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Irina Stanescu

Tech Lead - Senior Software Engineer 2 - Leadership Coach

Irina Stanescu is an experienced engineering leader and coach with over 14 years in the tech industry.12 She was a Staff Software Engineer and Tech Lead at Uber from January 2017 to July 2020.3 At Uber, Irina led the redesign of the entire delivery experience in the Uber Eats Eater app and architected a server-driven model-view framework for various delivery modalities.3

Prior to Uber, Irina worked at Google as a Tech Lead Manager, where her team built dynamic ad insertion for the Google Fiber Mobile TV App.12 She successfully influenced across multiple organizations at Google, including Google Fiber, YouTube, and DoubleClick.2

Irina is currently an engineering leadership coach and content creator.5 She authors "The Caring Techie Newsletter" with over 20,000 subscribers and is a LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 30,000 followers.5 Irina also teaches a course on "Impact through Influence in Engineering Teams" on Maven.5

Originally from Bucharest, Romania, Irina graduated with a Computer Engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest before moving to San Francisco, California.4 Her LinkedIn username is irinastanescu.3

Highlights

Aug 27 · linkedin

I had to try asking chatGPT to count rs in strawberry myself (forgive my typo). I was expecting it to fight me on the answer like I saw on TikTok. Instead, I got an even better answer 😂

Interestingly, if you add “verify with code” to the query, it works.

Playing around with various typos for "strawberry" identifies that it might be a typo for strawberry, but also yields incorrect results.

LLMs will be LLMs.

Aug 27 · linkedin

Don't fool yourself - being nice, pleasant, and friendly isn't always kind. Sugarcoating feedback, not challenging ideas, and always saying yes won't make you a better engineer or leader. Kind ≠ nice.

If you avoid conflict, do not share important things because they might hurt other people’s feelings, and repeatedly excuse others’ mistakes, you might be one of the 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 people.

I also used use the words nice and kind interchangeably to describe a good, helpful, and friendly person. But in reality, they not only do not mean the same, but they’re not even synonymous.

What makes them different is their underlying motivations and effects in the long run.

• Nice = Your primary concern is not upsetting others and being liked. • Kind = Your primary concern is acting in the best interest of others, which is more important to you than being liked.

• Nice = maintaining short-term harmony • Kind = willing to disrupt short-term harmony for the long-term benefits.

If you want to learn how kind vs nice manifests in engineering teams, head over to my latest article: https://lnkd.in/gZeQYVPV

It is possible to be nice without being kind or to be kind without being nice. And it is possible to try and be both. But in situations where you might upset others, which one do you decide to be nice or kind?

♻️ Please repost if this message resonated with you

Related Questions

What are some key projects Irina Stanescu led at Uber?
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What is "The Caring Techie" newsletter about?
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What skills does Irina Stanescu emphasize for career growth in tech?
Irina Stanescu
Irina Stanescu, photo 1
Irina Stanescu, photo 2
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Location

San Francisco, California, United States