One year at Last9

I completed one year at Last9 today. When I joined Last9 on April 20, 2020, last year, I was unsure how it would pan out. I only knew Nishant and Piyush - founders of Last9 from the Pune tech community. But I had never worked with them before.

I was also unsure about the product Last9 was building. I had never worked in the SRE domain. I didn't know anything about the problems the SREs of the programming world face. I was also a Rails developer, having worked primarily on Ruby on Rails for 6-7 years.

The last year at Last9 was a blur. It started and finished very quickly. But it was also a rewarding year for my personal and professional growth.  In this post, I will list a few things I observed and learned at Last9.

Understanding problem(s)

As a developer, my first reaction to any problem is to start thinking about how to solve it. I could fix bugs quickly, but at Last9, I learned to live with the problem for some more time to understand it thoroughly before attempting the solution. Our team constantly asks what the problem statement is. What is the target audience, who will benefit from this, and how? Also, instead of rushing to the HOW part, I learned to wait and collect similar problems before attempting the solution. It is still a struggle, but a lot of my internal conversations these days have this line - "not rushing to the solution, but .." 🙂

Embracing failure

As a person, I tend to avoid problems with my work. I try to avoid painful conversations. But one of the things that I learned at Last9 was to embrace the mistakes. We try to follow Blameless RCAs where pointed questions are asked and answered. Initially, I was very uncomfortable with this fact and took it personally, but slowly, I am starting to get rid of that habit.

Boring solutions with boring tools and minimal code

We try to solve the problems with boring technology with minimal code. We rely on the tools that most of our team members know before reaching for new tools. For example, we use PostgreSQL, Python, Go, Ruby on Rails, React, and even Bash at Last9 at various places. We even use Active Admin from Rails World to manage the bulk of the admin functionality, allowing our customers to automate workflows.

Code Documentation matters

Workflow diagrams, sequence diagrams, and flowcharts are standard at Last9. It helps to have the same mental model for a feature developed by multiple teams. We have microservices, and having a shared mental model helps us be on the same page even when our delivery mechanism and speed differ.

Importance of SQL

When I joined Last9, I was used to writing most of my SQL via Active Record. Here, I worked on so much of SQL that it became a natural way of thinking. We strongly focus on query plans and ensuring that the queries are optimized before they reach production.

Seek and provide clarity.

Time is a valued currency at a fast-paced startup, and seeking clarity about why we are doing something is paramount. My job is to get clarity from others and provide clarity to other team members. Even when I am not shipping code, providing clarity to my team members is moving the company forward.

Playing for the team

At Last9, everyone plays a role at work, similar to a sports team. The roles may change based on requirements, bandwidth, and urgency, but still, you are expected to play your role well. This includes development, QA, documentation, on-call, deployments, basically everything and anything. It is never about the individual but as a team. This was one of the hard lessons for me as I had worked in consulting a lot, where working remotely and individually was my experience. However, working with team members according to their strengths and weaknesses and still producing the desired output was new for me. Also, your role changes based on your team's needs - not what is comfortable and easy for you. I started working on Ruby and the database for the first few months. Then, I completely shifted to frontend writing JavaScript code for a few months and am now dabbling in Go along with Ruby and JavaScript.

Knowing your limits

I realized that everyone has different limits and bandwidths. Being vocal and upfront about it helps everyone plan the delivery. When working at a startup where everyone works hard, it feels bad not to work. Everyone is working, so why should I not? But everyone is different. So take breaks if you want. Last9 team is always considerate about this, and people and family matter more as a rule than everything else.

Play the long game.

Last but not least, working at a startup is a marathon. It is a long game. There will be ups and downs. Being emotional about either of them will not help me and my company.

Overall, it was a very fast but, at the same time, rewarding last year for me. There were highs, and there were lows. I feel uncomfortable at work almost daily, which keeps me interested in what's coming next.

We are hiring for multiple roles. Join us in our journey to building a world-class SRE platform. Reach out to us here.

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