We share the most critical perspectives, habits & examples of great software engineering leaders to help evolve leadership in the tech industry. Join our community of software engineering leaders @ www.sfelc.com!
ABOUT DHRUV PARTHASARATHYDhruv Parthasarathy has spent the last 8 years focused on applying modern software and machine learning techniques in healthcare. Dhruv currently serves as the CTO of Commure, HATCO, and Augmedix. In the role of CTO, he leads product, engineering, and design teams. Prior to this, Dhruv helped found Athelas which eventually merged with Commure.In these roles, Dhruv has designed and developed end-to-end solutions for revenue cycle automation, ambient documentation, patient engagement, and at-home diagnostics for oncology.Before this, Dhruv was the Director of Machine Learning Programs at Udacity, where he led the development of the AI, Self-Driving Car, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning Nanodegree programs.Dhruv also worked as a Product Engineer at Udacity, where he rebuilt the main signed-in experience and was responsible for the backend development. Dhruv obtained a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013. Following this, they pursued a Master's degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence at MIT from 2013 to 2014. This episode is brought to you by Side – delivering award-winning QA, localization, player support, and tech services for the world's leading games and technology brands.For over 30 years, Side has helped create unforgettable user experiences—from indies to AAA blockbusters like Silent Hill 2 and Baldur's Gate 3.Learn more about Side's global solutions at side.inc. SHOW NOTES:How the Commure team moves with speed & momentum (3:26)Commure's operational strategy / key leadership principles (4:57)Hiring & cultivating multi-talented individuals (7:16)How to optimize decision-making, push decisions down & minimize risk (8:40)Why speed is a core principle for building successful eng orgs (11:36)Getting unstuck in your decision-making as an eng team (13:07)Challenges faced while building a high-performing eng team in healthcare (15:47)Tactics for hiring less experienced engineers & bringing them up to speed (18:22)Customization as a product principle and how it manifests in EPD (20:55)Why the polymath style approach to engineering is more vital now than ever (23:47)Lessons learned around scope & using it to create leverage (26:06)Frameworks for assessing areas most likely to create a compound win (28:22)Rapid fire questions (30:35)LINKS AND RESOURCESCinema Speculation - The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT LOÏC HOUSSIERLoïc Houssier is an engineering executive with 20 years of leadership experience spanning startups, scale-ups, and global enterprises. He specializes in helping high-growth companies scale with speed and discipline, combining technical depth with a strong operational mindset.He currently leads engineering at Superhuman, the most productive email app ever made, where he joined at a pivotal moment in the company's growth. Loïc brought a new level of executional rigor — embedding a culture of speed not just in the product (where every interaction happens in under 100ms), but in how the team ships, scales, and makes decisions.Previously, he held senior engineering roles at Productboard, Firstbase, and DocuSign, where he led global teams through platform expansion, org design, and M&A. With a background in cryptography and early experience as a security researcher, Loïc is also a frequent mentor and speaker on engineering leadership and building resilient, high-velocity teams.SHOW NOTES:How Loïc built a reputation for building high-velocity engineering orgs (2:14)The underweighted value of board member continuity (4:58)Defining velocity in the AI age (6:23)Loïc's evolving playbook that drives velocity (9:10)Implementing the velocity playbook @ Superhuman (11:04)An example of incorporating domain focus effectively within an eng team (12:49)Strategies for changing core principles / managing culture shock (16:17)Knowing when you made the correct change vs. signals it's not working (19:06)Tools & tactics to promote a velocity mindset in engineering orgs (21:10)Build credibility with influential eng leaders in your org (23:37)Frameworks for cultivating product thinking within an eng org (27:03)How to cultivate great product taste inside engineering orgs (30:24)The importance of having a strong leader who sets the product taste standard (32:20)Key elements of exceptional product experiences @ Superhuman (34:34)Loïc's perspective on navigating product complexity & quality expectations w/ AI (36:28)The future of productivity tools: paradigm shifts in AI & productivity (39:29)Rapid fire questions (41:20)LINKS AND RESOURCESDays at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa's moving international sensation about new beginnings, human connection, and the joy of reading.Zone to Win: Organizing to Compete in an Age of Disruption - Geoffrey A. Moore's high-powered tool for driving your company above and beyond its limitations, its definitions of success, and ultimately, its competitors.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
When Nissim Lehyani (VP of Product at Life360) used AI to build a math game for his son, he didn't just prototype a game, he rewired how he thinks about product development and the relationship between engineering, product, and design. In this episode, Nissim shares how that personal “aha” moment sparked a shift in how his teams build, collaborate, and ship. We dive into how AI is accelerating product iteration from months to hours, why it's time to drop the “M” from MVP, and how prototypes are replacing PRDs as the central artifact of product work. Plus how product rituals and building cadence are evolving, strategies for scaling a prototype-first workflow, and we deconstruct the “lightning pod” model and how it's changing the dynamics of product building & EPD collaboration. Have any AI passion projects that you'd like to share? Join the discussion on our forum and share your insights, questions, and takeaways. ABOUT NISSIM LEHYANINissim Lehyani is the Vice President of Product at Life360, where he leads product strategy for the family safety platform used by over 60 million users worldwide. With more than two decades of experience across startups, global tech companies, and entrepreneurial ventures, Nissim is known for scaling impactful products that blend technical depth with business strategy.Prior to Life360, he was Senior Director of Product at Indeed, where he oversaw a portfolio of 13 consumer products reaching 300M+ monthly users, and led a team of 40+ product managers across global markets. Nissim previously held leadership roles at GoDaddy, where he helped 18M+ SMBs grow their businesses through strategic partnerships with Facebook, Yelp, and Google.As a founder, he built and led two ventures: Shopial (acquired by Magento) and Urban Place, raising millions to support small businesses and entrepreneurs. He also brings deep technical roots from his engineering leadership at Cisco and early career in Israeli Military Intelligence.Nissim is a 2024 Product Leader Award winner and active mentor in the startup ecosystem through roles at Mixpanel and SV101 by ICON. He's passionate about user-centric innovation, data-driven growth, and the intersection of AI, engineering, and product management. SHOW NOTES:How Nissin & Patrick got connected (2:19)Nissin's light bulb AI moment (4:03)Building first & defining later (5:33)How AI accelerates product iteration from months to hours & fills skill gaps (6:49)Recognizing your AI aha moment (9:44)Why it's time to drop the “M” from MVP (11:21)New expectations for the first iteration of a product (13:37)Nissim's #1 product principle (15:56)Why prototyping is replacing PRDs (17:57)Strategies for socializing a prototype-first workflow in your org (19:54)Tactics for inspiring AI adoption: find one annoying thing & show vs. tell (22:22)Rethinking product cadence and how product rituals are evolving (24:08)Defining the “lightning pod” model (25:29)How “lightning pods” change the dynamic between engineering, product & design (27:20)A live AI product demo: recreating Nissim's original aha moment (29:10)Iterating product in real-time (31:06)How Nissim evaluates code & product outcomes (33:38)Rapid fire questions (34:15) This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
We just launched the ELC Forum — a new space for engineering leaders to dive deeper into real challenges and get peer support It's a discussion board (like Reddit) but focused on eng leadership. We're sharing takeaways from recent episodes and kicking off new discussions. Plus, AMAs with guests are coming soon. See you in the Forum!Click here to explore the forum, ask questions, & share insights and takeaways!https://elc.community/home/forum
ABOUT PRASHANT RAMARAOPrashant is a hands-on technology executive with extensive experience in software engineering, leading large organizations, specializing in AI / ML, and large-scale systems architecture. With advanced degrees in computer science and engineering leadership, he excels at defining technical strategies that align with business goals, delivering results, and fostering high-performing, cross-functional teams. He cares about engineering excellence, leveraging cutting-edge technology to solve complex problems and scale operations for long-term growth. He has a lifelong passion for learning and looks for opportunities to challenge the status quo to drive change. He loves the outdoors and is a self-proclaimed podaholic - going on long hikes in Bay Area while listening to his podcasts is one of his favorite activities.This episode is brought to you by Side – delivering award-winning QA, localization, player support, and tech services for the world's leading games and technology brands.For over 30 years, Side has helped create unforgettable user experiences—from indies to AAA blockbusters like Silent Hill 2 and Baldur's Gate 3.Learn more about Side's global solutions at side.inc. SHOW NOTES:Behind Prashant's rapid leadership evolution (3:26)Transitioning from IC to management: early steps and surprises (5:51)Navigating the mindset shifts from tech expert to people leader (7:31)Friction points in moving from informal to formal leadership (11:00)Skills for communicating with less technical audiences (13:46)Learning to talk with GMs & other non-technical leaders (16:32)Frameworks for effective meeting planning (19:03)Examples of communicating technical work to execs (20:08)Learning the impact of the “observer effect” (21:59)Incorporating feedback gathered by observing (27:03)Strategies for maintaining technical credibility as a senior leader (29:29)Why personal projects and experimentation matter for leadership growth (32:21)How Prashant's personal projects enhance technical credibility & leadership skills (36:59)Rapid fire questions (37:57)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
AI is reshaping the fundamental economics of startups—lowering product development costs, compressing GTM cycles, and rewriting the rules of competition. In this episode, Craig McLuckie (Co-Founder & CEO @ Stacklok, co-creator of Kubernetes) unpacks “the epoch of the startup,” a moment of massive disruption where fast-moving founders have a unique edge over incumbents. We explore how Craig is navigating this new era from rethinking cost structure, value capture, and defensibility to leveraging open-source, community, and asymmetric advantages as core pillars of Stacklok's strategy. Craig shares lessons from pivotal product shifts, frameworks for identifying moats, and the broader societal implications of AI-driven disruption. Whether you're leading a startup, pivoting in the face of AI, or thinking about your next big move, this conversation offers a strategic playbook for thriving in today's shifting landscape.How do you see AI reshaping the startup landscape? Join the discussion on our forum and share your insights, questions, and takeaways. ABOUT CRAIG MCLUCKIECraig is the CEO and co-founder of Stacklok, where his team is working to tip AI code generation on its side, from vertical, closed solutions to horizontal, aligned systems. Craig was previously CEO and co-founder of Heptio, which was acquired by VMware in 2018; he has also led product and engineering teams at Google and Microsoft. Craig is a co-creator of Kubernetes and he bootstrapped and chaired the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. xThis episode is brought to you by Side – delivering award-winning QA, localization, player support, and tech services for the world's leading games and technology brands.For over 30 years, Side has helped create unforgettable user experiences—from indies to AAA blockbusters like Silent Hill 2 and Baldur's Gate 3.Learn more about Side's global solutions at side.inc. SHOW NOTES:Why this moment is “the epoch of the startup” (2:03)How AI shifts startup economics: from cost structures to value capture (4:18)Why incumbents struggle during disruption—and how startups can win (8:17)The origin story behind Stacklok & lessons from Craig's pivot (11:04)Frameworks for identifying asymmetric advantages as a founder (14:48)How to map your unique asymmetric advantages to new opportunities and secure stakeholder buy-in (16:34)Rethinking defensibility & value capture in the AI era (16:29)How Craig applied cost, GTM & product perspectives to strategic pivots @ Stacklok (18:07)Building investment theses: Aligning cultural strengths & asymmetric advantages with evolving opportunities (20:05)Determining your startup's investment themes (22:53)Structuring experiments & validating opportunities (24:15)Defensibility & building community-driven moats in early ideation phases (26:54)Signals of early community-product alignment (31:24)Conversation frameworks to assess asymmetric advantages (32:22)Societal implications of AI disruption & the “startup epoch” (35:14)Rapid fire questions (38:12)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT ANUSH ELANGOVANAnush Elangovan leads the Artificial Intelligence Group (AIG) as Corporate Vice President of AI software and solutions.Anush has 23 years of industry experience in AI, computer science, compilers, network security, operating systems, math, and its materialization on complex hardware systems. This co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nod.ai oversaw product strategy and the overall business until AMD acquired Nod.ai (see related article here) today.Anush will lead the acceleration of deploying AI solutions optimized for AMD products while aligning with AMD's AI growth strategy centered on an open software ecosystem. In the near term, he and his team will introduce the code generation (CodeGen) capabilities from the Nod.ai flagship software, Shark, to unlock customer engagements via the ROCm™ and Vitis™ AI platforms. Over time, Anush will lead the contributions of the Nod.ai team to the AMD Unified AI Stack.Before starting Nod.ai, Anush was instrumental in the graphics stack on the first ARM Chromebook. He led the movement of the Chrome operating system from Debian to Gentoo Linux to enable Google to gain full control of the shipping software. Previously, he was Principal Engineer for Agnilux, which Google acquired. The Agnilux team became crucial to the Chrome OS team, building a fusion of Android and Chrome OS.Previously, Anush was a technical lead at Cisco Systems in its Datacenter Group, creating the first distributed virtual switching platform. He has also been an early member of FireEye, where he led in-memory taint-check analysis for networking and security in virtualized environments. He started his career in an earlier stint at Cisco, contributing to metro Ethernet initiatives.Anush holds a Master of Science in computer science from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Engineering in computer science from the Mepco Schlenk Engineering College at Madurai Kamaraj University in India. He has earned 10 patents. In his spare time, he enjoys skiing, mountaineering, and trail running. Anush lives with his family, including three children and two dogs, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area.This episode is brought to you by Side – delivering award-winning QA, localization, player support, and tech services for the world's leading games and technology brands.For over 30 years, Side has helped create unforgettable user experiences—from indies to AAA blockbusters like Silent Hill 2 and Baldur's Gate 3.Learn more about Side's global solutions at side.inc. SHOW NOTES:AMD's AI hardware + software strategy, explained (2:24)From startup founder to leading AI software at AMD (3:50)How AMD is unifying hardware through a shared AI stack (6:01)What the VP of AI Software @ AMD owns across software & customer enablement (7:17)AMD's daily standup and real-time prioritization rituals (10:32)Strategies for building a unified AI ecosystem from first principles (13:06)How to approach building for complex technical workflows (15:38)Navigating hardware ecosystem requirements & aligning AI software (17:48)Challenging legacy software assumptions & why AI requires a new mindset for software development (19:38)AMD's integration of community contributors into product cycles (21:21)AMD's approach to cultivating an open-source ecosystem & community experience (22:48)Open-source & AMD's ecosystem strategy: Building trust by building in public (26:57)How AMD collects and acts on user feedback fast within a community ecosystem (29:24)AI's impact on everyday human experiences (32:15)Rapid fire questions (34:50) This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT FARNAZ AZMOODEHFarnaz is the CTO at Linktree, the leading social platform for creators and small businesses. Linktree enables its users to unify, curate, and monetize their online presence. Farnaz started her career at Google, focusing on the ad tech space. Farnaz then joined Snap, leading Snap's AR monetization team before scaling to run Snap's Platform and product engineering. Farnaz earned her bachelor's degree in computer science from Sharif University of Technology before moving to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Southern California. After fulfilling the credits for a master's degree, she decided to enter the tech industry where she could contribute to human progress by bringing products to millions of users. Build AI Voice Agents with ElevenLabsElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.Get started for free at elevenlabs.io/elc SHOW NOTES:Taking on product & design 3 months into a new role (3:01)Going from delivery to discovery: mindset shifts for eng leaders (5:58)Identifying the current state of engineering, product & design (10:59)Decision-making based on anecdotes vs. data (12:50)Pivoting strategies to optimize for small, fast teams to improve cross-functional collaboration (15:04)Signals to pivot your product approach & ****make different bets (16:59)Complementary skill sets for rapid iteration (19:14)How to avoid silencing critical input & transform team frustration into product insight (20:41)Applying the 80/20 rule to complex product surfaces (23:46)Case Study: Reprioritizing the LinkTree product w/ 80/20 approach (25:46)Bringing on a strategic product partner & kicking off org change (27:28)Be honest about your knowledge gaps (29:09)How Farnaz's experiences at Snap inform her leadership as CTO (33:21)When pattern matching fails: frameworks for checking assumptions (35:22)Where EPD Is headed: cross-functional evolution in the age of AI (38:10)Rapid fire questions (38:58)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT WADE CHAMBERSWade Chambers will be leading Engineering at Amplitude. Amplitude is the leading digital analytics platform that helps companies unlock the power of their products. Wade has over 25 years of engineering leadership experience, both advising companies and being hands-on in key leadership positions at companies such as Included Health, Twitter, TellApart, Proofpoint, Yahoo, and Opsware. He is a deep technical expert with a proven track record of scaling teams, leaders, market-defining technology innovations, and business growth. Build AI Voice Agents with ElevenLabsElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.Get started for free at elevenlabs.io/elc SHOW NOTES:Why empowering engineering teams to own their mission matters (3:16)Common traps that prevent eng leaders from empowering teams (5:15)Understanding the “why” behind ownership & systemizing individual ownership (7:09)Systems change for empowerment: Aligning company vision, outcomes, competencies & behaviors (9:48)How to bring someone from low ownership back to high ownership (13:49)Developing trust & having tough conversations around ownership (15:17)Nonobvious factors to that erode ownership over time (17:42)Empowering teams through meaningful missions, clear expectations, defining success, & ongoing check-ins (20:55)Identifying engineers w/ competencies & behaviors that align w/ your org's vision & goals (24:00)When having too much ownership becomes a problem (27:22)Wade's process for officially transferring ownership (28:47)Coaching and navigating conversations around ownership (32:01)Impactful questions to ask during the coaching / check in process (34:08)Closing gaps in leadership competencies & behaviors (37:27)Coaching leaders to align personal growth with org goals (39:25)Rapid fire questions (41:34)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT FUNMI OLUDAIYEFunmi is a Managing Director and the Head of the Digital Risk Office for Enterprise Partnerships at Goldman Sachs, where she is pioneering a first-of-its-kind global initiative to embed critical business, security, and engineering risk practices within the engineering organization. With nearly 15 years of experience as a software engineer, architect, and engineering manager, she has a proven track record of leading high-performing teams, delivering innovative technology solutions, and championing best practices in developer experience and productivity across large-scale engineering teams. Most recently, she was the Head of Engineering for Consumer Deposits at Marcus by Goldman Sachs, and prior to that, she led the product engineering teams that built and launched the firm's award-winning credit card partnerships with Apple and later, General Motors. Funmi is a passionate advocate for underrepresented groups in the technology industry and is committed to mentoring the next generation of engineering leaders. Her wealth of experience and dedication to driving positive change make her a sought-after speaker and advisor.ABOUT KETAN GUPTAKetan is a seasoned engineering leader with 13+ years in software development, cloud, architecture, product delivery, and organizational leadership. He excels at building high-performing engineering teams and driving strategic initiatives. As an active community builder, he contributes to the Engineering Leaders Community and champions software craftsmanship.ABOUT SASHA HALLSasha Hall is an Engineering Manager at Planitar Inc, makers of iGUIDE. A University of Waterloo graduate with over 5 years of leadership experience at Pegasus Aeronautics and Deep Trekker, Sasha brings valuable insights on decisive leadership, effective communication, and strategic vision in growing organizations. Their career path through underwater robotics at Deep Trekker, aerial drone systems at Pegasus Aeronautics, and spatial mapping technologies at Planitar showcases a passion for innovative hardware and sensing solutions. This diverse technical background, combined with consistent leadership dedication, has equipped Sasha with a unique perspective on navigating today's complex engineering challenges. Build AI Voice Agents with ElevenLabsElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.Get started for free at elevenlabs.io/elc SHOW NOTES:Funmi discusses why successful eng leaders build true partnerships between engineering & business stakeholders (1:58)Navigating the dynamics of engineering & cross-functional team partnerships (3:00)Creating alignment / building relationships through fostering trust & curiosity (4:42)How engaging w/ curiosity is key to building cross-functional relationships (7:21)Funmi's framework to help identify gaps in understanding (8:56)Recognizing knowledge gaps and relying on subject matter experts (10:15)Tips for navigating partnerships with multiple stakeholders (13:14)What's going on with ELC New York & the power of connecting with eng leaders (14:45)Ketan discusses cloud transformation and AI integration (17:08)Considering challenges w/ security, scalability, cost, flexibility & AI in cloud vs. hybrid migrations (18:04)Explaining the impact of technical debt on organizations (20:04)The STIR framework for managing tech debt during cloud migrations (21:17)Translating tech debt into business value w/ STIR (24:17)Separating continuous improvement / performance from tech debt (27:02)Understanding team strengths & bolstering team motivation (29:24)Ketan's experience with ELC London (31:07)Have fun with decision-making (33:29)Sasha discusses optimizing team processes amid company growth & new hires (35:11)Effective decision-making - balancing being decisive & thoughtful (37:36)Examples of balancing quick decision-making w/ thoughtfulness (39:05)How to refactor repetitive tasks to improve efficiency (40:32)Balancing time, risk & impact in decision-making processes (42:06)The value of building a network & finding mentors outside your own company (45:03)Advice for jumping into ELC community events (47:41)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT VINOD MARURVinod Marur is the SVP of Engineering at Databricks. He was previously at Rubrik where he served as SVP Engineering and established a mature engineering organization geared for rapid product development and innovation with a deep focus on product quality and organizational development. Prior to that Vinod spent nearly 15 years in leadership roles across some of Google's most critical business units, including Search, Ads, and Payments as well as tapping into his passion for developer platforms to create and lead the Actions on Google platform, used by third parties to develop for Google Assistant and other Google products. Build AI Voice Agents with ElevenLabsElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.Get started for free at elevenlabs.io/elc SHOW NOTES:Vinod's process for recalibrating his leadership focus / priorities (2:25)Why routine can be dangerous & the mental shift required to prioritize impact (4:17)Examples of pivoting & how Vinod's leadership priorities adapted (7:57)Strategies for assessing core priorities when scaling (9:39)Identifying where the most leverage is for your time (11:05)Signals that it's time to recalibrate your organization's priorities (13:27)Solving for information asymmetry: designing communication and collaboration structures (16:20)Rewriting hiring playbooks & tailoring recruitment pitches in a shifting market (18:56)Hiring tactics that worked five years ago that don't anymore (21:21)The impact of AI on hiring practices (22:55)Current factors impacting hiring engineering leaders (25:30)Vinod's framework for identifying the right problems to solve when transitioning to a new role (27:14)“The best leaders often start small, and progress to tackle larger problems” (28:33)Strategies for accelerating the impact of senior cross-functional partners (29:40)Obsessing over a single organizational goal & identifying champions to carry initiatives forward (31:25)Vinod's latest obsession: the implementation and evolution of operational reviews (33:48)Rapid fire questions (36:36)LINKS AND RESOURCESACQUIRED - Acquired tells the stories and strategies of great companies, hosted by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal. Acquired is a depth-first show. Episodes are 3-4 hours long, and are better described as "conversational audiobooks" than "podcasts." Episodes occasionally feature guests, such as the founders/CEOs of NVIDIA, Berkshire Hathaway, Starbucks, Meta, Spotify, Uber, Zoom, CAA, Sequoia Capital, and all five Benchmark partners.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT JON HYMANJon Hyman is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Braze, the customer engagement platform that delivers messaging experiences across push, email, in-app, and more. He leads the charge for building the platform's technical systems and infrastructure as well as overseeing the company's technical operations and engineering team.Prior to Braze, Jon served as lead engineer for the Core Technology group at Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. There, he managed a team that maintained 80+ software assets and was responsible for the security and stability of critical trading systems. Jon met cofounder Bill Magnuson during his time at Bridgewater, and together they won the 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. Jon is a recipient of the SmartCEO Executive Management Award in the CIO/CTO Category for New York. Jon holds a B.A. from Harvard University in Computer Science.ABOUT BRAZEBraze is the leading customer engagement platform that empowers brands to Be Absolutely Engaging.™ Braze allows any marketer to collect and take action on any amount of data from any source, so they can creatively engage with customers in real time, across channels from one platform. From cross-channel messaging and journey orchestration to Al-powered experimentation and optimization, Braze enables companies to build and maintain absolutely engaging relationships with their customers that foster growth and loyalty. The company has been recognized as a 2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Companies to Work For, 2024 Best Small & Medium Workplaces in Europe by Great Place to Work®, 2024 Fortune Best Workplaces for Women™ by Great Place to Work® and was named a Leader by Gartner® in the 2024 Magic Quadrant™ for Multichannel Marketing Hubs and a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q3 2024. Braze is headquartered in New York with 15 offices across North America, Europe, and APAC. Learn more at braze.com.SHOW NOTES:What Jon learned from being the only person on call for his company's first four years (2:56)Knowing when it's time to get help managing your servers, ops, scaling, etc. (5:42)Establishing areas of product ownership & other scaling lessons from the early days (9:25)Frameworks for conversations on splitting of products across teams (12:00)The challenges, complexities & strategies behind assigning ownership in the early days (14:40)Founding Braze (18:01)Why Braze? The story & insights behind the original vision for Braze (20:08)Identifying Braze's product market fit (22:34)Early-stage PMF challenges faced by Jon & his co-founders (25:40)Pivoting to focus on enterprise customers (27:48)“Let's integrate the SDK right now” - founder-led sales ideas to validate your product (29:22)Behind the decision to hire a chief revenue officer for the first time (34:02)The evolution of enterprise & its impact on Braze's product offering (36:42)Growing out of your early-stage failure modes (39:00)Why it's important to make personnel decisions quickly (41:22)Setting & maintaining a vision pre IPO vs. post IPO (44:21)Jon's next leadership evolution & growth areas he is focusing on (49:50)Rapid fire questions (52:53)LINKS AND RESOURCESWhen We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut's fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining. At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger, the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT RUKMINI REDDYRukmini Reddy is the Senior Vice President of Engineering, responsible for managing product and platform delivery, infrastructure, and data science. Reddy joins PagerDuty from Slack where she guided the vision, strategy, and execution of a comprehensive re-architecture, transforming the messaging software into an automation platform that empowered users to streamline their work.Additionally, Rukmini spent over a decade in senior executive roles at various enterprise companies, where she built a strong track record in driving engineering and product strategy during periods of hyper-growth and product transformation across SaaS, B2B, and B2C business models.Rukmini has a master of science degree in computer engineering from the University of Arkansas and earned a bachelor's degree from Osmania University in computer science and engineering.SHOW NOTES:How the role of engineering leadership has evolved from 2021 to 2025 (2:35)The rising importance of financial acumen & enduring importance of resilience in engineering leadership (5:28)Key questions to ground and align your team with mission, vision, customer impact, and position to win the market (7:04)What it means to become the leader your business needs (9:31)“Hugging the elephant” and overcoming fear & uncertainty in 2021 vs. today (12:26)Five questions to help you lead your team through transitions and change (16:03)How to incorporate this framework to drive org change with empathy (18:10)How to address questions about job security and future roles within an organization (20:21)Strategies to guide your team through unspoken fears & unknowns (23:47)Rukmini's advice to create high-trust, high-impact sources of support through fear, uncertainty, and doubt for the first time (25:19)Navigating org change from first principles (27:21)How to move from the “informed pessimism” dip to “curious optimism” as a team & org (30:00)Using evangelism & experimentation to tackle common adoption fears (34:07)Examples of enablement & skill development / delivery (37:32)The role of enforcement in the adoption transformation curve (39:07)Rapid fire questions (42:33)LINKS AND RESOURCESGood Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters -Richard P. Rumelt clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT ELIOT HOROWITZEliot Horowitz is the Founder and CEO of Viam, an engineering platform unlocking AI, automation, and data for devices in the physical world. With a deep commitment to advancing technology, Eliot leads Viam in helping companies build solutions across robotics, food and beverage, climate, marine, industrial manufacturing, and more.A career software developer and technology leader, Eliot co-founded MongoDB in 2007, writing the core code base for the pioneering database and leading the engineering and product teams for 13 years as CTO. MongoDB, which went public in 2017, has since reached a market cap of over $20 billion. Before MongoDB, he co-founded the ecommerce company ShopWiki and served as CTO, and he began his career in software development in the R&D group of adtech firm DoubleClick.Eliot is passionate about using technology to address pressing societal issues, including working with WAVS to protect marine life in the North Atlantic and supporting Billion Oyster Project's work to help restore New York Harbor's ecosystem.SHOW NOTES:The origin story of founding Viam (2:56)How Viam can be a game-changing platform, accelerating robotics software & hardware 10x to 100x (4:33)The ideation journey behind Viam: Building a platform that simplifies the integration of hardware and software development (6:11)Solving challenges with seamless APIs, a modular system, the right abstraction layers, and a comprehensive platform (9:54)Key questions for identifying the right abstraction layers at Viam (11:32)Optimizing your platform for flexibility and ease of use (13:32)The evolution of product building, from first-hand experience to customer-driven (16:33)How Eliot's MongoDB Experience shaped Viam's user-centric approach, open-source strategy, business model & ecosystem approach (18:48)Cultivating developer communities & leveraging community insights at MongoDB & Viam (23:01)Frameworks for deciding on your business model & pricing (24:52)Eliot's approach to building developer tools & products used by engineers (26:23)Aligning your eng team & stakeholders on the product vision (29:51)What it means to deeply understand engineers and how they interact with your product (31:10)Strategies for eng leaders to better connect with customers (34:38)Viam's real-world applications & what's next (36:31)Rapid fire questions (39:31)LINKS AND RESOURCESViam - At Viam, we believe in the power of technology to make our world smarter, happier, and more sustainable. We're building a revolutionary engineering platform for problem-solving in the physical world, so that innovators from all disciplines can address humanity's most complex challenges with practical solutions. Together with our partners, we're committed to making a lasting positive impact on industries, communities, and the planet.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT KEVIN STEWARTKevin Stewart is an engineering executive focused on building teams to build products. He has helped shape the engineering culture at a number of startups, digital agencies and cloud companies. Kevin is particularly experienced in leading remote and distributed teams to consistently deliver quality products. Although he currently resides in Seattle, Kevin is a lifelong New Yorker with dreams of relocating to a sunny island in the Caribbean.SHOW NOTES:Determining what you think is broken vs. what is actually broken (2:57)Focusing on the root issues around leadership & decision-making (4:46)Strategies for identifying the root cause of what is broken (9:08)A framework for diagnosing issues, making a compelling case to stakeholders, and driving high-impact change (10:59)Factors that impact decision making authority on your teams (13:53)Signals that your org faces learned helplessness & how to override it (16:13)Kevin's advice for leaders who realize they contribute to a fearful environment (18:26)Kevin's journey @ Splice and aligning personal values with the company mission (21:02)Challenges behind new strategy rollouts and the need for a customer-centric “north star” (26:26)Witnessing the emotional impact of your product on customers (29:44)Repetition is key when it comes to reinforcing your org's vision (30:48)Prioritizing your time & resources between strategic and tactical work (32:32)Frameworks for aggressively auditing your calendar (35:47)How to empower your team and delegate. so they can operate autonomously and you can shift your focus to strategy and business objectives (37:37)Rapid fire questions (41:38)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant - Tae Kim's deeply reported business history of the chip-designer Nvidia—from its founding in 1993 to its recent emergence as one of the most valuable corporations in the world—explaining how the company's culture, overseen by cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang, has powered its incredible success.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT MAHER HANAFIMaher Hanafi is a seasoned technology engineering leader, driving digital transformation and delivering impactful SaaS solutions. As Senior Vice President of Engineering at Betterworks, he leads the AI vision and applications for their AI-powered performance management software, overseeing the integration of AI tools that enhance HR functions like performance reviews, goal setting and employee development.Maher's passion for technology centers on the transformative potential of AI, particularly Generative AI. He views it as a powerful tool capable of learning, adapting and solving real-world problems, and champions its responsible development to empower individuals.Maher's vision extends beyond technology, aiming to revolutionize tech workplaces by fostering human potential alongside cutting-edge solutions. He employs a people-centric leadership style, building collaborative environments that empower teams to excel. This commitment to empowerment extends to mentoring fellow engineering leaders and sharing his knowledge through public speaking.ABOUT COREY COTOCorey Coto is a creative, data-driven, and innovative executive. He founded Kaizen Insights to help enterprises create business intelligence with their people. Corey was SVP of Product, Design and Engineering at a Vista Equity Partners portfolio company and held engineering leadership roles at Amazon, CoStar Group, and Liberty Mutual. He is a Founder Institute Mentor, an ELC Seattle Chapter Lead, and a startup advisor. Software is his favorite artistic medium because of its power to quickly move the needle on big ideas that can benefit people and the planet. He believes there has never been a better time to build. The future is bright!SHOW NOTES:When Maher realized he needed to rethink his approach to AI & upskill quickly (3:38)Milestones across Maher's AI knowledge progression (7:42)Set aside time for your eng team to experiment & apply AI learnings (11:09)Why intentionally building different use cases leads to better outcomes (14:22)The importance of revisiting AI decisions as a team (16:53)Frameworks for determining how deep to go into each learning area (19:37)How to navigate the challenges of going from proof of concept to production (22:43)Evaluating the ROI of AI applications (26:47)Strategies for deciding which resources / operating expenses go toward AI use cases (29:24)Tips for developing stakeholder confidence in your AI strategy (32:36)How non-technical experts can build AI awareness & confidence (36:22)Betterworks' AI roadmap for 2025 (38:48)Rapid fire questions (40:58)LINKS AND RESOURCESDrive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us - Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Daniel H. Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT JIM PALMERJim Palmer is the Chief AI Officer at Dialpad. Previously he was CTO and Co-Founder of TalkIQ, a conversational intelligence start-up with expertise in real-time speech recognition and natural language processing, acquired by Dialpad in May of 2018. Prior to TalkIQ, he was the founding engineer on the eBay Now local delivery service.SHOW NOTES:Tips and cheat codes for navigating AI governance (3:30)Breaking down red teaming & adversarial testing in AI governance (8:02)Launching and scaling adversarial testing efforts (11:27)Unexpected benefits unlocked with adversarial testing (13:43)Understanding data governance and strategic AI investments (15:38)Building resilient AI from concept to customer validation (19:28)Exploring early feature validation and pattern recognition in AI (22:38)Adaptability in data management and ensuring safe, ethical data use while adapting to evolving legal and governance requirements (26:51)How to prepare data for safe and sustainable long-term use (30:02)Strategies for compliant data practices in a regulated world (32:43)Building data deletion systems with model training in mind (35:14)Current events and trends shaping adaptability and durability in the AI ecosystem (38:38)The role of a Chief AI Officer (41:20)Rapid fire questions (44:35)LINKS AND RESOURCESGenius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World - With deep and exclusive reporting, across hundreds of interviews, New York Times Silicon Valley journalist Cade Metz brings you into the rooms where these questions are being answered. Where an extraordinarily powerful new artificial intelligence has been built into our biggest companies, our social discourse, and our daily lives, with few of us even noticing.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT JAMES CAMPBELLJames Campbell is the co-founder and CTO at Great Expectations, the leading open-source data quality product. Prior to his life at a startup, James spent nearly 15 years working across a variety of quantitative and qualitative analytic roles in the US intelligence community, ultimately serving as Chief Data Scientist at CIA. He studied Math and Philosophy at Yale, and international security at Georgetown. He is passionate about creating tools that help communicate uncertainty and build intuition about complex systems.This episode is brought to you by Clipboard HealthClipboard Health is looking for the next generation of exceptional software engineering leaders, not just managers. They're a profitable unicorn, backed by top-tier investors, and they take the craft of engineering management seriously.Clipboard Health matches highly qualified healthcare workers with nearby facilities to fulfill millions of shifts a year - revolutionizing healthcare staffing with a fast, flexible, and user-friendly platform.Learn more & browse their open roles at clipboardhealth.com/engineeringSHOW NOTES:The origin story of Great Expectations & James' founding journey (3:28)Pitching / validating your idea through community (6:24)Transitioning from federal government to co-founder of a company (9:20)Recommendations when considering the founder / collaboration path (11:30)James' experience starting with open source & getting 10k stars on GitHub (13:15)Engaging with your audience to drive growth & share your product's message (15:17)How open source impacts Great Expectations' marketing / communication (16:58)Navigating the tension between product vision & product roadmap (19:21)Where that tension showed up in Great Expectations' early days (22:11)Capturing & synthesizing insights from your users (23:54)Strategies for removing biases from product-related decisions (25:37)Finding the balance between your perspective & community insights (27:13)James' perspective on different levels of product analysis (29:54)Lessons learned from Great Expectations' phase changes (31:22)Takeaways from the org's latest experience / transition (34:51)Defining the “Heilmeier Catechism” & how it impacts James' leadership style (37:07)Rapid fire questions (40:40)LINKS AND RESOURCESCIA Guide to Analytic Tradecraft - Primer published by the CIA to assist analysts in dealing with the perennial problems of intelligence.American Prometheus - Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT COLLEEN TARTOWColleen Tartow, Ph.D. is Field CTO and Head of Strategy at VAST Data and has 20+ years of experience in data, analytics, engineering, and consulting. Adept at assisting organizations in deriving value from a data-driven culture, she has successfully led diverse data, engineering, and analytics teams through the development of complex global data management solutions and architecting enterprise data systems. Her demonstrated excellence in data, engineering, analytics, and diversity leadership makes her a trusted senior advisor among executives. An experienced speaker, author, valued mentor and startup advisor, Colleen holds degrees in astrophysics and lives in Massachusetts.ABOUT JIM LIUJim Liu is an accomplished engineering leader with a track record of driving business outcomes at companies like StockX and Nordstrom. He is also an active community builder with Engineering Leader Community and Angel Investor communities. Jim and his family reside in Seattle, WA.ABOUT DIVYA ALAVARTHIDivya Alavarthi is an experienced engineering and business leader with 14+ years of expertise in architecture, engineering, product delivery, pre-sales, professional services, and organizational leadership. She developed Salesforce Platform architecture standards, best practices, and minimal viable architectures. She supported a talent pool of 5000+ architects and developers resulting in improved strategic agility, speed to market, and business value in large-scale multi-cloud implementations.This episode is brought to you by Clipboard HealthClipboard Health is looking for the next generation of exceptional software engineering leaders, not just managers. They're a profitable unicorn, backed by top-tier investors, and they take the craft of engineering management seriously.Clipboard Health matches highly qualified healthcare workers with nearby facilities to fulfill millions of shifts a year - revolutionizing healthcare staffing with a fast, flexible, and user-friendly platform.Learn more & browse their open roles at clipboardhealth.com/engineeringSHOW NOTES:The importance of leadership in hiring (1:29)The Tartow Method Explained: Key aspects of a successful hiring practice (3:57)How to build out the interview process & ask the right questions (6:14)Behavioral Interviews and good responses: Tips for gaining clarity from interviewees on abstract skills (7:52)Where eng leaders can start building their hiring skill set (9:16)Colleen's experience co-leading ELC Boston & advice for 1st time event attendees (10:36)Understanding how to model problems as engineering challenges (14:41)How to use an engineering mindset to tackle personal problems (16:35)Jim's process for deconstructing problems & solving them like an engineer (18:38)Tips for building / applying your skill set around abstracting problems (21:27)Jim's perspective on getting involved with a local ELC community (24:36)Ways to help make the most out of your first ELC local experience (27:05)Divya shares about the power of storytelling in engineering leadership (30:07)Build the narrative about your product's business impact (32:24)An example of bringing different demos & storytelling together (34:09)Frameworks for effective storytelling: build a narrative around a product / demo (36:16)How to start improving your storytelling today (37:35)Divya's favorite moments with the ELC Seattle chapter & how to get involved (39:42)LINKS AND RESOURCESCheck out all of our local chapters & get involved here: elc.community/home/clubsThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT DAVID MYTTONA dynamic approach to tech innovation, security, sustainability, and developer empowerment can be seen in everything David Mytton touches. As co-founder of Console and host of the Console DevTools Podcast, he delights in keeping developers ahead of the curve with the tools they need the most. As the founder of Server Density (acquired by StackPath), he created a product that helped organizations manage mission-critical IT environments. As a sustainable computing researcher at Oxford and a global green tech speaker, he's brought much-needed attention to the impact of cloud emissions and the water and energy consumption of the data centers that fuel our online lives. Now, as founder and CEO of Arcjet, he's helping developers and businesses protect their apps with just a few lines of code. His professional career is a direct reflection of his relentless pursuit of making tech smarter and greener. How he invests his spare time showcases his unwavering commitment to mentoring developers and building the communities they need to succeed.SHOW NOTES:David's founder journey, starting with Server Density (3:20)Behind the early decision to start a company & start building a product (4:50)Key lessons from bootstrapping, raising funding, and being acquired (8:30)How those early lessons shaped Arcjet & Console (10:30)Why VC money can make finding experienced engineers easier (13:16)Strategies to help early teams build their first product / prototype (14:56)Considering company outcomes: Should you build a company just to sell it? (16:23)Signals that it's the right time for a sale / acquisition (18:14)The story behind Arcjet (20:30)“What makes a great DevTool company” & strategic insights that shaped Arcjet (23:37)Key practices that helped shape Arcjet's GTM plan (25:36)David's approach to experimentation and discovery (27:36)The impact of documentation on dev tool companies (31:35)How discovery pathways for dev tools impact sales (33:28)Making the decision-making process easier for users & buyers (35:01)Translating dev tool benefits for finance teams vs. developers (39:56)The impact of design on dev tool companies (42:37)Rapid fire questions (46:02)LINKS AND RESOURCESDavid's reading lista16z BlogThe Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and New York Times bestselling author, combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times.The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World - Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance.The Lessons of History - In this illuminating and thoughtful book, Will and Ariel Durant have succeeded in distilling for the reader the accumulated store of knowledge and experience from their four decades of work on the ten monumental volumes of "The Story of Civilization." The result is a survey of human history, full of dazzling insights into the nature of human experience, the evolution of civilization, the culture of man.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT MELODY MECKFESSELMelody Meckfessel is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Jasper.ai, the world's leading AI marketing platform. In her role, Melody shapes the technical vision of the company, oversees product delivery, and spearheads AI research to develop new capabilities that accelerate business outcomes for enterprise marketers.Before joining Jasper.ai, Melody co-founded and served as CEO of Observable, a data visualization platform that empowers teams to understand their businesses through data. She also spent over a decade at Google as Vice President of Engineering, where she led core infrastructure, Search, and DevOps teams for Google and Google Cloud Platform, impacting millions of users worldwide.Melody is recognized for her hands-on approach to engineering leadership and her expertise in building large-scale distributed systems. Her work is crucial in solving complex problems at scale for enterprise companies. She is passionate about defining the future of work with AI, where humans come first.This episode is brought to you by Clipboard HealthClipboard Health is looking for the next generation of exceptional software engineering leaders, not just managers. They're a profitable unicorn, backed by top-tier investors, and they take the craft of engineering management seriously.Clipboard Health matches highly qualified healthcare workers with nearby facilities to fulfill millions of shifts a year - revolutionizing healthcare staffing with a fast, flexible, and user-friendly platform.Learn more & browse their open roles at clipboardhealth.com/engineeringSHOW NOTES:Melody's perspective on the tech industry's rapid rate of change right now (2:53)Critical questions to guide investment decisions on “what to build & how“ in a rapidly evolving market (5:57)Strategies for navigating rapid change internally within eng teams (10:07)What it means to be an AI-first engineering organization (12:30)Changes in goals, metrics, and processes to shape your org and guide you through rapid change (15:33)Developing agile communication processes (18:39)Navigating ambiguity as a learned skill - practical ways to strengthen your ability to navigate uncertainty (20:09)Implementing a framework of curiosity & openness within eng teams (22:40)Why great things can't be planned (26:21)Becoming dynamic and resilient - how to thrive amid uncertainty and constant industry shifts (28:57)How to shift from prescriptive to inspirational - using illustrated inspiration to empower teams (32:00)Breaking through self-imposed limitations - understanding where eng leaders may limit themselves (33:48)Melody's perspective on fostering a culture of creativity within eng teams (35:06)Rapid fire questions (37:13)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CRO - John McMahon shares valuable lessons for sales leaders and sales reps selling enterprise software solutions. In a conversational and easy to read narrative style, this must-read book provides learnings on how sales leaders can help their reps sell more for higher average deal sizes to executive level buyers.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT ANDY KORTZAndy Kortz is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Integra Testing, where he leads technology transformation and drives operational efficiency in aggressive growth organizations. Andy also is a co-lead for the ELC Local Chapter initiative in Chicago. With over 20 years of experience in enterprise architecture and software development, Andy has consistently delivered innovative solutions while reducing IT expenses and improving application value. Drawing on his expertise in cloud technologies, data solutions, and integrations, Andy focuses on fostering a culture of continuous learning, building and empowering high-performing teams, and delivering customer-centric solutions in fast-paced environments.ABOUT JAMES TYACKJames is an engineering manager with a passion for people, technology, and learning. He's built and led distributed, diverse teams of engineers across locations and timezones for 10 years. James believes strongly in the value of diversity and championing a sense of belonging for everyone, from day 1. He's well versed in growth strategy, chaos engineering, major incident response, and blameless practice, and culture grounded by trust and psychological safety. He leads the Growth Acquisition team at Coursera where he's proud to be part of an organization that's transforming lives through learning. Previously, James enjoyed building and leading the Growth and Integrations engineering teams at PagerDuty.ABOUT JOHN ROSSJohn Ross is the Director of Infrastructure and Cloud at KUBRA, expertly navigating IT infrastructure and cloud solutions. Based in Toronto, John's career showcases a diverse range of experiences from large corporations to dynamic startups. He has a knack for aligning technology with business objectives, building robust teams, and managing platform migrations to the cloud. With experience in leading industry names like Ingram Micro and Symantec, as well as in the telecommunications sector, John combines strategic insight with a personable approach. His passion for sailing mirrors his love for innovation and precision in professional pursuits.SHOW NOTES:Scaling communication practices in parallel with scaling your org with Andy Kortz (1:18)Tools for bridging communication gaps between groups & building trust (2:49)Use humor strategically to break tension / build trust (5:16)Andy's introduction to ELC Chicago & the best parts of that community (8:57)Engineering challenges / conversations from ELC Chicago (10:24)What engineering leaders can learn from the best online courses - making a “Day One” commitment with James Tyack (12:28)Frameworks for putting the “Day One” commitment into practice (14:49)What making a “Day One” commitment looks like @ Coursera (17:59)Why the commitment needs to be made explicit (19:25)Practical exercises to encourage innovation & foster creativity (21:06)Strategies for getting hands-on with your learning (23:10)James's experience with ELC South Bay & connecting with leaders in a specific space (25:05)How to make the most out of attending your first ELC event (26:27)How to level up your teams through servant leadership with John Ross (27:52)Realizing you're the bottleneck & tips for stepping back / increasing team trust (30:49)John's experience with ELC Toronto & what ELC means to him (33:12)LINKS AND RESOURCESCheck out all of our local chapters & get involved here: elc.community/home/clubsThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
ABOUT ANURAG AGARWALAnurag Agarwal leads the Google Workspace engineering organization, overseeing products such as Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet that help billions of users and customers across the world to connect, create, and build together.With over 18 years of experience at Google, Anurag's expertise spans a wide range of consumer and enterprise products and technologies. His career began in the Display Ads team, where he played a pivotal role in developing publisher ad-serving products from the ground up. He then worked on the Search Ads team driving a number of large-scale infrastructure improvements and leading initiatives such as online-to-offline measurement and monetization of surfaces like Maps and Discover. Prior to his role in Workspace, he spearheaded some early-stage incubation projects at Google like Google Health's CareStudio project aimed to help clinicians get a comprehensive view of patient's health information.Anurag spent his childhood in Delhi, India and now resides in the Bay Area with his family.SHOW NOTES:A current update on Google Workspace (2:46)Strategies for getting teams to faster iteration & execution (4:41)Prioritizing the right problems & how to set a unified vision to work toward (7:11)Questions to ask to help rationalize during prioritization conversations (10:48)Components of streamlining the decision-making process (13:33)Anurag's recommendations for facilitating decision-making conversations (15:00)How to encourage your team to ask the right questions & push back (16:55)Frameworks for identifying areas of inefficiency / friction (20:17)Steps for increasing confidence on the front end for an AI product experience (23:38)Filtering insights for faster iteration on AI product concepts (25:59)Measure user impact & make adjustments quickly based on that feedback (27:38)Reducing barriers to feature discovery (29:33)Enabling discovery & engagement of new product experiences (32:05)The role of pilots when testing different product experience changes (35:17)The future product launches Anurag is most excited (39:10)Rapid fire questions (40:36)LINKS AND RESOURCESGoogle AI is now included, with no add-ons required or usage limits, in Workspace Business and Enterprise plans. Find out more: https://goo.gle/3PsIwf1How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen - Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, David Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to helping readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Kathryn Vandiver (Former VP of Engineering @ Quanata) shares insights on providing new leadership during significant organizational change. First, we dissect what transitioning from an individual contributor to engineering manager is like. Then, we discuss what it's like stepping into an EM role informally vs. formally; how to host conversations that foster trust; tips for transforming teams from competition to collaboration; helping people get unstuck; and tools for changing hearts and minds. Kathryn also covers frameworks for creating collective agreements between eng leaders & eng teams – and identifying what a successful outcome for collective agreements looks like.ABOUT KATHRYN VANDIVERWith over 30 years of experience as a global engineering leader, Kathryn has guided companies ranging from agile startups to Fortune 500 enterprises toward growth and scalability in both B2B and B2C technology areas. She has held leadership roles at VMWare, HPE, NetApp, and Quanata, a State Farm Company. Specializing in engineering and team culture turnarounds, she frequently steps in to provide decisive leadership during periods of transition. Kathryn is committed to valuing every team member's unique contributions, actively seeking the perspectives of both influencers and naysayers to foster positive change. Her collaborative approach has consistently helped teams double or even triple business growth, significantly enhancing company value through successful turnarounds.Passionate about 'paying it forward,' Kathryn mentors, teaches leadership skills, and supports young women in tech on their career journeys. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking the trails of the Bay Area and spending quality time with her family.SHOW NOTES:Shifting from projects to people - dissecting the mindset shift from IC to engineering manager (2:21)What makes the transition from IC to EM challenging (5:05)Taking on informal EM responsibilities vs. a formalized role (8:13)Frameworks for building trust through early conversations (10:13)Tips for approaching the scenario of a resistant / combative team (12:15)Transforming teams during an M&A, from competition to collaboration (14:20)Why listening is key to changing hearts & minds as an eng leader (17:34)Practices to help people get unstuck in their perspective (20:50)Questions to help people uncover where they're stuck & think critically (23:13)Kathryn's approach to identifying criteria for success (24:30)How to determine what the endpoint looks like (26:27)Processes for creating collective agreements of how people operate (28:18)Identifying the expectations your team has of you as a leader (31:58)Common areas of friction when creating these collective agreements (33:46)Steps leaders can take to resolve friction within the agreement process (35:13)Signs that your collective agreement practice is successful (36:38)Rapid fire questions (40:01)LINKS AND RESOURCESSuper Psyched: Unleash the Power of the 4 Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love - Connection is everything. Let Adam Dorsay, the leading therapist to Silicon Valley's top executives, help you become super psyched by discovering your personalized formula for more energy, higher performance, better relationships, and a more meaningful life.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
We discuss the four modes of coaching and navigate career growth in expanding / contracting companies with James Birchler. James shares highlights from the recent coaching / mentoring workshop he facilitated, and breaks down how each mode of coaching differs tactically. We also cover the dilemma of linear career/leadership growth vs. exponential company growth, different common communication challenges eng leaders face, why people / organizational challenges are harder than technical issues, and how to prepare for & execute uncomfortable conversations. James also shares his unique journey to technical leadership & how past management roles – even in non-tech spaces – have helped shape his thoughts on coaching & eng leadership today.ABOUT JAMES BIRCHLERJames Birchler is an engineering and product development leader, technical advisor, and an accredited Executive Coach from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Executive Coaching Institute.In his coaching practice, James focuses on self-awareness, integrity, accountability, and fostering a growth mindset that supports continuous learning and high performance.He focuses his technical advisory practice on common mechanisms and playbooks required at different phases and inflection points of startup growth and scaling: Hiring and interviewing, product development methodologies including Lean Startup and Agile, operational meeting cadence and communication flow, people management, technical leadership, vision/mission development, alignment, and execution.James implemented the Lean Startup methodologies with Eric Ries at IMVU (literally the first Lean Startup), where his team helped start the DevOps movement by building the infrastructure to ship code to production 50 times a day (which was a lot at the time!) and coining the term “continuous deployment.”He has more than 20 years of experience leading high-performance teams in growth environments, including startups and scaled organizations, including Amazon. He has delivered great consumer software products and implemented product development and innovation processes based on continuous learning and improvement.Presently James advises and coaches Series A+ startups in the US and Europe, and leads innovation practices in hyper-growth areas of last mile delivery technology for Amazon. Previously my roles included VP of Engineering & Operations, VP of Engineering, and Founder at several technology startups including IMVU, Caffeine.tv, SmugMug, iCracked, The Arts Coop, and Letters & Science.You can find James at jamesbirchler.com, LinkedIn, and Substack.SHOW NOTES:Highlights from James' recent coaching & mentoring workshop (2:41)Shared challenges around building trust in eng teams (5:25)The differences between coaching vs. mentoring (7:01)Building trust in order to best support your team members as a manager (9:38)Defining the advising mode of coaching (11:54)How supporting differs from advising (14:29)The story behind James' technical leadership journey (16:55)Transitioning from a PhD program & environmental planning career into tech (20:19)The dilemma of career growth: linear leadership growth vs. exponential company growth (23:53)Why organizational challenges are more complicated than technical puzzles (26:49)Navigating career growth during company contraction from the employee perspective (28:02)Preparing for uncomfortable conversations as a coach / manager (31:50)Strategies for actually having those tough conversations (35:36)Frameworks for helping others identify what they want (37:58)Rapid fire questions (42:44)LINKS AND RESOURCESStop 'Coaching' Your Tech Team (And What To Do Instead) - James' substack post on the four modes of development breaking down the core differences of coaching, advising, mentoring, and supporting roles and explaining how trust is the secret ingredient to all four.jamesbirchler.com - James' website where you can find info about his executive coaching and resources for engineering leaders and founders.How to lead with radical candor | Kim Scott - NYT bestselling author, Kim Scott, has cracked the code on giving valuable feedback in a way that builds genuine relationships, drives results, and creates positive workplaces.What Are People For? - In the twenty-two essays collected here, Wendell Berry conveys a deep concern for the American economic system and the gluttonous American consumer. Berry talks to the reader as one would talk to a next-door neighbor: never preachy, he comes across as someone offering sound advice. In the end, these essays offer rays of hope in an otherwise bleak forecast of America's future. Berry's program presents convincing steps for America's agricultural and cultural survival.New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong - Happiness expert Stephanie Harrison draws upon hundreds of studies to offer a life-changing guide to finding the happiness you have been looking for, all based on a decade of research and brought to life with beautiful artwork.Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations - Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance—and what drives it—using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research. Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time: Michel Serres with Bruno Latour - Although elected to the prestigious French Academy in 1990, Michel Serres has long been considered a maverick--a provocative thinker whose prolific writings on culture, science and philosophy have often baffled more than they have enlightened. In these five lively interviews with sociologist Bruno Latour, this increasingly important cultural figure sheds light on the ideas that inspire his highly original, challenging, and transdisciplinary essays.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Natalie Glance, Chief Engineering Officer @ Duolingo joins us for a conversation on unleashing potential in your employees! We discuss practices that have helped Duolingo create a meaningful path for hiring & developing engineers through their onboarding & internship programs. We also cover topics including scaling your eng org, upskilling recent grads / new hires, balancing meaningful work with measurable impact, communicating alignment within your org, formal & informal steps for building eng leadership capabilities, and essential skills for managers of all types.ABOUT NATALIE GLANCENatalie is a lifelong learner and seasoned leader with extensive experience at startups and established companies. She's currently the Chief Engineering Officer at Duolingo.At Duolingo, Natalie ensures engineers can help set product direction and strategy. She's championed a culture of extensive A/B testing, and is excited about the ways generative AI can both build new features and accelerate content creation for these features. She oversees many of the efforts dedicated to scaling Duolingo's technology to new subjects, like Math and Music.Natalie is passionate about mentorship and education. She co-founded the Int'l AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), which offers an annual Adamic-Glance Distinguished Young Researcher Award for a promising young independent researcher in the field of computational social science in the early stage of their career.SHOW NOTES:Natalie's eng leadership background & journey scaling Duolingo (2:41)Duolingo's approach to eng leadership & passion for unleashing potential (5:42)Implementing a mentoring program to improve eng development / retention (6:42)How the mentoring process changes as an org scales (8:51)Duolingo's onboarding process & tips for building an onboarding program (10:12)Ways Duolingo has crafted a successful internship program (12:43)Frameworks for intern hosts to collect meaningful projects for interns (15:38)Behind the Thrive intern program (HootCamp) for rising juniors (17:44)How Duolingo's guiding principles drive Duolingo University (21:08)Strategies for upskilling new grads into strong technical contributors (22:13)Best practices for unlocking potential & contributing to people's growth (25:40)Natalie's approach to balancing meaningful work with measurable impact (26:44)Practices for creating alignment within your org (28:30)Duolingo's thought process for role training & growing leaders (30:44)Breaking down the formal & informal steps for building leaders within the org (32:41)Essential skills for role managers to develop (34:22)Addressing challenges faced by managers of managers (36:47)Rapid fire questions (38:24)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Engineering Executive's Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership - Will Larson shows you ways to obtain your first executive job and quickly ramp up to meet the challenges you may not have encountered in non-executive measuring engineering for both engineers and the CEO, company-scoped headcount planning, communicating successfully across a growing organization, and figuring out what people actually mean when they keep asking for a "technology strategy.”This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In this episode, we explore building an AI-first company and engineering org with Rong Yan (CTO @ HeyGen)! We dive into the potential of HeyGen's interactive avatars, imagining how they can help engineering leaders scale their impact, foster team alignment, coach effectively, and accelerate decision-making. Rong shares insights on the structure of an AI-first company and optimizing for AI teams with engineering capabilities. Plus what it means to “lead with speed” and balance product quality and velocity in an AI-first company and key leadership principles, like why it's crucial to invest in your top performers and how to act as a productivity multiplier.ABOUT RONG YANRong Yan is HeyGen's Chief Technology Officer. He brings the company's technological mission of making visual storytelling accessible to everyone, to life. Rong has nearly 20 years of engineering leadership experience from companies including IBM, Facebook, Square, Snap, and HubSpot.Most recently, Rong was the VP of Engineering at Hubspot where he led the Data Intelligence and Automation product line and spearheaded the development of an intelligent CRM platform using data and AI. He was also the Director of Engineering turned Senior Director of Engineering at Snap, where he led a product engineering team of over 250 engineers across six locations, responsible for developing, optimizing, and maintaining core Snapchat features, including Camera, Messaging, Stories, Discover, Memories, and Identity.He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Tsinghua University and a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.SHOW NOTES:Introducing HeyGen's interactive avatar & what this means for eng leaders (3:40)How a visual layer for AI agents could scale your leadership & build alignment in your teams and orgs (5:58)The different levels of communication flow within a company (8:17)How interactive avatars can enable interactions and coaching at scale (10:46)The possibilities of interactive avatars for personalized coaching, habit building, and behavior change (14:02)Insights on building an AI-first company (20:29)What the structure of an AI-first company looks like (22:05)How leading with speed works within an AI-first company (24:10)Navigating the balance between product velocity & quality (27:23)The impact of the “leading with speed” paradigm on hiring (30:34)The role of an engineering leaders is to be a productivity multiplier (32:40)How AI impacts productivity as an eng leader (34:43)Where to start when it comes to improving productivity (36:38)AI's role in blurring the lines between IC & management (39:48)Spend more time on your top people (42:45)Rapid fire questions (44:21)LINKS AND RESOURCESHeyGen - With HeyGen, businesses can simply write their script and generate their video. No camera, no budget, no headaches. We've helped over 45,000 companies and millions of people create, localize, and personalize videos at scale.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In this episode, Rajashree Pimpalkhare (VP / Engineering leader for Unified Builder platform and experiences @ Twilio) reflects on her experiences re-defining engineering's relationship with the business throughout her career. We cover how the role of engineering varies across industries, why it's paramount for engineering leaders to find their seat at the business table & rethink how engineering can drive the org's strategic goals. Rajashree shares insights on how to unlock the creative side of product & business leaders, lessons learned from solving various customer problems, frameworks for eng orgs to combat & overcome learned helplessness, communication practices for framing decision-making, and adjusting from a “no, but” to a “yes, and” mindset.ABOUT RAJASHREE PIMPALKHAREERajashree is the VP / Engineering leader for Unified Builder platform and experiences - the world's most flexible customer engagement platform, that powers customer facing sales and service teams with the context, data, and channel flexibility they need to turn ordinary conversations into opportunities to drive repeat sales.Previously, Rajashree led product development at Quizlet - the popular student application that helps over 60 million learners worldwide every month study, practice and become an expert in whatever they are learning. Prior to Quizlet, Rajashree led engineering for Intuit's 3rd party Developer Platform and app store – enabling a thriving ecosystem of thousands of small business applications that connect to Intuit's QuickBooks Platform. Prior to Intuit, she held several engineering leadership roles at PayPal building innovative global payment products for consumers and merchants. Rajashree started her career at Intel as a design engineer and subsequently worked on industry changing software solutions for semiconductor chip design at Synopsys.Rajashree is passionate about building purpose-driven teams that exhibit engineering excellence, customer-first thinking and an inclusive culture. She is a strong advocate for women and under-represented minorities in technology; and takes a personal interest in coaching and mentoring talent at all levels to balance the playing field and help them grow in their careers.Rajashree received a B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland, Baltimore.SHOW NOTES:Why engineering's role in the business varies across industries (2:21)Finding a seat at the business table & elevating the strategic role of engineering (5:32)How Rajashree's experiences shape her approach as an eng leader (8:54)Strategies for unlocking product / business leaders' creativity (11:53)Shifting from a “no, that won't work” to “yes, and here's how” mindset (14:13)Rajashree's experience in her global services role (16:46)Lessons learned on solving problems for different customers (19:52)Insights on scaling & productizing (21:17)Deconstructing the concept of learned helplessness in eng orgs (23:13)Frameworks for helping overcome learned helplessness (26:29)Communication practices for eng leaders to frame their decision-making (28:53)Improve your ability to ask better questions & improve dialogue bandwidth (32:16)Rapid fire questions (35:20)LINKS AND RESOURCESWorking Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon - Colin Bryar started at Amazon in 1998; Bill Carr joined in 1999. These two long-serving Amazon executives reveal and codify the principles and practices that drive the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them, much of it in the early aughts—a period of unmatched innovation that brought products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services to life—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was refined, articulated, and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In this episode, Gokul Rajaram illuminates how eng leaders can better impact business outcomes & become key players in business strategy! We also address strategies for better goal setting & decision making, shifting to a customer-centric structure, recommendations for building alignment between cross-functional groups, positive collaboration between product & engineering, and how to achieve greater productivity.ABOUT GOKUL RAJARAMGokul Rajaram is an investor and company helper. He serves on the boards on Coinbase, Pinterest and The Trade Desk. Most recently, he was an executive at DoorDash, a food ordering platform. Prior to DoorDash, he worked at Block as Product Engineering Lead, where he led several product development teams and served on Block's executive team. Prior to Block, he served as Product Director of Ads at Facebook, where he helped Facebook transition its advertising business to become mobile-first. Earlier in his career, Gokul served as a Product Management Director for Google AdSense, where he helped launch the product and grow it into a substantial portion of Google's business. Gokul is also on the board of The Trade Desk and Coinbase. Gokul holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he received the President's Gold Medal for being class valedictorian. He also holds an M.B.A. from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, where he received the MCD University Fellowship.SHOW NOTES:Why it's critical for eng leaders to drive business outcomes (2:04)How to shift your leadership to impact organizational changes (4:18)Facilitating conversations around setting numerical / time-driven goals (6:56)Navigating the shift to a customer-centric structure & approach (9:18)Recommendations for building around this customer-oriented model (12:04)Decision-making strategies when approaching customer outcomes (13:25)Understand the role of confidence in the decision-making process (15:40)Challenges faced by eng leaders when making this customer-centric shift (18:06)How eng leaders can introduce / reinforce accountability in eng orgs (20:11)Bridging the gap between PMs & eng leaders (23:07)Challenges / dysfunctions that prevent product & engineering alignment (25:01)Establishing trust, open dialogue, and mutual respect from the get-go (26:39)Communication frameworks that increase alignment between product & eng (32:39)How eng leaders can better approach “move fast & break things” demand (35:37)Rapid fire questions (40:19)LINKS AND RESOURCESGokul's website - Contains a collection of Gokul's writing that covers a wide range of topics related to product development, hiring, strategy, leadership, and more!The Mistborn Saga - Brandon Sanderson's high fantasy saga which chronicles the efforts of a secret group of Allomancers who attempt to overthrow a dystopian empire and establish themselves in a world covered by ash.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Ryan Fox, CTO @ Super.com, joins us to dissect his leadership transition from Vice President of Engineering to CTO. He shares how he created his own job description and – perhaps most importantly – identified & found buy-in around his “not do” list. We also cover Ryan's favorite strategies for coaching department heads, why it's important to focus on strategic thinking as an eng leader, tips for instilling accountability & autonomy, and defining different levels of situational leadership. Patrick and Ryan also dissect Super.com's MAT leadership approach and how it is incorporated into their engineering functions.ABOUT RYAN FOXRyan Fox is the CTO at Super.com, an all-in-one app that has helped millions of customers save, earn and put over $150 million back in their pockets. Previously, Ryan worked as both a SWE and SRE at Google.SHOW NOTES:Ryan's background / experience with Super.com (2:04)What sparked his transition from VP of Engineering to CTO (3:40)How Ryan tackled creating his own job description (5:50)Strategies for prioritizing responsibilities & developing a “not to do” list (8:20)Process for defining what not to do (9:32)Examples of building buy in for a “not to do” responsibility (11:45)Insights on prioritizing company wide outcomes vs. departmental outcomes (13:33)Transitioning from a department head to coaching other department leaders (15:26)Components of a successful coaching conversation about strategic thinking (18:48)Frameworks for instilling accountability & autonomy in department heads (21:25)Understanding situational leadership & S3 / S4 definitions (23:08)Incorporating mission-aligned teams into the engineering organization (25:37)Why the MAT leader focuses on business, not people aspects (27:52)Elements that contribute to the MAT model's success (29:32)The intersection of MAT & functional leadership (32:04)Ryan's advice to leaders new to the MAT approach (34:20)Rapid fire questions (36:29)LINKS AND RESOURCESMAT Resource Guide - A guide to understand the Mission-Aligned Team organizational structure, how Super.com rolled out MATs, and how such a structure may be able to help your organization.All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - Hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg, the show features insider takes on business, technology, and society and interviews with the world's most influential thinkers.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In this episode, we're bringing listeners into the final conversations from the pop-up podcast booth at ELC Annual 2024! Patrick sat down with a few eng leaders attending the event to discuss takeaways from ELC Annual 2024 & eng leadership insights they want to share with others in the community. He chatted with Nick Hurlburt (Executive Director of the Aselo program @ Tech Matters), Manju Abraham (Vice President of Engineering, Primary Storage @ HPE), and Bhupesh Bansal (Head of Engineering - Product Server @ Square). These leaders share some of the guiding principles of their eng leadership careers, highlights from ELC Annual 2024, advice for first timers attending these types of events, and more.ABOUT NICK HURLBURTNick Hurlburt is the Executive Director of the Aselo program at Tech Matters, a nonprofit with a mission to bring the benefits of technology to all of humanity. Aselo is an open source contact center platform used by crisis helplines in over 15 countries. After completing an MS in Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Nick began his career developing early, large-scale AI software at Amazon. He then spent six years overseas working on conflict relief efforts in Burma and South Sudan before returning to the U.S., where he managed software teams at a San Francisco machine learning startup before building the initial version of Aselo as Tech Matters' first engineer. He gets excited about systems thinking, understanding different cultures, and walking through forests reminiscent of his rural Wisconsin childhood.ABOUT MANJU ABRAHAMManju Abraham was VP of Engineering for Primary Storage products at HPE. She has over 25 years of experience leading Engineering organizations to deliver enterprise products of high quality, building, scaling and leading transformation, as an effective change catalyst, across companies like HPE, Delphix, NetApp, HP etc.ABOUT BHUPESH BANSALEntrepreneur and technical leader passionate about making a positive impact in the world. 18+ years track record of building teams, large-scale distributed systems, and consumer products scaling to 100M+ users.SHOW NOTES:Why it's important to incorporate non-eng principles into engineering (1:52)Don't run if the people can't run (4:20)The importance of iterating & identifying patterns that work (5:57)Nick's ELC Annual 2024 highlights (7:35)Advice for first-time attendees to get the most out of ELC Annual (8:10)Challenges around cultural transformations (9:33)How transformations incorporate structure & order (11:35)Manju's experience at / takeaways from ELC Annual 2024 (15:14)Advice for folks on how to get the most out of an experience like this (18:19)Bhupesh's roundtable on managing yourself & learning to let go (20:17)When Bhupesh started to embody the principle of managing yourself (21:52)Frameworks for making the shift to identifying yourself as a leader (24:17)Top ways you can invest in yourself & final takeaways (26:27)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
We're back with another episode live from ELC Annual 2024's podcast booth! Patrick discusses the practices and rituals around effective hiring & recruiting with a few speakers and roundtable hosts from ELC Annual 2024, including Lawrence Bruhmuller (SVP of Engineering @ Great Expectations), Eric Fettner (Co-Founder @ Job Sauce), and Scott Swedberg (CEO & Co-Founder @ Job Sauce). Scott shares insights & takeaways from his roundtable conversation on assessing career growth & determining next steps during this trend of eng orgs continuing to become flatter. Eric and Lawrence also stop by the booth to share about their unique partnership, hiring best practices, ensuring candidates maintain your org's engineering culture, and more.ABOUT SCOTT SWEDBERGScott Swedberg is CEO & Founder of The Job Sauce, a boutique recruiting firm for high-growth companies. He founded The Job Sauce as a career coaching company, and partners with ELC to support engineering leaders in their careers and talent acquisition. He and his wife, Lauryn, live in Denver with their daughter and cat.ABOUT ERIC FETTNEREric Fettner is co-founder of The Job Sauce, a high-touch recruiting firm serving Seed through pre-IPO startups. After helping launch the most successful vertical at Eventbrite (IPO September 2018), Eric was ready to take on something new. He began by building The Job Sauce as the premier provider of career services for tech workers. This focus on candidate experience revealed the horrible experience most recruiting firms provide, leading to the birth and success of The Job Sauce Recruiting, trusted by top startups funded by top VCs.ABOUT LAWRENCE BRUHMULLERLawrence Bruhmuller is currently the SVP of Engineering at Great Expectations, the open-source data quality solution used by thousands of data engineers in the industry. He has over 12 years of experience as an overall head of engineering, mostly focused on growth-stage startups. Previous roles include CTO roles at Pave and Optimizely, and VPE roles at WeWork, ClearSlide, and Symantec.Lawrence has been a part of small startups and also larger companies, and has developed products for individual users and also the world's largest enterprises. In particular, he has focused on delivering cloud-first products in the B2B application and developer tooling spaces.Lawrence is passionate about the intersection of engineering management and the growth stage of startups. He has written extensively on engineering leadership (https://lbruhmuller.medium.com/), including how to best evolve and mature engineering organizations before, during and after these growth phases. He enjoys advising and mentoring other engineering leaders in his spare time.Lawrence holds a Bachelors in Mathematics and Engineering from Harvey Mudd College, and a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Claremont Graduate University. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife Amy, and their three daughters.SHOW NOTES:What brought Scott Swedberg to ELC Annual 2024 & how he supports eng leaders (3:12)Summarizing Scott's ELC Annual roundtable discussion on career growth (5:39)Understanding how trends shift as technology evolves & investor priorities pivot (9:01)Final takeaways on exploring career growth & next steps (11:26)Eric Fettner & Lawrence Bruhmuller explain their recent partnership (14:19)Questions eng leaders should ask to aid calibration / alignment between partners (17:21)Ensuring new candidates reinforce the eng culture you're aiming to build (18:29)Strategies for adopting / adapting cultural practices while hiring & onboarding (20:33)Effective communication between eng leaders & talent partners (22:49)Lawrence explains Great Expectations' team structure (25:04)Recommendations for providing feedback between partners (26:37)The importance of timing when it comes to the hiring process (28:00)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
This episode came live from ELC Annual 2024! Local ELC chapter leaders from across the globe share some of their favorite leadership principles, covering topics like how to sell your ideas & gain buy-in from senior leaders, how to manage yourself and your regulate emotions, how to leverage curiosity in tough conversations, how to build psychological safety and more! Thank you Ali Littman (VP of Engineering @ Modern Health), Mehmet Sencer Kardayi (CTO @ Dexter Energy), Tarik Kilick (Engineering Manager @ Booking.com), and Liz Sink (Director of Engineering @ Amount) for sharing your insights + a huge thank you to all of our local leaders for what you do to make community happen across the world! Check out all of our local chapters & get involved here: elc.community/home/clubsABOUT ALI LITTMANAli Littman is the Vice President of Engineering at Modern Health, a mental health technology company with a global workforce of both full-time and contracted staff. She has 15 years of experience in health tech and a business degree from Haas at Berkeley. She specializes in scaling organizations and has a track record in taking companies through hypergrowth, navigating major strategic product development pivots, as well as running major department reorganizations to optimize for current delivery and future-state architecture needs.ABOUT TARIK KILICTarik is an engineering leader who loves building products and teams that love building products. Currently @Booking.com, previously at SurveyMonkey and Heineken.ABOUT MEHMET SENCER KARADAYIWith 15+ years of experience in the tech industry, Mehmet has worked both as an individual contributor and a manager in big-tech(Booking, Meta) and as a software consultant in both the private and public sector. He likes to call himself a "failed serial-entrepreneur"(0 to 1)
We're back with another session from ELC Annual 2024! This episode features an engaging session on collaboration & innovation in the time of AI with Anurag Agarwal, VPE, Google Workspace @ Google, and Lizzie Matusov, Co-Founder & CEO @ Quotient! In this conversation, they dissect how AI is transforming not only the products engineering teams are building but also how teams work together internally. They cover how Google / Google Workplace specifically use AI both internally & externally, strategies for creating & maintaining alignment across a large org, how Anurag addressed challenges during this transitional period, and more.ABOUT ANURAG AGARWALAnurag Agarwal leads the Google Workspace engineering organization, overseeing products such as Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Meet that help billions of users and customers across the world to connect, create and build together.With over 18 years of experience at Google, Anurag's expertise spans a wide range of consumer and enterprise products and technologies. His career began in the Display Ads team, where he played a pivotal role in developing publisher ad-serving products from the ground up. He then worked on the Search Ads team driving a number of large-scale infrastructure improvements and leading initiatives such as online-to-offline measurement and monetization of surfaces like Maps and Discover. Prior to his role in Workspace, he spearheaded some early stage incubation projects at Google like Google Health's CareStudio project aimed to help clinicians get a comprehensive view of patient's health information.Anurag spent his childhood in Delhi, India and now resides in the Bay Area with his family." One of the things we sort of tried to do from very early on is to make sure teams see their success in terms of overall workspace success, in terms of more users actually being able to accomplish their work more effectively using all of Workspace's tools, right? It's not about the individual tools, it's really about the whole together.”- Anurag Agarwal ABOUT LIZZIE MATUSOVLizzie Matusov is the co-founder and CEO of Quotient, a developer tool that surfaces the friction slowing down engineering teams and resolves it directly. Her team also co-authors Research Driven Engineering Leadership, a newsletter that uses research to answer interesting questions on engineering leadership and strategy. She previously worked in various engineering roles at Red Hat and Invitae, and has an MS in Engineering Sciences and MBA from Harvard.SHOW NOTES:Anurag's career at Google & what he's currently working on (2:38)The evolution of Google Workspace & incorporating GenAI (4:31)Diving into internal AI use within Google / across teams (6:37)Challenges faced while creating alignment (9:47)Frameworks for setting goals & aligning KPIs more effectively (11:57)How Google ensures its team feel safe to fail & allow autonomy (14:03)Strategies for maintaining alignment across a large org (16:09)How Anurag's leadership has evolved through technology transformations (18:07)Strategies for helping teams accomplish tasks & be continuously learning (20:33)Anurag's favorite rituals / changes from this transition (24:09)Audience Q&A: What has been your biggest challenge shipping AI? (25:26)Defining Workspace's corpus for the individual vs. the enterprise (27:29)How do you ensure content moderation when using AI features? (28:13)Build guardrails for LLMs depending on the context (29:18)How the center of excellence team distributed its knowledge across various orgs (30:48)Strategies for drawing a line where Gemini responds & ensuring determinism in the response (32:15)Quotient's processes for QA & automation (34:02)Understanding the ethics / responsibilities behind AI usage (35:11)The evolution of developmental practices with deterministic code vs. apps written with AI (36:43)Anurag & Lizzie's key takeaways (38:28)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
One of the most important aspects of success is a team's ability to collaborate – but it can also be one of the most challenging parts. In this episode, we're highlighting a popular session ELC Annual 2024 on how to encourage collaboration, ultimately increasing productivity and creating more likely outcomes of success. This conversation features Marcel Weekes, VP of Product Engineering @ Figma, and Arquay Harris, former VP of Engineering @ Webflow. This conversation also features a robust Q&A session from ELC Annual attendees on their most pressing collaboration questions – including diagnosing teams that are struggling to collaborate, how to measure the success of collaborative tools, strategies for building rituals / processes around collaboration, and much more.ABOUT MARCEL WEEKESMarcel Weekes is VP of Product Engineering at Figma, where he oversees product and growth engineering efforts across Figma's entire platform. Marcel brings decades of experience and previously served as the VP of Engineering at Slack where he led the teams building Messaging features and Slack Connect."A trait of product engineers that I have found to be successful in predicting positive outcomes is they view code as a tool to get something done. Engineers on the other end of the spectrum who might be more elite code engineers or more like, ‘I got this algorithm to go like .005 percent faster,' frankly that's not what's going to get your product to product market fit. If you're not focused on the end goal here, you're going to make suboptimal decisions the whole way.”- Marcel Weekes ABOUT ARQUAY HARRISArquay has held Engineering leadership positions at Slack, Google and CBS Interactive. A developer who also has a Masters in Design, Arquay loves the marriage of form and function. Following her most recent role as VP of Engineering at Webflow, Arquay is currently enjoying retirement. She fills her days with occasional mentoring and speaking engagements as well as pursuing her many hobbies.SHOW NOTES:Marcel's definition of effective team collaboration (2:36)How Figma's dev mode is reducing collaborative tension (5:42)Processes & rituals that increase productivity early on (7:12)Marcel & Arquay's collaboration example: success with Slack Connect (9:44)Why collaborative teams are ultimately more productive teams (13:21)Audience Q&A: Frameworks for diagnosing teams that are struggling to collaborate (14:25)How to avoid over collaboration / communication (17:09)Strategies for creating collaboration standards early on in a project (19:33)Navigating the balance between collaboration & preserving autonomous teams (22:23)Encouraging engineers to care about broader outcomes & collaboration (26:54)Tips for measuring the success & productivity of collaborative tools (29:11)How to foster cross-collaborative respect between design & engineering (32:19)Building relationships across teams / functions to promote smooth operation (34:27)Recommendations to help developers & design to share more work in progress (36:52)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
We had a blast at ELC Annual 2024, so we wanted to bring our podcast listeners some of the best highlights from popular sessions! This episode features one of the ELC Annual sessions with Anupam Singh (VP of AI & Growth Engineering @ Roblox) & Maria Kazandjieva (Co-Founder @ Graft), as they discuss building AI/ML models at a massive scale. Anupam shares how Roblox – an immersive 3D platform with more than 77 million daily active users – scaled from zero to nearly 200 different AI models. They discuss strategies for deciding when to use open source vs. creating proprietary models; how to operationalize your models for 24/7 use; the importance of data pipelines; current and future challenges to keep in mind when creating / scaling AI models; and answer some questions from the live Q&A.ABOUT ANUPAM SINGHAnupam leads Roblox's AI & Growth engineering teams, which provide the infrastructure for high throughput AI services for safety, recommendations, and assistants. Before Roblox, Anupam was chief customer officer at Cloudera, where he led product, engineering, and field teams for Data Warehousing products. Anupam has co-founded two companies in the Big Data space, acquired by Cloudera and Marketshare, respectively. Anupam built his database expertise on the SQL Query Optimizer teams at Oracle, Sybase (now SAP), and Informix (now IBM). He graduated from Pune University in India and holds patents in the areas of automatic SQL performance tuning, object databases, and resilient query execution."The journey always starts with, 'Let's pick a model and first decide whether we want to build our own model or we want to use one of the open source ones.' The next step is, 'Do you want to do it on public cloud?' Roblox has 24 data centers worldwide and two massive data centers in America. We have hundreds of thousands of CPUs that we could use and so for us, it's very important to decide, 'Do we really need a large model? Can you take the 700 billion model, make it into a 7 billion parameter model, and magically get it to run on the CPU?'”- Anupam Singh ABOUT MARIA KAZANDJIEVAMaria is a co-founder and an engineering leader at Graft, an early-stage AI startup. Prior to that, Maria worked at Netflix, where her team earned two Emmy awards for technical achievement. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. Outside of work, you can find Maria kickboxing & trail running, baking & eating carbs, or relaxing with a non-fiction book and her two feline supurrvisors, Foosball and Gemma.SHOW NOTES:How Roblox is being powered by AI (00:30)The process of scaling AI models from zero to 200 @ Roblox (2:34)Examples of Roblox starting with open source vs. building its own model (5:06)What AI models are doing in terms of safety for children (7:12)Strategies for deciding to use open source vs. building a proprietary model (11:19)Why Roblox is choosing to open source some of their own models (13:06)How to operationalize / engineer AI models for 24/7 use at scale (14:20)The importance of data pipelines in the AI journey (16:18)Current / future challenges as Roblox continues to scale its models (19:52)Tips for identifying use cases where implementing & scaling AI can be helpful (22:21)Audience Q&A: How do you make decisions when you're lacking specific measurements / quantities? (24:29)When you deploy a model, how do you ensure confidence in its performance? (27:36)Recommendations for allocating / estimating the budget for a model (29:03)Anupam's insights on maintaining so many models effectively (31:03)How do you imagine the multimodality of your 3D models moving forward? (33:11)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
We're taking a quick break from releasing episodes for a few weeks while we wrap up everything for ELC Annual. We'll be back in late September with new guests! We have some excellent sessions at the conference - check out the agenda here: https://sfelc.com/annual2024#agendaJoin us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Dave Rhodes, CEO @ Sauce Labs, joins the pod to discuss the value of great digital experiences & how/why quality issues affect companies' bottom lines, and how to connect bugs to the business! Dave dissects strategies for addressing quality issues, examples connecting quality with the bottom line, best practices for quality testing strategies, and incorporating the philosophy of embracing the impossible within your eng teams. We also cover highlights of Dave's recent report, “Every Experience Counts” exploring the relationship between broken experiences, lost consumer trust, and topline revenue. And to set the stage & magnify the stakes, the Crowdstrike & Microsoft outage coincidentally happened the day we hit record.ABOUT DAVE RHODESDave Rhodes is CEO of Sauce Labs, a leading provider of continuous testing and software quality solutions to deliver digital confidence to enterprises. He has a proven track record as a strong operational leader with success in building and scaling growth businesses. Previously, Dave held key leadership roles at Unity, where as Chief Revenue Officer he grew the company's revenue from $160M to $640M (4x growth) and navigated its public market debut in 2020. He then created and oversaw Unity's AI-powered business, Digital Twins. He has also held leadership roles at Paradigm and Autodesk. Rhodes holds an MBA in marketing and finance from the University of San Diego and a bachelor of science degree in computer science from the University of California at San Diego.Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountThis episode is brought to you by Revelo!Revelo helps you find, hire, and manage world-class remote developers in US time zones, pre-vetted for technical and soft skills. They provide:A talent network of 400,000+ pre-screened engineers, vetted for coding skills & English proficiency, making it fast and easy to find your perfect fitA payroll platform to pay developers in their preferred currencies, offer compelling local benefits, and handles taxes and complianceA team of staffing experts that help you find the best candidates and get the most from your hiresWith Revelo, you're in complete control: you get to decide who to hire, you get to decide what to offer, and you get to decide how long to keep them on your team.Visit Revelo.com/ELC today and save $2,500 off your first hire.SHOW NOTES:The Crowdstrike / Microsoft news & how bugs affect the bottom line (2:31)Understanding the stakes & complexity of the Crowdstrike issue (5:05)Dave's perspective on & passion for digital experiences (7:50)The impact of cloud computing, high-speed connectivity, AI / ML, and COVID on software innovation (10:10)Examples of how digital experiences drive a business's bottom line (13:45)How the quality of a product impacts developer velocity & motivation (17:31)Connecting the bottom line with product quality / bugs (20:31)Strategies for communicating the business benefits of developing for scale (24:51)Addressing quality issues that impact top OKRs, like customer churn (26:48)Highlights of the “Every Experience Counts” report (31:51)Best practices for eng leaders looking to evolve their current testing strategy (35:13)What it means to think about the impossible & reverse engineer it (38:05)Frameworks for instilling this mindset into your eng teams (41:18)Rapid fire questions (44:17)LINKS AND RESOURCESEvery Experience Counts - Sauce Labs' report exploring the relationship between broken experiences, lost consumer trust, and topline revenue.Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life - The seven rules to follow to realize your true purpose in life—distilled by Arnold Schwarzenegger from his own journey of ceaseless reinvention and extraordinary achievement, and available for absolutely anyone.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In our latest episode, we're coming to you live from Config 2024, Figma's annual design conference for people who build products! This is our first time ever doing a live interview from another conference, so we are excited to share it with you. We're joined by Marcel Weekes, VP of Engineering @ Figma. In our conversation, we dive into topics including highlights from Config 2024 & reactions to Figma's latest feature demos (like Dev Mode), how Figma's eng teams are involved in product design iterations, why product support teams help preserve Figma's community, strategies for incorporating feedback into design / product roadmaps, best practices for prioritization conversations, and more. Marcel also shares a preview of what to expect from his session on collaboration @ ELC Annual 2024!ABOUT MARCEL WEEKESMarcel Weekes is VP of Product Engineering at Figma, where he oversees product and growth engineering efforts across Figma's entire platform. Marcel brings decades of experience and previously served as the VP of Engineering at Slack where he led the teams building Messaging features and Slack Connect.Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountThis episode is brought to you by Revelo!Revelo helps you find, hire, and manage world-class remote developers in US time zones, pre-vetted for technical and soft skills. They provide:A talent network of 400,000+ pre-screened engineers, vetted for coding skills & English proficiency, making it fast and easy to find your perfect fitA payroll platform to pay developers in their preferred currencies, offer compelling local benefits, and handles taxes and complianceA team of staffing experts that help you find the best candidates and get the most from your hiresWith Revelo, you're in complete control: you get to decide who to hire, you get to decide what to offer, and you get to decide how long to keep them on your team.Visit Revelo.com/ELC today and save $2,500 off your first hire.SHOW NOTES:Config 2024 as the “Coachella for designers and creatives” (3:47)Marcel's favorite conference moments that represent the Config community (5:04)Reactions to the latest Figma feature demos (7:18)Defining Dev Mode & why it's a highlight for Figma @ Config (13:00)Figma's approach to building Dev Mode as an eng org (16:05)How eng teams are becoming involved in product design iterations (18:58)What eng leaders can learn from Figma's “heavy lifting approach” (20:22)Characteristics of product support teams that impact the Figma community (24:20)Processes for closing the loop between product support & engineering (26:02)Figma's feedback process & how it gets incorporated into releases now (28:23)Prioritization conversations & how teams operate together (31:47)Understanding the timing of feedback on the product roadmap (34:38)Previewing Marcel's ELC Annual 2024 session on collaboration (37:08)LINKS AND RESOURCESConfig 2024 in review - A recap from Dylan Field, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer of Figma, that highlights all of the major news and releases from Config 2024.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Farhan Thawar, VP & Head of Engineering @ Shopify, was our first-ever ELC pod guest, so it's fitting that he's here to join us for this culmination of our series tackling the Top 10 challenges that engineering leaders face in a rapid-fire, high-energy format! Farhan shares insights into individual challenges, including motivating others after a reorg or period of uncertainty, why always being willing to learn & help is key for managing in any direction, strategies for creating buy-in, and best practices for coaching / mentoring. We cover team challenges, such as working cross-functionally to identify a shared truth and vision, using demos to measure dev productivity, and maintaining high velocity without losing quality. Farhan also dives into org-wide challenges, like understanding team topologies & building out your org's resources.ABOUT FARHAN THAWARFarhan Thawar (@fnthawar) is VP, and Head Engineering at Shopify via the acquisition of Helpful.com where he was co-founder and CTO. Previously he was the CTO, Mobile at Pivotal and VP, Engineering at Pivotal Labs via the acquisition of Xtreme Labs. Farhan is an avid investor and advisor to startups in Toronto and San Francisco, including being a mentor at yCombinator and First Round Capital. Previously, Farhan held senior technical positions at Achievers, Microsoft, and Trilogy. Farhan completed his MBA in Financial Engineering at Rotman and Computer Science/EE at Waterloo.Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Strategies for motivating your team after reorgs, rifts, or other uncertain times (2:37)Farhan's favorite quick wins & ways to re-engage with your team (4:48)Managing up & sideways by being transparent and always looking to help (7:31)Be dedicated to learning / bouncing ideas around with others (9:59)Frameworks for identifying the long-term, winning opportunities to pursue (12:13)How to influence & create buy-in around ideas (15:26)Navigating situations where your idea / perspective is facing resistance (18:18)Best practices for messaging a pitch when working cross-functionally (21:03)Utilizing individual frameworks when mentoring & coaching (23:10)Questions to ask when developing a personal career development framework (27:30)Approaching performance-related conversations (29:11)How to use demos to measure developer productivity (32:09)Methods for maintaining high velocity without losing quality (35:21)Insights on team topologies & identifying / building the needs of your org (37:14)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In Part 3 of the Top 10 Challenges series, we're addressing the biggest org-level challenges that eng leaders face. We've compiled conversations from past podcasts and conference sessions that cover org-related topics, such as aligning engineering & business goals, team topologies & org resourcing, and thinking strategically. This episode features a slate of top eng leaders with valuable insight to share: Jessica McKellar @ Pilot, Andrew Lau @ Jellyfish, Samir Naik @ Plaid, Former VPE @ Robinhood Surabhi Gupta, Aaron Erickson @ NVIDIA, Mike Tria @ Gusto, Emad Elwany @ Docusign, and Scott Woody @ Metronome.Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Aligning Engineering and Business Goals: Invest in tracking metrics to identify / meet long-term business-building goals w/ Jessica McKellar (00:43)How to align metrics with overall, long-term business strategy w/ Andrew Lau (4:56)Planning Team Topologies and Organizational Resources: the transition between PMF & scale-up w/ Samir Naik (12:12)Approaching org design & planning during periods of hypergrowth w/ Surabhi Gupta (18:45)How to do an effective reorg w/ Aaron Erickson and Mike Tria (24:41)Strategic Thinking: Organizing engineering by strategic themes & complete units of value w/ Emad Elwany (30:12)The transition from a large unified eng team to embedding experts and building specialized teams catered to specific customer personas w/ Scott Woody (37:26)LINKS AND RESOURCESBecoming a better strategic contributor & business leader with Jessica McKellarNavigating 2024: Engineering management principles to tackle the unknowns & challenges ahead with Andrew LauHow eng orgs (and careers) evolve through hyper-growth with Samir NaikHypergrowth, Scaling & Org Design with Surabhi GuptaHow to Do an Effective Reorg with Aaron Erickson and Mike TriaOrganizing eng by strategic themes / complete units of value & consensus building to drive velocity with Emad ElwanyRapidly operating early-stage engineering at global scale, mapping eng workflows to personas & pivoting pricing / business models with Scott WoodyThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
This is Part 2 of our Top 10 Challenges series! In this episode, we're focusing on three common team challenges that eng leaders face: how to increase velocity without losing quality, measure productivity & create meaningful metrics, and work cross-functionally with other teams. We identified these challenges based on conversations with hundreds of eng leaders from podcast episodes, ELC events, and more. For this ep, we've pulled insights from various eng leaders, including Richard Wong @ enrich, Fatemah Alavizadeh @ Notion, Andrew Fong @ Prodvana, Randall Koutnik @ Jellyfish, Abi Noda @ DX, Barbara Nelson @ InfluxDB, Laura Fay @ L Fay Associates, and Jeremy Henrickson @ Rippling.Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Increasing Velocity (Without Losing Quality): Understanding the speed vs. quality dilemma w/ Richard Wong (0:58)Defining velocity & its impact on users' ROI w/ Fatemah Alavizadeh & Andrew Fong (6:17)Measuring Productivity and Creating Meaningful Metrics: What drives productivity & makes for meaningful metrics w/ Randall Koutnik (11:31)The DevEx framework for improving developer productivity w/ Abi Noda (21:02)Working Cross-Functionally with Other Teams: Why it's important to have cross-functional excellence between eng & product w/ Barbara Nelson & Laura Fay (26:28)Cross-functional communication strategies for addressing misaligned priorities w/ Jeremy Henrickson (37:13)LINKS AND RESOURCESSpeed vs. Quality with Richard WongHow to Create Sustainable Velocity in Your Team with Fatemeh Alavizadeh and Andrew FongBanish Bad Management with Metrics that Don't Suck with Randall KoutnikThe next evolution to measure & improve developer productivity & experience with Abi NodaBridging the Divide: Strategies for Cross-Functional Excellence between Engineering and Product Management with Barbara Nelson and Laura FayAlign & Scale Engineering AND Product with Jeremy HenricksonThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In today's episode, we're kicking off a four-part series on the Top 10 challenges eng leaders face based on feedback from hundreds of eng leaders. In Part 1 of this mini-series, we're tackling the first four issues: developing & coaching team members, strategies for motivating & inspiring others, influencing / creating organizational buy-in, and managing up & sideways. This episode compiles some of the best insight we've gained on these issues from a collection of past ELC episodes, ELC Annual sessions, events, and more, with insight from Tara Ellis @ Netflix, Elaine Zhou @ SageCXO, Pete Peterson @ Riviera Partners, Johnny Ray Austin @ Best Egg, Jan Chong @ Tally, Matt Spitz, Laura Tacho @ DX, and Preeti Kota @ Atlassian, and Dan Kador @ Abridge.Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Developing and Coaching Team Members: Best practices for building & growing your team's skills w/ Tara Ellis (0:59)Match your high performers with the right fit for their goals w/ Elaine Zhou (8:04)Influencing and Creating Buy-in: Generating & showcasing quick wins to gain buy-in w/ Pete Peterson (12:03)Communication strategies for eng leaders to create buy-in w/ Johnny Ray Austin (17:59)Managing Up and Sideways: Three key principles for effectively managing up w/ Jan Chong (23:13)Strategies for managing sideways w/ Matt Spitz (26:57)Motivating Others: Inspiring developer productivity as an eng leader w/ Laura Tacho (30:51)How leaders @ Atlassian addressed pain points & inspired developers to address them w/ Preeti Kota & Dan Kador (34:43)LINKS AND RESOURCESA Counter-Intuitive Approach to Career Growth & Internal Mobility with Tara EllisBuilding self-sufficient teams and operating in constrained funding environments with Elaine ZhouNavigating complex stakeholders, competing interests & gaining buy-in with Pete PetersonNavigating the Acquisition Journey: Insights on Transparent Communication, Team Integration, and Strategic / Operational Shifts with Johnny Ray AustinManaging Up with Jan ChongLeading beyond domain expertise & laying early-stage security program foundations with Matt SpitzMove beyond measurement & inspire developer productivity with Laura TachoDeveloper Joy: Maintaining “Flow” and Sustained Productivity with Preeti Kota and Dan KadorThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
After surveying hundreds of engineering leaders, we've pinpointed the top 10 challenges engineering leaders face! Exciting news - next week marks the launch of our 4-part series, sharing some of the best insights from hundreds of ELC events, podcasts & conference sessions. The finale? A dynamic rapid-fire session with Shopify's VP of Engineering, Farhan Thawar, tackling each challenge head-on.Have solutions of your own? Share your strategies and help spread knowledge throughout our community. Reach out at podcast@sfelc.com or tag ELC in a post/comment on LinkedIn.Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Today's conversation focuses on building scalable hiring processes as your org grows and creating systems that promote operational excellence, featuring Stephen Poletto, CTO @ Lattice. He shares examples of how they introduced & scaled their hiring processes to better articulate employee value propositions, implement experience differentiators, and created hiring rubrics & loop documentation. Stephen also reveals strategies for defining what operational excellence looks like within your org, how certain rituals impact company psychology / behavior, and steps for ending & replacing rituals that are no longer working. Additionally, we dissect frameworks for adding incentives within your eng org that improve organizational impact – and how to avoid bad incentives.ABOUT STEPHEN POLETTOStephen Poletto is the Chief Technology Officer at Lattice, where he leads the company's product development, and where he scaled the engineering team from 20 to 150 team members. Stephen began his career at Apple before spending eight years building and growing technical teams at Dropbox. Stephen has had the opportunity to incubate new products such as Dropbox Carousel and Dropbox Paper, and also work on at-scale products such as the Dropbox mobile app and Dropbox's platform infrastructure. Stephen lives in San Francisco. In the winter, you can find him snowboarding in the mountains."Even very simple things like a candidate's been in back to back interviews. You hop on. 'Hey, how are you? Do you need a five minute break?' We would train interviewers on some of those tactics, right? At the beginning of the call, set the agenda. ‘We're going to spend this amount of time on these topics. We're going to spend this amount of time to give you space to ask questions of me.' Now the candidate knows what to expect. They're put at ease. It's simple stuff but it really colors the way that people feel about the interview itself. What kind of feeling do they have about the company coming out of it?”- Stephen Poletto Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Stephen's primary goal when he first joined Lattice (3:15)Steps for building out a systematic & repeatable hiring process (5:51)Defining & articulating employee value propositions during the hiring process (8:00)Strategies for presenting company culture via hiring / onboarding (10:21)Hiring experience differentiators & how to make them the norm (13:27)Training the engineering team on how to effectively hire (16:53)Stephen's process for creating a hiring rubric & loop documentation (20:06)How hiring systems can be tweaked / evaluating current hiring needs (22:20)Identifying what operational excellence means for your org (24:22)Rituals / dilemmas to focus on that influence psychology & behavior (26:13)Examples of ending & replacing processes / operations (29:58)Signals that a ritual is no longer serving your needs (32:12)Frameworks for applying incentives / rewards within an eng org (34:57)Navigating the balance between output vs. input (38:57)First steps toward better organizational impact & avoiding bad incentives (41:07)Rapid fire questions (43:37)LINKS AND RESOURCESProduct-Led AI - Greylock partner and former product builder Seth Rosenberg talks with founders about their inspiration and process to build, test, and continually reimagine how AI and humans work together.The Holloway Guide to Equity Compensation - Stock options, RSUs, job offers, and taxes—a detailed reference, including hundreds of resources, explained from the ground up, for both employees and managers.Steve Bartel's blog - Steve Bartel is the co-founder and CEO of Gem. Prior to founding Gem, Steve was an engineering leader at Dropbox where his experience working closely with the recruiting process allowed him to see the lack of technology in the space. This inspired him to co-found Gem, which allows recruiting teams of all sizes to source talent, engage with talent, and use data to improve recruiting processes.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
In today's episode, we're highlighting one of our favorite past conversations, featuring Wade Chambers, CTO & SVP of Engineering @ Included Health. We cover tools for increasing your capacity to win as an eng leader, getting unstuck in your career / moving forward, and applying “conscious growth” and neuroplasticity principles to the career. Wade shares stories of success – and failure – as an eng manager, best practices to measure success as an eng leader, and how to increase your team's performance & potential.ABOUT WADE CHAMBERSWade Chambers (@wadechambers) is the CTO and SVP of Engineering at IncludedHealth, a company that provides technology solutions to improve the way patients get healthcare matched to their needs. He has over 25 years of engineering leadership experience, both advising companies and being hands-on in key leadership positions at companies such as Twitter, TellApart, Yahoo, Proofpoint, and Opsware. He is a deep technical expert with a proven track record of scaling teams and leaders, market-defining technology innovations, and business growth.“The more that you can recognize that, ‘Oh, I feel uncomfortable...' and you can just sit with it a minute. As opposed to react to it. There's always a feedback mechanism in that. That willingness to be in the discomfort a little bit longer. You're actually going to learn so much about yourself in that moment. And if you can act on that, that's what unlocks you to move forward.”- Wade Chambers Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Wade's background in building a habit of conscious growth & digging deeper (4:14)Overcoming early failures as a first-time manager (8:11)Why it's hard to unhear the truth & how to incorporate feedback as a manager (13:08)How understanding neuroplasticity impacts career development (18:11)Moving along the spectrum of unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence (19:30)Align your growth to impact your company AND move your career forward (24:37)Why eng leaders need to truly understand their org's business needs (29:49)Strategies for both winning & increasing your capacity to win (35:30)How to increase the potential of individuals & your overall team (40:52)Factors that are keeping you stuck in career growth (44:39)Turning to books to maximize learning / growth (52:11)How to identify core principles & why they drive your behavior (55:37)Final thoughts on closing the gap between where you are & where you want to be (58:54)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
We revisit an episode from the podcast archives – Melody Hildebrandt (CTO @ Fox) shares her experience representing the tech org during the biggest deal in entertainment history! We cover Melody's most important lessons negotiating on behalf of the tech org plus how they leveraged the M&A event to accelerate innovation and productivity.Melody will be joining us as one of our featured speakers @ ELC Annual 2024 (our two-day conference on 8/27-8/28! Check out our incredible line up of speakers, other conference experiences & tickets at sfelc.com/annual2024 Use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discount.ABOUT MELODY HILDEBRANDTMelody Hildebrandt (@mhil) is Chief Technology Officer for Fox Corporation, where sets set the comprehensive technology strategy for the Company. She previous served as the company's Chief Information Security Officer and as the President of its research and development subsidiary, Blockchain Creative Labs.In her current role, Hildebrandt leads the development, design and implementation of emerging technologies across the FOX enterprise, spanning FOX Sports, FOX News, FOX Entertainment, FOX Television Stations, and Tubi Media Group. Her current focus is on future planning, including developments in artificial intelligence and authenticating and monetizing premium content via blockchain technology. She also continues to oversee the cyber-security posture of the business and leads technology M&A efforts, identifying areas for investment and growth.Prior to FOX, Hildebrandt held the role of Global Chief Information Security Officer at 21st Century Fox, where she was responsible for the cyber security posture of 21CF businesses, including 20th Century Fox, FOX Networks Group, National Geographic Partners, FOX News, Star India and others.Before 21CF, she was Forward Deployed Engineer at Palantir Technologies, where she helped start its commercial work and led Palantir's business in cyber security, anti-money laundering and rogue trading detection. Prior to that, she consulted US and international governments with Booz Allen Hamilton, where she designed military and strategy wargames.Hildebrandt is the Executive Sponsor of Women in Technology at FOX."One thing that we intervened on very quickly because we were AT the table for (the conversation), "How should we structure the deal?" Was to do something that was quite counter-intuitive I think, and very controversial... Which was to say ‘Let's essentially value all of our current technology assets at near-zero... And make them part of the deal.'"- Melody Hildebrandt Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Background on the Fox Disney “mega-deal” (03:39)How to structure an M&A to accelerate your tech roadmap (06:01)Motivating engineering teams with forcing functions (10:14)What it was like representing a tech org in deal structuring (13:13)How to develop an engineering org's merger strategy (17:36)M&A negotiation tips for engineering leaders (20:07)A critical skill for eng leaders: converting tech pains into business goals (22:59)How to get executive buy-in on engineering initiatives (27:58)“Crashing” your way to a seat at the table (31:05)Melody's process for setting the strategic direction of an engineering org (32:19)Managing engineering teams from high and low — the middle is death (34:35)Why this M&A event continues to accelerate innovation (37:37)Rapid-Fire Questions (42:26)LINKS AND RESOURCES(article) A super-powered approach to tech transformation - Melody Hildebrandt& Paul Cheesborough's article on the untold story of the 21st Century Fox & Disney transaction(podcast) Conversations with Tyler esteemed economist Tyler Cowen engages with today's most underrated thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between.(book) Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir(reference) The Masked Singer NFT project - www.maskverse.com
We discuss how to navigate the delicate balance between meeting current customer needs while also preparing for future tech trends & opportunities with Evan Welbourne, Head of AI and Data @ Samsara. Evan dissects the rapidly transforming pace of developing AI/ML products, sharing strategies for merging conversations around differing product-building processes, tips for moving seamlessly / gaining approval between product development stages, defining what customer success looks like, methods for working backward from problems, and best practices for avoiding friction throughout the product development process. He also shares frameworks for envisioning & working toward future tech possibilities while simultaneously developing hypotheses that inform future direction, creating diverse AI/ML team composition, and effectively communicating with stakeholders.ABOUT EVAN WELBOURNEEvan Welbourne is the Head of AI and Data and Samsara, leading the organization's machine learning, computer vision, data science, and data analytics teams – as well as data engineering and data platform for the company. He has a long-standing career in both machine learning and IoT. Before Samsara, Evan held various roles at Amazon, including the Head of Machine Learning for Alexa Smart Home and Manager of the Computer Vision Research Group. He also led research teams at Samsung and Nokia.Evan earned his Ph.D and M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington and holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Toronto."With AI, there's something new every week. You could stay in those stages forever. You can just keep iterating and trying new things, but at some point you have to kind of cut it off. You've got to time box it and just go with something that you know will work. You're constantly also calibrating between the quality of what you're delivering and the time it takes you to deliver it. A lot of that problem backs into this early stage of the process. We do want to do a good job of understanding opportunity but there's analysis paralysis. We don't want to just get stuck there.”- Evan Welbourne Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountSHOW NOTES:Staying customer-focused while working toward the future @ Samsara (3:22)Merging forward-looking technology & customer-problem-focused product-building conversations (5:54)Defining customer success & working backwards from winning (8:38)How stage gates can confirm / assess feature accuracy & maturity (10:58)What the approval moment looks like while moving from stage to stage (15:29)Understanding what stages offer the greatest opportunity for risk / friction (17:11)Signals to watch for that allow you to move forward with confidence (19:30)Best practices for anticipating & preparing for future possibilities (21:13)Using smaller-scale projects to inform future direction of larger-scale products (23:12)Communication strategies for working with less technical stakeholders (25:22)Methods for effectively communicating complex, technical information (27:59)AI / ML team composition at Samsara (30:04)Frameworks for aligning & motivating folks to focus on customer needs (32:59)Strategies for introducing new technologies & scientific research into your teams (35:06)Introducing AI into mission-critical internal tools (36:34)Rapid fire questions (39:17)LINKS AND RESOURCESHuman Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control - Stuart Russell lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Welcome to a special episode highlighting ELC Annual 2024, our annual conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world! Tune in to hear how we built this 2-day experience to be the ultimate accelerator of leadership and professional growth. We cover how the conference will expand your perspectives with curated peer-led roundtables and expert-led sessions with people like Thuan Pham (former CTO @ Uber & Coupang), Melody Hildebrandt (CTO @ FOX), James Everingham (VPE @ Meta) Marcel Weekes (VPE @ Figma), Rajashree Pimpalkhare (VPE @ Twilio) and 40+ more speakers! We promise that you will walk away from the event with meaningful connections and actionable strategies that will empower your career and leadership growth.Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discountThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
Lakshmi Baskaran shares insights on impromptu communication, why it's important, and a framework for successfully navigating these tricky situations! We also cover team topology and why it's so important to have the right composition of product-minded vs. technical-minded engineers within any eng team. Lakshmi shares how prioritizing team topology will impact hiring, influence engineering culture, and aid in eng team reorgs / restructures. She also discusses what the future of AI looks like for executive eng leaders & what to consider when adopting AI practices / technologies. And to bring it all together, we dissect how Lakshmi's Triple-A impromptu communication framework operates in the context of both team topology & AI adoption.ABOUT LAKSHMI BASKARANLakshmi Baskaran is an accomplished business leader, entrepreneur, and an angel investor with over two decades of experience in the tech industry. She has built and managed high-performing engineering teams for startups, scale-ups, and publicly listed companies across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.She is currently serving as the VP of Engineering at Metadata, a SaaS company that offers a Marketing Operating System to prominent brands and businesses worldwide.Lakshmi is passionate about coaching and mentoring business leaders and empowering women to pursue careers in technology. With the right support, she firmly believes that any woman can unleash her potential and make a significant impact on the world, rising to the heights of a great leader, entrepreneur, and a board member.Lakshmi shares her insights on leadership and technology through her writing on Medium and Thrive.“Imagine you're presenting it to your executive leadership team or to your board. As an engineering leader, you want to spice up that message with how it is interesting to your customers. The framework that I use in scenarios like this is called 'What If And So That' framework. If you're running an email platform, what if you're able to search through millions of emails in a sub millisecond so that your users can have faster search abilities compared to our competitors? Build a dream scenario and tell them how the technology can help them meet their dream scenario.”- Lakshmi Baskaran We're less than one week away from GLOW 2024 – Jellyfish's virtual summit for engineering, product, and finance leaders who are looking to deliver greater business impact while building great software and teams. Here's a preview of what's in store:An inspiring guest keynote by TIME Magazine's Kid of the Year, Gitanjali RaoStrategies for engineering excellence from CTOs at Keller Williams, Genius Sports, and FanDuelJellyfish CEO and Co-Founder Andrew Lau's keynote on the future of software engineeringExciting product roadmap updates from JellyfishRegister for this May 15 event today at jellyfish.co/glow!SHOW NOTES:Why the topic of effective impromptu communication is important (2:46)Dissecting frameworks & tools for impromptu conversations (7:16)An example of high-quality impromptu communication with a CEO (11:52)Implement the Triple-A framework (14:03)The impact of this communication method on peers (16:37)Lakshmi's insights on team topologies & essential aspects of different eng teams (18:26)Considerations for eng team composition (20:56)How new hires play into assembling and/or reforming early-stage eng teams (23:44)Aligning with teams about what they're looking for in terms of hiring / composition (26:12)The impact of product & tech-minded eng leaders on engineering culture (29:19)Opportunities to employ impromptu comm skills in the context of team topology (31:42)Lakshmi's observations on AI adoption (33:47)Frameworks for effectively communicating about AI considerations (37:11)How eng leaders should apply these AI areas into their decision-making (40:40)The role of impromptu communication in AI conversations (42:33)Rapid fire questions (45:00)LINKS AND RESOURCESLakshmi's blog post on identifying product-minded and tech-minded engineersThe Engineering Executive's Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership - Will Larson shows you ways to obtain your first executive job and quickly ramp up to meet the challenges you may not have encountered in non-executive measuring engineering for both engineers and the CEO, company-scoped headcount planning, communicating successfully across a growing organization, and figuring out what people actually mean when they keep asking for a "technology strategy.”This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
We dissect one of the biggest challenges that eng leaders face in their day-to-day – navigating the balance between going deep in technical work & maintaining a high-level view of business strategy. Oded Kedem, Chief Technology Officer @ BigPanda, shares examples from his experience, covering strategies for prioritizing where to go deep into the technology, bringing technical expertise to the executive team, bridging the gap between marketing & technology, and aligning customer expectations with a product's actual capabilities. Oded also shares frameworks for prioritization conversations, valuable questions to pose during executive decision-making conversations, and approaches to changing past technical decisions.ABOUT ODED KEDEMOded Kedem, Chief Technology Officer at BigPanda, brings a wealth of experience in software from ground-up development to managing engineering teams and was also the founder of Zerto, a Cloud BC/DR company. Throughout his many years in the industry, Oded has developed a deep understanding of AIOps and the needs of customers. He recognizes that we are just scratching the surface with AI and automation.“As companies evolve, people change roles and the technology changes, the requirements change. We chose in the past, the product does it in method A. Let's ask, 'Okay, why did we choose A in the first place?' And once in a while, someone from engineering came up and said, 'Yeah, I have a great idea. Let's do B.' And I would always send them, 'Okay, go back to the documentation, because if you thought this through and you think that making these changes is worth our while and the risk and the instability it may bring, let's go, let's do it.'”- Oded Kedem We're less than one week away from GLOW 2024Attend GLOW 2024 - Jellyfish's virtual summit for engineering, product, and finance leaders who are looking to deliver greater business impact while building great software and teams. Here's a preview of what's in store:An inspiring guest keynote by TIME Magazine's Kid of the Year, Gitanjali RaoStrategies for engineering excellence from CTOs at Keller Williams, Genius Sports, and FanDuelJellyfish CEO and Co-Founder Andrew Lau's keynote on the future of software engineeringExciting product roadmap updates from JellyfishRegister for this May 15 event today at jellyfish.co/glow!SHOW NOTES:Keeping a high-level view while diving deep into the technology (2:48)The story of how Oded first connected to this particular problem (5:03)Oded's process for prioritizing where to go deep into the technology (7:20)Prioritization strategies & why it's sometimes hard to say no to jumping in (9:40)How to bring technical expertise / value to the exec team (13:57)Best practices for tough conversations regarding org direction & capabilities (17:40)Types of questions to ask in executive conversations (19:58)Oded's favorite question to pose (23:33)Bridging the gap between marketing & technology (24:26)How an eng perspective helps shape a product's marketing outcome (27:12)Frameworks for aligning customer expectations with a product's capabilities (29:33)Approaches to changing past technical decisions as an eng leader (31:21)Rapid fire questions (35:25)LINKS AND RESOURCESTalking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know - Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
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