Learning is part of the fun: Top Down with Alena Fereday

What were your favorite books growing up? While many of us cherish memories of fairytales or fantasy books, senior solution architect Alena Fereday was reading her mother’s books on BASIC and Turbo Pascal as a child. This sparked a love of coding so voracious that she would occasionally do her older sister’s coding homework just for fun. From her early days discovering code to her role at Elastic, many things have changed. Alena has moved from Siberia (Russia) to Australia, she has children of her own, and the tech landscape has evolved more than she could have dreamed. But one thing remains constant: her passion for continuous learning.

For Alena, learning itself is the goal. “There are many, many things I’d love to be able to do; I think learning to do them is part of the fun.” Her love of the process applies to work and play. Alena used to go sailing on weekends — a hobby she loved and even pursued competitively — but hasn’t since she began pursuing other passions with her family. She still reads a lot and writes regularly in her blog and hopes to return to sailing someday. While it may seem opposite to her work at Elastic sitting in front of a computer digging into code, she insists there are surprising similarities. “I enjoy being part of a team and mastering fairly complex skills.”

How does she stay energized enough to do it all? By balancing efficiency and flexibility. “I am used to juggling a lot in my life between three children and all the different parts of my job at Elastic,” says Alena. “It’s certainly never boring!” Though it can be difficult juggling three young children, work, and hobbies, her philosophy is one that makes room for constant adjustments. Approaching life like a true engineer, she accepts that different things take priority at different times — fire alarms in one life area can be met with complete calm in another. The trick is leaning into the chaos and adjusting accordingly. “I am not sure I believe that it’s possible to balance everything; sometimes, we lean a bit more into one thing and at other times, into another. It balances over time with some conscious boundaries.”

When it comes to work, those boundaries include her dedicated workspace. Having a dedicated, specific desk setup is one thing Alena keeps controlled even in the face of unpredictability. “I use my laptop’s monitor and an external monitor, which helps during meetings when I need to take notes, work on something complex, or switch between tasks,” she says, “which happens a lot!”

Like her life, her setup is built for versatility. The best tool for one day and one job might not be the best for another. That’s why the main components of her desk are also portable: “I am using a 16-inch MacBook Pro because it is powerful and can still be carried around if necessary.” Alena also uses an iPad for whiteboarding, taking notes, and other more freeform tasks. A little mess is okay, too; it just means you’re working hard. “My desk is not always tidy, but it reflects my personality as I work and think and create.”

Her desk is also designed for peak productivity. With three children, she needs to be able to focus. “My Loop earplugs filter out the noise sometimes without having to play music or anything else,” she says. When she needs to shut out the noise (literally) and dig deep, “small items can make a big impact.” Case in point: she chose an ergonomic chair. It wasn’t a decision she made lightly. “I previously had a chair that wasn’t very ergonomic or looked very good. So, when I had a chance to replace it, I made sure it was something supportive and adjustable.” Comfort for those long hours (days? weeks?) is paramount for productivity and physical health.

When it’s time to build, Alena is just as eager to try things out and see what sticks. Elastic has been part of her experimentation process for years, even before she was an Elastician. “Before I even worked at Elastic, I remember sending some data into it and then quickly building some dashboards in Kibana,” Alena says. “It was fun and easy. And what started as a hobby project can scale easily into something useful for almost any organization.”

Now, she works in presales, educating customers about our search, observability, and security solutions. It’s an exciting time for experimentation, she says. “We live in an era with emerging AI tools, which are incredible for building demos and prototypes since people on our team have been experimenting with different approaches.”

The variety in what you can build and how is inspiring to Alena. As someone who is both customer-facing and involved with researching and coding, she relishes the opportunity to see both sides of the solution and get feedback from customers.

Her favorite part of her role is interacting with clients at in-real-life (IRL) workshops. Getting hands-on and answering questions is where she shines, especially when she gets to educate about lesser-known Elastic solutions.

A new release she can’t wait to dive into? Elastic Agent Builder. Alena shares, “I’m excited about all the new capabilities coming to the platform, especially Agent Builder. And I can’t wait to experiment with it.” True to form, she’s eager to explore what’s possible. Alena knows that with Elastic, there’s always more to discover. If you need her, she’s probably experimenting with some new project, sunken into her ergonomic chair with her headphones on.

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