I want to understand the world, in the broadest possible sense. I enjoy thinking about math, physical sciences, software engineering, economics, irreducibly complex systems, but also about classical music, aesthetics, and philosophy. I write.
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This essay was originally written in December 2022 as I pondered the future of my job. I sat on it because I wasn’t sure of the optics of posting such an essay while employed by Google Brain. But then Google made my decision easier by laying me off in January. My severance check cleared, and last week, Brain and…
Once upon a time, I was on a small team tasked with building a data pipeline. On this team was someone we’ll call Bob, who was fresh out of grad school and hadn’t had much experience with software engineering, and no experience with SQL. As part of this data pipeline, Bob had to combine the data from two tables. JOIN…
A few years ago, I worked on a project to investigate the potential of machine learning to transform healthcare through modeling electronic medical records. I walked away deeply disillusioned with the whole field and I really don’t think that the field needs machine learning right now. What it does need is plenty of…
It was not easy or quick, and there were so many qualifiers that, for over a decade, I didn’t really think I “deserved” the label. But as I got older, those qualifiers started dropping off one by one, and today I’m convinced that I have perfect pitch. I describe my musical journey and thoughts on what perfect pitch…
Many users of Python deprioritize performance in favor of soft benefits like ergonomics, business value, and simplicity. Users who prioritize performance typically end up on faster compiled languages like C++ or Java.
(This was originally a sponsor talk given at PyCon 2018. Unfortunately there is no video.)
Lesser known is that you can have nested list comprehensions, that handle nested for loops:
Junior engineers are expensive, both in salary and seniors engineers’ time. This cost was partially recouped through code contributions, but today, it’s more effective to directly maximize the output of your senior engineers. The hiring market reflects this trend: senior engineers have an easy time finding jobs, while…