Jaana Dogan ヤナ ドガン
@rakyll.org
Principal Engineer at Google. Simplicity and optimism. Personal opinions.
The lack of systems thinking in AI production systems is destroying my soul. It’s a major cultural challenge and most of the best engineers I know stay away from this field due to past burnout.
March 20, 2025 at 5:15 AM
The lack of systems thinking in AI production systems is destroying my soul. It’s a major cultural challenge and most of the best engineers I know stay away from this field due to past burnout.
There isn’t a single good example of a foundational model access API that provides composibility layers, bidirectional multimodal streaming, and optionally state management. People often get two of them correctly, not all three.
March 20, 2025 at 5:06 AM
There isn’t a single good example of a foundational model access API that provides composibility layers, bidirectional multimodal streaming, and optionally state management. People often get two of them correctly, not all three.
Reposted by Jaana Dogan ヤナ ドガン
IMHO, a large portion of this failure has been caused by the collapse of Congress over the last decade. Congress, in essence, no longer functions as a co-equal branch of government.
In effectively a single blink of the historical eye, we’ve seen our entire constitutional system simply … stop. We can clearly see what’s happening is wrong—illegal and unconstitutional—and the actors who can do something about that just … aren’t. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-s-...
America's "Constitutional Crash"
This isn't "just" a crisis.
www.doomsdayscenario.co
March 19, 2025 at 1:21 AM
IMHO, a large portion of this failure has been caused by the collapse of Congress over the last decade. Congress, in essence, no longer functions as a co-equal branch of government.
Reposted by Jaana Dogan ヤナ ドガン
can the entire world government be cool for like 5 minutes i'm kind of going through a lot rn
February 11, 2025 at 6:22 PM
can the entire world government be cool for like 5 minutes i'm kind of going through a lot rn
Almost all major projects I worked on started by 2-3 people sitting in the same meeting room and coding while debating for hours every day without any other distraction.
February 2, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Almost all major projects I worked on started by 2-3 people sitting in the same meeting room and coding while debating for hours every day without any other distraction.
I decided to cancel my transfer to DeepMind to be able to focus on distributed AI systems and open models. So much to do here, and last week's DeepSeek moment completely helped me revisit some long term goals.
This month is my last at Google. In a month, I'm joining Google DeepMind.
Our job will be making DeepMind's work publicly available in ways that wasn't possible before. While this is one of the biggest challenges in my life, it's potentially going to be the most rewarding.
Our job will be making DeepMind's work publicly available in ways that wasn't possible before. While this is one of the biggest challenges in my life, it's potentially going to be the most rewarding.
February 1, 2025 at 8:12 PM
I decided to cancel my transfer to DeepMind to be able to focus on distributed AI systems and open models. So much to do here, and last week's DeepSeek moment completely helped me revisit some long term goals.
Never bet against a few passionate people who want to unblock tens of thousands of companies.
February 1, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Never bet against a few passionate people who want to unblock tens of thousands of companies.
When you zoom in, you see the same stages underneath a single company too.
- Early stage: Elitism among teams
- Advanced stage: Monopoly on decision making and execution
- Terminal stage: Blaming successful teams
Culture matters. It can save you or accelerate your decline to the terminal stage.
- Early stage: Elitism among teams
- Advanced stage: Monopoly on decision making and execution
- Terminal stage: Blaming successful teams
Culture matters. It can save you or accelerate your decline to the terminal stage.
February 1, 2025 at 8:04 PM
When you zoom in, you see the same stages underneath a single company too.
- Early stage: Elitism among teams
- Advanced stage: Monopoly on decision making and execution
- Terminal stage: Blaming successful teams
Culture matters. It can save you or accelerate your decline to the terminal stage.
- Early stage: Elitism among teams
- Advanced stage: Monopoly on decision making and execution
- Terminal stage: Blaming successful teams
Culture matters. It can save you or accelerate your decline to the terminal stage.
Decentralize everything.
Open things where possible.
Everyone wins.
Open things where possible.
Everyone wins.
February 1, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Decentralize everything.
Open things where possible.
Everyone wins.
Open things where possible.
Everyone wins.
The biggest winner of the AI race will be distributed systems people. Everything is converging onto a distributed network of stuff and it is only accelerating in the last two years.
February 1, 2025 at 8:02 PM
The biggest winner of the AI race will be distributed systems people. Everything is converging onto a distributed network of stuff and it is only accelerating in the last two years.
People are wondering why I'm enjoying the LLM period:
- Thick client vs thin client fight
- Actor model vs RPC fight
As an engineer, I cannot think of a better way to challenge our conventional thinking. It entertains me intellectually but is also making me a better engineer.
- Thick client vs thin client fight
- Actor model vs RPC fight
As an engineer, I cannot think of a better way to challenge our conventional thinking. It entertains me intellectually but is also making me a better engineer.
February 1, 2025 at 2:34 AM
People are wondering why I'm enjoying the LLM period:
- Thick client vs thin client fight
- Actor model vs RPC fight
As an engineer, I cannot think of a better way to challenge our conventional thinking. It entertains me intellectually but is also making me a better engineer.
- Thick client vs thin client fight
- Actor model vs RPC fight
As an engineer, I cannot think of a better way to challenge our conventional thinking. It entertains me intellectually but is also making me a better engineer.
For someone who is programming for over 30 years, it's hard for me to believe every system, every model, every chip, every program will be fungible and regeneratable. There will be new systems/patterns that will end up becoming the new infra overlords, we just don't know which.
January 24, 2025 at 1:23 AM
For someone who is programming for over 30 years, it's hard for me to believe every system, every model, every chip, every program will be fungible and regeneratable. There will be new systems/patterns that will end up becoming the new infra overlords, we just don't know which.
When you have a highly ambiguous systems problem, try to solve it for the distributed case first. When you solve it for the distributed case, it's easy to pack things together in a monolith. The opposite is almost always impossible.
January 17, 2025 at 8:36 PM
When you have a highly ambiguous systems problem, try to solve it for the distributed case first. When you solve it for the distributed case, it's easy to pack things together in a monolith. The opposite is almost always impossible.
Good software engineering is about encapsulating complexity while avoiding hiding away failure modes.
January 16, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Good software engineering is about encapsulating complexity while avoiding hiding away failure modes.
This month is my last at Google. In a month, I'm joining Google DeepMind.
Our job will be making DeepMind's work publicly available in ways that wasn't possible before. While this is one of the biggest challenges in my life, it's potentially going to be the most rewarding.
Our job will be making DeepMind's work publicly available in ways that wasn't possible before. While this is one of the biggest challenges in my life, it's potentially going to be the most rewarding.
January 9, 2025 at 4:44 PM
This month is my last at Google. In a month, I'm joining Google DeepMind.
Our job will be making DeepMind's work publicly available in ways that wasn't possible before. While this is one of the biggest challenges in my life, it's potentially going to be the most rewarding.
Our job will be making DeepMind's work publicly available in ways that wasn't possible before. While this is one of the biggest challenges in my life, it's potentially going to be the most rewarding.
Building is very easy but it also lowers the bar to build stupid things.
January 7, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Building is very easy but it also lowers the bar to build stupid things.
I like to be used as OCD as a service.
January 7, 2025 at 4:40 PM
I like to be used as OCD as a service.
The most fascinating reality to me is you have to build a whole new person around languages you speak, especially if they have distinct communication styles or are from different language families.
January 7, 2025 at 8:45 AM
The most fascinating reality to me is you have to build a whole new person around languages you speak, especially if they have distinct communication styles or are from different language families.
Trying to have a deep, meaningful conversation in three languages is an exercise in futility. The mental juggling and context switch inevitably distracts even native speakers. Speaking multiple languages myself, I wouldn't put anyone through that, not even my worst enemy.
January 7, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Trying to have a deep, meaningful conversation in three languages is an exercise in futility. The mental juggling and context switch inevitably distracts even native speakers. Speaking multiple languages myself, I wouldn't put anyone through that, not even my worst enemy.
I am debating how close I became to retirement and people are in denial because they knew that I always wanted to work until 80s.
My justification is simple: I don't want to stop working. I want to start working ;)
My justification is simple: I don't want to stop working. I want to start working ;)
January 7, 2025 at 7:21 AM
I am debating how close I became to retirement and people are in denial because they knew that I always wanted to work until 80s.
My justification is simple: I don't want to stop working. I want to start working ;)
My justification is simple: I don't want to stop working. I want to start working ;)
We need to normalize being a solo developer again.
January 7, 2025 at 7:08 AM
We need to normalize being a solo developer again.
This is the closest I've ever come to truly wanting to retire. It's a complicated feeling.
January 7, 2025 at 3:29 AM
This is the closest I've ever come to truly wanting to retire. It's a complicated feeling.
Reposted by Jaana Dogan ヤナ ドガン
WARNING: This product contains programming languages known to the State of California to cause memory unsafety
January 7, 2025 at 3:17 AM
WARNING: This product contains programming languages known to the State of California to cause memory unsafety
Immersing myself in the Dune universe for an entire day, with "Prophecy" and both films, was probably not ideal before coming back to work after a long holiday. I'm now completely indoctrinated against the thinking machines.
January 7, 2025 at 2:32 AM
Immersing myself in the Dune universe for an entire day, with "Prophecy" and both films, was probably not ideal before coming back to work after a long holiday. I'm now completely indoctrinated against the thinking machines.
I am genuinely surprised to learn that reading a document could make you physically sick. It seems our brains can become so entrenched in a particular way of thinking that encountering alternative perspectives, even similar ones, feels like a violation, almost a primal rejection.
January 7, 2025 at 2:19 AM
I am genuinely surprised to learn that reading a document could make you physically sick. It seems our brains can become so entrenched in a particular way of thinking that encountering alternative perspectives, even similar ones, feels like a violation, almost a primal rejection.