Work on Eri Bastos

Fix What Hurts Most

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have talked about the Pareto Principle a few times before. Many people know it as the 80/20 rule. I do not treat it as some law of physics or precise math, but do I treat it as a useful heuristic. In messy systems, a small number of problems often create a disproportionate amount of the pain. I have leaned on that idea for years in both my personal and professional life.

LLMs: How to Get Past “Meh” Outputs

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 09:11:35 +0000

When I’m doing deep technical work, I sometimes get a nagging feeling that pulls me down a specific troubleshooting route, line of investigation, or coding path. It’s hard to explain, but it feels a lot like what the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” describes as System 1 thinking and heuristics. My take is that highly experienced professionals build intuition over time, and that intuition gives them a spider-sense-like advantage.

It’s also hard to explain how to develop that spider sense. But it seems tied to deep practice: Real reps, under pressure, right at the edge of what you can currently do. As per Gemini:

I Fix Broken Things

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:08:35 +0000

More than 20 years ago, I got hired at my first “large” company. It was a financial institution with about 350 employees, and an IT department of about 30 people split between operations and development.

On my first day, the guy I was replacing came in just to show me the most important part of my new role: keep a critical risk assessment tool online.

Now, you have to remember this was the early 2000s, in a company with very little technical expertise. I was still a young professional, and some of the SRE principles I breathe like air today were not even a thing.

My GenAI Toolkit: Lessons from 2024

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 15:43:04 +0000

This past week, OpenAI announced o3; all reports suggest they’ve achieved some form of AGI. I’m struggling to wrap my head around this because AGI always seemed like a distant future concept, not something that’s here now. But let’s set that aside for a moment and examine how AI has shaped my 2024.

My primary use for Generative AI (GenAI) this year has been in communications. Despite considering myself a good communicator, having English as my second language sometimes leaves me fumbling for the right words. Grammarly helps, but GenAI takes it to another level. Here’s how I use it:

Building a Cohesive and Recognized Team

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 13:32:52 +0000

Our team of about seventy people is a relatively small part of our company, which has over three thousand employees. While many of our engineers are well-known among peers in software engineering or customer support, there are simply too many of us—and them—to remember who belongs to which group and what everyone does.

To address this, we asked all our engineers to add a common tag to the end of their profile names on Zoom—e.g., (TEAM). This small change had an outsized impact.

The One-Hour Communication Triage: How I Stay on Top of Slack and Email

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 11:52:01 +0000

Before I describe my approach to Slack and Email (the two main communication systems that I use), let me tell you about a general approach to taking action, which I learned from the “Getting Things Done” methodology:

I complete every action item that takes less than five minutes right away—replies, action items, approving stuff. Whatever can be done quickly is done on the spot. However, if it will take more effort, I will add it to my to-do list—or mark it as unread—and come back to it later.

Bring Solutions

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 18:10:46 +0000

There’s a good chance that problems exist in your company. No team, process, or tool is perfect. Identifying these problems is relatively easy. But have you ever wondered why so few venture beyond simple identification? My years of experience in the industry show me that 99% of people stop there, adopting one of two attitudes:

1- They incessantly complain, becoming bitter.

2- They adopt a defeatist attitude where nothing changes, leading to depression.

Career: Internal Mobility

Sat, 25 Nov 2023 10:42:40 +0000

Throughout my career in IT, I’ve done a bit of everything. In small and medium-sized companies where I started, it was common for me to fix a network one day and deal with a rebellious mouse the next. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call “internal mobility,” but I certainly wasn’t standing still.

However, when we talk about large corporations, the story changes. My first leap to a large company was with IBM around 2004. I’ll save the explanation for another day, but I thought I was being interviewed for a position in the Unix team. Imagine my surprise on my first work day when I discovered I had been hired in the network team!

Continuous Improvement: The Path to Excellence

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 14:35:02 +0000

The quest for operational excellence is unending in Cloud Engineering and Operations. We want to do more, better, faster, with fewer errors and with the same number of people. Amidst this quest, the philosophy of Continuous Improvement, a concept well-articulated by James Clear, finds a resounding echo. The essence of this philosophy lies in embracing a culture of making small, consistent improvements daily, which, over time, aggregate to substantial advancements.

The Myths Holding Us Back

Often, there’s a misconception in the operational realm that a massive overhaul of processes, done once and for all, will lead to a toil-free, highly automated environment.

Boost Resilience with Upstream Thinking

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 21:32:53 +0000

In the high-speed realm of Information Technology, professionals often engage in a continuous cycle of troubleshooting, colloquially known as “firefighting.” Imagine an IT team constantly dealing with server crashes or software bugs only as they occur, causing operational disruptions and mounting frustration. That’s the firefighting approach. But there’s a game-changing alternative: upstream thinking. Inspired by Dan Heath’s book, “Upstream,” this concept encourages a proactive approach to IT, prioritizing the prevention of issues over firefighting. Think of it as building resilient systems that mitigate the risk of server crashes and designing software with robust error handling and prevention strategies.

Taking Ownership of Your Career: Invest in Yourself and Achieve Professional Growth

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 01:00:00 +0000

Imagine you are visiting a lawyer to get assistance with your legal questions. He looks at your request and says: “You know what, I don’t know much about that. But if you can buy me a few books and reimburse me for training, I can help you.”

This is a paraphrase of something Sandro Mancuso wrote in his excellent book The Software Craftsman and it really resonated with me.

As a manager, I try my best to give my team opportunities for self-development and constantly lobby upper management for a training budget. However, in this post, I emphasize the importance of taking ownership of your career and personal growth.

Letting Go of the Chainsaw: Lessons from Firefighters for Software Engineers

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 01:00:00 +0000

I am reading this excellent book called Range, and I just went through an interesting chapter where the author reports some studies that were looking at why some firefighters die trying to outrun a fire while carrying heavy chainsaws, axes and other equipment. Should they have dropped those, they would have survived.

Emotional Attachment to Tools

One possible explanation is that their tools are so intrinsically linked to their identity as firefighters that they become almost like an extra limb on a subconscious level. People don’t realize those tools are not part of their being and can be dropped.

Building Mental Toughness: A Key to Professional Success

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 01:00:00 +0000

As someone who has always wanted to excel professionally, I’ve come to understand that mental toughness is crucial in achieving success. It’s often the difference between those who excel and those who don’t.

Mental toughness is all about how you respond to stress. Do you panic and lose control, or do you zero in on how you will overcome the difficulty? I’m actually pretty good at this when it comes to work. Even when the world around me is falling apart, I can keep my focus and get the job done.

Sharpening Your Axe: The Key to Achieving Lasting Success in Your Career and Life

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 01:00:00 +0000

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” - Abraham Lincoln.

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.” - Archilochus.

These two quotes may seem enough to make a point, but let’s dive deeper. While powerful quotes inspire us, it is reflecting on their meaning that can lead to actual growth and understanding.

The Value of Thinking Outside the Box: A Tale of Two Employees

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 01:00:00 +0000

An old employee, who has been working for the company for ten years, knocks on the boss’s door with a complaint. The employee mentions that he has been arriving half an hour early and leaving half an hour late daily, working hard, and never complaining. However, a new employee, who started six months ago, has already been promoted and earns more without putting in extra hours. The old employee feels this is unfair and wants to address the issue.