Karim Vidhani

I have known Avni for almost ten years and I am super glad (and not surprised) that her customer-focused approach remains unchanged. We were fortunate to have Avni Savant speak to our teams at G2 India. The session was inspirational, and we learned a lot from her. Avni has a wealth of experience, and we are grateful for the valuable insights she shared with us. During the session brilliantly moderated by Aravind Raj, we discussed several topics and gained a few key takeaways: ⚡ Creating an environment that supports a "fail fast" mindset fosters innovation, and consistent leadership support is essential. Interestingly, this is something that Roger Valade aligns with strongly, and we are just in the middle of an innovation sprint. :) 🧠 We explored areas where AI can be implemented to solve product use cases. Avni stressed that we don't need to reinvent the wheel; instead, we should learn from companies that have successfully adopted AI. The most doable areas for AI implementation are to improve developer productivity and summarize insights and discoveries. 📊 We discussed how squad-specific goals (OKRs) can be integrated with the company's larger goals. For example, we can analyze if improving our product's onboarding experience impacts the adoption rate, and understand if the release was successful. Avni emphasized the importance of using data to make feature iterations and prioritization decisions. 💬 We discussed the significance of product development teams being close to the customers and leveraging customer interviews, and feedback from pre-sales, sales, and support teams. 💗 Lastly, Avni highlighted the importance of self-drivenness and having a clear point of view in one's career. She noted that this proactive approach is valued and appreciated. We are truly grateful to Avni for her time and lessons!

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🔐Securonix's Ankit Deka Featured in the San Francisco Examiner San Francisco Examiner Discussing the Future of Gen AI in Cybersecurity🔐 Ankit Deka, our UX designer, recently shared his expertise on designing Gen AI-led security products. According to Ankit, embracing Gen AI in UX design is crucial to staying competitive and delivering cutting-edge user experiences. 📰 Read the article: https://lnkd.in/gFUZxFFp Ankit was part of our team that developed Securonix EON, our groundbreaking suite of AI-Reinforced capabilities, which was recognized by CRN as one of the 20 Coolest Cybersecurity Products at RSAC 2024.🙌🏽 🌟 Join Us in Shaping the Future 🌟 We're excited about the transformative potential of Gen AI and are pioneering its integration into our cybersecurity solutions, transforming how CyberOps detects and respond to threats. Learn more about Securonix EON: https://lnkd.in/gxSCrxZe #GenerativeAI #Cybersecurity #UXDesign #Innovation #GenAI #AIReinforced #SOC #CyberOps #SIEM #AI

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I heard a few people are suspecting this live demo showing a call to a virtual agent is not real https://lnkd.in/gnBiGDfd I can tell you that the call was real and we are able to allow the users to talk to the virtual agent with a text UI while still on the call. To find more, search the newly launched feature called 'Call Companion' under Dialogflow

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I have a love hate relationship with #observability space. The hate is mostly all self-inflicted, e.g. misreading docs, misreading configurations, debugging polyglot services and dealing with idiosyncrasies of otel sdks in multiple languages. It’s mostly love though! It’s powerful when it works! I think community is coming along way when it comes to documentation and resources. It still feels early. You have to be very self sufficient and be comfortable ditching/trying/demoing/hacking on many different tools in various languages and various environments. All in all, despite its warts and problems, it’s mostly all gravy! #opentelemetry is one of the best things to have happened in tech that gets under appreciated! Embracing it allows you to be a lot more freer than just to be tied to a single vendor. That being said…love and proud customer (across multiple companies) of honeycomb.io ! Not only are they great vanguards of #opentelemetry, their product (at least for tracing) is till my favorite across all oss/commercial products..and I’ve tried most all of them!

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Fellow in-house taxonomists, ontologists, metadata managers, and semantic wizards: what is the name of the team or business unit that you work within? I have the good fortune of getting to rename the "Content Standards" program I lead at Kaiser Permanente IT. My team has determined that the name is too vague to convey the core activities of the program, and leads to confusion with the cross-functional teams we collaborate with. I'm looking for a clear name that will resonate with stakeholders within my org. So I've got a very classic taxonomist question: What to call the program? 🤔 For some context... What my program is responsible for: - Defining and governing standards for metadata, structured data, taxonomy, and ontology for classifying/structuring digital content - Implementing processes and platforms to good metadata hygiene - Assessment and remediation of content metadata What my program doesn't cover: - Writing or editorial style guides - Content design - Content strategy - Site maps or navigational structure - Data governance Any ideas are most welcome!

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From Astrologer's Whispers to Real Connections: Reclaiming Belonging in a Lonely Age Have you ever consulted an astrologer, their predictions swirling in your head, only to feel empty when your day takes a different turn? The emptiness might not be about the details themselves, but about seeking outside approval for your happiness. This same feeling can creep in even when you achieve success. Remember climbing the career ladder, landing that dream apartment, only to find yourself lost in a quiet emptiness? In India's bustling cities, it's a familiar, painful emotion. We're surrounded by people, yet there's a little loneliness at the edges of our lives. Thinking back to Mrs. Deshmukh, your friendly neighbour with the legendary Til Gur Barfi's, who brought the whole neighbourhood together with tea and friendly chats. Those evenings of shared stories and laughter, a web woven by simple human connection, feel like a distant memory in our super-connected yet broken world. We chase success with thumbs glued to screens, building online bridges that leave us feeling more alone than ever. The pressure to create a perfect online self-drowns out the whispers of our own desires. But here's the real deal, that shiny designation and fancy car can't fill the hole left by genuine connection. There's hope, though! We can rewrite this story. Let's ditch the small talk and chase deeper connections. Share your fears and worries, break free from feeling isolated in this sea of ambition. Remember the warmth of family gatherings, the joy of shared childhood games? Revive those small traditions. Pick up the phone for a real heart-to-heart conversation rather than What's Apping. Every act of connection, no matter how ordinary, how small, builds a more satisfying life. Imagine hearing back from an old friend, reliving an old laugh, and being surrounded by people who truly see us, where we belong. Isn't that what life is all about? Together, one conversation, one meal, and one act of kindness at a time, we can tear down the walls of loneliness. We can rewrite the narrative of modern society, where connection becomes the foundation of a life well lived. It's not too late, or is it? #HumanConnections #BelongingMatters #OvercomeLoneliness #RealConversations #MeaningfulRelationships #CommunityOverConnectivity #AuthenticLiving #SocialWellbeing #RedefiningSuccess #TraditionsRewoven #FightIsolation #VulnerableAndReal #KindnessRevolution #SmallActsBigImpact #ReconnectingHumanity #IndianSociety #UrbanLoneliness #DigitalDetox #QualityOverQuantity #ConnectionCures Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

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𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁! 🎉 We encountered 502 errors during deployments on AWS EKS with AWS ALB and Argo Rollouts. After extensive analysis and adjustments, we found a solution that significantly reduced these errors. Curious about the journey and insights? Check out the full blog post #AWS #Kubernetes #DevOps #FirstBlog #ArgoRollouts #AWSALB

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I recently became aware of the term "Gish Gallop". I find that this concept can also be applied to a similar style of discussion, whereby a person dominates the conversation to control the narrative. The opposite style of discussion is where participants minimize words to convey the maximum quantity of useful information. Then, provide the maximum opportunity for participation by others. Learn to not gish gallop. https://lnkd.in/gYw4g_XE

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For years, I've led and mentored diverse teams of software engineers, and one gripe consistently surfaces, irrespective of team makeup or project nuances: "Why do I have to resolve conflicts when cherry-picking commits from the master branch?" 🤔 This complaint hits home. Engineers crave independence to innovate and deliver swiftly, yet software development thrives on collaboration, demanding robust code management and teamwork. 🚀💻 Cherry-picking commits can be an efficient way to incorporate specific changes or bug fixes into a hotfix branch or release candidate, but it often triggers conflicts as changes collide with ongoing developments. This conflict resolution process can be time-consuming, error-prone, and frustrating for engineers, detracting from their productivity and morale. 😫⚔️ The absence of a structured cherry-picking process exacerbates the problem. Here's a simple fix to avoid conflicts: 1️⃣ Track the last merged PR number into the base branch when cutting release/hotfix branches. 2️⃣ When receiving a cherry-pick PR, confirm its base branch PR number. 3️⃣ Ensure all PRs between the last merged and new ones are cherry-picked before merging, preventing conflicts. 4️⃣ Once merged, update the base PR number of the last merged cherry-pick for the next cherry-pick PR review can be verified. Yes, adopting this process entails a bit of change, but the dividends in smoother workflows and happier engineers are well worth it. Let's make life easier for our fellow coders! 💪🛠️ #SoftwareEngineering #CodeReview #Collaboration #ConflictResolution #Teamwork #DeveloperLife #CherryPicking #CodeManagement #ProductivityTips #EngineeringCulture #TechTips #Mentorship #WorkflowOptimization #CodingCommunity

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<rant> Yesterday morning I wrote a post about the phrase "scaling independently" while waiting for my KIND cluster to spin up, and I promised that I would give an example of where you really DO want things to "scale independently" in a separate post. Well, that post is here. Let's talk about #apachekafka and its new Raft-based metadata solution, known as KRaft (yes, it evokes Mac-and-Cheese, which is partially why I like it so much). KRaft is a replacement for ZooKeeper's former role in Kafka. In a KRaft-based cluster, the Metadata Quorum is a group of Kafka Servers that have the "controller" role. The Metadata Quorum stores information such as "what topics exist in my cluster?" and "which Broker is the leader for which Partition?" and "which follower replicas live on which Broker?". This information is CRITICAL for the availability and consistency of a Kafka cluster. In order to ensure consistency of the Metadata Quorum, one specific Controller is chosen as the leader. All write requests go through that leader. In order to ensure availability of the Metadata Quorum, there can be "follower" Controllers in the Metadata Quorum which also store the metadata updates (synchronous replication). In case of failure of the leader, one of the followers can become the leader. In this specific case, it DOES make sense to scale the Brokers and Controllers independently. Why? First, the Controllers don't actually scale. One can be a leader at a time, so the others are just providing backup (note: for reasons beyond the scope of this post, it's best to have an odd number). Additionally, before KIP-853 is implemented, it's actually really hard to add or remove Controllers to/from the Metadata Quorum without downtime. Secondly, it's possible for a misbehaving client to take down a Broker, for example by sending way too much data to a specific partition. If it's just a single Broker that's lost, most of the cluster will continue on and live to fight another day. However, losing a Controller is a Very Bad Thing. Thus, by separating the Controllers from the Brokers, we can improve the availability of the cluster. It is indeed possible to run Kafka with some servers that share the responsibility of Controller and Broker. This is great for development (especially local dev) and also in *SOME* highly resource-constrained production environments. However, I would suggest as a rule of thumb that you should probably: - Separate out your Controllers on their own isolated machines - Start with a Metadata Quorum of size 3, which allows losing one Controller and continuing on alive - Put your Brokers on another set of nodes. Now, there's another good example of how Kafka scales X and Y independently: Compute and Storage. Watch out for the next "Colt Rant" about this, coming later this week! </rant> PS—here's the link to the previous post: https://lnkd.in/gXU77rKW

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Now we have two first class data catalogs integrated with MS Fabric now available in Azure. Of course DataBricks is the heavy heavy favorite in the enterprise lakehouses as well as AI (as of the conference that just finished 🤓)

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I think Ravi captures this so well. Conflict and friction are part of every successful and meaningful journey: "Of course you need to hire great people. But you can’t get out of their way. The best leaders set the standard and relentlessly reinforce it. Greatness is forged through high expectations and difficult conversations. [...] No one likes confrontation. But mediocrity creeps in when conflict ends. And if you want to be a great leader, that is not your fault…but it is your problem." https://lnkd.in/evrnm2VC

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This is an unpleasant, but important one. Layoff. I have faced this question several times last year in 1:1 “How can you keep your head steady on work when so many roles are impacted around you? Does that not concern you?” My shorter response had been - “If I tell you I am not concerned, I will be lying. But, if you can convince yourself that layoff is not the worst thing that can happen, that will take the pressure off”.  Then I shared 3 stories from my professional journey: Fresh out of collage, I joined a software company back in 2005. I had a plan and a dream to be successful, but someone else had a different one. That company laid off 40% of its population in 3 months, including me. I felt broken, humiliated and scared. I did not tell my parents about this for a week and was searching for jobs walking door to door of each tech firm. But, no company in town offered  job to a fresher. Ultimately I revealed the situation to my parents and they offered me what I needed most: a hug and assurance. Eventually got a job; but I had to leave safety net of my hometown. But this is where my career acceleration started. Most importantly, I learned how to survive by myself in a different city. That layoff, which seemed catastrophic at that moment, actually set the foundation for my career. 4 years later, I applied for a job in US and relocated. Again, I had plan and a dream. But, I ended up being in a project that had no material connection to Company’s mission. Team members started leaving and that included my hiring manager. There was no one to support me. My employment visa did not even allow me to switch job or city. So, I was stuck and stuck bad. I wished everyday, this team just let me go. My inability to take action and decision, pushed my frustration to its limit.This is when I decided to join academia and completed my masters in CS.  It was hard to dual between job and study; but it was beautiful. I could not change my professional situation, but enhanced my education. 3 years later, I joined Amazon. Walking into Amazon was like a dream come true. Very soon, I realized - this is way advanced game than what I was accustomed to. The speed of the company, the intense focus on solving complex problems and the culture is something I am not made for.  I declared at home - I won’t survive here. My family again shared what I needed the most - a hug. Rest is history. I started believing into Company’s mission, culture and myself. I worked very hard to elevate my skills. I kept delivering most fascinating customer experiences for Amazon and raised rank to Principal engineer.   Morale of the story:  1. Control the input metric and don’t wrestle with output metric. 2. Your family is your most valuable asset. Protect it more than anything else.  3. Layoff is not the worst. So why to be scared. 4. Job can be eliminated, not your career. Focus on your career and job will follow.

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Our little book from Accord Project maintainers is now on Amazon: "This book introduces computable contracts, also referred to as smart legal contracts. It emphasizes the integration of legal text with machine-readable data and executable logic as a solution to inefficiencies in contract management. It also explores the application of large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP) for computable contracts." https://lnkd.in/eZ8Fb_5F

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Solve Locally, Impact Globally!! As an engineer, your own curiosity and zeal to solve your own challenges often lead to solutions that are helpful for everyone. Personally, my love of tinkering with MBR to boot several OS (BeOS, Slackware and 10 more :) on a 400MHz Compaq led me to a journey of automating virtual appliances at VMware. Similarly, at Box, when building Box Graph, the challenge of interacting with too many 'Jeffs' led to the creation of a real-time recommendation platform. I believe that when you solve for yourself, you empathize with the user. While building Box AI, we are addressing problems that everyone encounters daily in a business setting. How do I organize my content and find information efficiently? How can I keep up-to-date with research? Last week, we made a plethora of Box AI announcements, including beta releases and product updates. For instance, Box AI Hubs (https://www.box.com/hubs) has been highly beneficial internally and is regularly used. This is how I stay informed about changes in benefits year-over-year for my specific case, communicate with our Go-to-Market Team about in-flight products, and facilitate engineers' migration from one observability stack to another, among many other uses. It's difficult to explain the joy you get when you make mundane tasks easier for yourself and others. There are more innovations to come with Box AI, offering better solutions for the common challenges we all face. Stay tuned! #boxai

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The scale we deal with, the complexity it brings in and the impact we create for millions of customers across the globe, are defining moments for our teams at Amazon India. Every day, our tech teams invent and deliver things that were never thought as possible! #HearFromBuilders at Amazon on how they solve real-world problems with technology. #NationalTechDay #ItsStillDay1 #AmazonIndia #TechAtAmazon

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Can you trust AI? 🤔 For most companies the answer is no - at least using current foundational models out of the box. ❌ Problems like sensitive data leakage and toxic content are major barriers to implementing production genAI solutions. The route towards trust lies in system architecture and the good news is the field is advancing rapidly, including increasingly easily accessible toolkits of solutions to increase trust in AI systems. 🔥 This is the hot area for new releases from major AI platform players (along with AI security), including AWS (https://lnkd.in/e45S-ehS), DataRobot (https://lnkd.in/eCWvppWR), and Databricks (https://lnkd.in/e6A7cTcH). 👨‍⚖️ Guardrail or judge models - leveraging a second AI model to police the content coming out of an original - are probably the most promising scalable solution. For many the best route is likely to be a new class of foundational models specifically designed for this task such as Llama Guard and Databrick’s new judge LLM. There is also the ability to fine tune a model (think a discriminator model from a GAN architecture) or use a general purpose foundational model. 👮‍♂️ Classic filtering techniques for sensitive data can also be applied to the result of an LLM, whether for PII, company IP, or inappropriate content. This can include regex, classic PII models (such as Amazon Comprehend), etc. 🚻 Human in the loop techniques can also be used, but are far more scalable when used to calibrate automated solutions such as those described above rather than manually verifying outputs in realtime. What’s still missing? 🔎 🎯 While techniques to improve accuracy and reduce hallucination such as RAG and AI agents have made great strides, there remains a big gap in conveying a model’s confidence in its output to end users. 💡One idea is to leverage the probability distributions used for top-p (nucleus sampling) at the token level instead at greater aggregations to convey confidence levels for entire model outputs or significant segments (e.g. each step in a chain of thought structure or AI agents framework). #ai, #artificialintelligence, #GenAI, #GenerativeAI, #llm, #datascience, #machinelearning, #mlops, #bigdata

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