R&D’s Future: Co-Ownership, Creativity, and Observability at the Core

“What is it that we all want out of our work? It’s autonomy, mastery, and meaning” In this episode, we’re peeling back the layers with Charity Majors, CTO and Co-Founder of Honeycomb.io, the pioneers of observability for complex systems. Charity talks to us about the importance of transparency and accountability in leadership, how software engineering can sometimes feel disconnected from the real impact of the work, why that happens, and how practices like engineers owning their code in production, observability, feature flags, and continuous deployments can help bring that impact closer… In this conversation, we don’t hold back! Charity and Aziza dive into what’s causing tears of joy and tears of frustration in the tech world as well as discussing:

• Why observability is crucial and the shift from Observability 1.0 to 2.0
• The need for transparency and accountability in leadership
• Performative DEI, personal values, and advice to future selves
• What it means to be a CTO — going beyond traditional roles and assumptions
• Why AI won’t build your teams, and the importance of junior engineers
• Socio-technical pathways to high-performing teams

  What is Cut The Onion? It’s a mini-series where we peel back the layers of tech roles, exploring the stories of those working in tech across various industries. Honest takes, trends, and tips for going forward! About Honeycomb.io: Honeycomb is an observability platform that helps engineering teams understand and solve problems with their cloud applications. About The Forward Podcast: In a world where technology intertwines with every aspect of our lives, how do industry experts and leaders plan to navigate forward? Explore bold moves and strategies for success amid constant disruption. Learn the ideas, behaviors, tools, and trends they’ll leave behind, and those they’ll carry forward to shape the future of work, life, and leadership.