Engineering and Leadership Podcast

In this episode, I discuss digital transformation projects with speaker, author, and former football player Tanvir Bhangoo, and why these projects are much less reliant on technology than you might expect.

In this episode, I chat with Anthony Fasano, president of the Engineering Management Institute, about the importance of leadership, management and career development for engineering staff.

Managing international teams is incredibly difficult. Today, Pamela Kellert shares her insights into how to better manage international teams.

Dolores Hirschmann believes that clarity of message is critical to effective leadership. A leader's team can't buy in to a vision without first understanding it. In today's episode, Dolores helps engineering leaders understand the importance of clarity of message, how to tell if your messaging is clear, and provides practical steps on how to improve your communications.

Ralf Specht is on a mission to rid the world of soulless companies. On today's episode, he explains why it's good for business for a company to have soul, and gives great advice on how to reinvigorate your organization with the “Soul System”.

Duncan Oyevaar believes in the power of business engineering. He has seen that organizations can dramatically improve themselves by equipping their engineers with excellent business skills, and he's got the data to prove it. Today, we talk about why engineers need to understand a business' financials, value stream mapping, continuous improvement, and the importance of listening to your staff.

In this special edition, I tease the next episodes of the show and make a major announcement about the future of the Engineering & Leadership project.

Joseph Seiler has spent his career helping engineers do incredible work by empowering them and stepping back to let them do incredible work - first as the president and CEO of his own company, and today as a Master Certified Coach. Joseph's experience provides incredible lessons learned for engineering managers of all stripes, most especially the value of coaching as an engineering manager.

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management thinking once said that "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." That wasn't a knock on how important strategy is, rather, he's emphasizing the importance that culture plays within an organization. Today's guest would share that sentiment. Today, I speak with Dan Langevin, the CTO of Vericred about the role culture plays in a technical organization, and specifically about the importance of both accountability and curiosity for Vericred's engineering team.

Meetings are a fact of organizational life. The fact that so few of us have ever been trained to run excellent meetings is a bit of a shock. We all know they're needed, and we all know they're mostly painful and wasteful. If you follow even a few of the ideas in this episode, you and your team will be more engaged, efficient, and effective in your work.

One of the struggles many engineering leaders have is knowing how and when to let go and allow their teams to move forward with their daily work. It can be incredibly difficult to know how to transition from working in the team to working on the team. This leads to micromanagement, impaired performance, and a dearth of leadership and direction. Luckily, Peter Docker addresses this exact problem in his new book, Leading from the Jumpseat: How to create extraordinary opportunities by handing over control. In today's episode, I speak with Peter about his new book, the importance of letting go, and what it takes to be a fantastic engineering leader.

Mentorship in the world of engineering is an incredible tool. It helps those being mentored improve job performance, satisfaction, and achievement of long-term goals. For the mentor, it helps connect with earlier stage professionals, organize their thoughts and frameworks around their work, and gives them a chance to give back. Finding or becoming and engineering mentor is a brilliant move at any point in your engineering career.

Sales and business development are key skills for engineers who want to grow in their careers. For many senior engineers and engineering managers, helping to grow their company through new business is an absolute necessity. In this episode, you'll learn what sales is really all about, why it's important for your growth, and why you already have a lot of the skills needed to be great at helping to grow your engineering firm.

Culture is the glue that holds an organization together. It's the unwritten, ethereal rules of engagement - the collection of "how things work around here". Today, I speak with Mark Kinsella, VP of Engineering at Opendoor about organizational culture: what it is, why it's important to engineering organizations, and how to drive excellence through excellent engineering culture.

In today's interview, I speak with Stephanie Slocum, author of She Engineers and founder of Engineers rising about supporting women in engineering through addressing unconscious bias, redefining success and creating a better, more inclusive future.

In this episode of the Engineering & Leadership podcast, I interview psychologist Dr. Robin Rosenberg about the risks posed by hybrid workplaces, how to overcome them, and the future of hybrid work.

Neil Thompson of Teach The Geek shares his advice for engineers everywhere on why public speaking is so important for engineers and how to improve as a public speaker.

Today, I speak with Wastefront's CTO, Henrik Selstam, about his company and their mission to address one of the world's most pressing environmental challenges: dealing with end-of-life tires.

Today, I speak with David Marquet on the importance of the language we use as leaders, what's wrong with the old way of engaging with our teams, and how to drive performance through what we say.

In this episode of the Engineering & Leadership podcast, I speak with Dr. Ben Ritter about the importance of leading yourself and how to start if you've never tried.

Today, I'm going to share five common issues I see with engineering project metrics in professional practice, and how to address them on your projects.

In today's episode, I speak with Brett Fox, a seasoned high-tech executive and entrepreneur who has made a career of launching successful businesses and turning around foundering ones. He answers all the most important questions about launching a successful startup, and shares particular insight into the importance of having a fantastic founding team, why clarity of thought is critical, and why the COVID-19 pandemic might just be the perfect time to launch a new venture.

In today's episode, Vivian and I discuss the importance of mission in leading a team, why she decided to move on from her "dream job" at McKinsey, how she's successfully building a remote technical team, and what the future holds for Juni.

Dr. Lucas Marino is a principal life cycle engineer for the COLUMBIA submarine program, engineering manager, educator, small business owner, and family man. In today's episode, we discuss the importance of learning and teaching for practicing engineers, pursuing passions, and keeping it all in balance.

An interview with engineer, author, and TedX speaker Michael Tranmer on how the sudden end of his marriage forced a reset in his life, and how he found happiness.

An interview with author, MIT instructor, and CTO Mark Herschberg on the essential skills you need to succeed as an engineering leader.

In today's episode, I speak with Andrew Hinkelman, founder of Priority-1 Group, and former CTO of Parametric, about leadership and management in the technical world, and how to set yourself up for success as a leader in tech.

In today's episode, I interview Dr. Katrina Burrus about the challenges technical experts face when moving in to management, the importance of cultural fit, and the kinds of skills you need to succeed as a manager.

In this week’s episode, I interview Josh Mathias, the Managing Director at the Hythe Group, a multi-disciplinary engineering firm from the UK on leadership, management, and his ascent from the shop floor to the corner office.

In this week’s episode, I share five things that nobody tells you when you transition into engineering management. It's a summary of the biggest lessons learned in my own career, and how to put them to work for you.

In this week’s episode, I share three strategies for future-proofing your career so that you can move forward with confidence, even in a pandemic. You’ll hear advice on gaining career clarity, beating impostor syndrome, and establishing yourself as a leader, along with my co-host Jeff Perry. 

In this week’s episode, I Interview Steve Foran, a progressional engineer whose career took a major turn nearly 15 years ago, when he launched a company to help make people happier through gratitude. Steve’s mission is simple, yet incredibly daunting: Make 1 Billion Happier People. I ask Steve about the importance of his mission, how gratitude helps leaders, and what engineering managers can do today to start practicing gratitude each and every day.

In this episode, I give a sneak peak into my engineering productivity course and give away five of my best tips to help engineers prioritize their work.

In this episode, I have a conversation with Matthew G. Dick, author of SEED: A Hard Science Fiction Novel about Survival, Colonization, and Leadership. Matthew is an experienced engineering manager who recently completed his first novel. He shares his experience writing the book, how he balanced work with a major side project, and how he has developed his own leadership skills through the experience.

In this episode, I interview Sol Rosenbaum of theengineeringmentor.com about strategies for finding your next engineering job, especially during a pandemic. We cover modern job search techniques, networking, using LinkedIn, interview skills, and much more.

In this episode, I provide 8 of the specific strategies I use to process email, keep my inbox clean, and focus more time on what really matters - getting work done.

In this episode, I discuss impostor syndrome with Jeff Perry from morethan-engineering.com. We dig in to what it is, how it affects engineers, and how to manage it if you're ever faced with it in your own career.

In this episode, I discuss the the importance of recognition, how it can influence your engineering team for the better, the risks of not recognizing your engineers, and simple - yet effective - ways to recognize people, even during a pandemic.

In this episode, I discuss the value of disconnecting and getting away. Disrupting your normal work habits to make time and space to think deeply can yield wonderful results in terms of generating new and innovative ideas. Everyone needs time away from the office.

In today’s episode, we talk about the life-changing magic of saying no - the most powerful word in your professional vocabulary.

In this episode, I explore the difference between management and leadership and explain how engineers can lead at any stage in their career. I also give concrete examples of how you can lead no matter what career stage you're in.

In this episode, we relaunch the podcast and tell you a bit about what to expect in the coming weeks.

In this podcast/ blog post, you’ll hear all about the formula that I’ve developed over the last decade to really improve my productivity as an engineer. It uses a three-tiered approach that makes it different from most of the strategies you read about today. Below, I list the links that I mention throughout the show […]

Welcome to the fourth episode of the Engineering and Leadership podcast! This episode digs into why understanding money is incredibly important for engineers, and goes into the most important thing to know about money. It would be great to get your feedback on the show. Please leave a comment at the end of the show notes […]

In the show today, I go through the five top reasons you need to love your job. The five reasons are: 1. At least a half of your waking hours spent at work, so it would be good to actually enjoy that time. 2. It will be very difficult for you to invest in your career if you don’t love your work. 3. You’ll never be truly great at what you do if you don’t love your work. 4. People who aren’t into their work don’t get promotions 5. Most importantly, you won’t feel fulfilled.

Welcome to the second episode of the Engineering and Leadership podcast! This episode covers whether it is better to become a manager or a technical specialist as you move forward in your career as an engineer. I cover the pros and cons of each path and help you decide which might be best for you.

Well, I've gone and done it and started a podcast. This is the very first episode of the Engineering and Leadership Podcast. In this episode, I introduce the show, and share 5 productivity hacks that I use to squeeze more out of my week than the average engineer.