Mekka Tech : Mekka Okereke's Blog

2014

2014-01-01T14:55:41-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Google Play Available in more places.

2014-03-30T05:49:58-07:00

Some fun launches:

Chromecast is now available in 11 more regions:

Movies and Music All Access are now available 39 more places too:

Congrats team!

Google Play: Mobile Web Version

2014-05-23T08:09:01-07:00

I still can't believe that when I arrived at Google, the Google Play website didn't even render correctly on mobile.

(/images/assets/scrn-google-play-mobile-1.png)

O hai mobile web users! Who likes pinching and zooming? Nobody! This is better.

Thanks for noticing, Android Police.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/05/23/the-google-play-store-finally-has-a-mobile-web-interface-take-a-look/

Howard Hackathon 2014

2014-10-26T12:45:32-07:00

I was lucky enough to be asked to be a judge at the 2014 Howard University Hackathon sponsored by Google. It was a blast.

At some point during every 24hr hackathon, energy gets looowww. You have to do so something to pick everyone up! Sometimes this is a run around the building, or group jumping jacks. Howard University and Hampton University set a new bar, with the "2am Turn-Up!" The main Hackathon room had a full AV and sound system, which the kids found and put to good use. One of the Howard students DJ'd from his Macbook.

Here are some Howard University hackers declaring once and for all that Howard University is "The Real HU(tm)." Of course Hampton University had an equal response.

1st prize went to an iOS app and REST API for aggregating NCAA sailing results and making them available. They quoted Google's mission to "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible." They then noticed that Google will provide soccer or World series scores, but not college sailing. So they made a scraper/parser/data persistence layer. Then they made a REST API. Then they made an app. The app used some very cool parallax and blur effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMQVxrft8iw

Google Play for Chinese Developers

2014-11-19T06:50:52-08:00

There are developers in China. Like a lot. They build good stuff.

http://android-developers.blogspot.sg/2014/11/chinese-developers-can-now-offer-paid.html

Google Play makes the Interview available for Android, iOS, TVs and Notebooks.

2014-12-28T03:48:57-08:00

It's your content. Watch it where you want. Read the official blog post

Google's Project Zero

2015-01-05T10:54:51-08:00

The security team at Google is good. Really good. Sometimes they find bugs in our programs that hackers could exploit. We fix these as fast as we can. Sometimes they find bugs in programs written by other companies. Google Security warns these other companies in private, then gives them 90 days to fix the bugs before they tell the world. If the 90 days passes and the company has still not fixed the bug or told their customers yet, then Google Security makes the vulnerability publicly known. This is called "disclosure." Disclosure is done because if Google could find the bug, then someone else can too. As painful as it seems, disclosure is the right thing to do for users' safety.

There is a security bug in Windows 8.1. It was discovered and communicated to Redmond Sept. 30, 2014. As of January 5th, it's still not fixed. This one is not a very scary bug for most users, but it should be fixed. So Google disclosed it.

Imagine bank robbers have a plan to rob a bank after hours. Their plan consists of two parts:

sneak into the bank after it closes.
fake the regional manager's bank ID card and finger print to get into the vault.

This bug lets the robbers do step 2) very easily. The reason that it's not that scary is because, well, you have bigger problems: namely the 5 or 6 bank robbers running around your bank after hours. In this analogy, the bank is your computer systems, and the robbers are the hackers. The vault is whatever private data you don't want them to get (credit card info, unreleased movies, torture reports, etc).

References:

Google's official position on disclosure

The actual Windows 8.1 bug report and sample exploit sent to MSFT Sept 30, 2014:

Google Store Launches!

2015-03-11T14:09:48-07:00

The press has been kind so far. I'm impressed that they picked up some of the more customer friendly commerce details in the site. This was a lot of work and I'm super proud of the team that came together to build this. It's a greatly improved customer experience, and really showcases the products that are built with Google.

Visit the Google Store.

Responsive and optimized for mobile
Material Design
All new CMS, and a proper split of Catalog, Offer (Pricing), and Marketing information
Improved order management and customer service options
Significant latency reductions

Some Press:

Lifting at Muscle Beach in Venice

2015-04-06T09:49:54-07:00

I was in LA for the weekend so decided to swing by Muscle Beach for a workout. It was Chest and Back day. I don't really go super heavy that much anymore, so just went up to 315 on flat banch. I got it 9 times with full range of motion and slow controlled reps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3InGAQNoqrI

Strict Military Press Up to 275 lbs

2015-06-30T10:31:30-07:00

Now that my achilles is feeling better, I can do some overhead military press again. I like to do these with strict form until I get the feel back. I went up to 275 lbs, which was not bad for 1st day back. When I get to 315, I will start push-pressing to get more reps. I find it unnecessary to go over 315. I can get as big and strong as I need to be by adding a few sets at 315. I'll use the seated Hammer strength if I feel I really want to go heavier. Much safer on the old joints.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0hlsEXwxdw

Hammer Decline Bench. 10 plates x 10 reps

2015-07-18T15:46:42-07:00

I like to use the Hammer strength machine for decline bench press. I feel like the restricted range of motion is safer on my shoulders, and I can safely go heavy without a spotter. I say heavy, but I keep the rep range at 10+, as most gyms don't have 100 lb plates. I squeeze at the top to try to exhaust the muscle so I fail as close to 10 as possible.

This was at the LA Fitness in Irvine, where I used to work out while I was at Amazon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbujfliaEts

Shrug drop set 585, 495, 405

2015-11-20T14:46:42-08:00

This is heavy if you do it with the correct form. I like drop sets because it lets me fully fatigue the traps without having to go super heavy. I find I get decent strength in my traps by pre-fatiguing with very high rep sets before the drop sets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVbhjDJ9qic

I do this at the end of the shoulder workout.

225 x 45
315 x 30
405 x 25
Drop set: 585 x 5, 495 x 5, 405 x 5
Drop set: 585 x 5, 495 x 5, 405 x 5

Bench Press 405, Warm up to 4 wheels

2016-08-24T15:46:42-07:00

Just uploading my old typical warmup for a heavy single at 405 lbs. Anything 405 and up counts as heavy.

I don't warm up this way anymore, but this is what I used to do most of my life when working up to a heavy single. These days, I do more reps at lower weight, and focus more on bar speed.

I can get from out of shape to being able to do 405 lbs fairly quickly. Getting from 405 to 495 took me about a year the 1st time in my early 20s, but about 4 years the most recent time. Humans age. Work and life come first. Happens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9dBkRbly8U

Reducing Bias in Your Hiring Process

2017-12-13T17:17:27-08:00

My name is Mekka, and I’m an Engineering Director on Google Play. I’ve built inclusive engineering teams at start-ups, and large tech companies like Google. My current team of engineers is around 30% women, 10% black, and 10% Latinx. Half of the engineering managers are women. Our team is also inclusive on dimensions that are not visible: sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, country of origin, etc.
We’ve achieved these results not by one big thing, but by many small, easy things. I’d like to share some of what has worked for us that I think are applicable to any company. Thanks for reading!

We’ve achieved these results not by one big thing, but by many small, easy things. I’d like to share some of what has worked for us that I think are applicable to any company. Thanks for reading!

What We Did & How We Did It #

Focus on Retention over Recruiting. #

Although it’s tempting to jump right into recruiting, our team has focused on building an inclusive culture first. Without this, the most successful recruiting efforts will not outpace regretted attrition (good people leaving your company). We found that the best way to “hire” great senior engineers who know our organization, is to develop junior engineers who already know our organization. In other words, the best senior engineers for your company, might be more junior engineers already at your company! They just need your help to grow. So we focus on sustained and intentional professional development for all of our employees, including those from underrepresented backgrounds. For example, everyone has a development plan that they can use to guide their career growth. Seeing senior folks at your company who look like them, attracts even more great talent.

Make sure that you have inclusive job descriptions. #

The job description is the beginning of a prospective candidate’s connection to your company or organization. We found that eliminating words that were off-putting to underrepresented groups was the first and most basic step. We removed words like “rockstar” and “ninja,” because they are associated with teams that don’t have an inclusive culture. Next, we focused on describing the inclusive culture of our team. Sharing the fact that inclusion is important to us, attracts candidates who want to be a part of a positive and inclusive team. Finally, reducing the number of bullet points on job descriptions improved the gender balance of applicants. This was a big surprise to us. But studies have shown that women are less likely to apply for jobs with too many requirements or even “nice to haves” listed, even if they are qualified for the role. Here’s a survey conducted by Tara Sophia Mohr from the Harvard Business Review.

Make sure you are looking everywhere great candidates are. #

Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. In the United States, higher education is prohibitively expensive. For many top science and math students, the dream of going to a brand name university or college is not realistic, even though they have the drive and grades to do so. Some students who are accepted to Ivy League schools make a conscious choice to go to more affordable schools that may not have the same brand name. Others don’t even apply. This phenomenon is known as Undermatching. Professor Caroline Hoxby at Stanford has done great work in this area (TED Talk).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCAEKk5IqQo

We’ve found that the very top talent from anywhere, almost always outperforms the average talent from even the top tier universities. Your goal as a team builder should be to broaden your search to find this top talent, and see if it’s a good fit for your company. As a benefit, “Top talent from everywhere,” is by definition a more diverse group than “CS students at top universities.”

In addition to undermatching, many top students go to top schools that may not be on your tech recruiting radar. For example, to make sure you are finding top black engineering students, add Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and engineering schools in Atlanta Georgia, to the list of places that your recruiting team prioritizes. To expand top students’ access to Google and other companies in Silicon valley, Bonita Stewart sponsored the Howard West program.

Make sure that all candidates have equal access to preparation materials. #

Some candidates don’t have access to the criteria and interview process that you use to determine who is a good fit for your team. This means that your interviews may be unintentionally testing candidates for access rather than ability. You can level the playing field by making sure that all candidates get equal access to your interview prep materials. Candidates should understand the interview format, the types of questions asked, and what you are looking for in a new team member.

The obvious benefit of sharing the preparation materials, is that you avoid rejecting great candidates who don’t know the format. The less obvious benefit, is that you avoid hiring people who might not be a great fit for your team, but wow your interviewers because they are more familiar with your format than other candidates. My employer has put together this site of materials for candidates (Grow Your Technical Skills With Google). It focuses on developing deep and broad technical skills, going right down to foundational knowledge, and includes a section with previous technical questions.

Candidate experience is key! #

Many people apply for jobs at top companies, for very few positions. Because the process is so competitive, most of the people who apply will not be offered a position. How you treat people who are not offered a position first time around, will determine whether they choose to apply again later or refer a friend, or decide never to apply again, and discourage their network from applying.

A talented candidate who does not have the knowledge or experience to join your team today, may make a great team member next year. Treat them well and stay in touch.

The Results #

Our team is 10% Black, 10% Latinx, ~30% women, and ~50% of the managers are women. Each quarter, the percentage of engineers that are women drifts closer to 50%.

Lessons Learned #

Focus on inclusion before focusing on recruiting.
Providing professional development for your existing employees helps you attract a diverse set of employees.
Reducing the number of bullet points used in Job Descriptions will increase your numbers of qualified non-male candidates.
Look where you aren’t looking to find what you aren’t finding.
Ensure interview prep materials are available to everyone, so your interview is testing for talent and ability, not access and privilege.
The way you treat candidates who aren’t a good fit for your company is even more important than how you treat those that make the team.

How Can I Get Started? #

Prioritize a culture of inclusion. Make development plans for employees from all backgrounds.
Update your job descriptions.
Expand your search.
Share your interview prep materials with candidates.

Use These Resources #

The Difficulty Anchor

2018-08-08T23:49:00-07:00

Hey underrepresented folks in technical roles! Performance review season is upon us. I want to take a few moments to remind you about some practical tips that can help you be evaluated more fairly in this and future seasons.

This tip is called "The Difficulty Anchor." It can be a critical tool for you to be evaluated fairly. This works exactly the same for a new hire SWE, all the way up to Senior Director. Most of this is going to seem like common sense because, well, it is! You might know this tip under a different name.

Everyone can benefit from this, but it's especially important for underrepresented folks in tech. For URMs, first, the bad news: Most major studies done in this area show that you will leave your job frustrated with your rate of promotion (slow), or how you perceive that you are evaluated (unfairly). Some "helpful" people will tell you not to be overly concerned about your performance reviews, or getting promoted. That's like farm dogs telling the chickens not to be overly concerned about the gaping hole in the fox-proof fence. 🦊

More bad news: Human nature is largely consistent over time. Meaning the biases that we all have and hold, and that lead us here, won't magically disappear this review season (no matter how many bias busting classes we all take). More bad news: "Just do good work, and be recognized!" doesn't work as well for you, because your context is different.

People don't expect you to do the quality of work that you do. Your peers' incredulity is a drag on their perception of your value.

And the kicker: Your peers' incredulity, can cause this sequence:

People think that you are not that good. 🤬
You do good work, and accomplish something impressive! You showed them! 😃
But peers retroactively downgrade the value of that accomplishment! 😮

If you do something awesome, your doubting peers may rationalize it by either:

a) Admitting that they were wrong, and misjudged you. Introspection is hard!
b) Convincing themselves that your accomplishment was probably less impressive than it looks. This is much easier!

This is where we run up against people "hating to be inconsistent with themselves." I mean, if you're "not that good" how could you do this really hard thing?

For your peer, the shortest mental path back to consistency is often to devalue your work. I see this post-fact devaluing happen a lot throughout our industry. It's not intentional. But it happens. And it affects your career.

🎶🐀Like the Pied Piper. Not the HBO show one. The nursery rhyme one.
Peers devalue in many ways.

Credit shedding: "Very Smart Person(tm) also worked on this with Karen. I'm pretty sure that VSP really led it."
Foregone conclusion: "Of course we would be good at [thing]! Our company rocks at [thing]. All Karen did was glue stuff together."

So, how can we counter this, without magically changing human nature? One technique that's worked for me is something I call The Difficulty Anchor.

There are 3 phases to The Difficulty Anchor: Before you work on a project, during, and after.

Before: #

I find a Very Smart Person(tm) that is known to be both a hard grader, and dispassionately objective. Yes, we're all smart. Here, have a cookie. 🍪

But by VSP, I mean someone with organizational credibility. That ain't you. Sorry.
Weird: This person is often someone that doesn't even see themselves as an advocate for D&I. They often don't even see themselves as friendly or approachable people.

Think busy Principals and Members of the Technical Staff that give no BS, actionable design review feedback.

This person with organizational credibility is my Anchor. ⚓

I ask them a ton of newbie questions before project setup, most of which I already know the answer to. Things like,

Why is this hard?
Why did this fail the last time?
Can't we just [naive solution]?

Anchors are pretty sharp, so they see what I'm doing very quickly. Some cut it short and just say, "Cut your sh*t Mekka. I get it. It's hard. So what's your plan?"

I explain the plan in great detail.

The Anchor and I come to an understanding of how complex this problem really is. Again, complexity of the problem, not complexity of the solution. I like simple solutions to complex problems.

This brings us to "During."

During: #

I make sure to keep detailed notes of my specific contributions.

For me, that entails a lot of non-conventional wisdom about massive scale Commerce systems, and finding the 1 or 2 things that really matter(tm), and intentionally ignoring the other 98 or 99 distractions.
It's important to have artifacts documenting my decisions and designs, separate from those of others.

Do not skip this step.

Pull request comments are not enough.

Do not skip this step!

Email threads are not enough.

Don't skip!!!

This is defense against credit shedding.
Then comes the most important part of During:
Do good work. No excuses. Do the damn thing.

Good work means collaborative and communicative.

It means adaptable to changing conditions.

It means Product Excellence. It means not hurting your friends in UX, TPM, SRE, or Eng Prod.
I keep my anchor informed of all progress, good, and bad. Transparency is key. Transparency is trust. Don't hide bad news.

You are starting from a trust deficit. Again, sorry. 🤷🏿‍♂️

After: #

After the launch, all the same things happen. Lots of celebrations at first, but then the attempts to devalue... 🙄

At this point, it would be impossible for me to make a case for my contributions...

I need an ally to "lend privilege."

And I have an ally! My Anchor! ⚓

The perceived difficulty or impact of the project can't move post-fact because it's anchored.👍🏿

I've never even had to ask an Anchor to make the case for why the work was complex or high value.

Going back to humans hating to be inconsistent with themselves...

The Anchor is on record saying that this work is complex and high impact, from before the project even kicked off. But now the peanut gallery says that it was easy…

The Anchor rationalizes this inconsistency by either:

a) Admitting that they were mistaken earlier about the difficulty, my contributions, or the impact.

b) Seeing that others are not being objective, and calling it out.
Choosing a) Is hard!

But that's why it's important to choose an Anchor known for being a hard grader, and being dispassionately objective.

Basically, someone whose ego isn't so big that they can't admit to being wrong.

Someone who demonstrates being publicly self-critical.

You want peers to know that the anchor feel free to choose a). But, the anchor won't choose a) If you've really done good work. 👍🏿

A well chosen anchor will choose b).

They usually come in unsolicited, flying over the top ropes to shut down any noise devaluing your work.

Yes, this is all a PITA. I used to wonder what I could possibly accomplish in Commerce, and where, to not have to pre-emptively head off devaluing of my work. 🤷🏿‍♂️

We're working on fixing this as an industry. But until then this is a workaround that I've found effective.

Google Fitness Games - First Place Bench Press

2018-11-01T08:28:36-07:00

One more year in the books. 445 solid lbs. 500 lbs is the goal for next year!

445 lbs

View this post on Instagram

Yay! #445lbs on the #benchpress to win the overall and the lb for lb (Wilkes) at the #exos #gfitgames . Bar speed was good! Maybe 450 lbs was there? 🤷🏿‍♂️ What do you think? At any rate, I'm happy with that lift. This puts me within 50 lbs of my lifetime PR (495lbs). Beast mode is over for a few months. Time for #keto mode to resume. Thanks to the strategy of "Eat your way to victory!" I'm sitting at a beautiful 321 lbs right now. Body positive! 👍🏿 Next stop, 299 lbs. I haven't been south of 3 bills in a long time... I got close about a month ago (302 lbs), but then, carbs. 😋 #powerlifter #powerlifting #bodybuilder #bodybuilding #weightlifter #weightlifting #natural #naturalpowerlifter #naturalbodybuilding #lifetimenatural #lifetimenatty #natty #bench #howmuchyabench #flatbench #chestday #chestandtriceps #powerliftingmotivation #motivation #fitness #fitspo #igpowerlifters #rawbenchpress #beastmode #beastmodeactivated

A post shared by mekka (@mekkatech) on Nov 1, 2018 at 6:36pm PDT

Google Fitness Games - 495 lb bench press

2019-10-09T17:00:00-07:00

This ties a lifetime PR for me. Grown man strength. Raw natural. No shirt, no PEDs.
Yeah, there are people that lift more, but not many of them are also lifetime natural. Not hating on people that choose a different path. You do you.

495 lbs

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by mekka (@mekkatech)

Who gets to fail?

2021-10-10T08:55:41-07:00

Who gets to fail? This period of El*n "throw a plate of spaghetti against a wall and see what sticks" leadership illustrates what I've been saying:

What a lot of people mistake for genius, is just permission to fail over and over again until eventually something kinda works.

People from underrepresented backgrounds don't get that opportunity. There is no Black person or woman in tech that could fail this hard, this spectacularly, and still have any of shred of credibility left.

One and done for underrepresented folks.

Black History Month

2023-02-01T01:55:41-08:00

Happy Black History Month!

But I don't want to talk about Black History. I want to talk about white US history. Once we get through learning all about white US history, we can get back to the Black history.

A big problem in the US, is that Black people know a lot of US history that white people don't know. This is a problem, because it causes people to view the same situations with vastly different levels of understanding.

We can reduce racism and increase understanding, empathy, and collaboration, just be reducing this delta in information and context. In short, by learning some history.

Mekka finally benching 500 lbs

2025-02-25T01:30:00-08:00

Finally putting it all together! I've hit 495 lbs so many times in my life, but always missed 500 lbs for silly reasons, before this lift.

Now I just have to do this in a meet, so that it can be recorded for all time.

Yes, there are a lot of people that can bench over 500 lbs. But no, there are not a lot of lifetime natural athletes that can do it. This is super heavy.

Video: Mekka benching 500 lbs.

GFit Games: 500 Lbs miss!

2025-11-07T01:30:21-08:00

So close! But not today! I've done this in practice, but couldn't put it together in the meet. This was definitely the meet to do it in, as they allow "touch and go."

Video: Mekka getting so close to benching 500 lbs in a meet.