Irina Stanescu

Writing "The Caring Techie Newsletter"
Teaching "Impact through Influence" on Maven
Eng Leader / Leadership Coach ex-@Google, ex-@Uber.

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

Reading other people’s code is a powerful learning tool. Code search enabled that for me during my time at Google, of course, I had to look at Jeff Dean’s code.

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

One of the most useful internal tools at Google: Code Search

"Sometimes I would not even look through my own IDE, I would just type 'cs /xyz...' "

From @thecaringtechie who worked at Google for 5 years. Fascinating how Google's *internal* code search is also as good as it gets!

[Ian Gertler @iangertler]

@blubird_app Excellent post from the amazing @TheCaringTechie earlier today relevant to this discussion: "Lessons in Leadership from Formula 1: @KristianHorner vs @TotoWolff_" ... https://t.co/inT7BDdVjI

cc @F1 @F1Movie #F1TheMovie @RedBullRacing @Ferrari

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

@KevinNaughtonJr Congratulations Kevin!! Welcome to the dark side 😆

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

Seeing engineering managers, sr EMs, directors - folks who are technical but were not too hands on recently - leaving current jobs, starting a startup, building the first version of their product… thanks to GenAI tools

Not seen it happen at this scale before. A big change!

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

The more I use ChatGPT, the more frustrated I become with Siri and Google Assistant.

Ask a simple question? “Here’s what I found on the web.”
Try to set something up? “I’m not sure I understand.”

Google & Apple get it together!

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

Happy to hear you found my latest article useful!

[Amarildo 🪐 @amarildulucas]

I enjoyed reading the Caring Techie Newsletter by @thecaringtechie.

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

Thank you for featuring my latest article!

[Alex Zajac (🍔,🧠) @itsalexzajac]

7. Engineer's Guide to Crushing It in 2025 (by @thecaringtechie): https://t.co/QeGqKePb99

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

@KevinNaughtonJr Vacationitis

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

First day back at work and I am NOT ready.

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

The Caring Techie Newsletter hit an incredible milestone: 50k!! 🤩
If you’re a subscriber or have supported me in any way, I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU!! 🫶🏻
And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out my newsletter in the link in my bio.

[Gregor Ojstersek @gregorojstersek]

If you are an engineer that wish to level up in your career, this post is for you!

Newsletters are truly an amazing source of knowledge that will help you to grow in your career.

Here are 13 newsletters that I highly recommend to read:

- System Design Newsletter by @systemdesign42 - https://t.co/ilojVR5t76
Great newsletter to learn System Design. Complex topics, simplified.

- Coding Challenges by @johncrickett - https://t.co/z7lROMNB1L
Want to learn by building real-world applications? This is a newsletter for you.

- High Growth Engineer by @highgrowtheng - https://t.co/Rgxi9GywJo
Great actionable advice for engineers looking to level up in their careers.

- The Developing Dev by @ryanlpeterman - https://t.co/7SCI8vVe2K
Great insights from a Staff SE from Instagram on how to progress in your career as an engineer.

- https://t.co/JtRFOANZe8 Newsletter by @EcZachly - https://t.co/v1w7Bzk4F0
Zach is the go-to for Data Engineering!

- Craft Better Software by @dmokafa - https://t.co/mmQW6C4E87
Learn best software engineering practices!

- The Caring Techie by @thecaringtechie - https://t.co/mqfgpt06xV
Great newsletter with topics that are very important in our industry and not talked enough.

- Tech World With Milan by @milan_milanovic - https://t.co/hbuRX3R2m2
A lot of actionable advice and tips. Milan does a good job of dissecting complex topics into understandable pieces.

- The Software Engineer Weekly by @KevinNaughtonJr - https://t.co/oe1Q7PtwTA
Kevin is sharing lessons learned from his experience to help you grow as a SWE!

- Leading Developers by Anton Zaides - https://t.co/IVkeKIyijF
Great newsletter for leads or engineers aspiring to grow towards a lead role.

- The Hustling Engineer by @hemant_pandey17 - https://t.co/OPoOnLQUTo
Actionable tips for growing as a software engineer from a Sr. SWE at Meta.

- The T-Shaped Dev by @petarivanovv9 - https://t.co/F7maXDaAxL
Petar shares practical tips to help you level up your coding skills.

- Strategize Your Career by Fran Soto - https://t.co/JRKDmQFjFn
Fran shares tips on how you can grow in your career as an engineer.

Here is also my newsletter in case you are not subscribed yet!

Engineering Leadership - https://t.co/0yrZSvt04Y
I write about Engineering/Engineering Leadership topics and help you become a great engineering leader.

If you are not subscribed to them already, I highly recommend doing so!

If you recommend to read other newsletters, make sure to add them in the comments!

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

I miss memegen

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

An internal tool completely unique to Google - with nothing similar across any of Big Tech, or other large companies:

Memegen

@thecaringtechie explains what it is, and why it's uniquely "Googley":

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

All engineering managers can confirm, the number one quality they wish their software engineers had is:

Being proactive.

When you’re proactive, you’re helping your manager help you. Trust me, your managers will notice and appreciate it.

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

What is "Borg" - a platform heavily used inside Google, to this day?

@thecaringtechie:

"At the time [2011-2016], I had not seen being able to dynamically allocate jobs, resources, clusters and all that - anywhere else. (...) It felt like a lot of power!"

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

Full article:
https://t.co/VLJz5KPHGF

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

Action for action’s sake is never a good idea, yet many people proudly wear the “bias for action” badge, without considering its’ nuances.
Check out my latest article, where I discuss the dangers of “bias for action” and what a safer alternative looks like. 👇

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

Here are some other benefits of doing fast code lookups:
- quickly understanding complex dependencies
- creating consistent coding patterns
- debugging cross-team issues
- learning how others do things
- settling debates during brainstorming sessions

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

Reading other people’s code is a powerful learning tool. Code search enabled that for me during my time at Google, of course, I had to look at Jeff Dean’s code.

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

One of the most useful internal tools at Google: Code Search

"Sometimes I would not even look through my own IDE, I would just type 'cs /xyz...' "

From @thecaringtechie who worked at Google for 5 years. Fascinating how Google's *internal* code search is also as good as it gets!

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

Full episode:

YouTube: https://t.co/tNosY8mQQU

Spotify: https://t.co/A4DXKUIOUy

Apple: https://t.co/47LghZhOGN

Web: https://t.co/xZhVflk3Fe

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

The design doc culture at Google vs Uber via @thecaringtechie (formerly at Google and Uber):

Google: "They wouldn't even talk to you if you didn't have a design doc. You couldn't just walk up to someone and say I have this idea. Their response: where's the design doc?"

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

@4xfelix @GergelyOrosz Also, something interesting happened when GCP made available many things that used to be internal only (BigQuery, Spanner etc). Having prior internal experience with those definitely helped me when I switched companies but worked on GCP.

[Irina Stanescu @thecaringtechie]

@4xfelix @GergelyOrosz That's a great question! As I mention in the interview, not all skills will be transferable and you have to figure out how to port the skills to similar technologies that are available externally