Hi guys,
The news was out last Friday. I am going to leave Parcel Perform.
For a sabbatical leave. Between May and October.
Sorry for the gasp. You come here for drama.
This has been planned since last year. I originally planned to leave soon after the 2024 BFCM, after the horizontal scalability of the system became a solved problem. I would like to say permanently, but I have learned that nothing ever is - the scalability, not me leaving for good. But then there were such and such issues with our data source (if you know, you know), and AI took the industry by storm. So I stayed. Eventually though, I knew I needed this break.
I have been on this job for almost 10 years. The first line of code was October 2015. I thought I would be done and move on in 5 years! I have been around longer than most furniture in the office and gone through 4 office changes. A decade is indeed a long time. It is a wet blanket that dampens any excitement and buzz that comes out of the work. Things get repetitive. Except for system incidents, I have lost count of how many ways things can combine to blow off. I praise every morning to wake up to no new alert.
When I was 23, I was fired from my job, and I was unemployed for 6 months. More like unemployable. It could have been longer had my savings not gone dry. I wrote, read, cooked, rode, swam, organized events, and lived a different life I didn't know I should. It was the time I needed to recover from depression. It was the best of my life. I want to experience that one more time.
Upon this news, I received some questions, the most common ones are below.
Why are you leaving now? Is something bad happening?
I am still the CTO of Parcel Perform, just on sabbatical leave. And on the contrary, I think this is a good window for me to take a break. The business is in its best shape since the painful layoff in 2022. We are positive about the future, we are actively expanding the team for the first time in 3 years. The Tech Hub, of which I am directly responsible, has demonstrated that in the face of unprecedented incidents, we are resilient, innovative, and get things done. With the multi-cluster architecture and other innovations, we won't face an existential scalability problem for a long time.
In the last 6 months, we have invested in incorporating GenAI into our product. I believe we have the right data, tech stack, and an experiment-focused process, though only time can tell. To be frank, all the fast-paced experiments we are doing, known internally as POC, reminded me of all the things I loved about working here in the early days. Ideas are discussed in a small circle, stretched on a whiteboard, implemented in less than a day, and repeated. It has been so fun recently that I got cold feet. Perhaps I shouldn't take this break yet. But I am not getting younger, I am getting married, and soon will start a family. I won't have time for myself in a long time. It has to be now.
What will you do during the break?
Oh wow I'm gonna play so much computer game, my brain rots. I have been a vivid fan of Age of Empires II since the time there was only one kid in my neighborhood with a computer good enough to play the game. I am an average player, slow even, so perhaps we are looking at more losses than wins. But hey, it builds character.
I will host board game nights here and there. It's another long-lasting hobby of mine, and a perfect social glue for my group of friends. While I am at that, I probably want to up my mocktail game too. My friends are largely in my age bracket, so for the same reasons above, my ultimate goal is to have more quality time.
As far as dopamine goes, that's it. I am not planning for retirement after all. Can't afford that yet.
To be frank, the pretext of this break is that I want to work on my sleep, which has been less than ideal for a long time. I couldn't figure out a single one thing that could improve my sleep so it is gonna be a total revamp. Distance from work. White bed sheet. Sleep hygiene. Gotta catch em all.
I am probably still awake more than 12 hours a day though. I will be reading as much as I can, fiction, non-fiction, and whatnot. Real life is crazy these days; the distinction is getting vague. There are some long Murakami novels I want to go through. I find that reading his works in one go, or at least with a minimal pause, offers the ideal immersive experience.
What I read, I write. I hope I can find an interesting topic to write every month. If you are keeping track, the last few days have been quite productive ;) I am starting my first subtrack AI Crossroads because that's how I feel these days: an important moment in my life, our lives, that I cannot afford to miss. I am excited and confused. I am sure somebody out there is feeling the same.
And I will pick up Robotics as a new hobby. As GenAI gets "solved", its reach will not stop at the virtual world. Robotics seems to be the next logical frontier where a new generation of autonomous devices crops up and occupies our world.
Writing about these things, I'm already pumped!
Who will replace your role?
The good thing about cooking up this plan from last year is that I have had plenty of time to arrange for my departure. The level of disruption should be minimal. People won't notice when I am gone and when I am back. Or so I hope.
There isn't a simple 1 to 1 replacement. Parcel Perform is not getting a new CTO, and there will still be a job for me when I am back. Or so I hope.
As a CTO, my work comes in 3 buckets: feature delivery, technical excellence, and AI research.
Feature delivery is where we have the most robust structure. Over the years, we have managed to find and grow a Head of Engineering and two Engineering Managers. The tribe-squad structure is stable. We are getting exponentially better at cross-squad collaboration as well as reorganization. There is a handful of external support ranging from QA, infrastructure, to data and insight to ensure the troops have the oophm they need to crush down deliveries.
Technical excellence means making sure Parcel Perform tech stack stays relevant for the next 5 years. This is an increasingly ambitious goal. Our tech stack is no longer a single web server. The team is growing. The world is moving faster. But we have 4 extremely bright Staff Engineers. They each have spent years at the organization, are widely regarded for the depth of their technical knowledge, and are definitely better than me on my best day in their field of expertise. We have spent the last couple of months aligning their goals with the needs of Parcel Perform. The alignment is at its strongest point ever since we adopted a goal-oriented performance review system.
Lastly, AI research is the preparation of the organization for the AI future, across technologies, processes, and strategic values. While I will continue the research in my own time, there is now a dedicated AI team that has been made the center of Parcel Perform's AI movement. Despite the humble beginning, the team is 2x their size in the coming months and won't let us "go gentle into that good night" that is our post-apocalyptic lives with the AI overlords.
I think we are in good hands.
What will you do when you come back?
Honest answer, I don't know.
Also honest answer, I don't think it gonna be the same as what I am doing today. Sure, some aspects gonna be the same. 5 months isn't that long. Neither is it short. The organization will continue to grow and evolve to meet the demand of the market, the gap I leave will be filled. When I am back, the organization will undoubtedly be different from what it is today. I will have to relearn how to operate effectively again. I will need to identify the overlap between my interests, my abilities, and the needs of the new Parcel Perform.
Final honest answer, I am anxious for that future, and it is the best part.