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Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

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Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#51

Post by mohitk05 »

oa335 wrote: post #10

I would be interested to hear others experiences with running these types of groups. We’ve tried this a couple of times at my current job and both times it’s petered out - people don’t do the assigned reading and then just stop attending. Any suggestions on how to keep such a group alive?

I co-run a similar group at my company (added a comment above), what has worked for us and we realised this early on: not everyone will have the time to read and hence the sessions need to have a driver/lead. Assigning reading does not work unfortunately as many attend such groups voluntarily in addition to their primary work.

We as organisers (better to have at least 2) prepared before hand, either a presentation or a document, and then presented it in the group. While doing this, the group is free to discuss and interrupt at any time (we chose a slighly informal venue in the office).

Gradually, after about 10 sessions, we started seeing voluntary interest from the attendees to present a paper. And honestly this was an amazing feeling. So I'd suggest first finding a co-organiser who is interested in doing this and then pushing through the initial sessions by driving the topic yourself. That said, since you are preparing, you are free to choose the papers. We saw that if you choose papers related to a common larger theme that you are interested in, people would show up. Initially the attendance would be low, but with regular meetings, you'd start seeing regulars.

Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#52

Post by smokel »

eldenring wrote: post #7
smokel wrote: post #5

I understand that in a research lab or in academia, this is common practice. But in the more menial coding industry that most of us are probably in, how do you find time for this? Do people read papers in their spare time and discuss over lunch, or are there enlightened managers who support this during working hours?

I'm not sure what you mean by menial coding but all my employers have supported this in the past. This was a variety of companies, big tech, startups, etc. I think its more likely your employer is the outlier.

Interestingly, the person at Microsoft states in a reply that even most of them have to pick this up in their spare time. Judging from other replies, it seems that there are quite some differences in how companies approach this.

What I meant with "menial coding" is those jobs where people have to submit TPS reports on how much hours they spend for each customer. Reading a paper such as this one [1] is typically not directly necessary for being a good frontend developer, but it might stimulate someone to develop into a more fruitful employee in the long run. Managers would have to explain to their customer why time is being spent on that, and that requires some vision and creativity, which is not always a given.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762

Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#53

Post by obezyian »

titanomachy wrote: post #49
zihotki wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That implies that you have a fixed time for lunch and also chat during lunch. I may be the minority but I prefer to eat when I'm hungry and focus on the food instead of chatting. And there is also allergies, as a celiac, I have big troubles eating together with others - they may accidently contaminate my food

It sounds like you could get very high ROI from chilling out a little bit. If one social lunch per month is an unfathomable hardship then you're probably leaving a lot of other opportunities on the table. Do you have OCD or social anxiety or something?

Apparently, people with celiac disease do have "anxiety or something":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease#Dietary_challe...

Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#54

Post by OJFord »

smokel wrote: post #5

I understand that in a research lab or in academia, this is common practice. But in the more menial coding industry that most of us are probably in, how do you find time for this? Do people read papers in their spare time and discuss over lunch, or are there enlightened managers who support this during working hours?

If it happens in the office and on the calendar then I can't imagine it being an issue? (vs. an extended jolly at the pub every lunch through the afternoon for unofficial 'reading group'!) Would take quite a micromanaging and anti-L&D employer/manager.

Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#55

Post by fc417fc802 »

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #29
zihotki wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That implies that you have a fixed time for lunch and also chat during lunch. I may be the minority but I prefer to eat when I'm hungry and focus on the food instead of chatting. And there is also allergies, as a celiac, I have big troubles eating together with others - they may accidently contaminate my food

I’m actually curious here, not trying to question your experience but does other people’s food regularly contaminate your food when you eat at the same table as them? I’ve lived with a celiac sufferer before and I’ve never heard of something that extreme, but everyone’s different.

The degree of sensitivity of allergies varies widely. For example there are people who only have a problem after consuming a large scoop of peanut butter but there are also those who will end up in the hospital from trace amounts that you'd have difficulty spotting with the naked eye.

Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#56

Post by adampunk »

elankart wrote: post #36
RomanPushkin wrote: post #33

I've seen such reading groups. I worked for Atlassian, and there was a reading group. My impression is it was organized only as a low effort just to demonstrate that IC is going extra mile for the company. The quality of such reading groups were quite low. And it was expected that you would attend this reading group at a lunch time. You're taking your lunch with you, and instead of enjoying your meal, you're cramped…

What a buzzkill and a super negative comment.

I’m sorry that you find the modal experience in reading groups to be bad?

It seems like the reading group that the OP put together was really successful. Most are not. That’s not really the fault of someone else for sharing their experience.

Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#57

Post by Foe »

mohitk05 wrote: post #50

Congratulations on the five year mark! I co-run a similar paper reading group at Zalando (European e-commerce) and recently shared our learnings/experience[1] of running such a group for over a year and I'm happy to see so many similarities. We focus our papers around distributed systems, software engineering and languages and try to cover more ground on the applications of the concepts discussed in the papers. The b…

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Re: Five years of running a systems reading group at Microsoft

#58

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #55
tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m actually curious here, not trying to question your experience but does other people’s food regularly contaminate your food when you eat at the same table as them? I’ve lived with a celiac sufferer before and I’ve never heard of something that extreme, but everyone’s different.

The degree of sensitivity of allergies varies widely. For example there are people who only have a problem after consuming a large scoop of peanut butter but there are also those who will end up in the hospital from trace amounts that you'd have difficulty spotting with the naked eye.

I dated a woman with celiac sprue (which I guess was extreme.. her mother had to have a bowel resection due to celiac related issues) and she had sudden anaphylaxis at a restaurant that required the use of an epi-pen and an ambulance.

The reaction was caused by the micro-brewery that had opened next door and all the wheat dust in the ventilation system.

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