Hello World from replybot.io Engineers

How we spend our lives and energy defines who we are.  Engineers are problem solvers and constant learners. When we ware problem solver hat, we are like fire fighters and police detectives, when we change to constant learner hat, we are like curious George, and would like to learn new technology and explore uncharted areas.  As we explore in uncharted areas, we usually run into fires and problems, then we will put back problem-solver hat and went back to fire-drill mode.. Lives of engineers are journeys full of learning / exploring and putting out fires.

In fact, the only things I remember about 20 years ago when I first entered career as a junior engineer are when I felt guilty of having screwed things up and subsequent intense days and nights trying different solutions to put out fires I started due to lack of experience.

Now 20 years after that, I still constantly run into similar situations, I still start fires while exploring uncharted areas, however, the only difference is that I am a much more experienced fire fighter now so I always have my firefighter toolkit at my disposal nowadays.  In the journey of bringing new features to market and implementing new products, different kinds of fires get started now and then in different areas, I keep entering into fire drill mode.

Usually this process goes like this: a problem that breaks things is discovered, usually it is a roadblock to work stream or have a significant impact to customers, no easy solution can be found, then I enter fire drill mode, this mode usually lasts for a few days or a few weeks, under this mode,  my nerve gets tight, I feel the desire to not sleep, I can't stop thinking about the problem and any possible solutions, I feel myself a detective facing a tough criminal case, the first thing I do after I wake up is to turn on computer and try solutions I have been thinking at bed.  After trying different solutions, I finally come to the right solution and put out fire.

Through the journey of consecutive such fire-drill events, I have learned a lot, the tougher a fire to put out, the more I learn from the process of putting out it.  This blog is intended to log problem solving journeys of myself and all ReplyBot engineers.