Podcasts about engineering culture

BONUS: Tom Gilb on Building True Engineering Culture and Delivering Value Through Evolutionary Methods In this BONUS episode, we dive deep into the world of true engineering discipline with Tom Gilb, a pioneer who was writing about Agile principles before Agile was even named. We explore his latest book "Success - Super Secrets & Strategies for Efficient Value Delivery in Projects and Programs, and Plans" and uncover the fundamental flaws in how organizations approach project delivery and stakeholder management. The Genesis of Success-Focused Engineering "People were failing at project deliveries - even when using Agile. I saw there was very little about setting clear goals and reaching them, it had nothing to do with being successful." Tom's motivation for writing his latest book stems from a critical observation: despite the widespread adoption of Agile methodologies, project failure rates remain unacceptably high. The core issue isn't methodology but rather the fundamental lack of clarity around what success actually means. Tom emphasizes that true success is about achieving the improvements you want at a price you can afford, yet most organizations fail to define this clearly from the outset. In this segment, we refer to the book How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg who published statistics on the poor performance of projects in general. Beyond OKRs: The Power of Quantified Multi-Dimensional Objectives "First you need to have a definition of what it means to succeed. And that needs to be multi-dimensional. And you need to clarify what they are." While many organizations believe they're already quantifying objectives through frameworks like OKRs, Tom reveals significant weaknesses in these approaches. True value isn't just profit—it encompasses multiple dimensions including security, usability, and other stakeholder-specific benefits. The key insight is learning to quantify what needs to be achieved across all critical dimensions, as you simply cannot design for high-quality attributes like security without first quantifying and designing for them explicitly. In this segment, we talk about Tom's paper on OKR's titled "OKR Objectives and Key Results: what's wrong and how to fix it". The Missing Engineering Discipline "Why is the failure rate of our projects so high?" Tom identifies a paradoxical problem: engineering organizations often lack true engineering discipline. This fundamental gap explains why project success rates remain low despite technological advances. Real engineering requires systematic approaches to design, stakeholder analysis, and incremental value delivery—disciplines that are often overlooked in favor of rushed implementations. Stakeholder Analysis: Beyond User Stories "Stakeholders have a requirement - even if we don't know it. They might be people, but also law, contract, policies, etc. They all have requirements for us." Traditional user-centered methods like user stories can lead to failure when critical stakeholders are overlooked. Tom advocates for comprehensive stakeholder analysis as the foundation of engineering discipline. Stakeholders aren't just people—they include laws, contracts, policies, and other constraints that have requirements for your system. The practical tip here is to use AI tools to help identify and list these stakeholders, then quantify their specific requirements using structured approaches like Planguage. The Gilb Cycle: True Incremental Value Delivery "Get things done every week, next week, until it's all done. We need to decompose any possible design into enough increments so that each increment delivers some value." What distinguishes Tom's evolutionary approach from popular Agile frameworks is the focus on choosing the most efficient design and then systematically improving existing systems through measured increments. Each increment must deliver tangible value, and the decomposition process should be aided by AI tools to ensure optimal value delivery. This isn't just about iteration—it's about strategic improvement with measurable outcomes. Building Engineering Culture: A Two-Leader Approach "There are two leaders: the tech leaders and the management leaders. For management leaders: demand a value stream of results starting next week. To the tech leaders: learn the engineering process." Creating a true engineering culture requires coordinated effort from both management and technical leadership. Management leaders should demand immediate value streams with weekly results, while technical leaders must master fundamental engineering processes including stakeholder analysis and requirement quantification. This dual approach ensures both accountability and capability development within the organization. Further Resources During this episode we refer to several of Tom's books and papers. You can see this list below Software Metrics by Tom Gilb Principles of software engineering management - Also available in PDF Evo book   About Tom Gilb Tom Gilb, born in the US, lived in London, and then moved to Norway in 1958. An independent teacher, consultant, and writer, he has worked in software engineering, corporate top management, and large-scale systems engineering. As the saying goes, Tom was writing about Agile, before Agile was named. In 1976, Tom introduced the term "evolutionary" in his book Software Metrics, advocating for development in small, measurable steps. Today, we talk about Evo, the name that Tom used to describe his approach. You can link with Tom Gilb on LinkedIn.

Do you want to hear a story about stifling growth and creativity through the lens of one developer's personal story?You're in luck! Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as they watch and react to Theo's YouTube video: "Being a good engineer kinda sucks," April 28, 2025.It's a tale about the tension between excelling at your craft versus navigating organizational politics and dysfunction. That's right, today, we're talking about themes of career development, team dynamics, and leadership, so feel free to stick around for our thoughts on these and:The sustainability trap of overworking to meet unrealistic expectationsHow organizational politics can punish innovation and excellenceThe importance of product sense vs. documentation-driven developmentFinding and nurturing relationships with like-minded professionals#Leadership #ProductManagement #CareerDevelopment #TechCareersLINKS= = = = = = = = = = = =YouTubeAppleSpotifyREFERENCES= = = = = = = = = = = =Check Out Theo's Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VuM1GCadt4...and his YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@t3dotgg...and his website: https://t3.gg/MUSIC= = = = = = = = = = = =Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Discover how Rackspace Spot is democratizing cloud infrastructure with an open-market, transparent option for cloud servers. Kevin Carter, Product Director at Rackspace Technology, discusses Rackspace Spot's hypothesis and the impact of an open marketplace for cloud resources. Discover how this novel approach is transforming the industry. TIMESTAMPS[00:00:00] – Introduction & Kevin Carter's Background[00:02:00] – Journey to Rackspace and Open Source[00:04:00] – Engineering Culture and Pushing Boundaries[00:06:00] – Rackspace Spot and Market-Based Compute[00:08:00] – Cognitive vs. Technical Barriers in Cloud Adoption[00:10:00] – Tying Spot to OpenStack and Resource Scheduling[00:12:00] – Product Roadmap and Expansion of Spot[00:16:00] – Hardware Constraints and Power Consumption[00:18:00] – Scrappy Startups and Emerging Hardware Solutions[00:20:00] – Programming Languages for Accelerators (e.g., Mojo)[00:22:00] – Evolving Role of Software Engineers[00:24:00] – Importance of Collaboration and Communication[00:28:00] – Building Personal Networks Through Open Source[00:30:00] – The Power of Asking and Offering Help[00:34:00] – A Question No One Asks: Mentors[00:38:00] – The Power of Educators and Mentorship[00:40:00] – Rackspace's OpenStack and Spot Ecosystem Strategy[00:42:00] – Open Source Communities to Join[00:44:00] – Simplifying Complex Systems[00:46:00] – Getting Started with Rackspace Spot and GitHub[00:48:00] – Human Skills in the Age of GenAI - Post Interview Conversation[00:54:00] – Processing Feedback with Emotional Intelligence[00:56:00] – Encouraging Inclusive and Clear Collaboration QUOTESCHARNA PARKEY“If you can't engage with this infrastructure in a way that's going to help you, then I guarantee you it's not up to par for the direction that we're going. [...] This democratization — if you don't know how to use it — it's not doing its job.”KEVIN CARTER“Those scrappy startups are going to be the ones that solve it. They're going to figure out new and interesting ways to leverage instructions. [...] You're going to see a push from them into the hardware manufacturers to enhance workloads on FPGAs, leveraging AVX 512 instruction sets that are historically on CPU silicon, not on a GPU.”

Today, we explore the future of ecommerce infrastructure with Gus Fune, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Baerskin Tactical. As a global tactical gear brand, Baerskin is transforming how lean teams recover fast and scale smart. Gus shares how his four-person team rebuilt their ecommerce stack in just three months, stabilized revenue with a composable architecture, and built a developer-first culture that enables rapid experimentation. Tune in for practical insights on replacing legacy systems, managing 40+ microservices, and what truly drives innovation in ecommerce.

BONUS: Software Engineers are Paid to Solve Problems, Not Write Code! With John Crickett In this BONUS episode, we explore a thought-provoking LinkedIn post by John Crickett that challenges a fundamental misconception in software engineering. John shares insights on why engineers should focus on problem-solving rather than just coding, how to develop business context understanding, and why this shift in perspective is crucial in the age of AI. Beyond Writing Code: Understanding the True Value of Software Engineering "A lot of us come to software engineering because we care about building, and missed the goal: solving a problem for a customer." John Crickett explains the fundamental disconnect many software engineers experience in their careers. While many enter the field with a passion for building and coding, they often lose sight of the ultimate purpose: solving real problems for customers. This misalignment can lead to creating technically impressive solutions that fail to address actual business needs. John emphasizes that the most valuable engineers are those who can bridge the gap between technical implementation and business value. In this section, we refer to John's Coding Challenges and Developing Skills websites. The Isolation Problem in Engineering Teams "We have insulated people from seeing and interacting with customers, perhaps because we were afraid they would create a problem with customers." One of the key issues John identifies is how engineering teams are often deliberately separated from customers and end-users. This isolation, while sometimes implemented with good intentions, prevents engineers from gaining crucial context about the problems they're trying to solve. John shares his early career experience of participating in the sales process for software projects, which gave him valuable insights into customer needs. He highlights the Extreme Programming (XP) approach, which advocates for having the customer "in the room" to provide direct and immediate feedback, creating a tighter feedback loop between problem identification and solution implementation. In this segment, we refer to the book XP Explained by Kent Beck. The AI Replacement Risk "If all you are doing is taking a ticket that is fully spec'ed out, and coding it, then an LLM could also do that. The value is in understanding the problem." In a world where Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly capable of generating code, John warns that engineers who define themselves solely as coders face a significant risk of obsolescence. The true differentiation and value come from understanding the business domain and problem space—abilities that current AI tools haven't mastered. John advises engineers to develop domain knowledge specific to their business or customers, as this expertise allows them to contribute uniquely valuable insights beyond mere code implementation. Cultivating Business Context Understanding "Be curious about what the goal is behind the code you need to write. When people tell you to build, you need to be curious about why you are being asked to build that particular solution." John offers practical advice for engineers looking to develop better business context understanding. The key is cultivating genuine curiosity about the "why" behind coding tasks and features. By questioning requirements and understanding the business goals driving technical decisions, engineers can transform their role from merely delivering code to providing valuable services and solutions. This approach allows engineers to contribute more meaningfully and become partners in business success rather than just implementers. Building the Right Engineering Culture "Code is always a liability, sometimes it's an asset. The process starts with hiring the CTO—the people at the top. You get the team that reflects your values." Creating an engineering culture that values problem-solving over code production starts at the leadership level. John emphasizes that the values demonstrated by technical leadership will cascade throughout the organization. He notes the counter-intuitive truth that code itself is inherently a liability (requiring maintenance, updates, and potential refactoring), only becoming an asset when it effectively solves business problems. Building a team that understands this distinction begins with leadership that demonstrates curiosity about the business domain and encourages engineers to do the same. The Power of Asking Questions "Be curious, ask more questions." For engineers looking to make the shift from coder to problem-solver, John recommends developing the skill of asking good questions. He points to Harvard Business Review's article on "The Surprising Power of Questions" as a valuable resource. The ability to ask insightful questions about business needs, user requirements, and problem definitions allows engineers to uncover the true challenges beneath surface-level requirements. This curiosity-driven approach not only leads to better solutions but also positions engineers as valuable contributors to business strategy. In this segment, we refer to the article in HBR titled The Surprising Power of Questions. About John Crickett John is a passionate software engineer and leader on a mission to empower one million engineers and managers. With extensive expertise in distributed systems, full-stack development, and evolving tech stacks from C++ to Rust, John creates innovative coding challenges, insightful articles, and newsletters to help teams level up their skills. You can link with John Crickett on LinkedIn.

In this episode of The Tech Trek, Amir chats with Rob Williams, co-founder and CTO at Read AI, about what it truly means to be an AI-native company. Rob shares how Read AI uses its own tools internally, how his small but mighty engineering team balances speed and structure, and the evolving role of AI in productivity workflows. Whether you're building AI products or trying to adopt them effectively, this conversation offers a unique peek behind the curtain of a startup navigating the future of work.

BONUS: The End of Product Management? Three Experts Reveal the Unstoppable Rise of Product Engineers With Anton Zaides, Rafa Paez, and Max Piechota In this BONUS episode, we explore the emerging concept of the Product Engineer with three experts in the field: Anton Zaides, Rafa Paez, and Max Piechota. Together, they discuss how software engineers are evolving beyond just technical skills to embrace product thinking, business understanding, and customer empathy. This shift represents a move toward what they call "M-skilled" professionals who combine technical expertise with product sensibility to create greater impact. The Evolution of Software Engineering "The role of the software engineer is evolving to a product engineer...they understand what to build and why they are building it." Rafa Paez kicks off the conversation by sharing insights from his article on Substack, titled "The Rise of the 100x Product Engineer." He explains how the modern software engineer is taking on greater ownership of their work, focusing not just on writing code but understanding the underlying business reasons for features. This new breed of engineers thinks critically about product metrics, challenges assumptions, and takes extreme ownership of outcomes rather than just outputs. Breaking Product Management "Engineers don't really care about what they work on...but what if they did?" Anton Zaides discusses his provocative Substack article "Product Management is broken, a change is coming," where he challenges the traditional separation between engineers and product decisions. He describes the phenomenon of the "ZOOM-based product manager" who remains disconnected from both users and engineers, and contrasts this with engineers who genuinely care about the products they build. Anton argues that when engineers are invested in the product outcomes, the entire development process improves. For a podcast episode with Anton Zaides about the Product Management is broken article, listen to this Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast episode. Measuring What Matters "We need to measure the product outcome, the customer value and incentivize developers based on that." Max Piechota shares how his journey toward product engineering began through conversations with his CEO about measuring software engineer performance. His research led him to realize that traditional engineering metrics often miss what truly matters - the value delivered to customers. Max advocates for aligning developer incentives with product outcomes rather than just code output, representing a fundamental shift in how we evaluate technical contributions. Catalyzing the Transformation "What helped me change was working with those people that wanted to create products." The conversation turns to practical ways to foster this evolution toward product engineering: Max describes how exposure to product-oriented colleagues and learning about the Lean Startup methodology transformed his perspective as a developer. Anton outlines a three-step approach: helping engineers see metrics and user interactions, building business literacy, and connecting more deeply with the domain. The group discusses the importance of helping engineers understand concepts like gross margin and the AARRR framework (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral). Beyond Solutions to Problems "Often we only focus on the solution, without understanding the actual problem we are trying to solve." One crucial insight from the conversation is the need for engineers to take a step back from solution mode and better understand the underlying problems. The panel shares practical tips: Clarify how the business works and identify opportunities for improvement Be thoughtful about how developers are incentivized Connect technical decisions to financial outcomes Focus on landing page conversion and other customer-facing metrics when they're the bottleneck to growth This mindset shift enables engineers to make more strategic decisions about where to invest their technical efforts for maximum impact. About Anton Zaides, Rafa Páez, Max Piechota Anton Zaides is the founder of Manager.dev, where he shares insights about engineering management and product development. With extensive experience in both engineering and product leadership roles, Anton is passionate about bridging the gap between technical execution and product vision. You can link with Anton Zaides on Substack. For inquiries, reach him at Anton@manager.dev. Rafa Paez is a product engineering advocate who wrote the influential article "The Rise of the 100x Product Engineer." Through his work, Rafa explores how engineers can expand their impact by embracing product thinking and business understanding alongside technical skills. You can link with Rafa Paez on Substack. Find more of his work at rafapaez.com. Max Piechota is a thought leader in the engineering productivity space who has researched effective ways to measure and improve developer performance. He advocates for outcome-based metrics that focus on customer value rather than code output. You can link with Max Piechota on Substack.

Discover insights into building a high-performance engineering organization with Stefan Richter, founder of freiheit.com technologies. With 25+ years of experience delivering successful software projects for the Who's Who of European businesses and industries, Stefan shares his philosophy of radical engineering culture and maintaining an exceptionally high bar in recruiting. This episode dives deep into how freiheit.com has achieved their "Never Late, Never Failed" mission through disciplined processes, carefully selected talent, and a relentless focus on simplicity. Listen to find out

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences. In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Sagar Batchu about building engineering teams in different environments, the transition from individual contributor to leadership roles, the importance of culture and autonomy in organizations, and the implications of AI agents on the future of APIs. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4kENUtG Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter Upcoming Events: QCon London (April 7-10, 2025) Discover new ideas and insights from senior practitioners driving change and innovation in software development. https://qconlondon.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit Boston (June 9-10, 2025) Actionable insights on today's critical dev priorities. devsummit.infoq.com/conference/boston2025 InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (October 15-16, 2025) Essential insights on critical software development priorities. https://devsummit.infoq.com/conference/munich2025 QCon San Francisco 2025 (17-21, 2025) Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies. https://qconsf.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit New York (Save the date - December 2025) https://devsummit.infoq.com/ The InfoQ Podcasts: Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts: - The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ - Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture - Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ Follow InfoQ: - Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq - Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq - Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 - Instagram: @infoqdotcom - Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development. - Join a community of experts. - Increase your visibility. - Grow your career. https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this episode, Amir Bormand sits down with Ganesh Datta, Co-founder & CTO of Cortex, to dive deep into engineering excellence—what it means, how to measure it, and how to build it into the culture of a technology organization. They explore product thinking, shared standards, accountability, and continuous improvement, as well as the challenges of maintaining excellence across different types of companies.Whether you're an engineering leader or a developer striving for high standards, this episode provides valuable insights into how to define, implement, and sustain engineering excellence in your organization.Key TakeawaysEngineering Excellence is Continuous: There's no final state of “excellence”—it's about ongoing improvement and iteration.The Four Pillars of Engineering Excellence:Velocity – How fast can the team deliver?Efficiency – Are resources being used optimally?Security – Is the system safe and resilient?Reliability – Can users trust the system to work as expected?Business Alignment Matters: Excellence should align with business goals, whether that's innovation, efficiency, or reliability.Engineering Culture is Key: Excellence isn't just about processes and metrics—it's about visibility, accountability, and fostering a mindset of improvement.Standardization vs. Flexibility: While setting clear standards is crucial, organizations must adapt their definitions of excellence based on their unique challenges and priorities.Timestamped Highlights[00:00:00] – Introduction: Who is Ganesh Datta, and what is Cortex?[00:02:00] – Defining engineering excellence and why it differs by company.[00:05:00] – Engineering excellence as a cultural foundation, not just an end goal.[00:07:30] – Measuring excellence: The role of metrics and how to avoid focusing on lagging indicators.[00:10:30] – Overcoming resistance to engineering standards and ensuring adoption across teams.[00:12:30] – How business drivers shape engineering standards.[00:15:30] – Why excellence is different for every company: Comparing OpenAI vs. a large financial institution.[00:18:00] – How CTOs can translate business goals into engineering priorities.[00:21:00] – Ensuring consistency: How to sustain high standards year after year.[00:23:00] – Where to connect with Ganesh Datta for follow-up questions.Quote of the Episode“Engineering excellence is not an end state—it's a culture of continuous improvement. You're never truly excellent, just more excellent than before.” – Ganesh DattaConnect with Ganesh DattaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsdatta/Email: ganesh@cortex.ioCortex Website: cortex.io

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences. In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Ganesh Datta about building excellent engineering organizations and treating platform engineering as a product. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3EtW3R6 Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter Upcoming Events: QCon London (April 7-10, 2025) Discover new ideas and insights from senior practitioners driving change and innovation in software development. https://qconlondon.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit Boston (June 9-10, 2025) Actionable insights on today's critical dev priorities. devsummit.infoq.com/conference/boston2025 InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (October 15-16, 2025) Essential insights on critical software development priorities. https://devsummit.infoq.com/ QCon San Francisco 2025 (17-21, 2025) Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies. https://qconsf.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit New York (Save the date - December 2025) https://devsummit.infoq.com/ The InfoQ Podcasts: Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts: - The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ - Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture - Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ Follow InfoQ: - Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq - Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq - Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 - Instagram: @infoqdotcom - Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development. - Join a community of experts. - Increase your visibility. - Grow your career. https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

Substack Week: The Shared Ownership Challenge, Understanding Clear Accountability in Engineering Teams With Rafa Páez Welcome to our Substack Week, where we interview thought leaders who publish newsletters on Substack to help you find inspiring voices that drive our community forward. In this episode, we explore the concept of shared ownership and its pitfalls with Rafa Páez, an experienced engineering leader with insights on creating clear accountability in teams. The Pitfalls of Shared Ownership In engineering teams, shared ownership often manifests as ambiguity in responsibility and accountability. Rafa shares a personal experience where assigning two engineers to lead an initiative resulted in nothing getting done, as each assumed the other would take action. This phenomenon highlights how shared ownership without clear accountability can lead to missed deadlines, poor quality deliverables, and team conflicts. "It might not be my fault because I thought the other person was available, I thought the other person had more time to actually work on that initiative." Understanding the Bystander Effect The bystander effect, a psychological phenomenon first identified by social psychologists, explains why people are less likely to take action when others are present. In a team setting, this manifests as members assuming someone else will take responsibility, leading to collective inaction. This effect can significantly impact team productivity and project outcomes. "Because there are more people there, someone thinks that someone else will take care of that thing, whether it's a project, initiative, or any other action." The DRI Framework: Creating Clear Ownership The Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) concept, popularized by Gitlab and Apple, addresses the accountability gap by ensuring one person is clearly responsible for each significant initiative. This framework emerged after a failed project launch where no clear ownership led to quality issues. The DRI approach creates clear lines of responsibility while maintaining collaborative team dynamics. "You can have multiple DRIs for different aspects, but at the end, it needs to be one responsible for the overall project." Implementing DRI Successfully For leaders implementing the DRI framework, several key considerations are crucial for success. DRIs should be assigned thoughtfully based on skills and experience, with senior team members often better suited for these roles. The framework must be supported by a culture that empowers DRIs to make decisions while maintaining team collaboration. "DRIs need to be empowered to make decisions. If they are not empowered to make decisions, this role is not going to work because they're going to feel frustrated." Avoiding Common Anti-patterns When implementing the DRI framework, leaders should be aware of potential anti-patterns that can emerge. These include DRIs becoming bottlenecks, erosion of team collaboration, and overuse of the framework for minor tasks. Success requires finding the right balance and ensuring the framework enhances rather than hinders team dynamics. "Another issue or anti-pattern is the erosion of collaboration - some people might get the wrong concept about DRIs and say 'I don't need to collaborate anymore.'" Building a Culture of Accountability Creating a successful culture of accountability requires clear communication about the DRI role and its implications. Leaders must ensure DRIs are supported while maintaining team collaboration and avoiding the framework becoming overly bureaucratic. The focus should be on enabling effective decision-making and clear ownership while preserving team dynamics. "Consider the skills when assigning DRIs, support people in this role, and remember that DRI is an organizational agnostic framework that adapts to the organizations we are within." Resources For Further Study The Gitlab handbook article about the DRI concept The book: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink The Engineering Leader newsletter by Rafa Páez   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Substack Week: Engineering Strategy, Bridging Technical Excellence with Business Success With Aleix Morgadas In this Substack Week episode, we explore the critical intersection of engineering strategy and business success with Aleix Morgadas, an engineering strategy consultant focusing on sociotechnical aspects of high-stake business challenges. Aleix shares insights from his experience helping organizations align their technical capabilities with business objectives, while offering practical approaches to developing and implementing effective engineering strategies. The Genesis of Engineering Strategy Personal experience sparked Aleix's journey into engineering strategy when he joined a large company and found himself grappling with strategic decision-making in engineering. He identified a crucial gap: while strategy was well-established in product and business domains, engineering organizations often lacked strategic frameworks for participating in key decisions. This realization led him to start writing about his struggles and insights, helping others navigate similar challenges through his newsletter. "I found that engineering was missing a way to be part of the decision making process, and we needed to be clear on the problems and challenges that engineering organizations face." Breaking Down the Four-Step Process Drawing inspiration from Richard Rumelt's work on strategy, Aleix presents a comprehensive framework for developing engineering strategy. The process emphasizes the importance of understanding organizational context and identifying shared challenges before taking action. "Solve the shared pains - that's why we need to uncover those pains in the first place." The framework consists of four key steps: Context Understanding: Begin by defining your business context, as strategy must align with your specific environment and circumstances Problem Identification: Focus on understanding current organizational pains and creating alignment around which problems to solve Direction Setting: Break down larger goals into manageable increments while ensuring actions don't compete with each other Strategy Execution: Create space for teams to work on strategic initiatives while maintaining autonomy The Power of Bottom-Up Strategy Aleix challenges the traditional top-down approach to strategy development, advocating for a more inclusive process that brings together perspectives from all levels of the organization. This approach recognizes that teams and top-level management often have different visions that need to be reconciled for effective strategy implementation. "Strategy does not need to be designed top-down. Teams and top-level management have different visions, and we need to be able to bring those together." Implementation and Execution Success in engineering strategy requires more than just planning - it demands thoughtful execution and ongoing adaptation. Aleix emphasizes the importance of learning through action and starting with minimal effort initiatives to gain momentum. "By doing you learn, and doing is critical for strategy. Start with the least effort action you have in mind." Recommended Resources For Further Study The book: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt The blog post: North Star Framework Template & Activity Library The Jobs to be done Framework TEMPLATE: The engineering strategy template by Aleix VIDEO: Aleix's Engineering Strategy Journey Talk [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Substack Week: Why Product Management is Broken and How to Fix It With Anton Zaides In this SPECIAL Substack Week episode, we dive deep into the current state of product management with Anton Zaides, a seasoned software engineer and leader. Anton shares his perspectives on why product management is fundamentally broken and offers practical solutions for organizations looking to improve their product development processes. The Journey to Engineering Leadership "I started to search for content from other engineering managers and focused on practical insights." Anton's journey spans 15 years in software engineering, from game development to DevOps and scaling startups. His transition to leadership revealed a gap in practical leadership content, which inspired him to start sharing his own experiences. Drawing from his four years as an engineering leader in a startup, Anton noticed patterns in product management that needed addressing, leading to his viral article on the topic. The Broken State of Product Management "My team was working on a feature, that got canceled the day after it was released." Product management faces several critical challenges in today's technology landscape. Anton identifies key issues including the development of unused features, increasing software complexity, and misaligned incentives that discourage innovation. Through his conversations with industry professionals, he discovered these problems were widespread, with teams frequently building features that get canceled or go unused. Despite following Agile methodologies, many organizations fail to properly evaluate feature impact, leading to wasted resources and frustrated teams. Product Managers vs. Program Managers "The PM spent only 5% of his time on talking to customers." One of the core issues Anton identifies is the transformation of product managers into glorified program managers. In many organizations, product managers spend most of their time managing JIRA tickets and dependencies rather than engaging with customers and driving innovation. The pressure to deliver on predetermined roadmaps, often dictated by executive teams, leaves little room for challenging assumptions or testing ideas with minimal scope. This shift away from customer interaction and strategic thinking has reduced the product manager's role to primarily managing internal processes. Fostering Better Product Management "PM's should be like a founder for the product business." To improve product management, Anton advocates for several key changes: Offloading program management responsibilities to the team Trusting product managers to make strategic decisions Requiring specific industry knowledge and experience Encouraging face-to-face customer interactions Moving product managers closer to commercial roles Involving engineers in customer conversations Organizational Structure and Communication "The more links you have in the communication chain, the worse the information gets communicated." Anton proposes a shift towards a more functional organizational structure where Product and Engineering work together more closely. He emphasizes the importance of direct communication between technical teams and customers, warning against over-reliance on data alone. The solution involves bringing everyone closer to the business side and creating stronger networks between organizations and engineers. Practical Implementation Tips "Get engineers to visit customers." Key recommendations for improving product management include: Involving engineers in customer and sales conversations Giving engineers visibility through release messaging and communications Establishing strong collaboration between engineering leaders and product managers Ensuring product managers have deep domain expertise Creating opportunities for direct customer interaction Treating product managers as business owners rather than project managers Recommended Resources for Further Study Anton's Article that we review in this interview: “Product Management is broken, a change is coming”  John Cutle's article on Product Manager's Responsibilities  Anton's Article on how to work effectively with your Product Managers A book recommendation: Empowered by Marty Cagan An episode of Lenny's podcast with Brian Chesky [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

In this episode of Compressed FM, Dustin Goodman shares insights from his journey from IC to engineering manager at companies like ClickUp and This Dot. The conversation explores the nuances of technical leadership, team dynamics, and the importance of understanding personal values in management. The discussion then shifts to a deep dive into React Server Components, examining their implementation challenges and potential impact on the framework ecosystem. SponsorsWix Studio combines the best of both worlds—intuitive design tools for clients and full-stack flexibility for developers. Customize every detail with your own code and take control of your projects.Chapter Marks00:00:00 - Intro00:00:42 - Sponsor: Wix Studio00:01:33 - Engineering Management Journey00:05:11 - Managing Different Experience Levels00:07:14 - Technical Skills in Management00:09:27 - Should Managers Code?00:12:19 - Managing Up vs Managing Down00:17:27 - Team Values Discussion00:20:11 - Strengths and Management Styles00:26:07 - React Server Components Introduction00:29:27 - RSC Implementation Challenges00:34:34 - GraphQL and Server Components00:39:13 - Future of React Frameworks00:43:10 - Vite 6 Discussion00:47:52 - React Community Evolution00:51:21 - Picks and PlugsAmy Dutton:Pick: Browse AI (web scraping tool with AI capabilities)Plug: Advent of CSS and Advent of JavaScript (24 coding challenges in December)Dustin Goodman:Pick: Cursor (AI-powered code editor)Plug: "Engineering Management for the Rest of Us" by Sarah DrasnerBrad Garropy:Pick: Helldivers 2 (video game)Plug: Raycast extension for Stripe (automatically fills checkouts with test cards)01:00:14 - Show Wrap-upLinksBooks Mentioned:"The Manager's Path" by Camille Fournier"Engineering Management for the Rest of Us" by Sarah DrasnerTools & Software:Wix StudioBrowse AICursor (code editor)RaycastRaycast Stripe extensionVite 6Next.jsSocial/Community:BlueSky (Brad and Amy)Bytes NewsletterConnectTech conferencePeople Referenced:Ryan BurgessGergely OroszTracy LeeDan AbramovTanner LindsleyJohn LindquistDavid KhourshidAssessment Tools:Clifton StrengthsFinderAPIs/Documentation:Stripe test cards documentationReact Server Components documentationVite documentationProjects:Advent of CSS (adventofcss.com)Advent of JavaScript (adventofjs.com) 

If you're keen to share your story, please reach out to us!Guest:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rokas/https://castai.teamtailor.com/Powered by Artifeks!https://www.linkedin.com/company/artifeksrecruitmenthttps://www.artifeks.co.ukhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/agilerecruiterLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enginearsioTwitter: https://x.com/EnginearsioAll Podcast Platforms: https://smartlink.ausha.co/enginears00:00 - Enginears Intro.01:02 - Rokas Intro.03:18 - CAST AI Intro.06:11 - What are the engineering challenges at CAST AI?10:05 - Cultural tendencies at CAST AI that adopt the customer first mindset.14:33 - Having the builder's mindset is important.16:47 - Tooling, observability and incident management at CAST AI.21:05 - How do you build a safe failure environment in a fairly high risk business?25:07 - Growth at CAST AI from a few employees to over 200 people.33:25 - Direction in which CAST AI are headed.42:50 - What are CAST AI's next hires (people) and locations?48:38 - Rokas & CAST AI Outro.50:31 - Enginears Outro.Edited by: hunterdigital.co.ukHosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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/

In this episode of the Convergence podcast, host Ashok Sivanand sits down with Wes Beary from Anchor.dev. Wes shares his journey, from helping shape Heroku's engineering culture to his work today in API design and encryption as a service. Discover how Wes' experience at Heroku and his open-source contributions have shaped his views on building delightful developer experiences and empowering engineering teams. He also talks about the importance of uniformity in API design, fostering a strong engineering culture, and scaling development teams while preserving their core strengths. Unlock the full potential of your product team with Integral's player coaches, experts in lean, human-centered design. Visit integral.io/convergence for a free Product Success Lab workshop to gain clarity and confidence in tackling any product design or engineering challenge. Inside the episode: Wes Beary's transition from game development to cloud infrastructure and open-source contributions The creation of Heroku's command-line interface (CLI) and API development process Best practices in API design and the importance of consistency for developers Insights into fostering engineering culture and maintaining it as teams grow The role of Anchor.dev in simplifying encryption for engineering teams without dedicated security resources Lessons from Heroku's rise to success and what makes a platform as a service valuable Balancing innovation, team culture, and enabling versus gatekeeping in engineering organizations Mentioned in this episode: Anchor.dev – Get started with Anchor.dev at https://lcl.host/ Heroku – Platform as a service, acquired by Salesforce Kobo Readers Fog – Wes Beary's open-source project for cloud API integration Subscribe to the Convergence podcast wherever you get podcasts including video episodes to get updated on the other crucial conversations that we'll post on YouTube at youtube.com/@convergencefmpodcast Learn something? Give us a 5 star review and like the podcast on YouTube. It's how we grow.   Follow the Pod Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/convergence-podcast/ X: https://twitter.com/podconvergence Instagram: @podconvergence  

“One key highlight of the report is that there's a massive disconnect between engineering leaders and engineers about developer experience." Andrew Boyagi is a DevOps Evangelist at Atlassian. In this episode, Andrew shares the key findings of the State of Developer Experience Report 2024, including the disconnect between engineering leaders and engineers, the impact of AI on developer experience, and the importance of measuring and improving developer productivity. Andrew shares practical advice on how to improve developer experience in our organization, emphasizing the importance of communication, continuous improvement, and transparency. We also delve into the role of internal platforms in enhancing developer experience and the importance of engineering culture. If you're interested in learning more about developer experience and looking for ways to improve developer productivity, this episode is for you!   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:01:37] State of Developer Experience Report - [00:04:05] Developer Experience (DevEx) - [00:05:32] DevEx Across Companies & Teams - [00:06:25] Report Key Highlights - [00:09:20] AI Impact to DevEx - [00:12:41] How Developers Spend Their Time - [00:15:13] How to Improve DevEx - [00:18:21] What to Ask Developers About DevEx - [00:21:31] Impact of DevEx on Deveopers' Retention & Attraction - [00:24:22] The Danger of Traditional DevEx Measurement - [00:26:50] Importance of Engineering Culture - [00:31:15] DevEx Frameworks - [00:34:24] Platform Engineering - [00:37:02] Platform Buy vs Build - [00:39:29] Self Service & Reducing Wait Time - [00:42:03] AI for Improving Documentation - [00:44:50] Feedback Loop for Improving DevEx - [00:47:29] Atlassian DevEx Journey - [00:49:01] Importance of Transparency - [00:50:28] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:01] _____ Andrew Boyagi's BioAndrew is a DevOps Evangelist at Atlassian with more than 20 years of experience in software delivery and service management in enterprise organizations. He provides a practical perspective on how teams and organizations can maximize the benefits of DevOps based on real-life experience. Before joining Atlassian, Andrew was an Executive Manager at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where he established and matured a platform engineering function that supported 7,000 engineers. Andrew holds an MBA from Southern Cross University. Follow Andrew: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/andrewboyagi/ State of Developer Experience Report 2024 – atlassian.com/software/compass/resources/state-of-developer-2024 _____ Our Sponsors Enjoy an exceptional developer experience with JetBrains. Whatever programming language and technology you use, JetBrains IDEs provide the tools you need to go beyond simple code editing and excel as a developer.Check out FREE coding software options and special offers on jetbrains.com/store/#discounts.Make it happen. With code. Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard.Get a 40% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead24 for all products in all formats. Like this episode?Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/191.Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

In this episode, host Ali Eslamifar sits down with Tudor Matei, an engineering coach dedicated to helping engineers reach their full potential. Tudor is a former engineering director turned coach. His last experience included years of managing and leading the engineering team at Course Hero. In this episode, Tudor shares his experiences and strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome and managing time effectively in a tech environment.What You'll Learn:Tudor's Career Shift: Discover why Tudor transitioned from engineering to coaching and how he's helping engineers thrive.Imposter Syndrome: Understand the root causes of imposter syndrome and how to challenge limiting beliefs.Effective Time Management: Learn about maker time vs. manager time and how to optimize schedules for productivity.Practical Strategies: Hear Tudor's tactics for creating a focused work environment and managing team dynamics.Personal Growth: Find out how Tudor uses daily walks and other techniques to enhance creativity and maintain mental well-being.Accountability Campaign:Tudor invites you to join his accountability campaign, which involves taking 30 minutes away from your desk for 30 days. Use this form to sign up for Tudor's Campaign: https://forms.gle/Z5HBdKNmoLsZyt1dA*Nominate the next guest: forms.gle/K8DXSfSqewKqGyTX8Instagram: instagram.com/theally.showYoutube: youtube.com/@TheAllyShowbyaliAli's Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/alieslamifarSupport the Show.*Disclaimer: The information provided in "The Ally Show" is for general informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified mental health professionals or medical professionals regarding any mental health concerns or conditions. The views and opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or the show. While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information shared, "The Ally Show" cannot guarantee the completeness, validity, or timeliness of any information provided. Listeners are encouraged to use their discretion and consult appropriate professionals before making any decisions or taking any actions based on the information shared on the show. "The Ally Show" is not responsible for any consequences resulting from the use of or reliance on the information presented.For Guests: The views and opinions expressed by guests on "The Ally Show" are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the host or the show. The guests share their personal experiences and perspectives for educational and informational purposes. The information provided by the guests should not be considered professional advice or treatment. Learn More For questions, please contact: ali@theally.show

Human creativity and AI are often characterized as being at odds with each other. But as the capabilities of AI grow, so too grow the possibilities for empowering humans in creative endeavors. This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano speaks with Etsy CEO Josh Silverman about the integration and impact of AI technologies in enhancing the consumer and seller experiences. He shares insights into his journey of scaling technology companies and the evolution of internet technologies, starting with founding Evite. Michael asks Josh how Etsy uses generative AI to keep human connection in commerce and empowering sellers and consumers. Josh shares the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in creative marketplaces, Etsy's engineering culture, and the future of AI in enhancing online shopping experiences. Josh Silverman previously served as President of Consumer Products and Services at American Express, CEO of Skype, and CEO of shopping.com, and he held various executive roles at eBay. Josh also co-founded Evite, Inc. where he also served as the company's CEO. He is currently on the board of directors of Shake Shack.  Episode Chapters(00:00) Introduction(01:24) Josh Silverman's Career Spanning The Evolution of Technology: from Internet to AI(06:16) Etsy's Mission and AI Integration(08:36) Enhancing Etsy's Search and Discovery with AI(15:27) Empowering Creative Entrepreneurs & SMBs with AI(16:10) Balancing AI Innovation with Etsy's Human-Centric Mission(20:51) Etsy's Engineering Culture and Democratizing Machine Learning(25:26) Audience Q&A: Creativity, AI Challenges, and Consumer Expectations(32:57) Closing remarks Stay in touch: ⁠www.lsvp.com⁠ X: ⁠https://twitter.com/lightspeedvp⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightspeed-venture-partners/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/lightspeedventurepartners/⁠ Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: ⁠generativenow.co⁠ Email: generativenow@lsvp.com The content here does not constitute tax, legal, business or investment advice or an offer to provide such advice, should not be construed as advocating the purchase or sale of any security or investment or a recommendation of any company, and is not an offer, or solicitation of an offer, for the purchase or sale of any security or investment product. For more details please see ⁠lsvp.com/legal⁠.

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/

Host Victoria Guido connects with Francis Lacoste, a seasoned VPE and CTO coach. He details his unexpected journey from an aspiring cinema professional to a key player in the tech industry after honing his remote-first work culture skills. He delves into his move toward coaching, emphasizing his commitment to developing engineering management talent and his dedication to building strong engineering cultures and leadership within organizations. Francis discusses the psychological aspects of leadership, such as the importance of psychological safety and the role of trust in organizational effectiveness. He also reflects on the nuances of transitioning from hands-on technical work to strategic leadership roles, emphasizing the critical soft skills necessary for effective leadership. Follow Francis Lacoste on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/francislacoste/). Visit his website: thevpe.coach (https://thevpe.coach/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Francis Lacoste, VPE and CTO coach. Francis, thank you for joining me. FRANCIS: My pleasure, Victoria. Thanks for having me. VICTORIA: Thank you. Well, it's a beautiful spring day today. And just to get us started and warmed up a little bit, I wonder if you could tell me about what is your favorite winter activity? FRANCIS: Cross-country skiing without doubt. I did a lot of alpine skiing when I was a kid. Could still do it, but really I found alpine, just skiing through parks and the calm of winter, is a very relaxing activity. And I use that as basically my workout. There's a park nearby the school of one of my kids. So, I drop him at school, then go do a few laps in the park near the river. It's beautiful. Unfortunately, this was a winter without almost any snow. So, I could only do four outings this year, which I need to do other workouts because that's not enough. VICTORIA: Wow. That's really cool. How long have you been cross-country skiing then? FRANCIS: I started doing that as a kid, but regularly only in the past, I'd say, four or five years. I bought some skis. Before that, I would only rent. So, that allowed me to do it more regularly. VICTORIA: That's interesting. I am cross-country ski curious because I've tried regular skiing the last couple of years, and I've found that it's way too fast for me personally [laughter]. So, I'm not sure. I think I might like it. FRANCIS: Yeah. I mean, cross-country skiing is more like jogging in a way because it's very cardio, unlike Alpine skiing, downhill skiing, where if you don't work hard, you can go very fast. You know, if you want to go slow, it's actually...you have to put in a lot of effort in downhill skiing, but cross-country skiing it's kind of like jogging. You're gliding on the snow and getting some momentum. I mean, if it's not flat, then it becomes a little bit more fiddly, but I do mostly flat courses because if you have, like, some slope, then it requires other technique, and it's actually harder to control than Alpine skiing. VICTORIA: Ooh. Well, I was going to say it sounds like my type of thing until the last part you said there [laughter]. I was like, oh, that's the part that I'm scared of. Well, I don't know, I don't get a chance to go skiing too often down here in San Diego, but I should go up to, like, Mammoth Mountain and things like that more often. But we got a ton of snow this year, so you'll have to come West and visit us sometime. FRANCIS: [laughs] VICTORIA: Well, wonderful. Well, Francis, tell me a little bit about your background and what led you to your coaching career here. FRANCIS: I've been working in software forever, basically. Fun fact: I wanted to go into cinema, and that's what I studied at university, but kept ending up in programming job basically, or programming endeavors. And this was, like, the beginning of the commercial internet, end of the '90s, and was very much into free software and open source, and that's how I got started as a software engineer. And eventually ended up at Canonical, which is still is; they celebrated their 20 years this year; the company that founded Ubuntu, the Linux distribution, which was very popular and still is to a large extent. That's where I kind of left, transitioned into software management, engineering management over there. I didn't know at all what I was getting into. I was on parental leave at the time, and my boss left a message to say, "Hey, we're thinking of creating teams, and we think you'd be a good fit for one of the team lead. Let me know what you think." And I said, "Yes," really, not knowing that this was a totally different job. Fortunately, I got good mentors and found out I enjoyed that. And then, after Canonical, I moved to Heroku, which I joined to help build a remote culture there because, at that point, the company was hiring more and more remote. And Canonical was a remote-first company. I mean, I've been working remotely for 25 years, almost, at this point. So, kind of had a good experience there, and at Heroku, really that, I kind of discovered coaching. I joined as a director, and then a few years in, there was a reorg. I ended up again with a single team to manage, which was, okay, I can do that. That's fine. Fortunately, I mean, by coincidence or luck, there was a guy on the team who wanted to become an engineering manager. He was already running most of the ceremonies of the team. And I said, "Oh, great [laughs]. What I love about being a director is growing engineering managers. So, I'm going to mentor you and help you de facto run the team, do the things that you're not in a position to do yet but eventually will transition that," which left me with a lot of time. My VP was supportive of this, and we had a lot of new first-time engineering managers at the time, so we didn't have a lot of people who had experience as engineering managers. So, I offered to mentor and coach internally. A lot of people took me up on that offer. So, I ended up doing that and eventually ended up with, like, running a large org again, but continuing doing that part. And this was the part that I kind of enjoyed the most [laughs] in my role, in a way. So, I think it was 2019. So, five years ago, I was running seven teams. It was the largest department, engineering department at Heroku. Things were fine, you know. But when I was stopping for summer vacation or winter vacation, I realized that the day before going back to work, I was kind of not looking forward to it. That was kind of a sign. And it was very subtle because, like, a week later, everything was fine again, you know, loved the people and the company and what we were doing. But there was something, like, deep down, I was not, like, fulfilled by the role. I did some soul searching and then realized, okay, what I really like is not running the organization but more, like, the mentoring, the nurturing of the culture. I was also doing a training at the time, working with groups, group facilitation, and so, like, working more, like, with advising leadership teams, that sort of thing. I went to my VP and told him, "Look, I realize this is not fulfilling for me. Don't freak out. I'm not quitting [laughs] yet, you know. I can do this for a year again. But if there is...then my next role is going to be consulting around engineering culture. But if there's a role, you know, where an organization is large, more aligned with this, I'd be happy to continue working at Heroku and Salesforce," because Heroku was part of Salesforce ever since I joined. So, he and the SVP were kind of thrilled by that idea. So, I became Chief of Staff for Heroku and start working with the whole engineering exec team. And that was great for six months. And then Salesforce did a big reorg, and I ended up...all the exec left, and Heroku engineering was kind of split apart and refactored into the normal Salesforce engineering. Fortunately for me, the EVP I had a relationship with him, and he knew what I was doing. And he took my role and said, like, "We like what you did with Heroku culture. Can you help us do that across all of platform?" So, I ended up doing culture work for one of the largest departments at Salesforce. At the time, it was 1,500 people. It was very scary in a way, in the sense that I knew this was the next step, you know, after Heroku, but I went from 150 engineers to 150. There were more engineering managers in platform than there were engineers at Heroku. So it was kind of, okay, I need to rethink my strategy and stuff like that. And then, that lasted until last year, and then there were the layoffs at Salesforce, and culture is one of the first thing that is usually cut. So, I got cut, which was fine because I kind of knew, okay, my next step after Salesforce was consulting around engineering culture. So, that's when I launched my business and decided to focus on coaching because that's what I had continued doing in the meantime and was finding the most fulfilling. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing all of that context. I have a lot of questions to follow up, but to recap a little bit, it sounds like you started as a software developer. You worked your way up to engineering management and then focused on coaching other leaders throughout your career. And now you're doing that as part of your own business. So, you founded your own company to just do that, which sounds super interesting. FRANCIS: Exactly. Yes. So, my focus is on I coach VP of engineering and CTOs at scaling startup. Like I said, I started coaching engineering managers at Heroku, and a lot of them eventually became directors. And at a large organization like Salesforce, after director, the next steps up there are a few opportunities in a way. So, you need to be at the right place at the right time, but otherwise, there's not just a lot of opportunities. And meanwhile, they get hit every week by recruiters on LinkedIn say, "Hey, come join our startup as VP of engineering," or CTO and things like that. A lot of them actually jumped ship to such role, and I continue coaching them in that capacity. And that was really just rewarding seeing the impact that these people have. So, last year when I started, I had a question around, okay, what is my offer? I want great engineering culture, but what is the offer? Then, looking at what I did, it's kind of, oh, well, this work I've done with all of these folks, this was always pleasurable and fulfilling to me. And coaching is a known offering, so there's probably something there. So, this was kind of what's kind of the business aspect of it. And the mission aspect is that...and I do other things than coaching. I do workshops and things like that. But my experience is that unless the executive, you know, the founder, the top leaders are not committed and bought in in creating a great culture and personally working on themselves, because that's required, you can bring, like, workshops to the team. You can...great process in place. You can do a lot of great things, which has an impact, but then it's not built on solid ground in a way because at the first reorg or the first, like, change [inaudible 10:31], then all of this work becomes very shaky ground. So, to me, it was kind of, oh yes, I need to start with coaching the CTOs and VPs, and that will ensure that there's actually potential for a great culture there. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. So, yeah, the coaching part is the key part and, like, the culture is number one. So, if you were talking to a new CTO, what kind of questions would you ask them to kind of gauge where they're at with their engineering culture? FRANCIS: The first question I always ask is, well, do you have, like, principles or values around that? And it's surprising. I come from Salesforce, which is a value-driven company, and there's a lot of startups that [inaudible 11:11]. It's kind of the playbook, you know, defining your company values. But still, there's a lot of people who've done it or who've not done it or done it, but it's kind of more like an exercise, and it's not, like, integrated. So, really, this is where usually I start when we're looking at culture is kind of what are your values, and are these values enacted, you know, manifested in your organization? Are they part of the day-to-day decision-making, the hiring process, the performance evaluation? And not just that, you know, also, when you're designing something internally, we're putting in place, like, a code review process. Well, how is that related to our values or not? And this is something I was fortunate because Salesforce it's a huge corporation, but still, they're serious about values there. And it is used, and they are living their values, not perfectly, I mean, it's still humans, and it's still a business. But these day-to-day decision-making values are definitely taken care of, and it's not just words on the wall. VICTORIA: Yeah. I think the second part of what you said there is the hardest part, not just what are your values, but how do you use those values in your everyday decision-making? FRANCIS: Yes. Mid-Roll Ad: As life moves online, bricks-and-mortar businesses are having to adapt to survive. With over 18 years of experience building reliable web products and services, thoughtbot is the technology partner you can trust. We provide the technical expertise to enable your business to adapt and thrive in a changing environment. We start by understanding what's important to your customers to help you transition to intuitive digital services your customers will trust. We take the time to understand what makes your business great and work fast yet thoroughly to build, test, and validate ideas, helping you discover new customers. Take your business online with design‑driven digital acceleration. Find out more at tbot.io/acceleration or click the link in the show notes for this episode. VICTORIA: I'm interested in what it takes to be a CTO and go from that startup mentality into starting to think about how you're going to scale this organization. Because what I see a lot of times a CTO in an early-stage startup is the main developer also [chuckles] and has built the whole app. So, how do you think about that? What kinds of things do you start to delve into after the values, and how a CTO can transition into that role, into the scaling and leading larger teams? FRANCIS: Yeah, no, you're totally spot on here, Victoria, because CTO is one of these...somebody asked me once why the VPE coach and not the CTO coach. And, to me, it was, well, actually, because CTO is one of these multi-dimensional variable scope word, which means a very different thing. And often, at a startup, the CTO is basically the founding engineer. He is the person writing the code, building the product. And that's good. But as you grow, then the role change, and many of my clients are technical co-founders who actually want to scale with the org and not become, like, a chief architect, even though many of them will still keep the CTO title. And then, they will hire a VPE to actually build the organization and do what the role of the CTO is from my perspective. The CTO role, if we define it, it's really you're part of the exec team, and the exec team whose responsibility is to align technology to the business objective. So, can we use technology or build a product to actually deliver our product objective? So, it's kind of a strategic role, and at some point, you don't necessarily run the day-to-day of the org. But at a transition point, you need to focus on the org management and the org building. So, I often say, one, my ideal clients are these technical co-founders who want to switch from a product builder identity to a product development organization builder identity. That's the transition point. And then, it requires all the leadership skills somebody who leads an org needs, which are, like, being able to...empathy being one of the most important one, you know, being able to understand people, to inspire them, everything like that [chuckles]. VICTORIA: Yeah. All the easy stuff, right [chuckles]? FRANCIS: Yes [chuckles]. Yeah. It's called the soft skills [laughs], but we all know that it's not because they're easy [laughs]. VICTORIA: Right. Yeah, they're hard. FRANCIS: It's actually more because they are nebulous, which is very hard for somebody who's technically minded, you know, people; it's not like there's an on and an off, and logic gate is not what this is about. VICTORIA: Yeah. And, mentally, it must be challenging for someone who has poured their heart and soul, and time, and energy into this product to then turn around and say, "Okay, I'm going to let a bunch of other people get in there and start doing stuff [laughs]. FRANCIS: Yes. VICTORIA: And take it over. And, like, I'll just be involved from..." like, you know, when you say executive position, what does that mean? Is it, like, budget and strategy? And, you know, sometimes it's really hard to be effective in those conversations, and it really becomes about educating other people in your organization more than anything else. FRANCIS: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is about budget and that sort of thing. To me, it's more like boring, and it's not the most critical part. I mean, your role as a leader is really to set the context for the people to execute them, you know, so that they have, like, the clarity of direction but not the control of the execution. You need to let go of control. You need to move much more on the influence side than the controlling side, especially the larger the org gets. You probably have managed folks. You need to lose the idea that you're in charge and you're making the decisions because otherwise, you get frustrated very fast. VICTORIA: Yeah. How would you refer to that? Is that like the inner game, like a mental game you have to shift into? FRANCIS: Yeah, I mean, to me, the inner game is all about the self-awareness, emotional intelligence, developing these capacities, which enables you to be a more effective leader. It's not just about being an effective leader. It's also about feeling good about your role and who you are in this context, you know, and that's the inner game. What happens externally, how you act, is a reflection of these inner capacities in a way. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And if you want to create a culture of psychological safety, you may want to start within yourself, right? FRANCIS: Yes. I mean, psychological safety it's one of the essential dimension of team performance. There's the Aristotle study that was done at Google, which they analyzed Agile teams and, okay, what is the most important factor in team performance? And what they came out with is, oh, it's this thing called psychological safety. Psychological safety as a name, as a concept was kind of coined by Amy C. Edmondson. I'm not fond of the term because I think it leads to some. I mean, it's a technical term, but because psychological safety and safety has a lot of, like, day-to-day meaning, it skews a little bit what it is. I much prefer...this is the same thing what Patrick Lencioni was calling out as the first dysfunction of a team, you know, the lack of trust. And it was defining trust as vulnerability-based trust, which goes with the technical definition of psychological safety, which is the perception that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. So, it's kind of, A, here I'm not sure how this is going to go. This is risky a bit. I'm being vulnerable. But I perceive that the team...I trust that the team will receive that respectfully in a way. And that connection to the inner game is...as a manager, if you want to create psychological safety, you need to lead by example, which means you need to show that you can be vulnerable, you know, that you trust the team that they're not going to hang you to dry if you show a weakness or say, "Hey, I don't know here," or things like that. And this is very hard as leaders because we want to instill confidence and things like that. But that often comes with, like, masking our vulnerabilities, and that's actually detrimental in fostering psychological safety. VICTORIA: Yeah, we actually did a facilitated exercise on psychological safety at thoughtbot last year. And I brought up an idea I'd had where I wanted to see if I could say something obviously wrong on my team calls [laughter] and see if they would correct me. Like, are they going to correct me? Do they feel safe enough to, like, give me that correction? Like, you know. And I can say that my team does feel comfortable [laughs]. They crack me a lot [laughs]. FRANCIS: Awesome. VICTORIA: But that's great. You hire people who hopefully have, you know, expertise and security that might be greater and deeper or more recent, and yours that you have to do that. So, that's really interesting. Talking about all the reports, it reminds me as well as, like, the DevOps research, DORA report, where they say that security as well, like, the biggest indicator for a high-security organization is trust as well. So, it's really interesting to think about, like, how you as a CTO create that culture and create that culture of, like, trust, and compassion, and empathy, and vulnerability, and that will lead to performance, which may seem counterintuitive to some people. FRANCIS: Yeah. So, I'm kind of a model collector. I'm someone who loves different models. They're all good, you know, and that's the problem [laughs]. All models are good, but none of them actually exhaust reality. In one model, in a way, it's kind of simplification of The Five Dysfunctions Model and others. But there's two dimensions that are really important for team performance. So, the first one is kind of the, to me, this is kind of the ground, the horizontal layer. It's kind of how people relate to each other, so psychological safety. And then the vertical dimension is the clarity of the North Star and the mission. We all can relate to each other as human beings and trust each other, but we're here to do some work. And what is this work about? What is unifying us that we're here and not someplace else? And that's kind of the clarity of what we're trying to achieve, the North Star or the mission. And those two create the space for high performance because if you just have psychological safety but there is no clear mission and accountability to that mission...once you know clearly what we're here to do, we can hold each other accountable to delivering on it. And if you're the only person holding accountability as the leader, then you're far from high performance. Really, you get high performance when everyone is in it together. That's given by the clarity of what is it we're trying to achieve. And if that's not there, you have, like, a great group of people, but there's no direction. And if you have only direction and, you know, a mission, then you can get, like, in a very authoritarian thing, which, I mean, everybody's aligned to do something, but everybody is kind of afraid and not showing up fully. And you're not getting the full engagement of everyone, so there's a lot of heat and friction that's being lost. VICTORIA: Yeah. And you mentioned accountability. And I'm curious, what does that look like in your experience, like, holding each other accountable? What kind of ways can leaders do that? FRANCIS: To me, the most interesting question is how can leaders foster shared accountability on the team, mutual accountability? And how it looks like...and I'm a big fan of...it's kind of the virtuous cycle between team agreements and retrospective, you know, in agile, another word that can mean many things. But this idea of continuous improvement after every sprint or regularly the team gets together and reflects on what went well. What could we improve? Those sorts of things. This is kind of the collective space of where the teams exist as a team, you know, really kind of where there's something very important in the retrospective where we're showing up as a team and reflecting on the team. And what I like to do is use that moment to not only, like, how do we reflect about the first layer of, okay, we missed that feature or that sort of thing but also reflect on the norms of the team, which can be written down ideally, you know? And this is a team agreement part. And the output of the retrospective is modification or experiment around "Oh, we could try this or this other way of working." But the idea of team agreements is this is how we are holding each other accountable, too. And how it manifests in practice is you know you have, like, mutual accountability when it's not only the manager that is reminding people of, hey, this is our norm, you know? So, for instance, I don't know, example could be trivial, but still, you know, we said we need two reviews to commit code, and then, like, somebody didn't do it or something like that. The manager could go and say, "Hey, you forgot about this agreement." But really, where you want to be is that it's other people on the team say, "Hey, Joe, why didn't you ask me for a review here? You know, I could have been that second review you needed," or things like that. And that really means that everyone is kind of bought in on the norms. So, that, to me, what is mutual accountability about is when it feels confident enough to challenge each other and remind themselves accountable to the team norms. VICTORIA: Right. And facilitating that development of the team norms together, too, right? FRANCIS: Yes. VICTORIA: Wonderful. Do you have any questions for me? FRANCIS: So, I'm interested to hear about your story this time where you got called out [laughs]. You said okay...I love the test you did, you know. I'm going to say something here that I know is wrong and see if people feel confident enough to...so, how did you achieve that, you know? VICTORIA: Lucky for me, I don't have to test it because it just happens naturally [laughs]. So, in my role of managing director, I have to talk to clients, come up with estimates for the work, when will the work start, who is the right person for the team. And so, sometimes, you know, I'll put the proposal together, and I'll hear my team members say like, "Why are we doing it like this [laughs]? Do it this way instead. Like, I think this person's a better fit." And, you know, when I see them engaging in the proposal and not just saying, "Yeah, it looks good," that means that we're doing a good job, and they're actually reading it, and processing it, and thinking about the client's requirements and yeah, giving me real feedback. That's what I want, so that's what I like to see. And, you know, when I do my one on ones with my team members, at least every three months, I try to do a retrospective style where I ask, "In my role, what should I continue doing that's helping you? What should I start doing, and then what should I stop?" I do it in that order specifically, so we start with the nice stuff [laughs]. But yeah, and then I make sure that when I give that feedback back to my team members, I say like, "Make sure you feel like you can speak up and share and hear your voice. Like, it's maybe more of a start than a stop or a continue. Just try to, like, get your feedback in there. I want to hear from you. I want to make sure you feel comfortable giving feedback to me also." FRANCIS: Right. So, that's kind of demonstrating listening and enacting a feedback culture because you are asking for feedback and listening to it, and that fosters trust, you know, vulnerability-based trust. So, anything else you did that helped create that psychological safety on your team? VICTORIA: It's really important how you react to things in meetings, like in retrospectives, especially if, like, you're trying to...like, in my role a lot, I'm trying to represent the business and talk to my team about what's the strategy and what we're trying to do. Like, if someone asks you a question like, "Well, why are we doing it right that way? Like, I think that's, like, what [laughs], you know, like, what are you guys even thinking? That seems random." I think the emotional work, like you mentioned, like, taking a breath myself and, like, calming down. Because, like, part of me could get really annoyed and be like, "Well, we've been talking about this for three months, guys [chuckles], you know, like, this isn't new information." But then, you know, thinking about it, like, you know, taking the time to calm your own emotions and put yourself in their shoes and think about, well, how much time have they really had to, like, look at any of this stuff? And, like, maybe they need it in a different format, or in a different way, or, like, written up somewhere else and not just, like, briefly covered in a call. So, opening yourself up to alternatives and staying curious about, well, what is this feeling behind? Like, what's really needed to clear? So, it's, again, coming back to listening and acting on it. So, maybe that's part of it. So, to create more psychological safety on the team is that part about managing your own emotions and not overreacting if somebody doesn't like your idea is a really important part of it. FRANCIS: Yes, so true. You said something very interesting there, which is how you react to things. And this is true, you know, you want to be graceful in your reaction and not react from a place of frustration or anger. There's the saying that psychological safety is fragile, you know, trust can be lost easily and easy to lose. And I think this is actually, while there is some truth to it, it's actually just partially true. From my perspective, when you have psychological safety, basically, there's an anti-fragile aspect to it in the sense that you self-heal. But to self-heal, you need to recognize the breakage and heal. So, I see the occasions where we want to be reacting gracefully listening to feedback. And then, somebody asks a question, like, say, "Why are we doing this?" You know, and then, well, because [laughs] and you answer, "Yes, well, because we've been talking for three months about this, you know, get to the page." If you stop there, yes, this is detrimental. I mean, people will say, "Oh, this was weird, and I'll think twice next time before asking that question." But if you are committed to psychological safety, you realize that, or somebody might make you realize that. And then, you can repair saying, "Hey. Hey, sorry. I messed up here. This is really not in line with our value of listening to feedback. I'm sorry. I'm under..." and that's the healing part, and that actually strengthen psychological safety more than it was. I mean, this is the idea of antifragility, you know, a bone breaks, and when it rebuilds, it rebuilds stronger because you've shown vulnerability and kind of, okay, yes, when they make a mistake, I can see that they are able to correct in the moment. And that's the safety part that I don't like, you know, the common day word meaning of safety that I feel is misleading is that it makes the thing...it seems very fragile. People walk on eggs. You know, we have this sentiment that, oh, I should be cautious about what I'm saying and things like that, where, actually, if you have a psychological safety culture, you can be a little bit more spontaneous and candid. And if you mess up, well, there's enough safety that you can repair and recover from there. VICTORIA: Yeah, I actually, I mean, I did say that in the moment. And the way I recovered was that I said, "You know, I didn't want it to come across as an admonishment, like, why haven't you been listening? But more about back to our values, how can I make you all more bought into our goals from the beginning and make sure that you're connected and we're on the same page? Because it felt a little disconnected for me [laughs]," right? But yeah, no, I like that you put it that way. Like it's also about how you repair. And I think that's true as well. When I think about whether or not you're safe with someone, it's also like, are you safe enough to tell me when I made a mistake? And the way you're going to feel safe is if someone tells you that they make a mistake, they're going to apologize, and repair, and figure out how to do better next time. FRANCIS: Yeah, totally. VICTORIA: And then, I think about how much my, like, leadership learning fits into my, like, regular personal life [laughs] also, right? Yeah, that's wonderful. If you could go back in time to maybe when you were that engineer about to take your engineering management position, what advice would you give yourself if you could? FRANCIS: Hey, you do realize this is a totally different path. You're going to need to develop different skills that you add to. That was fine, you know because I kind of navigated that very seamlessly in many ways. But what I didn't highlight is that there was a transition, actually. And I think this is where the advice would come in. So, I was an engineer, so thinking with systems and system thinking. And I realized very rapidly this is a different role. I'm not programming code anymore, you know. And what I told myself was I'm programming the system in which code is being written. And I think that's a good working metaphor or thinking for a while. And that's where the advice would come in. It's kind of, A, this is not, like, an engineering system. This is about humans. So, in a way, I would kind of nudge myself toward developing the soft skills much more rapidly because I think it took me a while to really grok that, hey, I need to understand how to relate individually and personally to people and not just to ideas, roles, and process. Because you can have, like, an engineering perspective on management but that's lacking in empathy and...mainly the empathy [laughs]. So, do pay attention to empathy. I think that would be the fifth advice [laughs]. VICTORIA: Isn't that great advice for all of us all the time, right [laughs]? FRANCIS: Yes. VICTORIA: I love that. Yeah, wonderful. FRANCIS: I'm always happy to connect with people. You can find me on LinkedIn, Francis Lacoste. I think we don't talk to each other enough in these digital times. And so, we all network a lot, you know, on Slack and LinkedIn. And one day, I was connecting with someone on LinkedIn, and the guy offered me...said, "Hey, happy to connect. Are you interested in doing, like, a short call just to get acquainted?" And I said, "Oh, that's actually a good idea." I talked with the guy and decided to do the same thing myself. So, I'm always happy to have a conversation with folks. So, I invite you to try it out, you know, there's a lot of people out there, interesting people, and have interesting conversations. VICTORIA: I love that so much. That's really nice. And people can do that to me, too. You can always...people talk to me, come talk to me on my podcast [laughs]. Thank you so much for being with us here today, Francis. I really enjoyed our conversation. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on thoughtbotmastodonsocial@vguido. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

Out of thousands of engineers at Uber, there's only a handful of Distinguished Engineers and Joakim was one of them. In this conversation we chat about Why software engineering is a lot like a sausage factory. Considerations for leaving big tech for a startup. “How to beat the promo commitee”. How can one effectively shape engineering culture? “Mentoring two people on the same team is a waste”. Much More. Subscribe now Segments: [0:01:52] The “reverse sausage” architecture [0:07:36] How to get people on board with the new deployment system? [0:13:55] What does it mean to be a distinguished engineer? [0:17:47] Under-appreciated soft skills? [0:21:28] How to improve technical writing [0:24:16] Do all senior engineers need to write and review code every day? [0:30:19] How to search out where to contribute when your time is so constrained? [0:43:10] How to maximize your impact as a mentor [0:48:52] “How to beat the promo committee” [0:52:56] Effective means to influence engineering culture? [0:57:09] Capping the company at 150 employees [1:03:33] Why join a startup instead of moving to another big tech company? [1:11:14] What Joakim is working on now at Beyond Work   Show Notes: Joakim on leaving Uber to start Beyond Work: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-left-uber-start-beyond-work-joakim-recht-o63of?trk=public_post_feed-article-content Read Joakim's other excellent posts here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/recht/recent-activity/all/   Stay in touch:

What goes into leading an engineering department at a global fintech? Wojtek Ptak, Head of Engineering for Revolut Business, sits down with host Alex Carril to outline how finding the right people — who Think Deeper, have a Never Settle attitude, and can keep up with Revolut's ambitious plans — is at the core of what he does.  With an impressive career in engineering spanning over 20 years, Wojtek (pronounced “Voy-tech”) shares advice for fellow and future engineers on how to keep striving to be better, and highlights the inner workings of Revolut Business. In this episode, Alex and Wojtek discuss: - How starting at Revolut gave Wojtek a chance to unlearn and relearn - What goes into being the Head of Engineering at a global fintech - The goals behind the team at Revolut Business to Deliver Wow - How engineering is overlooked as a creative field - Advice for managers who work with engineers - Balancing the technical aspects of engineering with the interpersonal skills required to be an effective manager - Upcoming features and launches for Revolut Business customers - How an evolving industry and AI influence an engineer's work - Advice for new and seasoned engineers from an engineering leader - Interview tips for engineers and what Wojtek looks for in potential candidates Follow Revolut Insider on Instagram https://revolut.la/RevolutInsider View open career opportunities at Revolut https://revolut.la/3UlWX7D

In the Investing and Scaling in Romania and Beyond webinar, we talk about the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem of Central and Eastern Europe, with a specific focus on Romania. From celebrating the local technical skills and historical engineering heritage, countries in CEE examine the nuances of building a startup with a global mindset from day one.Our guests discuss the 'UiPath effect', highlighting how success stories like of this one company have inspired new entrepreneurs and attracted increased attention and resources from the venture capital world.In essence, the webinar provides a comprehensive, nuanced, and up-to-date exploration of the Eastern European startup and venture capital landscape, making it a must-watch for investors, founders, and anyone interested in the local tech scene of Romania and its surrounding regions.Listen to it here or watch it on eu.vc for a discussion on:How to crack the code: Understand the challenges and opportunities shaping the Romanian ecosystem.Empowering the future: Delve into the status and growth prospects for women-led startups in the region.Scaling beyond borders: Learn how to overcome challenges and adapt global best practices to the Romanian context from the people who have done it.Pioneering Deep Tech: Explore the intricacies of launching, backing, and scaling a deep tech company in Romania and the region.Success stories: Get inspired by real-life case studies of thriving Romanian scale-ups.This event is a part of the CO-INVESTIN project, focusing on understanding and improving European investment ecosystems.Chapters:00:26 The Venture Ecosystem in CEE04:56 Romania's Flourishing Ecosystem: Insights and Success Stories07:34 The Technical Talent and Entrepreneurial Mindset in Romania09:37 Challenges and Opportunities for Romanian Startups12:51 Investor Perspectives: The Appeal of Romanian Startups17:27 The UiPath Effect: A Catalyst for Romanian Innovation23:05 The Global Impact of Romanian Startups and the UiPath Legacy29:40 Investment Strategies and Considerations in CEE34:06 Investment Trends and Pricing in the Startup Ecosystem37:42 Local vs. Global: Startup Challenges in the CEE Region40:07 Unique Challenges of Building Startups in CEE41:23 The Role of Engineering Culture in Startup Success43:24 The Critical Need for More Capital in the Ecosystem55:16 Addressing Diversity and Gender Gaps in Tech

Culture is a big component of software engineering success. A commitment to excellence and employee satisfaction is crucial. Success begins at the top with strong, passionate leadership.

Matt Greenwood, Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Investment Management Engineering @ Two Sigma shares some of the most unique and valuable cultural practices behind how the engineering org operates at Two Sigma. We discuss strategies that prepare you for scaling (like intentional relationship-building with your front-line managers); examples of how Two Sigma successfully deployed the “Inverse Conway Maneuver,” how to reinforce a consensus-driven culture from early-days to 1000+, how to navigate both large & small reorgs; and why Two Sigma made the intentional decision to rebrand their R&D org as M&E (modeling & engineering)! Plus, Matt's approach to full-bodied problem-solving.ABOUT MATT GREENWOODMatt is Chief Innovation Officer and Head of Investment Management Engineering at Two Sigma. He joined Two Sigma in 2003 and since then has led a number of company-wide efforts in both engineering and modeling. Matt is also an Advisor at Two Sigma Ventures and works closely with the business' portfolio companies as a board member and advisor.Matt began his career at Bell Labs and later moved to IBM Research, where he was responsible for a number of early efforts in tablet computing and distributed computing. In 2000, Matt was lead developer and manager for Entrisphere, Inc., where he helped create a product providing access equipment for broadband service providers. Matt earned a BA and MA in Math from Oxford University, and a Master's degree in Theoretical Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He also holds a PhD in Mathematics from Columbia University, where he taught for many years."We came to New York in 2003, nothing was happening in New York. Silicon Alley, as they called it back then was just kaput. Then one day, I was browsing Craigslist, because that's what you did in 2003, and there was a little ad, ‘Hedge fund, looking for excellent engineers.' So I was like, 'All right, maybe.' I said to my wife, 'This is either the sketchiest thing ever or the best decision of my life. It's one of those two things.' On Craigslist, there's no other way you can be, right? And it was probably the best decision of my life.”- Matt Greenwood   This episode is brought to you by incident.ioincident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.ioInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Matt's eng leadership journey & discovering Two Sigma on Craigslist (3:34)Key moments of Two Sigma's evolution as an org that sparked excitement (7:26)Lessons learned on keeping your work exciting by focusing on “human problems” (10:25)Create a culture of investing in people's growth across longer timelines (12:22)How Sigma Two intentionally structures its R&D org (15:18)An unexpected way to prepare for scaling your org - intentional relationship-building strategies for your first-line managers (18:10)Frameworks for deploying the inverse Conway maneuver (20:56)The right people / conversations for small & large reorgs (23:30)Consensus-driven culture at 1000+, approaches to create buy-in & ownership with organizational change (26:02)Two Sigma's approach to full-bodied problem solving (30:26)Rapid fire questions (34:06)LINKS AND RESOURCESWhalefall - A scientifically accurate thriller from Daniel Kraus about a scuba diver who's been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.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 one of our most anticipated conversations of the year, we got the chance to sit down with three of Spotify's eng leaders: Krisitan Lindwall, Director of Engineering, Data, Insights, Experimentation, & ML Infrastructure; Mark Grey, Senior Staff Engineer; and Pooja Dave, Director of Engineering, Music Promotion. They share insights from their experience building a culture of experimentation & innovation at a massive scale and what elements are necessary for experimentation at scale. They share the origin story of Spotify's experimentation platform, how to develop eng leaders to think strategically & execute effectively, mistakes to avoid while scaling your experimentation capabilities, and navigating the balance between structured processes vs. unstructured time to ideate.ABOUT KRISTIAN LINDWALLKristian (@klindwall) is an engineering leader at Spotify. He has over 10 years of experience managing and coaching a broad variety of engineering and product teams. He is currently based in New York where he manages the engineering teams working on the company's data, insights, and machine learning platforms. Prior to that, he led parts of the agile coach practice at Spotify for a few years and has been very active in supporting the growth of a strong agile and lean approach in the company. Before Spotify, Kristian spent 8 years in fintech in Stockholm where he built and grew the engineering team at the largest online broker company in Sweden."How we behave in the organization is really what reinforces and drives the culture and I think there's a few things driving that culture of innovation. Connecting hands to heads, meaning give people an opportunity to engage in ideation and make sure people are involved in strategy work and in the full process of figuring out where we're heading.”- Kristian Lindwall   ABOUT POOJA DAVEWith over a decade of experience building and leading several R&D organizations in ad tech, marketing tech, and platforms servicing those, Pooja currently runs the organization at Spotify that helps artists engage and grow their fanbase. Prior to Spotify, she worked at Microsoft on several products including Devices, Browser Rendering Engine, and Advertising/MarTech SDKs. This diversity in experiences has given her a well-rounded exposure to engineer solutions and lead teams with strong backend architecture, client, machine learning, and data practices.“For Spotify, failure is the paradox to success.”- Pooja Dave   ABOUT MARK GREYMark is a Senior Staff Engineer at Spotify, where for a decade he has worked on a broad range of distributed systems related to experimentation, data processing, and analytics. Having operated and scaled solutions at all stages of growth, his primary focus is on technical strategy and platformization.Prior to Spotify, Mark worked at the New York Times on personalization infrastructure such as near-realtime article recommendations."We want to ideally maximize the throughput on those things that we see pan out or don't pan out. So kind of a fail faster, double down model and there's all kinds of practices and tools that we put in place that Confidence is just one among many that allow us to increase that throughput. So try and derive insights from a small experiment, validate your hypothesis quickly, and then proceed and scale up from there.”- Mark Grey   This episode is brought to you by incident.ioincident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.ioInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:About Spotify's experimentation platform, Confidence (3:46)Why Spotify decided to offer Confidence externally (5:43)What experimentation without a platform looked like in the early days @ Spotify (6:24)Understanding the scale of the Confidence platform (8:58)Challenges eng leaders face when scaling testing / experimentation processes (10:51)Strategies for determining which experiments & features are most impactful (13:23)How to build a stronger culture of innovation / experimentation at scale (15:47)Frameworks to help develop eng leaders to be both thinkers & doers (19:11)Facilitating conversations around data ideation (23:13)An example of how Spotify ideates around data (26:10)Mistakes to avoid when scaling up & defining the experiment (28:36)How to prioritize experiments when there are conflicts (32:22)Recommendations for capturing ideas & turning them into features (35:32)Create breathing space within eng teams to help bolster innovation (40:10)Why it's also key to implement structured processes for experimentation (42:57)What good coaching looks like when orgs are scaling their experiments (45:24)Knowing when you need to platformize something (48:55)How generalizing platform capabilities can enable greater speed (51:27)Learn to think outside the box & don't get in the way of experimentation (55:11)Rapid fire questions (57:10)LINKS AND RESOURCESBecoming - In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address.Unsolicited Feedback - A new podcast by Reforge that invites you into closed-door conversations between growth and product leaders. Brian Balfour (Reforge, HubSpot), Fareed Mosavat (Reforge, Slack), and friends give targeted feedback around recent features and releases across the product and growth multiverse.Lenny's Podcast - Lenny Rachitsky (author of #1 business newsletter on Substack with 500k+ subscribers) interviews world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.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 dive's into all things #Tech, #ESG & Engineering #Culture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode dive's into all things #Tech, #ESG & Engineering #Culture. They discuss all things from the cultural shift towards lean tech teams and how this impacts culture to ho Hometree's #decarbonisation initiatives & the insurance industry's responsibility to be more #sustainable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we have another episode of Better Done Than Perfect. Listen in as we talk to Phil Alves, founder of DevSquad and DevStats. You'll learn how to prioritize feature development, how to take care of your developers' well-being, what non-technical founders should know, and more.Please head over to the episode page for the detailed recap and key takeaways.Show notesDevSquad — Phil's consultancyDevStats — Phil's productShape Up — a book by Ryan SingerUI Breakfast Podcast Episode 238: The Allied Team Model with Anthony ArmendarizDORA MetricsSPACE FrameworkSaaS Origin StoriesCheck out Phil's websiteFollow Phil on TwitterThanks for listening! If you found the episode useful, please spread the word about this new show on Twitter mentioning @userlist, or leave us a review on iTunes.SponsorThis show is brought to you by Userlist — an email automation platform for SaaS companies. Onboard, engage, and nurture your customers, as well as marketing leads. To follow the best practices, download our free printable email planning worksheets at userlist.com/worksheets.Interested in sponsoring an episode? Learn more here.Leave a ReviewReviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes. Here's how.

How do you get the best ROI from your engineering team while keeping them happy? In this episode, we talk to Phil Alves, founder of DevSquad and DevStats. You'll learn how to prioritize feature development, how to take care of your developers' well-being, what non-technical founders should know, and more.Visit our website for the detailed episode recap with key learnings.DevSquad — Phil's consultancyDevStats — Phil's productShape Up — a book by Ryan SingerUI Breakfast Podcast Episode 238: The Allied Team Model with Anthony ArmendarizDORA MetricsSPACE FrameworkSaaS Origin StoriesCheck out Phil's websiteFollow Phil on TwitterThanks for listening! If you found the episode useful, please spread the word about the show on Twitter mentioning @userlist, or leave us a review on iTunes.SponsorThis show is brought to you by Userlist — an email automation platform for SaaS companies. Onboard, engage, and nurture your customers, as well as marketing leads. To follow the best practices, download our free printable email planning worksheets at userlist.com/worksheets.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in and loved our first episode of our tech special last week with Dave Morris & you'll be excited to now the next episode is out today

In dieser Episode durfte ich meinen Kollegen Thiemo Bubel begrüßen! Thiemo ist Director of Engineering Culture and Engagement bei Stepstone und hat mit mir über unseren Tech-Bereich gesprochen. Da habe ich nämlich selbst viel Neues erfahren, zum Beispiel, dass es einmal im Quartal sogenannte Engineering Days gibt. Mehr darüber und worauf es bei einer Engineering Culture, der Gewinnung von Tech-Talenten und der Förderung von Frauen in Tech ankommt, erfahrt ihr jetzt. Noch ein kleiner Disclaimer: Dies ist leider unsere vorerst letzte Folge in der StepStone snackbar, denn auch unser Bar-Personal braucht mal eine Pause! Keine Angst, wir werden bald wieder zurück sein!

In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Viraj Mody about creating great developer experience through being opiniated and deliberate about the culture you want to build. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3S4T3gV Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter [monthly]: https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=architectnl Upcoming Events: QCon London https://qconlondon.com/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=qlondon23 March 27-29, 2023 QCon New York https://qconnewyork.com/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=qny23 June 13-15, 2023 QCon San Francisco: https://qconsf.com/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=qsf23 Oct 2-6, 2023 Follow InfoQ: - Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq - Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq - Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 - Instagram: @infoqdotcom - Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq Write for InfoQ - Join a community of experts. - Increase your visibility. - Grow your career. https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=writeforinfoq

This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted at GOTO Aarhus.gotopia.techRead the full transcription of this interview hereOle Friis Østergaard - Senior Software Engineer at GitHubHannes Lowette - Head of Learning & Development at Axxes, Monolith Advocate, Speaker & Whiskey LoverRESOURCEShanselminutes.comhvsc.c64.orgDESCRIPTIONThe engineering culture, core functionalities and it's monolithic architecture are just some of the factors behind GitHub's success. Ole Friis Østergaard talks about the special division for analyzing tests that are not behaving as expected. In such a complex environment, their work has a big impact on the entire system. Discover how their engineering culture, approach to software overall, and some Commodore 64 love have inspired all this.RECOMMENDED BOOKSSaleem Siddiqui • Learning Test-Driven DevelopmentDavid Farley • Modern Software EngineeringDave Farley & Jez Humble • Continuous DeliveryRoy Osherove • The Art of Unit TestingKent Beck • Test Driven DevelopmentNicole Forsgren, Jez Humble & Gene Kim • AccelerateTwitterLinkedInFacebookLooking for a unique learning experience?Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.techSUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted almost daily

738: Michael Wisler, Chief Information Officer of M&T Bank, discusses the cultural shift that was necessary at the company to drive forward its digital transformation. He covers the way technology is structured at the bank, how he has built his team, and where he focused his modernization efforts. As a part of this modernization, Mike talks about the talent part of the transition and moving towards an engineering culture with a build mindset. He also talks about his involvement with startup accelerator 43North, the experience he gained at Capital One, and the learnings he brought to M&T. Finally, he reflects on his career and the future ahead for technology.

738: Michael Wisler, Chief Information Officer of M&T Bank, discusses the cultural shift that was necessary at the company to drive forward its digital transformation. He covers the way technology is structured at the bank, how he has built his team, and where he focused his modernization efforts. As a part of this modernization, Mike talks about the talent part of the transition and moving towards an engineering culture with a build mindset. He also talks about his involvement with startup accelerator 43North, the experience he gained at Capital One, and the learnings he brought to M&T. Finally, he reflects on his career and the future ahead for technology.

In this episode, Claude Jones, an engineering leader, talks about how to build a high-performing team. At the time of this recording, Claude was the SVP of Engineering at Strava. Key takeaways: How to ramp up as a new leader? Tips for planning smooth transitions. Learn how to scale engineering teams. Steps to build a high-performance culture What is envisioned as engineering excellence? Strategy to measure the progress of your team Ways to evaluate team performance. 3 tips to becoming a great team leader. What should be the end goal of a leader? About today's guest: Claude Jones is a seasoned technical leader with over 20 years of experience. He has a passion for creating opportunities to help others succeed. And for over a decade, his life's mission has been to encourage, inspire, and motivate others through his words and actions. In his spare time, Claude runs the Elevate Foundation (http://elevate.foundation), an organization he started focused on giving back to the community by helping others in need. The Practical Leadership Guy (http://thepracticalleadershipguy.com) offers services for motivational speaking, life coaching, and his leadership thoughts on common sense leadership techniques through his blog, encouraging others to be the best they can be. He is also the CEO of San Diego Tech Hub (http://sandiegotechhub.com), an organization focused on connecting businesses, organizations, and individuals, leveraging their resources, passions, and talents to build a stronger San Diego tech community through collaboration. Recently, Claude created a series of children's picture books to foster the development of leadership skills in children ages 5-8, helping them cultivate a mindset of equity and inclusion. More information on the series can be found at https://astrothemonster.com Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudejones/ practicalleadershipguy.com ___ Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Tech Trek, and we would appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate and review us on your favorite podcast player. Want to learn more about us? Head over at https://www.elevano.com Have questions or want to cover specific topics with our future guests? Please message me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand)

Video content can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0BAd8tPlDqFvDYBemHcQPQ/

In this episode I break down a good engineering culture using two different culture tests from the web. We take a deep dive into the technical side of the culture first, followed by the work and management culture. How does your company score - what is the one thing you would change in your company to make it a better experience?

In this episode, we talk with Anand Safi, a senior engineering leader at Mark43 about the importance of building a strong engineering culture and how engineering leaders can help with developing organizational culture at their firms. Engineering Quotes: Here Are Some of the Key Points Discussed About Building a Strong Engineering Culture: Engineering culture refers […] The post TECC 277: Building a Strong Engineering Culture appeared first on Engineering Management Institute.

Excited to hang out with CTO/Co-Founder, Chris Rathgeb. We are diving into how to build good engineering culture and why leaders need to be putting out content for their organizations! Like what you hear? Connect with me- Website: www.taylordesseyn.com LinkedIn: Taylor Desseyn Tweet me: @tdesseyn Tik Tok: @tdesseyn Pics of the life, wife, daughter & dog: @tdesseyn

We had a great chat with Erin, VPE of Chipper Cash and Tracie, CTO at FlyHomes about the challenges we face when onboarding new hires.Check out more at https://cto.studio/

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: February 21st, 2022Engineering CultureWe've been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it's not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for February 21st, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on February 21st included Tom Lyon, Tom Killalea, Ian, Antranig Vartanian, Matt Campbell, Simeon Miteff, Matt Ranney and Aaron Hartwig. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Alex Heath's tweet on FB meeting about updated values: “meta, metamates, me” [@4:44](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=284) Can an established company “change its values” in any sense? [@8:43](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=523) Draw the owl > Twilio CEO: Yes, it was a meme, but it's a great representation of our job. > There is no instruction book and no one is going to tell us how to do our work. > It's now woven into our culture and used as a cheeky, but encouraging reply to > those who email colleagues at Twilio asking how to do something. [@12:42](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=762) How do you establish engineering culture? Copy-paste values? [@20:44](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=1244) When are values set down in a company's history?  Amazon's brand image, expanding beyond books Assessing values when hiring [@27:51](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=1671) Principles vs values  Principles are absolutes, cannot be taken too far Values are about relative importance, in balance with other values ACM Code of Ethics Relative importance of values. Can some values be learned, while others cannot? [@45:11](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=2711) “Turn-around CEOs”, trying to change an established company culture [@47:39](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=2859) Sun culture, early days [@54:32](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=3272) Connection between values and business model Urgency in context, requires nuance [@1:03:37](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=3817) Values on the wall. When are values simply ignored?  Jack Handey wiki, Deep Thoughts recurring SNL short sketches, eg Thanksgiving ~30secs “Sharpen fast” [@1:13:49](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=4429) What are the important things to get set early? Bryan and Adam on Joyent and Delphix [@1:22:05](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=4925) Matt Ranney on his time at Uber  Trying to shape an established culture Leadership's values vs engineers Business ethics [@1:35:47](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=5747) GE Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann (2020) Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric book [@1:37:03](https://youtu.be/w9MQJbC26h4?t=5823) Conclusions  Adam: Get it right first, but it's not a lost cause if you don't. Bryan: Look for value alignment in organizations you might want to join, it's tough to change course after the fact. Matt: generous compensation has an effect on how closely one cares to scrutinize their organization's values ¯_(ツ)_/¯ If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

As companies scale, it's always a challenge to ensure that the dev team is as committed and passionate about the product as the founders. In this episode, I chat with Dan Langevin, Cofounder and CTO at Vericred about how they are intentional about scaling and support curiosity and customer empathy in their engineering org, and the planning process they run to ensure predictability and accountability for their key customer deliverables.PARTNERThanks to our partner CloudZero — Cloud Cost Intelligence Platform. Control cost and drive better decisions with CloudZero cloud cost intelligence. The CloudZero platform provides visibility into cloud spend without the typical pitfalls of legacy cloud cost management tools, like endless tagging or clunky Kubernetes support. Optimize unit economics, decentralize cost data to engineering, and create a shared language between finance and technical teams. CloudZero helps you organize cloud spend better than anyone else. Join companies like Drift, Rapid7, and SeatGeek by visiting cloudzero.com/ctoconnection to get started.

Sarah Haq and Matt Dole talk about "engineering culture." What exactly do we mean when we say culture? What does bad culture look like? What about good culture, and how do we get there?

Fabiano Beselga is our first guest for 2020!He co-founded Magnetis, one of the most successful fintech startups in Brazil, and served as the CTO for over 7 years. Magnetis is a robot advisor startup who grew 200% every year over the past few years, and now has more than 10 thousand clients, USD$90M under management and 90 people on the team. Widely recognized as one of the best places to work, Magnetis is a great example of a company that successfully adopted a remote work culture.Fabiano built the engineering team from scratch and all the processes and culture around it, making sure to create a diverse team composed of people coming from different backgrounds and having different levels of experience. We talked about creating and managing a fast-growing team while also scaling the business and driving innovation. He always believed that establishing a good culture would lead to a great team and a great product, and the success of his team is a reflection of that. He also thinks that CTOs should focus on building the culture from the start.If you want to become a C-Level executive or become a better leader, check out this episode. Fabiano shared a lot of great advice on how to make sure you are giving the support your team needs and how to establish good practices, deliver better products, and how to hire well.Thanks to our sponsors:VanHack helps great tech talent get jobs abroad. Links from this episodeVisit our Podcast page and subscribe to our newsletter!Fabiano's TwitterSmart and Getting Things DoneMagnetis Backstage BlogGuru-SP Meetup