March, 2021
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Disclaimer: I’m an employee of IBM. The views expressed in this article are mine and don’t necessarily reflect the positions, strategies, or opinions of the company.
Tell us a little about your current role: where do you work, your title and generally the sort of work that you and your team do.
I work at IBM on the Cognos Analytics (CA) for Mobile team. CA is a suite of business intelligence tools that provides powerful cognitive capabilities. It uses AI and machine learning to help prep data and suggest ways to manage and visualize data. For example, it can suggest visualization types based on the type of data provided. It features best-in-class analytics capabilities, such as reporting, dashboards, data modelling, and data exploration. CA also takes analytics further and uses AI to generate insights and predictions. Since it’s true enterprise software, it runs in on-prem environments as well as the hybrid cloud on IBM Cloud Pak™ for Data.

StaffEng's platform is a resource for engineering leaders, offering insights into engineering management, team leadership, and organizational dynamics. Through articles, case studies, and interviews with engineering managers, StaffEng offers insights into effective leadership strategies, career development paths, and building high-performing engineering teams. Readers can learn about managing technical debt, fostering a culture of innovation, and navigating challenges in engineering management roles to advance their careers as engineering leaders.

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Stephen Kawaguchi shares his journey as a Solution Architect at IBM, working on Cognos Analytics mobile team. He discusses transitioning from different staff engineer archetypes (Solver, Tech Lead, Architect) and his focus on implementing Lean, Agile, and DevOps practices. The interview covers his daily responsibilities including code reviews, mentoring, architectural discussions, and strategic planning. He emphasizes the importance of T-shaped skills, continuous learning, and sponsoring other engineers. Kawaguchi highlights how he transformed a struggling team into a DevOps-capable group leading cloud-native workflows in a traditionally on-premise organization.

Stephen Kawaguchi - Solution Architect at IBM