Working at HuggingFace🤗 A chat with People Ops evangelist Emily Witko
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful conversation, Emily Whitco, the People Operations lead at Hugging Face, shares her fascinating journey into the world of open-source AI. She delves into the importance of psychological safety within engineering teams, the challenges of knowledge sharing across technical and non-technical domains, and the unique decentralized culture at Hugging Face that fosters creativity and impact. Emily also discusses her personal projects aimed at promoting inclusivity and exploring pay equity using Hugging Face's cutting-edge tools. Throughout the interview, her passion for empowering people and fostering a supportive environment shines, offering valuable insights into building thriving teams in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Takeaways
- 😀 Emily Whitco works in a generalist people role at Hugging Face, focusing on employee engagement, recruiting, and people operations.
- 🤖 Despite not having a technical background initially, Emily learned about Hugging Face's work and felt drawn to their mission of responsible AI development.
- 💻 Hugging Face follows a decentralized approach, where employees set their own goals and projects based on their interests and skills.
- 🌱 Emily helped create structured impact plans for teams to provide guidance and clarity for new hires on their expected contributions.
- 🤝 Psychological safety and inclusivity are highly valued at Hugging Face, with efforts to promote a supportive and empathetic work culture.
- 🌐 Knowledge sharing at Hugging Face happens through asynchronous communication, ensuring conversations are documented for easy reference.
- 🌈 Emily has been experimenting with projects related to pay equity analysis and inclusive language in job descriptions using Hugging Face's tools.
- 📚 Keeping up with the rapidly evolving AI landscape can be overwhelming, so Emily recommends selectively following trusted sources and contributors.
- 🌇 Emily values the openness and focus on potential at Hugging Face, where backgrounds are diverse, and growth is encouraged.
- 🚀 Hugging Face aims to be the platform for AI builders, with a kind ambition to achieve success while prioritizing its people's well-being.
Q & A
What is Emily's role at Hugging Face?
-Emily's role at Hugging Face is described as a very generalist people role, focused on tasks related to people operations, such as employee engagement, recruiting, and hiring.
How did Emily end up at Hugging Face?
-Emily initially discovered Hugging Face while researching chatbots for a banking startup she was working at. She was impressed by Hugging Face's open-source leanings and responsible approach to AI, and eventually applied for a role there after discussing her interests with the CEO.
What is the culture like at Hugging Face regarding decision-making and goal-setting?
-Hugging Face has a decentralized approach where teams and individuals set their own goals and projects, rather than a top-down cascading structure. This promotes autonomy and a lack of rigid hierarchies.
How does Hugging Face foster psychological safety among its employees?
-Hugging Face has a team dedicated to maintaining community standards and monitoring the platform. Internally, they have small, project-based teams with team leads responsible for ensuring team members feel validated and supported. The company also values kindness and ambition, promoting a supportive environment.
What project is Emily most proud of at Hugging Face?
-Emily is proud of creating structured impact plans for each team, which provide new hires with clear goals and projects to work on, reducing anxiety and increasing confidence.
How does Hugging Face promote knowledge sharing among its employees?
-Hugging Face encourages asynchronous communication over meetings, which means all conversations are written down and can be easily referred back to. Employees are also encouraged to share their work on social media and follow their colleagues' updates.
How has Emily been experimenting with Hugging Face's tools?
-Emily has been working on two projects: one related to pay equity, using Hugging Face's data and models to ensure fair compensation across different countries; and another tool using Hugging Chat to analyze job descriptions and social media posts for inclusivity.
Who would Emily be interested in interviewing in the AI space?
-Emily expressed interest in interviewing Timnit Gebru, who previously worked at Google and is now working on ethical AI. Emily admires Gebru's confidence in standing up to major players in the industry and speaking up for what's important.
How does Emily manage staying up-to-date with AI news and developments?
-Emily recommends following a limited number of trusted open-source contributors and projects on platforms like Twitter, GitHub, and the Hugging Face Hub and Discord. She also learns a lot from her colleagues at Hugging Face, who share their work regularly.
What advice would Emily give to someone feeling overwhelmed by the constant flow of AI news and developments?
-Emily suggests being selective about the pieces of AI and open-source corners one engages with, as there is so much opportunity that it can be exhausting to try to keep up with everything. Picking favorite contributors and limiting the number of sources is key.
Outlines
Renee's Introduction and Emily's Background
Renee introduces the podcast and Emily Whitcomb, who works in people operations at Hugging Face. Emily shares her background, starting from customer-facing roles and transitioning to a more technical role at a banking startup before joining Hugging Face. She explains how she discovered Hugging Face while researching chatbots and was drawn to their open-source approach and ethics team, leading her to apply for and eventually accept a role in people operations.
Emily's Journey to Hugging Face
Emily recounts her conversations with the CEO of Hugging Face, Clément Delangue, during the interview process. She was initially considered for a customer success role but was offered a position in people operations instead. Clément emphasized Hugging Face's culture of valuing potential over past accomplishments, which resonated with Emily. She also discusses the ambiguity of her role and the company's decentralized approach, where employees have the freedom to choose what they work on.
Open-Source and Decentralized Culture
Emily explains how working in an open-source community and at Hugging Face requires flexibility, confidence, and an experimental mindset. She highlights the decentralized nature of Hugging Face, where small teams set their own goals and projects, fostering a sense of ownership and impact. Emily also touches on the company's value of "kind ambition," balancing ambitious goals with empathy and thoughtfulness.
Psychological Safety and Inclusivity
The conversation shifts to the importance of psychological safety, particularly in the open-source world, which can sometimes lack inclusiveness. Emily discusses Hugging Face's efforts to create a safe environment internally, including having community standards, hosting events for underrepresented groups, and fostering a flat team structure with team leads focused on ensuring team members feel validated and supported.
Creating Impact Plans and Onboarding
Emily discusses one of her proudest achievements at Hugging Face - creating structured impact plans for each team to help new hires understand their goals and expected areas of impact. This initiative aimed to address anxiety and uncertainty that new employees sometimes experienced in the company's decentralized environment. Emily emphasizes the importance of setting expectations and providing guidance while maintaining the company's agile and open culture.
Knowledge Sharing and Asynchronous Communication
Emily shares insights on how knowledge sharing and technical explanations are valued at Hugging Face. Engineers are expected to communicate complex concepts clearly and without jargon to non-technical team members. The company's policy of prioritizing asynchronous communication over meetings ensures that all conversations are documented, creating a rich knowledge base that employees can access at any time. Emily also highlights the supportive culture where asking questions is encouraged.
Experimenting with AI Tools and Models
Emily discusses her recent projects involving experimenting with Hugging Face's AI tools and models. One project focuses on pay equity, exploring how to ensure fair compensation across the company's global workforce using data sets and models. The other project involves creating an inclusivity tool that analyzes job descriptions and social media posts for potential biases and suggests more inclusive language.
Keeping Up with AI News and Developments
Emily acknowledges the challenge of keeping up with the constant stream of AI news and developments, both within Hugging Face and in the broader AI community. She advises being selective about the sources and channels one follows, suggesting focusing on favorite open-source contributors and platforms like Twitter, GitHub, the Hugging Face Hub, and Discord. Emily also highlights the privilege of learning from her colleagues, who share their work and insights across various social media platforms.
Closing Thoughts and Future Events
The conversation concludes with Emily sharing her availability on LinkedIn for those interested in keeping up with her work. She mentions upcoming events in Sacramento, California, and Europe in July, although no specific details are provided. Renee thanks Emily for the insightful discussion and encourages listeners to engage with the podcast and guests.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Psychological Safety
💡People Operations
💡Remote Work
💡Open Source
💡Decentralization
💡Technical Background
💡Startup Culture
💡Inclusivity
💡Career Transition
💡Impact
Highlights
Emily Whitco discusses transforming people operations at Hugging Face and the importance of psychological safety in engineering teams.
Whitco shares her journey from customer-facing roles to a people operations generalist in tech, highlighting her transition to Hugging Face.
The significance of open-source platforms and the ethical considerations in AI are explored through Whitco's experiences.
Whitco emphasizes the value of a startup culture that prioritizes potential over past achievements.
The conversation delves into the concept of decentralization at Hugging Face and its impact on work culture and productivity.
Discussion on the role of team leads in fostering a psychologically safe and inclusive work environment.
Whitco highlights Hugging Face's commitment to ethical AI and inclusivity in the tech community.
Exploring the challenges and learning curves of working in an open-source environment and the importance of flexibility.
The impact of structured impact plans on employee engagement and clarity in roles at Hugging Face.
Whitco shares insights on effective knowledge sharing and the importance of clear, jargon-free communication in technical teams.
The role of asynchronous communication in enhancing productivity and knowledge accessibility at Hugging Face.
A discussion on the challenges of keeping up with AI advancements and the importance of selective learning.
Whitco expresses admiration for Timnit Gebru and her work in ethical AI.
Exploration of pay equity and inclusivity tools being developed by Whitco using Hugging Face's technologies.
The personal and professional growth opportunities provided by Hugging Face's unique work culture.
Transcripts
Renee here at unsupervised learning your
easy listening podcast for bleeding edge
open source Tech this episode sees me
speaking to Emily whitco someone who is
transforming the people operations at
hugging face has experienced a general
assembly and also alternate Futures and
sits on their board of directors it was
an excellent conversation on
psychological safety in engineering
teams and remote work hope you enjoy
hello I do the introductions afterwards
so that you don't to sit here and um
hear how wonderful you are
but you are the what what do you have
like a like a title like it's like
people operations or it's a great
question the the short answer is not
really um it's a very I I I describe my
role as being just a very start upy sort
of generalist uh people role where uh
you know I focus on
uh a couple of my favorite things and
then also whatever needs to get done and
so I have a very very people generalist
role yeah and has it changed a lot like
I imagine it has but I wanted to talk
about like your because previously were
you at very Tech like do you have a very
technical background or any exposure to
much software or like yeah it's not
really a question it's more of a run on
sence
but no I I really do not actually um so
uh I'm trying to think of how to tell
this story in a shortish way but most of
my career has actually been spent in
like customer facing roles so account
management um like Enterprise account
work um and has not fully been focused
on software so so a chunk of my career
was at at uh General Assembly which is
sort of a a tech education startup that
I feel most people have heard of um and
then I'd say uh my most technical job
previous to hugging face was at a little
teeny tiny six-person
banking startup that I was working at
for a couple of years um where we
actually were building software and
because it was such a tiny team I was
not writing the code but I was involved
in that software in essentially every
other way that you could possibly think
of um in addition to working with our
client or working with our customers so
that was sort of my first really foray
into understanding the complexities of
software um but at the end of the day we
were still building essentially just an
app right we're all fairly familiar with
apps at this point and and particularly
banking apps they're not the world's
most Cutting Edge piece of technology
all the time and so when I moved to
hugging face it was
definitely a period of transition that
that sometimes I still feel like I'm in
where all of a sudden these technical
conversations were very different than
the technical conversations I've had in
the past um and much more much more
complicated I want to get into like how
did how did that move happen like how
did you end up at hugging face yes so
when I was working at this banking
startup we actually were starting to
think about what an automated chatbot
could look like and so I had done some
searching around about some of the
easiest ways for us to build our own or
or possibly even some of the ways that I
could build a chatbot without using some
of our very limited engineering
resources at that uh startup and that's
actually how I found hugging face um and
and I started digging through the
website a little bit um and pretty early
on in trying to explore hugging face
realized that it's a very technical
place right even for folks that end up
at the hugging face website it there's
it may even be difficult to know what
hugging face is once you've landed on
our homepage if you're not an engineer
um and so I just was doing a bunch of
research I think digging around on like
edit or GitHub or looking through the
documentation just to try to learn a
little bit more about what hugging face
was and as I learned a little bit more
about like our the open- source leanings
and the fact that there is an Ethics
team here and the fact that they're
thinking about AI in a really
responsible way I started to get more
and more interested in the
organization so I applied to an open
head of customer success role that was
at uh on the job site at the time and
very quickly heard from the CEO clal who
asked if we could chat and so we had a
couple of conversations that were really
quite informative about the culture at
hugging Bas and we talked about my
experience and then after our second is
conversation he said I think we really
need someone with technical skills in
this customer success role will probably
be looking to hire an engineer um but
what I here is that you really love to
build teams you really like to think
about Employee Engagement you like to
recruit and hire and source and all of
those things would you be interested in
joining the team and doing those things
and my reaction was I was super excited
um it had been a switch that I had been
considering making for a few years um
but wasn't really sure how to shift from
the customer service space into the
people space um and more or less on the
call
said I'm I'm excited by this Prospect
but I just need you to know that this is
not work that I've ever done before in a
professional capacity um and his
reaction was was what sealed the deal
for me and and why I really wanted to
work at hugging face was and it was
essentially like I don't I don't care
we're not particularly interested in
what people have done before we're we
much more interested in what people can
accomplish once they joined us um and it
was really just
that I don't know that that that ethos
that really got me excited to work for
hugging face and and he did further
clarify his I don't care
to be a little bit less harsh very
French um and and described that you
know we have physicists that are now
working as machine learning engineers
and we have linguists and philosophers
and just the the background of the folks
at hugging face is um or backgrounds I
should say are completely varied um
which a makes it a really interesting
place to work but
B is a is a culture that I always wanted
to be a part of right I I was excited by
the idea that um we're more excited
about people's potential than we are
essentially about what they've
accomplished in the past or what school
they went to or exactly what their
resume says so uh yeah that's a
long-winded way of saying that's how I
ended up
here that's a great story yeah I I was
really I was really impressed with the
leadership
um and the last part of it I'll say
which sort of relates to the fact that I
don't really have a a specific job title
is my partner is a lawyer here in the
states and I remember he was really
nervous when I signed my paperwork
because I didn't have a job title and I
didn't really even have a job
description and I can remember a
conversation we had where he was like
how do you know what you'll be doing and
my reaction was just sort of like I
don't but we'll figure it out along the
way and so um it's been just over two
years of my time at hugging face and you
know my role I think has has shifted
with sort of company needs but um it's
been it's been a really wonderful
learning experience that leaves me in
like a couple paths to go down but when
you mentioned about it's it's not uh
it's not like a Laz Fair attitude but
it's more like um kind of an openness
like you said like being like oh are you
generally like that would you say in
terms of like career-wise or are you um
have you found that that's been
something that people need to to kind of
adopt to to work in open source is
having
a uh a more experimental mindset I
guess that's super interesting um I know
for me personally I get excited by new
things and so anytime I'm given the
opportunity to like try out a new role
or or think about even just like a new
project idea um um I'm definitely the
type of person to say yes and and Dive
Right In um and so I think
uh that's part of why sort of the the
ambiguity of the space doesn't scare me
is you know I'll I'm excited by it in
some ways
um I guess I feel like there
are possibly some some similarities
between working in a startup environment
and engaging in open- Source Community
spaces prob mostly in just the sense
that you never know what's going to
happen next or you never know what sort
of uh comment somebody will make or
you'll never know what sort of
improvement you'll see in the project
that you're working on um and so it does
require I would say a significant level
of of
flexibility um and probably along with
that um a level of confidence in your
own
skills and and being able to sort of
step into a different scenario and and
and feel confident enough to stay
involved um and so I I guess I mean I
never really thought about it before how
you might be able to extrapolate it to
being involved in open source
communities but um it is an interesting
it is an interesting thought I the the
kind of context for that is I found it
very despite only having worked in
startups I found it very different uh I
think I think it was a almost an ego
activity stepping into open source being
like okay it's constant feedback right
from the community and it's like the
awareness that um you don't necessarily
even if you own a function it's like
it's not yours you're doing it for the
betterment of whatever so you need to be
you can't be I don't want to say
pigheaded but I'm going to say it you
can't be pigheaded about decision making
and it's so you posted on LinkedIn about
decision- making at hugging face and how
that like I guess I'm asking like was it
just an intuitive like a duct to water
type thing with you where you're like
yeah this is cool this is fine because
that's that's the vibe I'm picking up
where you're like you're just the kind
of person that just goes with it or was
it uh was it a little bit of a learning
curve and if it was fine have you seen
people that do go through that journey
and what does that look like and what do
they need to kind of learn to
overcome their own
issues yeah no I mean even for me uh it
definitely was a learning curve I think
uh both both being part of an open
source community and and experiencing
the things that you described and also
working for a place like hugging face
that operates internally very similar to
I would say the way that open source
communities work by Design right so the
word that we use at hugging face over
and over is
decentralization I think your experience
with open source is a good example of
decentralization the example that I use
for folks um that I feel like especially
those that are coming from more
traditional startup environments are is
that um we don't have like a
cascading goal setting process each year
right like RC CEO is not setting goals
or okrs for the whole company and then
each team is sort of building off of
that it's completely flipped right so by
Design the folks that are doing the work
the folks that are involved in our
communities um are setting their own
goals and not only that they're coming
up with their own projects a lot of the
time and
so it's it's it's interesting
because you can imagine interviewing an
engineer a candidate who wants to work
at hugging face and saying to
them no one's going to tell you what to
do and you can choose what you want to
work on and you can imagine that some
folks that's a dream right some
Engineers are like sweet like I don't
have to talk to anyone and I can just
work on what excites me um we love when
that happens for other people including
myself it's a little bit of a learning
curve because all of a
sudden it's it's it's not only that
you're sort of left to your own devices
it's just that all of a sudden you have
a level of responsibility that you may
not have had at your other organizations
right there's sort of a lack of of top
down direction that can sometimes leave
you feeling a little bit like you're
floating in the middle of the sea and I
feel like I've heard similar experiences
especially from folks who are trying to
get involved in open Source projects is
almost that um What's the phrase I'm
trying to think of where it's just like
that Paradox of choice where you have so
many different projects that you can get
involved in yeah that you never start
right or you never pick one like
analysis paralysis kind of yes yeah
exactly um and so sometimes working at
hugging face can feel the same way yeah
because there's a thousand projects that
you can be involved in both internally
and with our communities um um and so
that's definitely part of like a growing
pain here at hugging face I would say
and something that um I had to learn was
to to limit all those projects that I
get really excited about and really come
up with a focus for myself um so that
the work that I was doing the work that
I am doing is highly impactful
um and and thoughtfully done yeah nice I
wanted to speak a little bit more about
like the work that you're doing but it
led me to think abouty like
psychological safety because I think
that that's maybe one of the foundations
of impactful teams I say this not having
been in people Ops very much at all but
you know I'm I'm like one of those
LinkedIn people that just say all these
things and it's like what qualifications
do you have and it's like well I've got
an opinion so but I I do feel that
wherever you work psychological safety
is so important but even the idea of
saying that it's important it puts you a
little bit uh in the firing line if
you're working somewhere that isn't
psychologically safe right because then
you're looking like a snowflake so it's
kind of something that I wanted to to
touch on like because in my experience
I'm I'm stereotyping here but I'm of the
opinion that software engineers and
Engineers ml Engineers would be like I
just want to do the work I don't need to
worry but it's like you do have the type
of people that do need that constant
reassurance and checking kind of thing
so like what does that look like at
hugging face if there's no top down
culture like what kind of things do you
do in team building that kind of thing I
understand my questions are always four
questions in
one we're getting better at
that it's a very thoughtful question um
but but in a similar vein I feel like I
have four answers so so to start what I
will say is I I don't need to tell you
this um
but the like quote unquote world of Open
Source is not always the most
psychologically safe place right
um it's the
internet we all know what happens
sometimes on the internet and especially
from a place of inclus
iess um we we don't have exact figures
right and I I feel like the numbers that
I use when I talk about this are from an
old um maybe three or four year old
GitHub study but open source
contributors that are women we're
looking at essentially fewer than
10% um and there are I'm sure you know
this these are complicated conversations
and I'm sure there are a variety of
reasons for that but it's not always a
psychologically safe space and folks
that face systemic biases or or have
barriers in their life are less likely
to engage in places that are less
psychologically safe and so I think that
that that complicates communities that
exist on the internet where people feel
like they can behave in some less than
appropriate ways um internally at
hugging face we spend a lot of time
um making sure that our employees do
feel safe um we do it I I would say in a
few ways one
um I was gonna say is sort of your a a a
more standard or or traditional approach
um but I feel like using those words
sort of undercut the amount of work that
we've done to do it correctly but we we
have a team of folks that um is
incredibly thoughtful and works very
hard on our community standards um and
those are those are public and those are
things that I can share with you and and
they are you know our Hub is monitored
by both our team and the community um
and we you know don't tolerate certain
behaviors in our community which um is
something I'm trying to share a little
bit more widely with folks who who may
not come currently exist in these
communities um for example just maybe
two weeks ago while I was in Paris we
hosted a women in machine learning and
data science event I was gonna get to
that um that was one of the that was one
of the things that I was trying to kind
of head in the direction of that yeah um
go ahead sorry no and all I was gonna
say is is like talking to groups you
know of like those and encouraging in
open- Source contributions if folks you
know if folks in the women in data
science group are not already
contributing to open source projects on
hugging face or wherever to try to
encourage folks to to do that and
explain that we generally you know we
try very hard to have a psychologically
safe
platform um internally at hugging face
uh we our team is is very very flat
right and that's part of the
decentralization and that's part of why
we don't have this sort of pyramid
shaped
organization and what that means is that
we tend to have fairly small teams that
are very Project based and each of these
teams consists of maybe between four to
eight people probably not much larger
than that um and there tends to be a
team lead for each project um and I say
this because our team leads serve an
important function a they're they're
probably the point person for other
people at the company to ask a bunch of
questions of but B they work as that
like quote unquote leadership to make
sure that the rest of the team is
feeling validated is feeling safe and
also um is part of like uh feedback
cycles and making sure that folks are
getting uh yeah support and information
and setting goals together when they
need to um we have a one of our values
at hugging face is um to have a kind
ambition and what that means is that
we're like shooting for the stars in
terms of hugging face success you know
we want 10,000 employees and we want to
be the platform for AI Builders um but
at the same time we don't want to take
it like take work too seriously we never
want to put work ahead of essentially
our people our our humanness um and I
think that most of our team uh takes
that truly to heart and is a very
supportive and and psychologically safe
group that
uh I don't know I this I don't mean for
this to sound like chastising or
anything but like that I'm so proud of
every day like I am I am very proud of
this team um for both being incredibly
smart people working on cutting edge
technology and doing it with with
empathy and
thoughtfulness um which I think is just
a really special
combination you've seen the team scale
from like how many people were when you
started I think it was about 40 when I
started and now we're we're close to 200
yeah wow that's a lot what's the like I
don't want to put you on the spot but
like what's do you have a an example of
like something that you've done at
hugging face that has
been very enjoyable for you like it
doesn't have to be like this was the
biggest thing it's just like what what
kind of did you enjoy doing the
most um good question we talk a lot we
talk a lot about impact at hug face um
we don't do standardized like 360 yearly
reviews performance reviews at hugging
face we we do them much more on like
project Cycles we sort of leave it up to
our teams to have discussions when
appropriate regarding performance um but
the word that is that you'll hear over
and over like cascading throughout the
company is the word
impact um
and when I started at hugging face and
was early on in the process there wasn't
a lot of definition behind the word
impact right so we would have new folks
join the team uh as a random example
someone would join uh our like front-end
web development team and our uh
onboarding materials got them set up
technically and they met one or two
people on the team and then they would
we would say okay go have an impact and
then just sort of send them off on their
on their way um and what what I found
was that there was a lot of um anxiety
is probably the best word for for new
Folks at hugging face because for the
first three months the first six months
even sometimes of not knowing exactly
what you're supposed to be doing and not
knowing where the goalposts are were
were did creates an anxiety and so I
feel like one of the one of the projects
that I'm most proud of and and really
did enjoy doing at hugging face was uh
creating like structure for impact plans
for each of our teams um now we are a
startup and we're super agile so our
goals look very different than sort of
traditional kpis right we they're not
hugely specific but each team now when
you hire somebody new you actually have
a document or a couple of paragraphs
that you can share and say here are our
goals here is some projects where you
can fit in um and these are spaces in
which we expect you to have an impact
and just setting those expectations
right away uh went a long way toward
making our new folks feel super
comfortable and excited to work at
hugging face as opposed to feeling like
uh they weren't aren't really sure where
they should be spending their time um
and I think it's actually been a very
powerful change in our culture is to
have some of this stuff documented um
and give people some confidence when
they start because you can have two
different kind of I see two different
types of people where it's like some
people without the kind of guard rails
it's like oh this is amazing this is so
freeing and other people it's like that
guard rail is a gift and for people like
me that guard rail is a gift because
otherwise I'm like I'm running in this
direction is it even the right direction
that's right
yeah my my kind of last question before
I do my my typical weirdo questions all
the other questions were normal um is
like do you have
any specific pointers on grabbing
those I imagine you've spoken to so many
technical people and being able to pull
out insights from them like you said
that there was you had to go digging in
documentation like how have you
found grabbing Knowledge from technical
teams or knowledge sharing I should say
building a culture of knowledge sharing
I know that documentation is important
for some folks but sure yeah um I just
had a conversation with one of my
colleagues while I was in the Paris
office because we were speaking with an
engineer who um was a recent graduate
and so someone who didn't have a lot of
work experience
and that person was asking me some
really technical questions about the
hugging face platform and I more or less
did the thing of being like I can't help
you but my colleague can and I pointed
this person I sort of pushed this person
in the direction of my colleague um but
then found out a little while later that
my colleague also couldn't figure out
what this person was asking um and so
that story is just leading me down the
path of saying
that at hugging face we think the best
marker of a good engineer particularly
somebody who works on really complicated
projects is someone who can very clearly
explain the work that they're doing to
non technical folks right you to be a
great engineer you should be able to
speak without jargon right you should be
able to speak in plain langu language um
and and have your work be accessible to
all different kinds of people right
that's not always the case um but I do
think it's something that our engineers
at hugging face are exceptional at um we
in a I feel like one of the ways that we
knowledge share really well at hugging
face and it it's kind of um part of our
culture that I think sometimes surprises
people is that we don't have any
meetings um it's
it's like one of our very very few
policies at hugging face is that we
don't we do really encourage
asynchronous communication over meetings
every time for a couple of reasons one
is that as you know with being in
Australia and me being in California the
number of times that we're available to
meet is fairly limited and we don't want
people waking up in the middle of the
night to take a meeting um but almost
more importantly is that when we don't
have meetings it means that all
conversations are written
down and so what that means is that I
can go back in our slack in Google Drive
at any given time and say you know what
I don't understand this feature on the
Hub for example I don't know what
hugging face assistants do what is this
and I can literally just in slack type
the word hugging chat assistant and go
find conversations that have happened in
the past few weeks months years whatever
um that would likely answer any question
that I have about it um and so the
asynchronous communication also means
that we essentially have like quote
unquote documentation in all different
kinds of forms um that
allow people at any given time to get
information that they may not have had
otherwise um yeah and the last thing
I'll say on that point is that it sort
of goes back
to the kind ambition piece is that I've
never had a situation where I've asked
for technical help from someone on the
team and felt
like they thought I was stupid yeah
there have definitely been situations
where my teammates have said listen I
don't have time right now you know you
can figure it out or we can do this next
week um but everyone has been so
generous with their
knowledge
um that I think I think that's something
that I tell new people at hugging face
also or even new contributors to our
community is it can sometimes be scary
to ask the question um but it's really
important to ask the question um and no
one's going to think you're stupid for
having asked
it but you sort of have to do that one
one two or three times in order to get
comfortable with it you just reminded me
about uh what was your
hugging hugging agent called
duck oh uh that's a good question what
did I call it you called it the rubber
duck buddy yeah the rubber duck buddy so
on because generally my my questions are
like if you could have invented anything
what would you invent but I'm
sandwiching the two together uh so I I
I'll sandwich that together with the the
the rubber duck have you
been experimenting a lot with creating
your own things using because I assume
that you get
into different functionalities like
within hugging face and on that post
that you did you were like hugging face
is different things to different people
say like what is it to
you yeah
um that's also a really thoughtful
question the answer the short answer is
yes um I've been trying to for for some
time now working on two separate things
that are sort of uh related um but one
is thinking
about uh pay equity and so thinking
about our our team here at hugging face
um and also you know tools that people
can
use in other organizations um
particularly where there are complicated
pay structures right and so we are so
lucky in that we have the ability to
hire globally and so we are currently
200 almost 200 people and we cover 30
countries and so it can be really
difficult to know whether or not you're
paying equitably when there are so many
variables including countries where
people are and so um
um I'm essentially have access to really
wonderful data data sets and different
models at hugging face that I've been
playing with for you know the past I
want to say six or eight months um as
someone who is not an engineer it takes
a while I think for someone who is an
engineer it takes a while but for
someone who is not it takes T times as
long um but it there really are an
amazing Treasure Trove of tools and
people who are willing to support you um
in the hugging face Community um
sorry and then the uh the last piece or
the another assistant that I made
recently a different assistant that I
made recently that I think has a more
immediate and probably wide ranging
applicability is uh just a really quick
tool using our hugging chat uh where it
thinks about inclusivity and so if
you're writing a social media post or if
you're going to post a job description
you can essentially paste it into this
model um
and in theory if it works well it will
tell you whether or not your your post
is inclusive and if not give you sort of
suggestions for how you can improve it a
little bit and and and do some of that
editing for you um that way we're not
having job descriptions that are fully
mailed coded or only thinking about
folks who have phds and those sorts of
different things so it is it's been a
lot of fun seeing some Cutting Edge
tools and thinking about ways that I can
play with them
uh in topics that are important to me
which is pretty cool that's that's the
whole aim of the game I think for
scaling adoption for everyone not just
the non technical people because I see
so much it's like this is amazing it's
like yes but how can I use
it what can it
do uh I generally ask like who would you
interview in the open source space or
the AI space it can be anyone they can
be dead
um they who would I
interview um I'm trying to think about
people I don't work with because that's
cheating I'm just so inspired by some of
the people that I work with which is
great um but I think if I could
interview someone in the AI space I
would be interested in interviewing Tim
nit GBU um who is uh the the part that
is less interesting is that she used to
work at at Google and and lost her job
several years ago and in sort of a
whistleblowing um moment that you may or
may not know about um but is working
very hard now in terms of ethical Ai and
making it a safe space and um I think
has a really direct approach to some
really hard questions and I would I
would love to ask I think probably more
people focused questions meaning meaning
sort of circling back to how we started
this is not how are you you so confident
in your platform but how did you grow
your confidence how do you feel able to
stand up against some of the biggest
players in the space and speak for what
is actually important um and not back
down which I think are are are really
important attributes and I I really look
up to up to her and for the work that
she's done I think for a lot of those
reasons
thank you uh my other thing is and I
feel like it's I'm going to relate it in
such like a Leap Frog way I'm gonna be
like yes totally totally related but
where do you do you experience I feel
like you would the kind of the feeling
of bomo like you have to keep up
constantly with all of the AI news and
everything like that and it's like well
where are you getting your
information like Emily wakes up in the
morning what are you looking at like
where do you go we talk about that a lot
at hugging face and partially because
even
without the whole world of AI and
without AI being so hot right now and
there being conversations
everywhere as I sort of mentioned
earlier we have a hundred projects
happening at hugging face at any given
time and so it's even I was going to say
difficult but I would say impossible to
keep track of everything that's
happening even within the company and
so we have an incredibly active instance
of slack with I don't even know for sure
probably 2,000 channels or something
that are all active and um we we tell
folks to really limit what channels they
join and uh how many convers ations to
be a part of because it can be really
exhausting um and so uh it it's sort of
a double-edged sword right you want to
know everything that's going on and yet
you could spend your whole day just
reading about what's happening in the
world of AI and not actually be able to
do anything else because there's so much
new stuff happening all the time and so
I think that folks have to be really
selective about the pieces of AI that
they're learning about or the you know
open- Source corners of the world that
they're engaging with because there's
just so much opportunity um that being
said I do have the privilege of learning
a lot from my colleagues um the way that
hugging face is set up is that we
actually also don't have a marketing
team we uh essentially ask that all of
our employees be their own marketers and
share on Twitter or on the Hub or on
LinkedIn what they're working on what's
been happening in the world um and that
means that just by following all of my
colleagues I get a really good sort of
General sense of what's happening in the
world of AI um and so I guess if folks
are asking sort of the similar question
of how do you keep up it say pick your
favorite open source contributors and
maybe limit it to 10
20 and and follow on Twitter um or
follow on GitHub or follow on the
hugging face Hub um we actually have
social posts now so that's probably a
good place for folks to start
also the Discord um yep yeah it's very
is also Super Active which is awesome I
think we're probably 60,000 people in
that in that Discord now um so there's
there's essentially pick your favorite
social platform and you you can learn
about what's happening in the world of
AI just don't pick too
many yeah I think that does come back to
um what you said about having uh
conviction and it's almost like having
that strong conviction in your own
beliefs and the idea that like no I'm
doing this like I'm not worried about
what other people think if they think
I'm behind like oh you're falling behind
bro it's like no I'm not bro I don't
care so it's like something about
confidence because I see a lot of I'm
saying younger people like I'm in my 30s
but like I see a lot of younger people
that feel like they have to be on Reddit
constantly and it's like I get those
feelings as well but um you're back in
California now do you travel a lot where
do people keep up with you LinkedIn
Twitter uh yeah LinkedIn is probably the
best um I do try to travel uh fairly
frequently because I like to go visit
our offices and I like to go visit our
our hugging people um but yeah I I uh
keep my LinkedIn pretty up to date about
what's happening at hugging face and and
what I'm up to next cool uh do you have
any events to be aware of or is that um
good question a couple that are in
Sacramento so those might be a little
too
specific
I I've never been to America so I don't
know that's quite small right is that
like a specific place within California
it is yes so it's the capital of
California but not I'm the only I'm the
only hugging face person here oh W um
and so uh but I'm fairly close to San
Francisco where we have events that
happen fairly frequently um but uh I'd
say nothing nothing for me to plug
until July and when I I'm back in Europe
nice okay I'm going to end the call here
uh and the recording here thank you so
much for speaking to me this morning
this evening whenever yeah I'm gonna
just stop recording yeah okay thank you
so
much yeah it was a pleasure chatting
with you and thanks for doing all this
work that wraps up this week's episode
of unsupervised learning I'm your host
Renee and I've had a great time chatting
with you as always links to everything
we discussed will be in the show notes
make sure you reach out to our guests
questions or feedback reach out to pod
unsupervised learning. until then leave
a like follow or rating on Spotify Apple
podcast or YouTube and until next week
stay curious
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