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Lily Chen
Lily Chen

7.1K Followers

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Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie

·Pinned

Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie

A publication on profiling and other topics in observability — If you’ve seen the Barbie movie, you know where the “ordinary Barbie” reference came from. If you haven’t, you can probably still guess what it means. I’m Lily, senior software engineer on the profiling team at Datadog. It was more or less by chance I found myself on the profiling…

Observability

4 min read

Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie
Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie
Observability

4 min read


Published in

Towards Data Science

·Pinned

Linear regression and gradient descent for absolute beginners

A simple explanation and implementation of gradient descent — Let’s say we have a fictional dataset of pairs of variables, a mother and her daughter’s heights:

Linear Regression

6 min read

Linear regression and gradient descent for absolute beginners
Linear regression and gradient descent for absolute beginners
Linear Regression

6 min read


Published in

Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie

·Nov 2

How the Chrome Profiler helps you understand Javascript event loop

Event loop clearly explained — Profiling is commonly associated with performance optimization, but its applications extend far beyond that. For example, I had previously written on how profiling data can help estimate latency impact of infrastructure downsizing. Increasingly, one of the things I’m starting to appreciate more about profiling is that it can help you…

JavaScript

6 min read

How the Chrome Profiler helps you understand Javascript event loop
How the Chrome Profiler helps you understand Javascript event loop
JavaScript

6 min read


Published in

Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie

·Oct 11

Intro to Memory Profiling & Chrome DevTools Memory Tab explained

I think the Homer hiding gif best captures my immediate reaction when I saw the Memory tab for the first time.

Chrome

8 min read

Intro to Memory Profiling & Chrome DevTools Memory Tab explained
Intro to Memory Profiling & Chrome DevTools Memory Tab explained
Chrome

8 min read


Published in

Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie

·Oct 4

How profiling could forecast latency impact of infrastructure downsizing

Save money with limited performance impact — Profiling is first and foremost associated with performance optimization. However, another use case of profiling could be cost saving. This is something we’ve been exploring at work recently. Let’s say you have a backend service for some API endpoints. You allocate some number of CPU cores to this service. 3…

Software Engineering

7 min read

How profiling could forecast latency impact of infrastructure downsizing
How profiling could forecast latency impact of infrastructure downsizing
Software Engineering

7 min read


Published in

Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie

·Sep 23

Profiling: Flame Chart vs. Flame Graph

Flame Charts and Flame Graphs clearly explained — Flame charts and Flame graphs are both techniques of visualizing profiling data. For many software engineers, they are the first visualizations we encounter when we first start doing performance work. If you’re a frontend engineer like myself, chances are the Flame chart is what you are most familiar with. Although…

Software Development

4 min read

Profiling: Flame Chart vs. Flame Graph
Profiling: Flame Chart vs. Flame Graph
Software Development

4 min read


Published in

Performance engineering for the ordinary Barbie

·Aug 10

Surfacing performance issues with effective visualization of profiling data

There are two principles in software development: Efficiency and performance are increasingly important parts of software development. It’s on the software, or more specifically, the makers of the software, to create an intuitive experience. In other words, it is NOT on the users to guess what the software wants them…

Datadog

6 min read

Surfacing performance issues with effective visualization of profiling data
Surfacing performance issues with effective visualization of profiling data
Datadog

6 min read


Published in

ILLUMINATION

·Feb 20

My Medium Earnings Perfectly Illustrate Why “Follow Your Passion” Is Poor Advice

Here’s the much better advice instead — I have a confession to make. I don’t have an innate passion for writing technical blog posts. I started writing them as a way of solidifying my own learning. You know the saying: if you can’t explain something, you don’t understand it. …

Tech

3 min read

My Medium Earnings Perfectly Illustrate Why “Follow Your Passion” Is Poor Advice
My Medium Earnings Perfectly Illustrate Why “Follow Your Passion” Is Poor Advice
Tech

3 min read


Published in

The Fleeting Moments

·Feb 14

What surprised me the most when I became a mom

When I reached my late twenties, my Instagram feed started to flood with new parents my age who looked like they aged an entire decade soon after their baby was born. They say parents make so many sacrifices for their children — that when you have a baby, your whole…

Motherhood

4 min read

What surprised me the most when I became a mom
What surprised me the most when I became a mom
Motherhood

4 min read


Published in

The Fleeting Moments

·Feb 13

One trick to happiness I wish I knew sooner

What makes you happy? For many of us, it’s not a simple question to answer. In my twenties, I’ve often found myself doing things I enjoyed but regretted later. I’ve also often found myself feeling happy in retrospect about things I did not enjoy in the moment. …

Life Lessons

3 min read

One trick to happiness I wish I knew sooner
One trick to happiness I wish I knew sooner
Life Lessons

3 min read

Lily Chen

Lily Chen

7.1K Followers

Senior software engineer at Datadog. I write about tech and life. Portfolio: https://lilychencodes.com/

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