you there a lot faster.
8:33
My teams that I've been on code by the
perspective of if it takes you longer than
8:38
half an hour and I can spend five
minutes explaining something to you,
8:42
I'd rather spend the five
minutes than you spending
8:45
the longer than half an hour
kind of looking for stuff.
8:48
But feeling comfortable enough
to ask questions can take a lot.
8:50
We've probably talked about
imposter syndrome already.
8:54
And all of these can sort of deter you
from feeling comfortable to ask questions.
8:56
And being in an environment where you
don't feel psychologically safe can also
9:00
to kind of deter that as well.
9:04
But whenever you can push yourself
to sort of ask questions,
9:06
I think that it can really, really help
kind of push you to be more successful.
9:08
Definitely, the largest leaps I've made in
kind of solving a problem have been from
9:12
asking someone some questions,
even if it was rubber ducking, and
9:17
I was able to find the answer by myself.
9:21
The next one I'll talk about
is kind of being present.
9:24
I think it kind of goes with
that theme but at the same time,
9:27
if you are spending a lot of time kind
of worrying about what comes next,
9:31
instead of kind of being present,
9:36
especially while you're getting an answer
for your question, it can be really hard.
9:38
Being forward thinking
is super important but
9:44
also kind of figuring out how to
build up from where you are and
9:46
how to take in the things that
you're learning can also be great.
9:49
I definitely have been in that position
where I'm trying to think of the next
9:52
question to ask so much so that I missed
the answer to a question I already asked.
9:55
So, I would encourage you to think about
being present whenever you can and
10:00
just taking a breather and going slow.
10:03
The other one is working
on self improvement.
10:06
I think that for some people maybe
this comes a little more naturally.
10:08
I struggled with this, especially
when I graduated from college and
10:12
started my first job.
10:16
I was hit with senior-itis, which is
just like the feeling of being done and
10:18
you're like, I have gotten my degree,
I know everything.
10:22
I just need to learn some things on
the job, but I'll totally be fine.
10:26
Which was one of the reasons that I really
struggled on one of my first teams.
10:30
Because I was just really thinking
about the idea of I'm done learning,
10:35
whereas, especially technology,
things are constantly evolving.
10:40
Being open to the idea of self
improvement is super helpful.
10:46
Whatever you can do to sort of self
improve, being here at this conference
10:51
is definitely a great step, and
I'm really happy to be here with y'all.
10:54
Other ways of self improving can be
reading a book, it can be fiction,
10:57
nonfiction.
11:01
Just whatever ways to have your brain kind
of going and thinking and being open to
11:02
kind of a growth mindset are super
helpful and that sort of falls there.
11:07
These last two kind of go hand in hand.
11:11
And I do think that you kind of have
to work with what exists for you, but
11:13
having the best working environment or
working schedule is super helpful.
11:17
So, I'll give you a little
snapshot into my life.
11:23
On the left side of the picture
there of my workstation from home.
11:26
I used to work in the office
when pre-pandemic and
11:30
I was doing a lot well there.
11:34
I love being around people,
being able to ask questions,
11:37
tap people on the shoulder and talk.
11:39
But when we transitioned home,
I was just like, what do I do now?
11:43
I wasn't someone who worked
from home very often.
11:46
And if I did, I was just coding on
my laptop, on my living room sofa.
11:49
I was just very much didn't
have anything set up.
11:53
So at first I was like,
let me try doing that, which I was like,
11:56
that's not sustainable.
11:59
Then I tried working from
the only table I had in my room,
12:01
which was a vanity with a little stool,
which also was terrible for my back.
12:03
So it took me a few
iterations to get to here.
12:07
And still I have moments where I'm like,
I want a change of scenery,
12:10
let me work from my living room.
12:14
And watch a podcast or
something in the background as I code.
12:15
And I get so distracted, and I realized
that the best place for me to work was
12:18
right here at this desk where I'm sitting
right now, where I can just focus.
12:23
I face a wall cuz I'm easily distracted.
12:28
So, I have a nice picture that I asked
someone to paint for me on top of it,
12:32
of myself focusing, so I'm reminded.
12:35
And I also have all these post-it
notes around me that are like,
12:38
ask questions, do what you can.
12:42
It's okay to be in
a position of not knowing.
12:44
Just whatever positive environment
that I was able to put myself in, and
12:49
this is what I found for myself.
12:53
And really,
this is what helps me set myself up for
12:55
success and be empathetic to myself.
12:58
The next one on the right is my schedule.
13:02
So, as you can see,
it's very bottom heavy.
13:04
The reason for that is because I
do not work well In the morning,
13:08
I'm not a morning person.
13:13
Whenever I can start my
workday at after ten, I do.
13:16
And the reason for that is just,
I do most of my strategic thinking,
13:21
[LAUGH] my sort of focused
coding in the afternoon.
13:26
So, I have my schedule very open in
the morning, if people wanna meet with me.
13:30
And I figured out that
that's what works for me.
13:34
I definitely resisted it for a really
long time, trying to be as, a go getter.
13:36
I'll do everything you can in the morning.
13:42
And I realized that that just doesn't
work for me, and that's okay.
13:45
Just find that was not setting
myself up for success, and this is.
13:49
And communicating that to my team and
them being open to meeting with me
13:53
in the morning so I can do my focus coding
in the afternoon worked out best for me.
13:57
So, transitioning to the next section,
which is empathy for your team.
14:01
I think that I wanna talk about here,
the past year has really proved to us
14:07
how life is so
intertwined between work and yourself.
14:12
I think that a lot of companies have
been places who want to have up kind
14:15
of bring your whole self to work.
14:20
But when your work is at home or
14:23
there are gonna be times in your
life when those things intertwine.
14:25
Being empathetic for your team for them to
go through life is always super helpful.
14:29
And over the past year,
it's been really great.
14:34
And it's meant a lot to me when my
team has reached out when things have
14:37
been a lot.
14:41
And I'm sure you can all think of at least
a few different things over the last year,
14:41
pandemic aside,
that have been incredibly straining.
14:45
Just from reading the news or
how your community has been reacting to
14:48
something or just impacting your life and
health and family.
14:53
So, reaching out to your
team is super helpful.
14:57
And I wanted to include this photo of
these hands trying to collaborate.
15:00
Cuz I think that setting
an opportunity and a space for
15:05
folks to be able to bring themselves,
15:09
including all the kind of the rest
of life, including the non-pretty
15:11
parts can help you also be able to be
more thriving in a professional manner.
15:17
From the perspective of, if I already feel
some sort of connectedness to my team and
15:22
being able to say, hey, this is what's
going well, this is what's not.
15:28
I can also ask for help and move forward
from there, or then if I reach out and
15:33
they actually also need to
talk to me about something.
15:37
We already have that existing rapport
to be able to kind of build from there.
15:40
And the times when I've really wanted
to kind of ask questions of a teammate,
15:44
if we've never talked before or
15:48
been able to have more of a casual
conversation that's not related to work.
15:50
Sometimes it felt harder for
me to be able to reach out to them or
15:54
be able to say like, hey, actually I can't
meet at that time that you've scheduled.
15:57
I need to focus or
need to take care of people in my life.
16:01
If you have children, if you're
taking care of family members, right?
16:04
So, being empathetic and letting to other
people on your team is super helpful.
16:09
The other thing that I'll also talk
about is fostering a culture of
16:15
inquisitiveness and
being able to be wrong.
16:17
We're going to disagree,
especially as technologists,
16:20
there's a lot of opinions and
there's a lot of ways to do things.
16:22
Some are correct,
some are a little less so.
16:25
And part of the design process of building
new technologies is having those kind of
16:28
conversations with people,
kind of deciding what's the best path for
16:33
the technologies that your team uses,
for your situation, for
16:37
your resource constraints.
16:40
And being able to be
wrongly super helpful so
16:42
that you can throw all
the ideas out there.
16:44
And there's gonna be an idea that
someone thinks might be wrong, but
16:47
ends up being the best solution for
the case.
16:51
Right, I've definitely done things two
times because the first time I thought I
16:53
was right, and I ended up being wrong.
16:57
Also, if you're a more senior person on
your team, I really encourage you to sort
16:59
of reach out to folks,
especially newer and more junior folks.
17:04
Because I'll give you an example in my
life, when I first joined one of my teams,
17:07
I had a tech lead who was
kind of in charge of one of
17:12
the technologies that I
had to be working on.
17:15
And they had an intern start
around the same time that I did.
17:18
And around two months in,
their intern left.
17:21
And they were like, phew, thank God,
the intern was asking me so
17:24
many questions,
now I can get more work done.
17:29
And they definitely meant it in passing,
but
17:33
I internalized that as this is someone
who doesn't like to be asked questions.
17:35
And they hadn't fostered
an environment for
17:39
me to be able to sort of approach them and
kind of talk about that.
17:41
So, I just was terrified to ask them
questions until I got to know them better.
17:45
And like I said, not asking questions
definitely that set me up for failure.
17:49
One time I spent a week going
in the wrong direction,
17:55
trying to figure something out that
our team had already done before and
17:58
knew was wrong,
because I hadn't asked the question.
18:02
Or kind of failed quickly and
kind of figured out what I need to do.
18:05
So, fostering a culture for
your team to be able to be themselves,
18:10
ask questions and
be wrong can be super helpful.
18:13
These are also all the other things that
I think will kind of go hand in hand of
18:17
a good software engineering team or
18:21
any engineering team to work
together in a good process.
18:23
And figuring out how your team
does this will work well.
18:26
So, I have this lovely photo
here of always git committing,
18:31
[LAUGH] even in the case of a fire.
18:35
But if it's a real emergency,
please just leave the building.
18:37
Definitely follow emergency protocols.
18:41
But I like this joke.
18:43
So, the processes that your team has
can help you to also be successful.
18:45
So, the other things that you can sort of
think about is how does your team handle
18:50
code reviews.
18:53
If you're kind of merging new code with
the existing code base, how do you
18:54
handle different code branches and
your general health of your repository?
18:59
Do you have different
environments where you push first
19:04
to a sandbox staging environment or
do you always push to production?
19:07
If you're kind of thinking about new
ideas, how do you do design documents?
19:12
How do you review them?
19:17
I had a team once that wanted us to always
write commit messages that were incredibly
19:19
helpful that started with an action
verb and were 80 characters long.
19:23
So, that if you read it in the log of all
the commits that had been happening or
19:27
the changes in the code,
19:32
you could always see exactly what
the change was in the 80 characters.
19:33
So, it really varies from team to team.
19:38
And there are all these things called
also called language style guides,
19:40
which depending on the language that your
team uses, it's super helpful to know how
19:44
does your team read through the code
as efficiently as possible.
19:48
Do they want older curly braces
to be in a particular way.
19:52
Do you prefer to use what
style of formatting, right?
19:54
These sounds minor, but especially if
you're working in a large software
19:58
engineering team, whatever ways to make
the code look as Kind of as similar
20:02
as possible to reduce sort
of the strain in the eye so
20:06
I can parse it as quickly as
possible can be super helpful.
20:10
And these all kind of count as
working processes for your team.
20:15
And being a good teammate
is following these.
20:19
Now that we think about being a good
teammate remotely, there are also a ton of
20:22
different things that you can also do now
we're all in this remote environment.
20:25
And I don't think it's
gonna fully go away.
20:29
There are tons of people who are working
remotely, it does work well.
20:31
Some of us maybe will
go back to the office.
20:34
And depending on where you are in
the world, things are opening up for
20:37
you to go back and work.
20:39
I know that my office is starting to open
up if I wanna go in a day or two week.
20:40
But knowing each other's
schedule is helpful.
20:45
I talked about my schedule earlier, but
20:48
my current company has these
things called work with mes.
20:50
Where we write a document and kind of list
out all the different things that help
20:54
us work more successfully, right?
20:59
When should you reach out to me?
21:01
When am I doing my l heads-down coding?
21:02
When is it better to send me an email
versus sending me a message over
21:05
instant message or Slack?
21:09
When is it best to schedule a call?
21:11
My calendar is open is
open to my teammates,
21:13
they can throw a meeting
on there with context.
21:16
But for some people, they're like,
don't touch my calendar,
21:18
that is my personal stuff.
21:22
So it really depends on all these things,
knowing about each other and
21:23
being open to the idea that
other folks work differently.
21:27
And then understanding why people
work that way is super helpful.
21:30
The other thing is there's gonna be all
these kind of collaboration times, and
21:34
kind of scheduling those up,
especially remotely, is helpful.
21:38
My team has done so many interesting
things to collaborate that's not work.
21:41
When we're in the office,
it was easy to be like, let's step out for
21:47
lunch together or something.
21:50
But now that we're mostly remote, we're
like, can we play a video game together?
21:51
We'll play Among Us or Minecraft.
21:55
We did a scavenger hunt once.
21:58
And we haven did boba tea making,
which was a very interesting experience.
22:00
So whatever you can do to sort of build
connections to your team can be helpful.
22:06
I'm gonna go to the last section,
which is empathy for your customer.
22:11
And after this, I'll take some questions.
22:14
So if you have them,
you can drop them in the QA tab.
22:16
I'll definitely go over those.
22:19
But I wanna just talk a little bit
about empathy for your customer.
22:21
Like I said earlier, we are builders.
22:25
We're building technologies for
other people.
22:27
But I think generally just building
new things is empathetic in nature.
22:31
You have gone through a personal struggle
[LAUGH] that you wanna reduce and
22:36
you wanna share that
solution with other people.
22:40
That intrinsically, to me, is empathetic.
22:43
So whatever we can do to make sure that
we're thinking about our end user and
22:45
how their varied needs can be,
22:50
there are of people who process things
differently, look different to us,
22:52
have different technology advancements,
or availabilities to them.
22:57
And so whatever we can do to sorta think
about their use case as we're building
23:02
can make us better builders.
23:07
So, for example,
respecting people's privacy.
23:09
We've definitely thought about
some different parts of the world,
23:13
like Europe's has the GDPR, I think.
23:18
I might be getting my acronyms wrong, but
23:21
they have their process of
how to handle user privacy.
23:25
But there's also just a generally thinking
about how much information do you need
23:30
from your user.
23:34
If you're creating a map app, you do
need to know what their location is.
23:35
But do you actually need to know that?
23:39
If you aren't building a map application,
23:43
do you need to know your
user's application or
23:46
what other applications that they use if
you aren't building l a security app?
23:50
So definitely thinking about that.
23:56
And then also your user's
actual security so
23:58
that your app can be misused for
them would be also be very helpful.
24:01
Other things to go over a little
faster is user experience, the UX.
24:06
How users can kind of go through
your app as naturally as possible.
24:11
Have all of your thumbs up in the right
places if you want people to like things.
24:14
If they're all over the place,
it'll be harder.
24:19
But also thinking about
internationalization and
24:22
accessibility, right?
24:24
People from all over the world
will use your things.
24:25
Can it be translated to
different languages?
24:28
Can it be ready for
read from a different side of the screen?
24:30
Can you translate everything from and
24:35
use everything you need them to be added,
right?
24:38
And then also from
an accessibility perspective,
24:42
everyone has different abilities.
24:45
And being able to have as many people who
can use your application as possible,
24:46
it would be really great, right?
24:51
There's some people who being
able to have your text that's
24:53
readable by a screen reader
with alternative text.
24:56
Or being able to check whether or
not the contrast is high enough
24:58
on your application so
that folks who maybe can't read or
25:02
see particular colors can still be able
to process your application is great.
25:06
Just also thinking about general
ethics is empathetic to me, right?
25:11
Definitely being,
how do we handle technology as best as we
25:16
can because we do have
a responsibility as filters.
25:21
And that's where I'll end it.
25:25
Thank you, you can reach out to me and
communicate with me at ajunaky.com or
25:27
ajunaky on Twitter.
25:31
Please do reach out to me if
you have any points here.
25:33
I know this kinda will reach
everyone at a different space, and
25:35
I'd love to continue that conversation.
25:39
But I'll take a few questions now.
25:41
Think I have a couple of minutes.
25:44
Let's see, in the chat.
25:50
Thanks everyone.
25:58
If there are any questions that I
haven't seen, please do let me know.
26:02
I'm kind of going over the QA, and
26:05
I haven't been able to see anything,
I have a minute left.
26:07
[LAUGH] But yes, if there's
anything that you'd want to keep
26:12
communicating with me,
please definitely let me know.
26:16
I did see a question.
26:21
When can I learn and practice JavaScript,
data structures and algorithms?
26:22
Someone already answered that.
26:30
Treehouse definitely is a great option.
26:31
Let's see.
26:33
Cool, I think that is my time.
26:38
Thank you so much, everyone.
26:41
And looking forward to
continuing the conversation.
26:42
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