korrents

Charity Majors

@charity-majors · 50 positions · 1 change of mind

Co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb, previously an infrastructure engineer at Parse, Facebook and Linden Lab. Co-author of "Database Reliability Engineering" and "Observability Engineering". Writes at charity.wtf about on-call, hierarchy, hiring and the engineer/manager pendulum.

Charity Majors did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

  1. Our reading

    Team output is still what matters, however hard the industry pushes to measure individual output.

    Their wordsI also believe that, you know, there's been this whole push towards individual output, but teams are still what matter. Teams output.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:07:24 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 1st of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our reading

    Equating better with faster is a very immature description of what better means.

    Their wordsWe can go fast. Let's do same thing faster, you know, just boom. And I've come to feel like that is a very immature description of what better is.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:08:01 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 2nd of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our reading

    The step change in AI coding in 2025 came from the harnesses and the tooling around the models, not from the models themselves.

    Their wordsAnd it wasn't actually the models. It was the harnesses. It was all the tooling.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:10:31 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 3rd of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our reading

    There is no point arguing about whether or when engineers will ship code they have not read; the only useful question is what it would take.

    Their wordsWhat I was saying in that piece though was, I think we were right to be skeptical that time. But now, I see the same thing playing out with would you be willing to ship it some code you didn't read? There's no point in arguing about if it will happen or when it will happen. Talk about what it would take.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:12:04 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 4th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our reading

    You can now generate ten thousand variants of a function faster than you could write it once, and that economics pushes software towards replacement rather than repair.

    Their wordsI mean, if you if you think about it, you could generate 10,000 variants of a function faster than you could write it once.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:14:55 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 5th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  11. Our reading

    Lines of code are the wrong artifact to review; what we should be storing and reviewing is an architecture that generates the code to spec.

    Their wordsLike that just does not seem like the ideal artifact. We should be able to store them somewhere. We should be able to have architecture diagrams that we can review and discuss that generate that code to spec.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:17:03 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 6th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  13. Our reading

    Software engineers behave as though the world exists in the repository, and it does not: the world is production.

    Their wordsit's always weird to me just how much software engineers really seem to believe that the world exists in the repo. It doesn't. It's production, you know?
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:20:22 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 7th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  15. Our reading

    Production is not what happens after development; production is a stage of development.

    Their wordsProduction is not what happens after development. It is a stage of development.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:21:02 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 8th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  17. Our reading

    Merging should deploy: you should have to stop the train to keep merged code out of production, not push it to get there.

    Their wordsAs soon as you merge, it should be going out. You like you should have to stop the train to make your code not go into production as soon as you've merged.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:22:03 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 9th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  19. Our reading

    AI-validated pull requests beat human review at exactly the things humans are bad at, which frees the humans to argue about direction instead.

    Their wordsIt's like they have all the wisdom of their most senior engineers looking at every single diff and that is fantastic. Which means that you don't have to worry about remembering and looking and nitpicking and all the things that we're not good at anyway
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:26:36 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 10th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  21. Our reading

    If you are not going to read the generated code, what you need is conformance testing: proof that it performs within the boundaries of the code it replaced.

    Their wordsOkay, if I'm not going to read this code, how do I know it's going to perform within boundaries of the last code that I generated? That is conformance testing.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:28:02 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 11th of 26 in this recording

    code generation

    Interesting

  23. Our reading

    Trust is an account: whatever you withdraw from it by not reading the code has to be built back up somewhere else.

    Their wordsIf you're debiting from this trust account in the creation of the code, it has to get built up somewhere else.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:28:26 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 12th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  25. Our reading

    There is no human in the loop: you own the loop, and what comes out of it is your work rather than the model's.

    Their wordsAnother another thing we point out is just there is no human in the loop. You own the loop. The loop is yours. The loop is mine. It would not exist if it was not for me. So I am the owner, right?
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:32:00 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 13th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  27. Our reading

    You may not send anyone something you have not read, and if it would take them longer to read than it took you to make, it is slop.

    Their wordsHere's a baseline. Uh you cannot send anyone something you haven't read. And in fact, if it would take them longer to read it than it took you to make it, it's probably slop.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:34:55 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 14th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  29. Our reading

    AI can be a shortcut around thinking or a way of thinking more rigorously, and for your core job function only the second one is wanted.

    Their wordsYou can use AI as a shortcut to help you not have to think too much. And you can use AI to help you think more deeply and more rigorously. And both of those use cases have their place. But when it comes to your core job function, we primarily want the second one, right?
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:36:42 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 15th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  31. Our reading

    Neither the AI enthusiasts nor the AI sceptics are making it up; both camps are looking at real trends.

    Their wordsSee, the problem is that neither side is making it up. Like they are seeing really scary trends.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:38:17 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 16th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  33. Our reading

    Both AI camps believe they are the suppressed minority standing up for the truth, and that shared belief is why neither hears the other.

    Their wordsOne of the things that's ironic though is that both of these sides feel like they are the tiny minority and they're outmanned and they're being suppressed and they are standing up for what is truth and valor in the face of the big AI folks or the big skeptics.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:39:28 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 17th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  35. Our reading

    An account of an AI win is not worth publishing unless it is coupled with what that win cost.

    Their wordsIt's like we need to hear the wins. We need to hear what's We need to hear about what's possible. We need to hear what's exciting. But you got to couple it with the costs.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:42:30 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 18th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  37. Our reading

    Software is what AI will be best at, because software and AI are both made of logic and language, which is what lets us bake guardrails in.

    Their wordsSoftware is made of logic and language. AI is made of logic and language. And because of that, we can bake in guardrails.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:44:49 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 19th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  39. Our reading

    Writing is thinking on paper and there is no shortcut for doing that thinking, so handing the writing to AI hands away the thinking.

    Their wordsAnd I have decided not to sink anymore because writing is thinking on paper. And there's no shortcut for doing that thinking.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:47:20 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 20th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  41. Our reading

    You cannot really understand the code you write unless you are also the one operating it.

    Their wordsThat was always a bad idea because it's split brain. Half of you are writing the code and the other half are understanding it. I would argue that you can't really understand the code you write unless you're operating it.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:50:27 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 21st of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  43. Our reading

    Twenty years of DevOps had one goal, a single feedback loop from writing code to that code in production, and it failed.

    Their wordsBut I also think that in my mind, 20 years of DevOps was really about one thing. Trying to create one feedback loop that connected people writing code to that code in production. And it failed.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:51:07 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 22nd of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  45. Our reading

    Everyone should be using OpenTelemetry, because instrumenting code is now literally faster and easier than not instrumenting it.

    Their wordsAuto instrumentation has gotten so good in recent years. If you're using Open Telemetry and everyone should be using Open Telemetry. All of the common patterns like all of the models are trained on them. So, it is literally faster and easier to build with instrumentation than to than not to.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:56:00 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 23rd of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  47. Our reading

    If engineers do not hold themselves to a high standard and build efficiently, somebody else will come along and impose it on them.

    Their wordsIf we don't do it ourselves, meaning hold ourselves to a high standard, build with efficiency, constantly be like trying to get better, if we don't do it ourselves, someone will come and do it to us.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:09:15 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 24th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  49. Our reading

    Kind leaders usually do beat sociopaths in the same role, but only if they are also good at business.

    Their wordsit's it's not enough to be a good person. I believe that people who are kind and care about people can and and usually do do better than sociopaths in the same roles, but only if they're good at business.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:10:10 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 25th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  51. Our reading

    We cannot say what a junior engineer is worth because we cannot say what any engineer is worth; it is all vibes.

    Their wordsThe hardest thing about quantifying the value of junior engineers is that we don't know how to quantify the value of any engineer. So it's all vibes.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:16:34 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 26th of 26 in this recording

    AI and jobs

    Interesting
  52. 20 months earlier

  53. Our reading

    "Hire great people and get out of their way" is dangerous advice for anyone in a leadership role.

    Their wordsEarlier this year I started writing a piece on why “hire great people and get out of their way” is such terrible, dangerous, counterproductive advice to give anyone in a leadership role.

    ↗“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf 1st of 8 in this piece

    Interesting

  55. Our reading

    A company should always have as few employees as possible, and hiring is the lever a leader reaches for last rather than first.

    Their wordsYou should ALWAYS have as few employees as possible. Always. Hiring more people should never be the first lever you reach for, it’s what you do after exhausting your other options.

    ↗“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf 2nd of 8 in this piece

    hiring

    Interesting

  57. Our reading

    Neither running everything through the founder nor pushing decisions down is the better way to run a company; each only works if it fits that company’s own resources and values.

    Their wordsEither can work. Both have tradeoffs and implications. If you try to import either philosophy wholesale, it will break in unexpected ways; if you try to mix and match, it will probably be an unfettered nightmare.

    ↗“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf 3rd of 8 in this piece

    Interesting

  59. Our reading

    A CEO cannot be a calibrated interviewer for every role, so insisting on interviewing every candidate makes hiring worse rather than better.

    Their wordsCan you be calibrated as an interviewer on every single opening, for every role? My God, no, not even close.

    ↗“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf 4th of 8 in this piece

    hiring

    Interesting

  61. Our reading

    Reference checks are more informative than interviews, and if you had to pick one you should pick references.

    Their wordsI’ve said many times that if I had to choose between interviews or references, I would pick references every time.

    ↗“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf 5th of 8 in this piece

    Interesting

  63. Our reading

    Hire for a person’s unique strengths rather than for their lack of weaknesses, because a team exists to cover what any one person is not.

    Their wordsyou want to hire people for their unique strengths, not their lack of weaknesses. If they’re strong where you need them to be strong, it’s okay if they aren’t equally superpowered at everything — that’s why we build teams, to supplement and balance each other out.

    ↗“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf 7th of 8 in this piece

    Interesting

  65. Our reading

    There is no such thing as the best people; you are trying to hire the right people for this team at this stage.

    Their wordsHere’s one small mental hack that makes a world of difference: remember that you are trying to hire the right people to join your team/org/company. Not the “best” people. The right people.

    ↗“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf 8th of 8 in this piece

    Interesting
  66. 11 months earlier

  67. Our reading

    Hierarchy is not intrinsically authoritarian: it is a property of self-organising systems that emerges for the benefit of the parts.

    Their wordsBut hierarchy is not intrinsically authoritarian. Hierarchy did not originate as a political structure that humans invented for controlling and dominating one another, it is in fact a property of self-organizing systems, and it emerges for the benefit of the subsystems.

    ↗Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?"charity.wtf 1st of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  69. Our reading

    If building the organisation is nobody’s first job, it will not get done well.

    Their wordsIf you aren’t making building the organization someone’s number one job, it won’t be anyone’s number one job, which means it probably won’t get done very well.

    ↗Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?"charity.wtf 2nd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  71. Our reading

    Flat, manager-free organisations do not deliver the equality they promise: they get abandoned, and the informal power left behind is unaccountable.

    Their wordsOn the other hand, the manager-free experiments I’m aware of (e.g. holacracy at Medium and GitHub, or “Choose Your Own Work” at Linden Lab) have all been quietly abandoned or outgrown.

    ↗Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?"charity.wtf 3rd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  73. Our reading

    A few larger teams under experienced engineering managers outperform many tiny teams each led by a working tech lead.

    Their wordsBut everything I have ever experienced leads me to believe that a fewer number of larger teams, each helmed by an experienced engineering manager, should way outperform this gaggle of tiny groups.

    ↗Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?"charity.wtf 4th of 5 in this piece

    management

    Interesting

  75. Our reading

    What sets a company’s velocity is spending its time on the right things, not how much code it produces.

    Their wordsWhat matters is moving the business forward, not churning out code.

    ↗Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?"charity.wtf 5th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting
  76. 15 months earlier

  77. Our reading

    Treating the org chart as a ladder on which higher is always better is the central lie of hierarchy.

    Their wordsThe “Big Lie” of hierarchy is that your organizational structure is a vertical tree from the CEO on down, where higher up is always better.

    ↗The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business)charity.wtf 1st of 3 in this piece

    Interesting

  79. Our reading

    Burnout comes from not caring and from not feeling needed, not from working the hardest.

    Their wordsThe times I have come closest to burnout or flaming out have never been when I was working the hardest, but when I cared the least.

    ↗The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business)charity.wtf 2nd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting

  81. Our reading

    Command-and-control leadership is poison in any industry that runs on creativity, because it stifles innovation and saps initiative.

    Their wordsBut if there’s one thing we know, it’s that for industries that are fueled by creativity and innovation, command-and-control leadership is poison.

    ↗The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business)charity.wtf 3rd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting
  82. 3 months earlier

  83. Our reading

    A permanently painful on-call rotation is a five-alarm emergency, not a normal cost of owning code in production.

    Their wordsBeing on call should not be a constant cycle of things breaking down and firefighting, or alerts going off at all hours. This is not ‘normal.’ These are telltale signs of a fragile system and lack of alert discipline.

    ↗Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problemcharity.wtf 1st of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  85. Our reading

    Engineers should own their code in production, and it is management’s job to make sure that on-call does not suck.

    Their wordsIt is engineering’s job to own their code in production. It is management’s job to make sure it doesn’t suck.

    ↗Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problemcharity.wtf 2nd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  87. Our reading

    Being woken up two or three times a year on call is reasonable, and more than that is a management failure rather than an engineering one.

    Their wordsIt’s reasonable to be woken up two to three times a year when on call. But more than that is not okay.

    ↗Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problemcharity.wtf 3rd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  89. Our reading

    A sustainable on-call rotation needs seven or eight engineers.

    Their wordsThe ideal on-call rotation has seven to eight people; five people is a bare minimum.

    ↗Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problemcharity.wtf 4th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  91. Our reading

    On-call is part of an engineer’s job rather than something to be paid extra for, except where paying for it is the only way to make management fund the reliability work.

    Their wordsI generally come down on the side of ‘no, it’s part of the job,’ just like it is for doctors.

    ↗Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problemcharity.wtf 5th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting
  92. 5 years earlier

  93. Our reading

    Making management the only path to career progression is a mistake that costs a company the senior engineers it needs.

    Their wordsFuck the whole idea that only managers get career progression.

    ↗The Engineer/Manager Pendulumcharity.wtf 1st of 4 in this piece

    management

    Interesting

  95. Our reading

    The best engineering managers are never more than two or three years away from hands-on work, and the best individual contributors have done time in management.

    Their wordsThe best frontline eng managers in the world are the ones that are never more than 2-3 years removed from hands-on work, full time down in the trenches. The best individual contributors are the ones who have done time in management.

    ↗The Engineer/Manager Pendulumcharity.wtf 2nd of 4 in this piece

    management

    Interesting

  97. Our reading

    Engineering and management cannot both be improved at once, so a new manager has to stop trying to be the senior engineer as well.

    Their wordsYou can only really improve at one of these things at a time: engineering or management.

    ↗The Engineer/Manager Pendulumcharity.wtf 3rd of 4 in this piece

    Interesting

  99. Our reading

    A manager’s calendar and an engineer’s calendar are incompatible, because management is interruptive and good engineering requires blocking interruptions out.

    Their wordsManagement is highly interruptive, and great engineering — where you’re learning things — requires blocking out interruptions. You can’t do these two opposite things at once.

    ↗The Engineer/Manager Pendulumcharity.wtf 4th of 4 in this piece

    Interesting