Work with Me

My background is in software, with a special focus on the intersection of product thinking and operational reality. In addition to running workshops and programs, I work one-on-one with individual contributors (ICs) and leaders – in tech as well as other domains.

In coaching engagements, I draw on experience and training in:

• Reliability and resilience in complex software systems
• Incident management and post-incident analysis
• Product development
• Interpersonal neurobiology
• Personal and organizational productivity

How I coach

I like to engage with a specific, concrete challenge. The nature of the project or problem is likely to evolve as we collaborate, but choosing something very tangible helps us stay grounded and makes it easier to see how our work is serving you.

I'm big on deliberate cycles, so I prefer to work together for a set period of time with a concrete goal and then reassess. I typically work in cycles of a quarter (~3 months) or half-quarter (6-8 weeks), although it varies by client.

Pricing depends on length and frequency of calls and the level of async support an individual or team wants.

Are we a good fit?

We might be a good fit if you're looking for practical support with:

• Designing work and feedback cycles for better delivery.
• Improving operational reliability of technological systems in a way that supports innovation.
• Managing the chronic and acute stress of being on-call and responding to incidents.
• Regenerative work practices for individuals or organizations.

We're not a good fit if you're looking for:

• Focus on a single financial bottom line rather than whole-system health.
• Over-simplified out-of-the-box frameworks.
• Solutions that focus on technology or process to the exclusion of humans.

Interested in working with me? Set up a complimentary 20-minute connection call to explore the possibility space.

Bona Fides

• B.S. Engineering Physics, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
• Principal at Adaptive Capacity Labs. Prior roles as software engineer, product marketer, and product manager at companies including New Relic, Jeli.io (acquired by PagerDuty), Gruntwork
• Founding board member of the Resilience In Software Foundation
• SREcon Program Committee / Facilitator
• Trained in coaching by Leo Babauta (Zen Habits, Fearless Mastery)

Publications & Talks

Podcast: Decoding Leadership

I had a blast talking to Jade Rubick about leaders in incidents and the product/reliability “dichotomy” on Decoding Leadership.

Continuous Re-integrationBeth Adele Long

• On adaptive capacity in incident response (co-authored with John Allspaw and Dr. Richard I. Cook, Increment, February 2021)
• Building and revising adaptive capacity sharing for incident response: a case of resilience engineering (co-authored with Dr. Richard Cook, Applied Ergonomics, September 2020)
• Having the Bubble: How Your Experts Build, Maintain, and Spread Deep System Knowledge (O'Reilly Velocity, San Jose, 2019)
• Brains, Bytes & Blowups: How Humans Learn to Keep Complex Systems Alive (Nike Tech Talks, 2019)
• Fighting Fires for Fun & Profit (aka Better Incident Command to Reduce MTTR) (Continuous Lifecycle, London, 2019; O'Reilly Velocity, London, 2018; The Lead Dev, NYC, 2018)
• On-Call and Incident Response: Lessons for Success (New Relic blog, 2018)
• SRE-iously: Defining the Principles, Habits, and Practices of SRE (New Relic webinar, 2018)
• DevOps Takes Practice (New Relic FutureStack, London / Berlin / New York City, 2017)