maria khan.

▲Reach out

let's.talk

I'm a slow correspondent. A couple of notes below on what tends to land well, and what tends not to.

Channels

  • LinkedIn /in/khan-maria- DMs are open. A sentence of context goes a long way.
  • GitHub @missusk Issues and PRs reach me faster than email.
  • Email maria@runbookpages.com Subject lines that explain themselves get answered first.

What lands well

  • Technical questions on the topics I write about: Rails, Kubernetes, dynamic config, distributed coordination.
  • Collaboration on platform / infra work, especially the messy migration-shaped kind.
  • Specific design questions where you can name the failure mode you are worried about. Those are the fun threads.
  • Pointers to a paper, an RFC, or a Postgres detail I've gotten wrong. Genuinely my favorite kind of email.
  • Recruiters with a real role in mind that you actually think fits. Happy to chat. Lead with the role and the team, not the boilerplate.

What tends not to

  • "Quick chats" without a question attached. I am bad at unstructured conversations and would rather we both have a thread to pull on.
  • Asks to amplify a launch or campaign on LinkedIn. Not really my lane and I would not be useful at it.
  • LeetCode or DSA homework. I write about systems, not interview prep, and you will get better signal from people who do.
  • Connect requests with no sentence of context. I am not sure how to engage with them and they tend to sit unread.

Replies come on a slow weekly cadence rather than instant. If something is time-sensitive, mark it that way and it will jump the queue.