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Robert Chang

Data Platform @Airbnb, ex-Twitter, studied @stanford, @cal, 🇺🇸 🇹🇼

Five Lessons To Improve Infrastructure Reliability

Five Lessons To Improve Infrastructure Reliability

Recently, a few incidents prompted my team to re-examine our approach to reliability. As a result, we invested deeply in tooling, observability, alerting, and deployment safety. Along the way, we uncovered several important lessons—not just for our team, but for any team operating complex, business-critical data infrastructure. Here are

April Digest

April Digest

My April Digest. Blog Posts Here are some of the noteworthy blog posts I have read: The Best Programmers I Know This blog post describes some of common traits of the the best programmers * Read the Reference: Don’t go to Stack Overflow. Don’t ask the LLM. Don’t

March Digest

March Digest

I’m trying out a new format to summarize some of the noteworthy blog posts, YouTube videos, and books I consumed over the past month. It’s a way for me to reflect on insights I’ve picked up from others and connect them with ideas I already find meaningful.

How to Ship with Excellence

How to Ship with Excellence

Introduction Throughout my time at Airbnb, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside many talented individuals. One key trait I’ve noticed in those who consistently deliver outstanding work is their ability to ship projects with both quality and excellence. In this post, I want to explore what that

Luck Favors the Prepared: My Journey Across Three Roles at Airbnb

Career growth doesn’t always mean switching companies — sometimes, the best opportunities are right where you are. Introduction I joined Airbnb in early 2016 and recently celebrated my ninth anniversary at the company. Many, including myself, are surprised by how long I’ve stayed with a single company. In Silicon

Make Your Codebase a Little Better Every Day

Make Your Codebase a Little Better Every Day

Introduction I recently came across Sean Goedecke's post on What Can Strong Engineers Do That Weak Engineers Can't?, and I found it to be a compelling read. His thesis is that strong engineers can tackle tasks that others simply cannot. While I agree with much of

How Four Years at Airbnb Shaped My Career and Perspective

How Four Years at Airbnb Shaped My Career and Perspective

A few months ago, I celebrated my 4-year work anniversary at Airbnb. I feel incredibly fortunate to have joined such a mission-driven company and even more grateful for the opportunity to work alongside so many talented, compassionate, and genuinely inspiring people. While honing technical skills has always been a top