DIANA TKACHENKO: It's like a rainy afternoon
with some crunch.
Mm, five stars.
So some people might just kind of take a potato chip
and just eat it, but I want you to do this.
So you pick it up, look to the side
a little bit, and then you--
DOUG STEVENSON: Hey, Diana.
Glad you found the set.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Oh.
Hi, Doug.
I think you're a little early.
DOUG STEVENSON: No, we're here to meet Firebase, right?
DIANA TKACHENKO: Well, I'm actually doing my food review
right now--
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, food reviews.
Oh, cool!
DIANA TKACHENKO: --with my YouTube channel.
So I'm just teaching people how to eat a potato chip
to really get the taste of it.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, can I help?
I can do this.
Here, I'll do one.
DIANA TKACHENKO: You've got to--
DOUG STEVENSON: We really should start--
DIANA TKACHENKO: --really taste it, and then you go--
[INHALES DEEPLY]
Doug!
[LOUD CRUNCHING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DOUG STEVENSON: Hey, everybody.
Welcome to "Meet Firebase," the show
where you get to meet the Googlers that
make Firebase happen.
My name is Doug Stevenson.
I'm the developer advocate with the Firebase team.
And on the show with me today is Diana Tkachenko.
Diana,
DIANA TKACHENKO: You gotta pull.
It's a very dry pear.
[APPLAUSE]
DOUG STEVENSON: Are you OK?
DIANA TKACHENKO: These are fantastic.
DOUG STEVENSON: Diana.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Hi.
DOUG STEVENSON: It's so good to finally meet you.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Thanks, for having me.
DOUG STEVENSON: We work on some of the same stuff,
but we've never actually met face to face.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's true.
DOUG STEVENSON: So it's good to finally put a face
to all the words that I see.
DIANA TKACHENKO: A lot of chat messages.
Yep.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, lots of chat messages.
So thanks for making it here to the Fire Basement.
What do you think of the place?
DIANA TKACHENKO: I like it.
I like the Fire Basement.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yes.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's a good idea.
DOUG STEVENSON: It's trendy.
We do our best.
DIANA TKACHENKO: What is that?
DOUG STEVENSON: That is a picture
of a very poorly-expressed computer.
It is a couple of 5 and 1/4 inch floppy disks, so I like that.
That's my era.
So what do you do with Firebase team now?
What's going on in Firebase for you?
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah.
So I'm an engineer on Cloud Functions for Firebase.
And I was actually on Firebase Hosting previously,
and I just moved over to functions.
So that's exciting, a whole new array of problems to work on.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, Yeah.
There's a lot under that umbrella, right?
DIANA TKACHENKO: There's a lot.
DOUG STEVENSON: So many different products all
tied up into one.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, we're kind of
like the glue between Cloud and Firebase.
So we're really positioned in a way
to integrate the Cloud products into Firebase offerings.
DOUG STEVENSON: And how long have you
been working on that now?
DIANA TKACHENKO: Just about a month and a half.
DOUG STEVENSON: Month and a half?
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yes.
DOUG STEVENSON: How are things ramping up for you?
Because I've found that there's a lot there to learn.
DIANA TKACHENKO: There's a lot.
There's a lot.
Still ramping, a lot of things to do.
Went through the Cloud docs, went through the Firebase docs,
making sure that everything is compatible,
the experiences are the same.
We're working closely with the Cloud Functions team there
in Warsaw, so yeah, so that's exciting-- more partnerships.
DOUG STEVENSON: So core Cloud Functions is over in Warsaw.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yep.
DOUG STEVENSON: And then Firebase
adds APIs on top of that.
And that's what we work on.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's right.
Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, yeah.
Yeah.
And it turns out, I think, Firebase customers
are driving most of the traffic for Cloud Functions.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's right.
That's right.
DOUG STEVENSON: So we actually kind of call the shots
in some sense, right?
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's right.
We are very excited.
We see the graphs, and we see that we are driving
a lot of the traffic there.
The exciting part is, now that we revamped the team,
we have a new agreement to work with Cloud Functions
even closer so that we can go into their code base,
and we can make changes there, which we didn't really
do before.
And so we can work on high-priority things that
are high-priority for Firebase, maybe lower priority for Cloud.
But we can go in there, and we can implement them.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
That's great.
DIANA TKACHENKO: So I'm excited to do that.
DOUG STEVENSON: Because a lot of the bugs and feature requests
that come in are not really Firebase bugs or features.
They're more Cloud stuff.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's right.
DOUG STEVENSON: And so it's super-helpful for all of you
out there for us to be able to get into the Cloud product
and work on it directly.
DIANA TKACHENKO: For sure.
DOUG STEVENSON: So I'm excited for that new relationship.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: What I'm also excited to hear is--
so we just talked about what you're doing today,
but you have a whole world of experience doing other things,
up until this point where you're an engineer at Google.
So tell me your story.
Just start at the beginning. because there's so much there.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Oh, where to start?
OK, so I was born in Russia, in Siberia.
I moved to America when I was 10, straight into Palo Alto.
My father is an engineer, so he got a job here.
Never really thought about programming myself.
I was doing a lot of ballet.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's very different.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Very different, yes.
I've done ballet since I was four.
So started in Russia.
I continued here.
I trained a lot, did pre-professional program then
started professional program.
So that was about 20 years of ballet, I'd say.
DOUG STEVENSON: Wow.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, that's been kind of my focus
the whole time.
I also did some piano on the side there.
Yeah, I would say that's been kind of my main focus.
And then when I went to college, I was not really sure
what I want to study.
DOUG STEVENSON: So did you have a major?
Were you undecided?
DIANA TKACHENKO: I changed my major about five times.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's a lot.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's four more times than a lot of people.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, yeah.
So I entered in as a physics major.
My parents are both physicists.
I think that's why physics kind of makes sense
to me, in a weird way.
But yeah, I entered as physics.
And then I was like, well, I don't know.
Maybe I should do economics.
Maybe I should do business.
Maybe I should do math.
So I just kept jumping around.
And then I thought, oh, what about law?
Just kind of looked at the different essays
that I'd written in middle school, high school.
They all kind of centered around some legal aspect.
And I decided to do a legal studies major
where I get to try out some law before actually committing
to law school.
So Berkeley had a nice program there.
So I graduated in 2010, which is when there was the recession,
and nobody was hiring lawyers.
And so I was like, I'm going to have
to rethink what I'm going to be doing, because I am not going
to go to law school right now.
At that time, I was still dancing.
And I was kind of excited to, now that I'm done with school,
I can devote my whole time to dancing.
At this time, I was dancing professionally
with some small companies in San Francisco.
And you know, I got really burnt out pretty quickly.
I think it was a nice balance to have school where it's
like your mind is working, and then dancing
where your mind's resting, your body's working.
And I didn't really realize that until I didn't have it anymore,
didn't have that balance.
Yeah.
And so then I was like, OK, I don't know what to do now.
I should get a job somewhere.
Can't go to law school.
So I kind of did this roller coaster ride
where I was just working different jobs.
I worked in retail.
I worked in restaurants.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
And at some point, I started meeting people
that were in the tech industry.
And they suggested, hey, you can probably
try to get a job as a data analyst, or maybe a product
manager, or something around tech
where you don't really have to be an engineer specifically.
DOUG STEVENSON: So being an engineer was not on your radar
originally?
DIANA TKACHENKO: No, I was like, oh, I'm
not trained to do any of that.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah.
And so I was like, OK.
So then I applied to a lot of companies,
and I didn't really get any responses at all.
The competition was very stiff.
DOUG STEVENSON: So let me get this straight.
You're still dancing during the day,
and you're sending out resumes and applications at night.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yes.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's a lot.
DIANA TKACHENKO: It's a lot of work.
It was a lot of work.
Sent out about 50 applications with custom cover letters
for each one.
So yeah, I was absolutely exhausted,
didn't get very many callbacks at all.
Got maybe one phone interview after which
they were like, nah.
And I kind of thought, well, maybe it's
not really meant to be.
Then in comes my dad.
So I did mention my dad is an engineer.
My dad has been telling me over, and over,
and over, and over, throughout my life,
that I might enjoy programming.
DOUG STEVENSON: So this is a suggestion to you.
DIANA TKACHENKO: It's a suggestion.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
All right.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah.
So he was like, you know, I think you would really like it.
I'm like, dad, this is just-- you know,
I don't think this is for me.
Maybe this is for you, but I don't really
feel that connection.
So here I am.
He catches me.
He asks again.
Well, I have a lot of Java books.
And you know those books?
DOUG STEVENSON: Mm-hm.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Oh, my god, the ones that are that thick?
DOUG STEVENSON: Mm-hm.
DIANA TKACHENKO: And they have animals on the cover.
So he comes in, and he's like, hey, I have this book.
I think maybe you should read it.
It was "Object-Oriented Java."
So I started reading the book.
The first chapter, there's lots and lots of words.
The book is very thick, and I'm just
kind of-- it really tries to get you
to think in an object-oriented way, gently.
So it starts talking about a light bulb
and the on and the off.
And I'm just kind of reading it.
And I'm like, hm, OK, I guess it kind of makes sense--
an object, and it has attributes, and it has methods.
And I'm kind of like, hmm, it kind of makes sense.
DOUG STEVENSON: Did this book have illustrations and stuff?
DIANA TKACHENKO: No.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, OK, because I'm
thinking of head first programming where that's how
they try to introduce you to--
DIANA TKACHENKO: Oh, yeah.
See?
That would be more fun, I guess.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
This is more engaging for people.
DIANA TKACHENKO: This was just text.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, wow.
DIANA TKACHENKO: It was big, though, so that was good.
That was OK.
The font was big.
So not tiny font, but still like that thick.
So I'm reading this book, and I'm kind of like, all right,
there's this light bulb thing, I guess.
You can turn it on.
You can turn it off.
And I'm not really that engaged.
Then I think, well, you know, maybe this
is not for me, still, like I don't
feel that connection there.
So I kind of close the book and put it off.
And so two weeks go by.
I don't open the book.
I'm a little frustrated.
I don't really understand the point of what I read
and how it's supposed to make sense.
Then I'm cleaning my room two weeks later, find the book.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, it's this thing again that I'm just
kind of like, didn't really understand what was in there.
So I open it.
DOUG STEVENSON: It's still there.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Still there.
It's still there.
So I opened it up.
I was like, so what was with that light bulb anyway?
And then it just all made sense.
Everything just made sense, somehow.
Maybe it takes two weeks for you to--
DOUG STEVENSON: Time to sink in.
Yeah.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, two weeks, perfect time to sink in.
DOUG STEVENSON: I don't know how--
like, that wouldn't be the first way I
would try to learn programming is just by reading a book.
I need to type a thing in and watch it work.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's true.
DOUG STEVENSON: Because you need to have
that instant gratification of, I made a thing work.
DIANA TKACHENKO: That's true.
You know, I actually did do that with Lisp.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, OK,
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, and then I didn't use an editor.
And you know how there's a lot of parentheses?
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
Yeah.
DIANA TKACHENKO: And I was missing a parenthesis.
And it was, like, seven layers deep or something like that.
And I was just like, how is this not working?
I don't understand at all.
This should totally be working.
I think it was square root or something.
Yeah.
Then at some point, I asked my dad.
And he's like, oh, yeah, you're missing a parenthesis here.
And I was just like, this is just stupid.
How do people program in this way?
Like, you're missing a-- and he's like, what are you doing?
You need to use an editor or something like that.
I was literally just writing it in plain text and stuff.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, like Word document or something?
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, basically.
I was like, yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: [INAUDIBLE] editors are very helpful.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah.
And he's like, no, I think you should
use some tooling around this.
Yeah.
So you're right.
The reading the book, I think I--
I think my dad kind of likes to learn that way
where he has this knowledge watch over him while he reads.
But I think, yeah, definitely combining
with the hands-on stuff is more helpful.
Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
And so you taught yourself Java this way.
DIANA TKACHENKO: I did.
I did, yeah.
So I actually, I did not keep reading the same book.
I got a different book that was a lot more exercises.
And then I started making up stuff.
I started writing games.
I wrote a little checkers game, and then I
would play it with my dad once I added networking to it.
And it was really fun.
And then I made the game--
like the computer was now playing against me.
DOUG STEVENSON: Ooh.
DIANA TKACHENKO: And you know, it wasn't doing anything smart.
It just knew the rules, and it would just pick something.
But it would do it so fast, obviously,
because it's a computer.
So I'd just be like, oh, move this to this space.
And I'd be thinking, and I'm like, yeah,
that's the right way.
So I'll move it, and then the computer moves.
I'm like, oh, my god, I made this!
And then it would win sometimes.
And I'd be like, hm.
DOUG STEVENSON: Artificial intelligence.
DIANA TKACHENKO: I was just like,
this is the proudest moment.
This is my baby.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's the same kind of stuff that I worked on.
If you find something you're interested in that you want
to build, that really is the best
way to learn something is if you feel strongly about it,
you want to make it happen, and it's your thing,
and you own it like that, it's better than doing
homework, doing something that someone else told you to do.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, for sure.
DOUG STEVENSON: But sometimes the things
that other people tell you to do is fun,
but having your own thing is, by far, the best.
So I'm glad you discovered that.
That's so awesome.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was doing it day and night.
I was coding all the time.
I got very obsessed with it.
So I was doing that for about nine months--
you know, when you forget to eat, you don't sleep.
You're just like, ah, I've just got to fix this program.
Yeah.
And sometimes, I would just be designing a program,
and I would just get into a state
where I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it.
And so I'd be going to some party, and I'm just like no--
get some piece of paper.
I'd be like, no, this service is going
to talk to this, like this is the better way to build it.
DOUG STEVENSON: Do you ever watch that show "Halt and Catch
Fire?"
DIANA TKACHENKO: No.
DOUG STEVENSON: Where they're like--
Oh, what you just described is totally their experience.
Because they're sitting around doing day-to-day
stuff, and they have code in their brain.
And so they furiously find pieces of paper
and write everything down.
DIANA TKACHENKO: I can so relate.
DOUG STEVENSON: It's ridiculously
sort of like L in the brain all the time.
You have to get it out somewhere.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, that was me.
That was me in the nine months.
Yeah.
So I started self-teaching, I guess, in April of 2011.
And then I had job offers in November of that year.
And so I decided to take an offer with a startup,
and so that's how my career started.
DOUG STEVENSON: Wow, so this startup kind of, in a sense,
took a risk on you, because you didn't
have any formal education.
You were self-taught.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yep.
DOUG STEVENSON: But you clearly wowed them
enough with your abilities that you taught yourself.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Right.
So that was an interesting thing.
I had to figure out a way to convey that to the companies
that I was applying to, because there was nothing on my resume
that said I had anything even remotely to do with computer
science.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
Yeah.
I'd look at that and be like, why are they even applying?
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah, exactly.
Right?
Like, why would I even do a phone screen with this person,
right?
So I decided to create a blog where I would teach people
about algorithms, and data structures,
and anything else that's interesting that I learned.
And then I would just point the companies to that.
And then they'd be like, hey, we saw your blog.
We liked it.
We want to talk to you.
So I think that's a really good way to kind of put your--
DOUG STEVENSON: Put yourself out there, just be known.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, Diana, thank you
so much for being on the show.
DIANA TKACHENKO: Thanks, Doug.
DOUG STEVENSON: It was a pleasure
to meet you for the first time and get
to know who my co-workers are a little bit better.
And thank you for tuning in.
Be sure to stay tuned right here to the Firebase channel
on YouTube to get more "Meet Firebase,"
"Ask Firebase," and video tutorials.
And I'll see you here next time.
[APPLAUSE]
DIANA TKACHENKO: You've got to pick it up with both hands
together.
You've got to set it to the light.
DOUG STEVENSON: With your pinky extended, right?
DIANA TKACHENKO: With your pinky extended,
you've got to smell it all over.
You wanna try it?
DOUG STEVENSON: No.
No.