Empowering Engineers – Maximizing Positive Impact Through Technology “Individually, we hold a piece of the solution; together, we make it whole.”

blog | resume | linkedin.com/in/tonytamsf

My Blog Posts

Living in Hawaii | Parenting | Running Every Paris Metro Stop | Working @ Yahoo for 16 years | Latte Art | Being An Engineer | Travel To Paris & Beyond | Restaurant Owner | Journey To 2,400 Push Up In 24 Hours | Getting Things Done | Exercise | Food | Coffee | Badminton | Tennis | San Francisco | Podcasts | Engineering Productivity

See the latest blog posts at https://tonytam.org

What Drives Me At Work And Personal Life

• Community
• Creativity
• Autonomy

Core Values

• Empowerment: My passion is helping others excel in their work, whether or not they are in my direct team.
• Open Communication: I strive to break down silos and recognize that organizational charts alone cannot address systemic issues. I believe in being mindful of Conway’s Law.
• Doing vs. Taking: I prefer to take action by creating proofs of concept, addressing systemic problems, and involving others in the process.

Personal Background

Tony Tam is a first-generation Chinese American who immigrated to San Francisco at the age of 10. He was raised in the San Francisco public school system, where he benefited from the ESL program. Tony graduated from Lowell High School and earned a BA in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He shares some of his million data points here.

Family Life

Tony is a proud father to his college-aged daughter Cate @ceik0 (artist and writer), an aspiring artist and writer. He is also an adoring husband to his wife Katherine Toy.

Work History

Dec 2022 – Director of Engineering, Developer Ecosystem

Apr 14, 2022 – Sr. Manager of Developer Ecosystem

• Splunkbase, Developer Edition, App Health and Developer Success teams

Feb 28th, 2022 – Sr. Manager of App Health team

• App Inspect API, App Review Portal

2016 – 2022 – Sr. Principal Engineering Productivity engineer as well as Manager

1999 – 2016 – Sr. Principal engineer, engineering lead, manager of Yahoo News and Yahoo Media

1995-1999 – Member of Technical Staff at Silicon Graphics

Expectations Of Engineering Teams

• Ownership – Own your work, ask for help and don’t be blocked, you have to remove roadblocks and I’m here to help.
• Collaborate – Software engineering is a team sport, you can not solve difficult issues alone. Ask questions, and collaborate to solve problems together.
• Learning – It’s okay not to know everything, no one does. Have a growth mindset, especially in the Engineering Productivity team where we have to help onboard every new engineer.
• Share Knowledge – After you learn something, or you already have a skill, teach someone else via tech talks, short demos, a new go/workshop

Interest Outside of Work

• Founded impactfulengineer.org to help engineers learn from impactful engineers in the industry
• I organize 30+ people to play advanced badminton at sfbadminton.org
• I organize 200 people to play tennis at http://sf-tennis.org
• On weekends, I write Java code and contribute to the podcast ecosystem via AntennaPod – Google Play | MRs

Tony’s Favorite Sayings

I’m allergic to powerpoint slides, let me just demo it.	In my career, I’ve usually outlasts my managers, I focus on the work I love.
I have an obsessive personality, my latest obsession is ..	I’m an engineer, that is who I am and how I think.
I see this computer industry as one big community, no matter which company you work for, you are still part of this community.

The postings on this site are my own and do not represent the position or opinions of my employer.