A Chef in Their Kitchen - Master Your Environment

A Master Chef

When we think of a Master Chef, we don’t think of someone good at cutting tomatoes, tossing a salad, following a recipe, or creating a tasty sauce. Instead, we envision someone who glides through the kitchen and produces masterful meals. A Master chef isn’t simply someone who has mastered the individual tools at their disposal. Instead, they bring together all their individual tools to create a masterpiece.

We are attracted to shows like “Iron Chef” because we get to see the Mastery in action, even if we aren’t aware of it. We aren’t mesmerized by individual tools when watching Bobby Flay or Michael Symon. What amazes the viewers when we see these Masters in action is their sixth sense of the kitchen. We are astounded by their control, how they move, and the string of steps they take to create their masterpiece.

The Realm of Tech

The metaphor of a Master Chef in their kitchen can be seen in many other professions or Ways. I have seen what this looks like in the field of tech. But before I can highlight what a Master Engineer looks like (to me), we need to analyze the individual tools and how most people view Mastery in tech.

The Individual Tools

When considering the field of tech, there are many disciplines, tools, technologies, and roles. For the sake of this post, let’s assume that the individual tools in the kitchen map the following in the world of tech (don’t look too closely into the individual comparisons).

• Business requirements are like ingredients.

• Programming languages are knives.

• Networking is like pots and pans.

• Infrastructure is like different methods of cooking (ovens, grills, broilers, etc.)

• Monitoring is like different methods of measurements (thermometers, clocks, visual cues, etc.)

• Data engineering is like plating and presentation.

The Sous Chef

No one starts their career as a master chef. At first, we must be like sous chefs, focusing on a few tools and a few parts of a kitchen. A sous chef might start using the Santoku knife (Javascript) to cut vegetables (build websites). A sous chef has every right to spend the next ten years using the Santoku knife (Javascript) to cut vegetables (build websites), and they might become one of the best sous chefs in the world in this role. Everyone has different goals, ambitions, and desires; I have no right to say that this is the wrong Way. It is simply not the Way for me.

When I was a sous chef tasked with cutting ingredients, I made sure to try our different knives and to cut as many ingredients that I could get my hands on. I used Santoku knives (Javascript), bread knives (Python), boning knives (Golang), and so on. I also made sure to get my hands on different ingredients, like fruits and vegetables (frontend development), meats (backend development), fish (data engineering), bread (Infrastructure as Code), and many other ingredients.

Using different knives and ingredients, I developed a sense of intuition when cutting ingredients. When someone presented a specific ingredient (business requirement), I knew the best knife (programming language) to get the job done. By cutting different ingredients in different ways, I understood different cutting styles (programming paradigms) and the individual properties of the ingredients (business requirements) at a significantly more profound level. I was never focused on being the best handler of the Santoku knife; instead, I was focused on becoming a great cutter.

A Sense of Intuition

After gaining a sense of intuition for cutting ingredients, I moved on to a new part of the kitchen to serve as a sous chef. I used different pots and pans (networking tools, concepts, and components) with varying cooking methods (infrastructure). This approach helped me gain a sense of intuition for all the different parts of the kitchen.

But learning the different kitchen parts was not done in a silo. Consider the following:

1. I learned how to use knives (programming) to cut ingredients (meet business requirements).

2. I learned how to use different pots and pans (networking configurations) for cooking food (creating infrastructure).

3. I learned to measure when my food was finished cooking (monitoring).

4. I learned how to plate my food (data engineering) properly.

Each step helped me get a better sense of intuition for the upcoming step, the past steps, and the overall kitchen.

• Once I learned the different ways to cut ingredients (programming business requirements), I understood the different ways to cook those ingredients (creating networks and infrastructure ).

• Once I understood the different ways to cook those ingredients (integrating my applications into the infrastructure), I learned how to measure when the ingredients were finished cooking (monitoring my applications and infrastructure).

• Once I knew when the ingredients were finished cooking (gaining insight into my ecosystem), I learned how to plate those ingredients properly (create a data pipeline for visibility).

Bringing It All Together

Like a Master chef, my goal is not to Master the individual tools. My goal is to know every part of my kitchen. I want to know how the ingredient affects the plating. I want to understand how the different cuts affect the cooking. I want to have a sixth sense for my kitchen. I want to know my technical ecosystem the same way a Master Chef knows their kitchen.

In this Way, if I am stationed at any place in the kitchen, I am not mindlessly performing a task (cutting potatoes using a Santoku knife or writing a frontend application using Javascript). I can understand how my actions will affect the rest of the kitchen. I can sense my contribution to the entire ecosystem and provide maximum value.

I want to be the Master of my kitchen. To create a beautiful, secure, reusable, scalable, robust technical ecosystem, I must develop a sixth sense of my realm. I need to have an internal sense of intuition for the whole.