Chill Labs

Let's Chillaborate!

Chill Labs is a boutique consultancy helping companies think strategically, solve business problems, and streamline operations utilizing Product Management, Software Engineering principles and AI. Combining a decade of experience running complex, globally distributed software products with expertise in product discovery, user research, and strategy, Chill Labs helps companies build products that users want and do so in a way that supports growth and scale. Dina Levitan, Founder and Principal at Chill Labs, based out of Seattle, WA, brings over 15 years of experience as a product and technical leader ranging from startups to companies like Google.

Why Most Automation Fails (Lessons Learned from Google SRE)

Issue #4 Why Most Automation Fails (Lessons Learned from Google SRE) A framework for understanding processes before you automate them The Two-Month "Simple" Task "Just move the cluster to the new datacenter. How hard could it be?" That was my thinking when I started what seemed like a straightforward automation project at Google. We needed to move SmartAds' click-through rate prediction system, a critical ML pipeline that helps decide which ads to show users. The manual process existed,...

24 days ago • 4 min read

How One CEO Multiplied His Impact with 40+ AI Agents

Issue #3 How One CEO Multiplied His Impact with 40+ AI Agents Ever wonder what happens when someone actually runs an entire marketing department with AI agents? My guest this week, Jacob Bank, is doing exactly that. I'm thrilled to share the second podcast episode of the “Automate Yourself” podcast, featuring Jacob Bank, CEO of Relay.app and former Google Product Management director. Jacob’s journey from academia to leading AI-driven innovations across multiple startups and Big Tech shares a...

2 months ago • 3 min read

I Can Do Anything Now: How AI Renewed One Netflix Developer's Love for Engineering

Issue #2 I Can Do Anything Now: How AI Renewed One Netflix Developer's Love for Engineering In a rapidly evolving tech landscape, the ability to adapt and leverage new tools is more crucial than ever. The latest podcast episode of “Automate Yourself Out of a Job and Into a New Career,” hosted by Dina Levitan and Chill Labs, features a compelling conversation with Deonna Hodges, a senior software engineer at Netflix and a passionate advocate for AI and automation. Deonna’s journey offers a...

4 months ago • 5 min read

Why "Automate Yourself Out of a Job" is the Best Career Move You'll Ever Make

Issue #1 Why "Automate Yourself Out of a Job" is the Best Career Move You'll Ever Make There's a saying that we used a lot in Google's Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team: "Automate Yourself Out of a Job." Counterintuitive? Absolutely. At first glance, it sounds like terrible career advice. But dive deeper, and you'll discover this philosophy might be the most powerful career strategy for our times. The Origin Story In Google's SRE culture, this mantra means: Systematically eliminating...

5 months ago • 2 min read