Podcasts about Engineering management

A lot of what we've been talking about lately is durable skills — the abilities that last regardless of how our tools and tech environment change. In today's episode, I want to step back from the AI conversation and focus on one of the most durable skills of all: feedback. We've all been on both the giving and receiving side, and we can probably count on one hand the times someone gave us feedback that genuinely drove a good change — that left us wanting to do better without feeling torn down. So how do we accomplish that kind of feedback, on both sides of the table? That's what this episode is all about. Start With Your Goal, Not Your Frustration: Before you give feedback, recognize that your gut impulse often comes from a negative emotion — frustration, feeling slighted, feeling disrespected. Those feelings are valid signals that something is off, but they aren't a sufficient reason to give feedback. Effective feedback is goal-oriented: ask yourself what you actually want to change before you say a word. Premature vs. Mature Feedback: Premature feedback is really about making sure someone knows how you feel — which can quietly turn into an attack so they share your pain. Mature feedback is forward-looking and aimed at improvement. Venting may give you catharsis in the moment, but if the behavior worsens or the relationship is damaged, the net outcome is negative. Why Asking for Feedback Changes Everything: Even hearing "can we meet for ten minutes, I have some feedback" measurably raises your heart rate and pushes you into a defensive state. But when you ask for feedback, your mind and body register that you're in control — same information, completely different physiological response. Make It Behavior-Based and Specific: Good feedback is about observable behavior — what a camera would have caught — not someone's core identity. If your feedback violates a person's self-concept (painting a competent engineer as incompetent), they have to change who they believe they are to accept it, and that gap rarely gets bridged in a 30-minute call. Use a Model — But Add the Intervention: The popular SBI model (Situation, Behavior, Impact) is a strong backbone, but it stops short. Don't just describe the past — partner with the person on what comes next. Think of it as SBI + Intervention: what can you commit to trying differently so the impact changes? That's where feedback becomes coaching. The Netflix Four A's: Aim to assist, make it actionable, show appreciation, and accept or discard. Lead with the intent to help, get specific about the behavior, appreciate the person's willingness and intent, and recognize that not every piece of feedback will be useful — both sides get to keep what's valuable and let the rest go. Receiving Feedback Well: When someone hands you messy, un-modeled feedback, you can walk them through the framework — "help me understand the situation, what behavior did you see, what was the impact?" People respect that you're engaging, shift into problem-solving mode, and give you more actionable feedback as a result. Episode Homework: Pay attention to patterns over time. One piece of feedback shouldn't be attached to your identity — but three or four that point in the same direction are worth introspecting on. Career development and feedback are two sides of the same door; walk through it and you grow.

Send us Fan MailSix years ago, ENGINEERING CH∆NGE® started with a simple idea: create the kind of conversation you might have over coffee with a colleague about the challenges—and opportunities—facing engineering and other STEM organizations.In this season finale, my co-producer Quincy joins me behind the mic as we look back on six seasons of the podcast, the lessons  learned along the way, and what might be next for ENGINEERING CH∆NGE®. We discuss why I shifted to a solo format for Season 5, how the companion ebook Engineering for Society influenced the season's content, the realities of producing a podcast while balancing a demanding professional life, and why some of this season's most difficult conversations were also the most important.We also explore how the podcast has evolved from a focus on engineering education to broader conversations about organizational systems, leadership, culture, technology, and change—and why listeners both inside and outside STEM continue to connect with these topics.In this episode, we discuss:The origins of "Grab a Latte and Listen"How ENGINEERING CH∆NGE® has evolved over six seasonsWhy Season 5 shifted to a solo formatLessons learned about balancing impact, perfectionism, and self-careThe emotional story behind What Systems Lose When Fear LeadsWhy systemic challenges often appear in different forms but share common rootsHow the Engineering for Society ebook helped shape Season 5Possibilities for Season 6, including guest interviews, panel discussions, and research-to-practice conversationsWhy your feedback will help shape the future of the podcastI'd Love to Hear From YouWhat topics, guests, challenges, or conversations would be most valuable to you in Season 6?Use the fan mail link in the show notes and let me know. Your feedback will help shape the next chapter of ENGINEERING CH∆NGE®.ResourcesRequest your FREE copy of the ebook, Engineering for Society at EngineeringChangePodcast.comSupport the showENGINEERING CHΔNGE® is a registered trademark held by Dr. Yvette E. Pearson for producing and providing podcasts.

Send us Fan MailMore than 160 million Americans live in federally designated mental health provider shortage areas. Even those with insurance often spend months searching for a therapist who takes their plan and has availability.Mark Frank, Co-Founder and CEO of SonderMind, joins host John Driscoll to discuss why fixing the provider infrastructure had to come before solving patient access, and how a fully integrated platform combining measurement-based care with AI-powered tools between sessions is producing outcomes up to 275% better than traditional therapy alone.

In this episode, we're joined by Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup, to discuss insights from his latest book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric shares what inspired him to write the book and why we need to move beyond and redefine what true profit looks like. He shares the history behind businesses transitioning from serving public interests to shareholder primacy and why leaving behind a people-first business approach can actually reduce profitability. Additionally, Eric discusses financial gravity, the “harder is easier” principle, and how these practices connect to AI & current engineering leadership challenges.   ABOUT ERIC RIES Over the last two decades, Eric Ries's ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method, and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup; The Leader's Guide; and The Startup Way. As a founder, he has put his own ideas into practice with The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI R&D lab; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU. On The Eric Ries Show, he talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, and executives building for the long-term. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.   Unblocked: The context engine your coding agents are missing. Give your coding agents the context your best engineers have. Your agents can read code, but they don't know how your team works. Rules and MCPs give access to information but not understanding. That's why you still have to tell them where to look and what to look for. Unblocked gives your agents the history, conventions, and decisions behind your code so they generate mergeable output without the back and forth. It automatically surfaces the right context for every task, so agents stay on track without the set up tax or the correction loops. getunblocked.com/elc   SHOW NOTES: The inspiration behind Eric's new book Incorruptible (5:22) What it means to redefine profit (8:03) Understanding profit considerations like externality, ethics, and inputs (10:44) Why human life / value can never be an input factor of production (12:31) The history behind business practices benefitting the public (15:00) When businesses transitioned to shareholder primacy over public interest (17:16) Navigating the tension between mission vs. fiduciary responsibility (21:01) The role of financial gravity & shareholder primacy in the Silicon Valley bank story (25:04) Using Eric's book to build a mission-driven roadmap (29:12) How committing to a principled way of business can drive profitability (31:15) An example of the principle “harder is easier” (33:40) How this connects to AI & emerging eng leadership challenges (36:53)   LINKS AND RESOURCES Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great - Drawing on two decades of work with founders, CEOs, and investors, best-selling author Eric Ries reveals the forces that make companies vulnerable to destruction from within and without. Then he offers solutions that safeguard against them for the long-term. Incorruptible is the blueprint for companies that will prosper and endure without losing their soul. Its lessons and tools are designed to help founders, executives, investors, and citizens of all kinds build organizations – and a society – truly aligned with human flourishing. https://news.theleanstartup.com/ - Eric's newsletter with ideas about how and why to build companies focused on human flourishing — and stories of the people who are doing it. The Eric Ries Show - Founder, entrepreneur, and best-selling author of The Lean Startup Eric Ries discusses how to build profitable companies for the long-term benefit of society. Ries talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, executives, and others working to create a new ecosystem of trustworthy organizations with limitless potential for growth and a deep commitment to purpose. Together, they uncover the tools and methods to ensure the next generation of companies are designed to maximize human flourishing for generations.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Geddes Munson (SVP of Engineering @ Affirm) joins us to discuss operational / engineering excellence, scaling, and AI-native transformation! We explore Affirm's approach to operational and engineering excellence and how a 2024 outage became a turning point in refining that focus. We deconstruct “AI retooling week”, the internal tools it inspired (including an incident tracing system), how the AI-native transition is impacting operational / engineering excellence, and how to connect these projects to business goals. Plus, we take a look at their early work building in agentic commerce, infrastructure decisions they made years ago setting them up for success now, how they're thinking about designing for agent-first experiences.   ABOUT GEDDES MUNSON Geddes Munson serves as Affirm's SVP, Engineering. Previously, Geddes held several engineering leadership roles at Affirm, including oversight of the merchant engineering group, where he was responsible for the development of Affirm's solutions for key partners including Amazon, Shopify and Walmart. Prior to Affirm, Geddes held various technical leadership roles at rapidly growing startups including Mixpanel, SingleStore and EasyPost. He received his B.A. from Haverford College, where he started the Linux club on campus. Geddes lives in New Jersey with his wife and three children.   Unblocked: The context engine your coding agents are missing. Give your coding agents the context your best engineers have. Your agents can read code, but they don't know how your team works. Rules and MCPs give access to information but not understanding. That's why you still have to tell them where to look and what to look for. Unblocked gives your agents the history, conventions, and decisions behind your code so they generate mergeable output without the back and forth. It automatically surfaces the right context for every task, so agents stay on track without the set up tax or the correction loops. getunblocked.com/elc   SHOW NOTES: Defining operational excellence & what it looks like @ Affirm (4:36) Understand why your company / product matters to your customers (8:11) Key pivot points around engineering excellence @ Affirm (11:10) Creating a genuine culture change of operational / engineering excellence (14:27) Adopting agentic models @ Affirm (16:30) Navigating the balance between transformation, safety & reliability (18:30) Affirm's AI retooling week & hackathon setup (20:57) How the hackathon helped quickly change the company culture (23:15) Ensuring your practices serve your overall organizational vision & goals (26:11) Insights on scaling & increasing CICD investment @ Affirm (28:28) Approaches to building agentic commerce products (30:11) Strategies for building an agent-first experience (33:33) Bridging the gap between engineering & business goals / outcomes (35:44) Rapid fire questions (38:46)   LINKS AND RESOURCES 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in History – and How It Shattered a Nation - New York Times bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin takes readers inside the chaos of the crash, behind the scenes of a raging battle between Wall Street and Washington and the larger-than-life characters whose ambition and naivete in an endless boom led to disaster. The dizzying highs and brutal lows of this era eerily mirror today's world—where markets soar, political tensions mount, and the fight over financial influence plays out once again. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose - a best-selling 2010 memoir by former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh detailing his entrepreneurial journey and outlines his core philosophy: building a phenomenal corporate culture and focusing on the happiness of employees and customers ultimately drives long-term profits and business success.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In Season 15 episode 3, Charles Suggs sits down with Greg Medland, aka “The Elixir Fixer,” to talk about the current state of hiring and the software jobs market in 2026.   Greg shares what he's seeing from both sides of the hiring process as an Elixir-focused recruiter, from shifting company expectations to the growing importance of specialization, communication skills, and real-world product thinking. We discuss how the market has changed since the 2021–2022 hiring boom, why things feel more uncertain today, and how developers are adapting to a slower, more competitive landscape.   The conversation also explores how AI is affecting hiring workflows, résumé quality, technical interviews, and even the rise of fraudulent candidates. Greg explains why human relationships and reputation still matter more than ever, especially in smaller ecosystems like Elixir where community connections carry real weight.   Along the way, we talk about what junior developers are up against, why senior engineers with domain expertise continue to stand out, and what developers can do to position themselves more effectively in today's market. Greg shares practical advice for building a sustainable career, developing a clear professional identity, and navigating a rapidly changing industry.   Topics discussed in this episode: The current state of the Elixir job market Hiring trends and market shifts since 2021–2022 How AI is changing hiring and recruiting workflows Fraudulent candidates and AI-generated résumés Domain expertise vs. generalist engineering skills Product thinking and customer-focused development What companies are looking for in 2026 Junior developer challenges in the current market Why senior specialists remain in demand Networking and relationship-building in tech Open source contributions and visibility in the Elixir community Standing out in a crowded hiring environment Résumé quality and application strategies The role of personal branding for developers Remote work trends and geographic hiring patterns Technical interview expectations and evaluation changes Startup vs. enterprise hiring differences Human connection in an increasingly automated industry Career resilience and long-term positioning Building a sustainable software engineering career   Links mentioned: Socially Responsible Recruitment https://sr2rec.com/en/ Greg's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/elixirfixer/ Greg's email address: greg@sr2rec.com

Andrew McNamara, Director of Applied Machine Learning @ Shopify, joins the ELC podcast to share insights on building agentic platforms at scale, like Sidekick, that must keep reliability for its users at the forefront. Andrew describes the building philosophy behind Shopify and what it means to cultivate a culture of prototype-first while prioritizing hiring early-stage talent. We cover Sidekick's development journey and how user feedback impacted its product vision, why evaluation is so important for determining ground truth sets, and the benefit of user-driven use cases. Andrew also dissects how they went about making product design decisions, such as building proactive agents and identifying subagent specializations.   ABOUT ANDREW MCNAMARA Andrew McNamara is Director of Applied Machine Learning at Shopify, where he leads the team behind Shopify Sidekick, an AI co-founder that gives merchants access to the e-commerce expertise they need to run and grow their business. With 16 years of experience building AI assistants, he brings a rare combination of applied research depth and production-scale thinking to some of the hardest problems in AI: getting systems to work reliably for people who depend on them. Andrew's work pushes Shopify to measure AI quality by whether it achieves what the user set out to do, a core standard in building AI that merchants trust. Outside Shopify, he runs Setting North, a small Canadian maple syrup brand built on the same platform he helps make for everyone else.   Unblocked: The context engine your coding agents are missing. Give your coding agents the context your best engineers have. Your agents can read code, but they don't know how your team works. Rules and MCPs give access to information but not understanding. That's why you still have to tell them where to look and what to look for. Unblocked gives your agents the history, conventions, and decisions behind your code so they generate mergeable output without the back and forth. It automatically surfaces the right context for every task, so agents stay on track without the set up tax or the correction loops. getunblocked.com/elc   SHOW NOTES: How Shopify utilizes reflexive AI & Andrew's building philosophy (2:38) Developing a prototype-first company culture (5:07) Andrew's reflections on building AI-enabled projects like Sidekick at scale (7:25) Translating customer surveys into Sidekick's product vision (9:34) Key inflection points while scaling out Sidekick (11:23) Strategies for evaluation / building a ground truth set (13:26) Analyzing the good & bad within ground truth sets (15:27) Shopify's system openness model to drive user-discovered use cases (17:47) How subagents fit into the Sidekick's model (19:55) Prioritization conversations around subagent specializations (23:06) Designing an agent with high-impact prompt optimization (27:22) Considerations for building highly reliable systems (29:40) Andrew's perspective on latency (31:24) Rapid fire questions (33:49)   LINKS AND RESOURCES Cradle - a New York Times best-selling series from Will Wight following a character's growth as he goes from one of the weakest users of his world's magic to among the strongest. The series features an original magic system inspired by Chinese cultivation and martial arts novels, with a heavy emphasis on anime-style super-powered battles.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is the real difference between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? How do you build a technical team from scratch in a non-tech company? In this Road to CTO episode of the MarsBased podcast, we sit down with Emma Burrows (Ex-Google, Ex-Stripe) to talk about her incredible career path.From her time at Google to leading as CTO at Stripe Payments UK and her current jump into the founder world with Resonant, Emma shares the lessons learned at every stage of the journey.Support the show

Inbal Shani (CPO and Head of R&D @ Twilio) deconstructs the transformation of the R&D org at Twilio! We explore the shift from a GM-led model to a unified platform strategy and “why structure must always follow strategy.” Inbal shares her framework for moving from output-focused metrics to input goals, prioritizing “time-to-value,” and the nuances of measuring AI products. We discuss using "R&D roadshows" as a strategic company transformation tool and why engineering leaders must master product positioning. We also dive into mental models for future-proofing your business, from "working backwards" to solve customer problems, to embedding systems thinking into the DNA of your engineering team, and critical questions to identify and optimize decisions around your company's moat.    ABOUT INBAL SHANI As Chief Product Officer, Inbal leads Twilio's R&D organization, encompassing product, engineering, and R&D operations. She is dedicated to driving platform-wide innovation, empowering customers, and delivering transformative, customer-focused solutions.   Unblocked: The context engine your coding agents are missing. Give your coding agents the context your best engineers have. Your agents can read code, but they don't know how your team works. Rules and MCPs give access to information but not understanding. That's why you still have to tell them where to look and what to look for. Unblocked gives your agents the history, conventions, and decisions behind your code so they generate mergeable output without the back and forth. It automatically surfaces the right context for every task, so agents stay on track without the set up tax or the correction loops. getunblocked.com/elc   SHOW NOTES: Catalysts for Twilio's R&D transformation and the shift away from organizational silos (2:49) Strategy Drives Structure: The lightbulb moment at a strategy offsite that demanded structural change to execute vision (5:14) Why structure must follow strategy and creating a "change-constant" culture (7:23) Implementing the “working backwards” methodology and the internal power of the PRFAQ (13:52) Tactical ways to filter customer signals and find real unmet problems versus feature requests (16:35) Shifting from output-focused goals to input goals and prioritizing "Time to Value" (18:35) Using weekly product reviews to align metrics with qualitative customer feedback (21:34) Measuring AI Products: Why AI products require behavior-based measurement instead of traditional binary testing (23:24) Building security by design with layered protection for AI-generated code environments (26:09) Mental models for future-proofing your business by acting as a "fortune teller" for needs (28:45) The R&D Roadshow: Enabling the entire company on new ways of working through storytelling (32:28) Why engineering leaders must master product positioning to bridge the gap to market (38:33) Relatable storytelling: Explaining Twilio's value to your parents to sharpen your pitch (41:47) Rapid Fire Questions (43:14)   LINKS AND RESOURCES How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion - In this lively journey through human psychology, bestselling author and creator of the You Are Not So Smart podcast David McRaney investigates how minds change--and how to change minds.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rajat Monga, CVP AI Frameworks @ Microsoft, joins the podcast to discuss his leadership and founder journey, from Google Brain / Tensorflow to inference.io and back to Microsoft. He dissects what it means to refound vs. start from scratch, the value of the open source community, and strategies for discovering what problem to solve when going the startup route. We also cover how to determine your users' hidden incentives and what that means for both product development & marketing, along with navigating the balance between a product's usefulness and consumers' willingness to pay for it. Additionally, Rajat shares about what he's currently up to at Microsoft and the emerging ML / AI technologies he's most excited about.   ABOUT RAJAT MONGA Rajat Monga is responsible for enabling an efficient AI stack at Microsoft from cloud to the edge. Before joining Microsoft, Rajat was founder and CEO of Inference.io, a smart analytics platform powered by AI. During his decade-long tenure at Google, he co-founded and led TensorFlow, and was a founding member of Google Brain. He's built out and led many engineering teams, and designed large scale distributed systems including web scale crawling and eBay's search engine. Rajat is a graduate of IIT Delhi.   Unblocked: The context engine your coding agents are missing. Give your coding agents the context your best engineers have. Your agents can read code, but they don't know how your team works. Rules and MCPs give access to information but not understanding. That's why you still have to tell them where to look and what to look for. Unblocked gives your agents the history, conventions, and decisions behind your code so they generate mergeable output without the back and forth. It automatically surfaces the right context for every task, so agents stay on track without the set up tax or the correction loops. getunblocked.com/elc   SHOW NOTES: Rajat's journey with Google Brain: Scaling deep learning from single PCs to thousands of machines with Jeff Dean & Andrew Ng (2:57) Moving from Google Brain to TensorFlow: Why new hardware and architectures required a total system rebuild (6:02) The "refounding" question: Choosing between starting from scratch or evolving an existing system (8:33) Why Google open-sourced TensorFlow to set industry standards and avoid supporting external copies (10:16) How open-source enabled global innovation, from Japanese cucumber sorting to African plant health (12:02) Transitioning as a leader: Why Rajat left Google during the height of TensorFlow to found a company (13:57) The discovery phase at inference.io: Navigating the pivot from IoT into solving data analytics gaps (15:31) Lessons on PMF: Moving beyond a "useful" product to one that solves a truly critical customer pain point (16:52) Why habits are harder to change than technology and the challenge of competing with established workflows (21:02) Marketing strategies: Tailoring personas for top-down prestige versus bottom-up personal efficiency (23:19) Deciding when to stop: A founder's framework for re-evaluating bets based on current knowledge (24:57) Rajat's new role at Microsoft: Overseeing Edge infrastructure and large-scale Cloud AI inference (27:46) Dissecting ML edge strategy: Using ONNX Runtime to unify AI performance across Windows, iOS, and Android (30:02) Edge AI trends: Shifting from experimental models to production models optimized for cost and privacy (31:20) The future of Edge: How on-device processing will power AI in robotics, smart glasses, and wearables (33:23) Scaling inference: Treating multi-GPU clusters like a distributed operating system for AI models (34:25) Rapid fire questions (37:45)   LINKS AND RESOURCES Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World - Innovation expert Scott Anthony masterfully weaves together the fascinating stories behind history's most transformative disruptions—from ninth-century China to twenty-first-century Silicon Valley. Through eleven pivotal innovations, including the printing press, mass-produced automobiles, the McDonald's revolutionary food system, and the iPhone, Anthony reveals the hidden patterns behind world-changing breakthroughs.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Enterprise customers demand 99.9% availability, regardless of how the underlying software is built. In this episode, Murali Swaminathan (CTO @ Freshworks) discusses how enterprises actually win with AI! We explore the “Architecture of Predictability” – proactive architectural safeguards to scale “responsible AI by design” across a global organization serving 75,000 customers. Murali shares his leadership playbook for implementing the technical safeguards and product trust controls that empower hundreds of engineers to build safely. We also dive into the shift from deterministic flowcharts to “workflows with a brain” and why backend systems engineers are the secret bedrock of agentic products. Plus, Murali deconstructs the dual evolution required of modern leaders: mastering strategic thinking at the business level while cultivating systems thinking at the engineering level.   ABOUT MURALI SWAMINATHAN Murali Swaminathan joined Freshworks as Chief Technology Officer in September 2024. Murali is responsible for Freshworks' technology roadmap and strategy, leading the company's global engineering and architecture teams. With over 30 years of experience in software engineering, he has held leadership roles at ServiceNow, Recommind (now OpenText), and CA Technologies (now Broadcom), where he delivered scalable, secure solutions that enabled digital transformation and business agility. Murali holds a master's degree in Software Engineering Management from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor's degree in electronics and instrumentation from Annamalai University in India.   SHOW NOTES: Freshworks' operating context: Engineering for 75,000 global customers (2:09) Navigating the tension between rapid AI adoption and enterprise-grade reliability (4:58) Breaking the "Positive Scenario" Trap: Using AI to automate negative test cases and corner-case detection (6:40) Why Responsible AI is a competitive advantage: Building "kill switches" and trust gates (8:31) Responsible AI by Design: Moving from reactive compliance to proactive architectural safeguards (10:48) Technical safeguards: Leveraging hyperscaler frameworks for model compliance and data anonymization (13:39) Product Trust Controls: Demonstrating reliability through role-based access and thresholds (16:25) Why engineering leaders should experiment in small teams before global rollout (20:35) Simulating Chaos: Using Business Continuity Planning (BCP) to test AI system resilience (22:13) Workflows with a brain: Transitioning from deterministic flows to agentic runtime decisions (24:16) The AI Team Profile: Why backend system engineers, not just data scientists, are the bedrock of agentic products (29:25) Cultivating a mindset shift toward agentic system orchestration (32:10) The shift to systems thinking: How engineering roles evolve from "building pieces" to managing end-to-end system flows (33:38) How to approach strategic business thinking as an engineering leader (36:43) Rapid Fire Questions: Guy Kawasaki's "Think Remarkable" and the best way to predict the future (38:23)   LINKS AND RESOURCES Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference - Tech titan and creator of the Remarkable People podcast Guy Kawasaki delivers a practical, tactical, and sometimes radical discussion of how to make a difference in the world and live a fulfilling life.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jon Hyman (CTO & Co-Founder @ Braze) returns to the podcast to share how he balances a mature, public-company roadmap with visionary AI innovation! We deconstruct Braze's quantitative "Product Health" framework - a scoring system used to resolve competing prioritizations and mandate technical remediation. We also discuss shifting engineering leaders to think like GMs, how to realign teams by connecting abstract “vision” to specific releases, goals & outcomes. Plus, Jon's three-tier mental model for AI products, how to identify AI features that actually drive revenue, and reimaging your product for future channels, teams, and skills.   ABOUT JON HYMAN Jon Hyman is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Braze, the customer engagement platform that delivers messaging experiences across push, email, in-app, and more. He leads the charge for building the platform's technical systems and infrastructure as well as overseeing the company's technical operations and engineering team. Prior to Braze, Jon served as lead engineer for the Core Technology group at Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. There, he managed a team that maintained 80+ software assets and was responsible for the security and stability of critical trading systems. Jon met cofounder Bill Magnuson during his time at Bridgewater, and together they won the 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. Jon is a recipient of the SmartCEO Executive Management Award in the CIO/CTO Category for New York. Jon holds a B.A. from Harvard University in Computer Science.   This episode is brought to you by xMatters! xMatters automates the entire incident lifecycle with their purpose-built AI powered workflow, giving your team the context they need to stop disruptions before they start and minimize resolution times. Head over to xmatters.com to learn more!   SHOW NOTES: Braze's operating environment & key focus on product health / roadmap (2:58) What's next for Braze: Research-driven innovation in the AI era (6:16) Ensuring customers utilize the full breadth of features (9:42) The "Swarming" strategy: Reducing engineering escalation tax through support collaboration (14:19) Shifting engineering leadership think like GMs: Moving from completion goals to business outcomes like revenue, growth rates & regional differences (17:29) How engineering leaders can increase business IQ by understanding margins and adoption (18:20) Deconstructing misalignment, the abstract nature of product vision, and connect teams to tangible business outcomes, goals, and specific releases (22:02) Management infrastructure: Quarterly product health reporting and trending metrics (23:20) Forming a mental model for company maturity, building a visionary roadmap, and more innovative engineering initiatives (25:34) Frameworks for AI Decision-Making: Identifying AI features that drive revenue vs. those that only improve stickiness (31:55) Reimagining your product based on different personas, new channels, “AI omniboxes”, and teams / skills of the future (35:44) Breaking down team silos, customer engagement as a shared responsibility, and the future of full-stack roles orchestrating outcome-based workflows & automations (41:50) Rapid fire questions (45:10)   LINKS AND RESOURCES Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green: A historical look at how the disease has shaped the world braze.com   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We discuss what effective leadership looks like across three organizational archetypes: product-led, business-led, and design-led companies with Sebastiano Armeli (Engineering Leadership @ Meta). Drawing from his leadership journey at places like  Meta, Spotify, Snap, and PayPal, Sebastiano deconstructs the situational leadership frameworks required to thrive in different environments. Plus we discuss how AI is moving managers from implementation to architecture, why the next bottleneck is managing the overhead of high-velocity experimentation, and the future of team topology where AI enables a single leader to oversee high-scale teams of 30–50 people. Whether you are scaling a design-driven startup or navigating a complex business-led enterprise, this conversation provides a framework for aligning your leadership style with your organization's core incentives.   ABOUT SEBASTIANO ARMELI Sebastiano Armeli is an engineering leader currently at Meta. He has previously served as a Director of Engineering at Upwork and held leadership roles at companies such as Pinterest, PayPal, Snap, and Spotify. His work has spanned diverse domains including shopping, crypto, messaging, video creation, and ads. Sebastiano is passionate about building healthy engineering cultures, mentoring the next generation of leaders, and supporting teams through periods of growth and change. He mentors engineering managers and senior engineers, enjoys speaking at conferences, and shares his perspectives on leadership in his Substack, The Healthy Engineering Leader. He also serves on the board of a community-owned grocery store. In all his work, Sebastiano takes a pragmatic, people-first approach to leadership, focusing on clarity, continuous improvement, and long-term impact.   This episode is brought to you by xMatters! xMatters automates the entire incident lifecycle with their purpose-built AI powered workflow, giving your team the context they need to stop disruptions before they start and minimize resolution times. Head over to xmatters.com to learn more!   SHOW NOTES: Deconstructing company archetypes: A framework for product-led organizations (2:03) Strategic leadership practices for succeeding in product-first cultures (7:33) Leveraging data and business metrics to influence product strategy (9:35) Case Study: The story and leadership lessons behind building Spotify's Ad Studio (11:12) Rapid prototyping: Applying a hackathon mindset to product development (13:16) How AI is reshaping product-led orgs: Clearing the feature backlog, scaling experimentation and velocity (16:01) Balancing iteration velocity and product quality with AI (18:12) Sebastiano's observations on effective leadership in business led orgs (19:49) Design-led dynamics: Anticipating the impact of AI on creative-first orgs (23:24) Maintaining engineering excellence within design-driven constraints (25:40) Cultivating high-alignment, valuable design partnerships (27:01) The role of metrics and data in design-focused decision making (28:33) Emerging AI capabilities enhancing leadership leverage (31:16) Scaling management: The potential for 30-50 person teams via AI assistance (33:58) The ethical imperative: Adopting AI responsibility within engineering teams (35:53) Rapid fire questions (37:12)   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Live from the Vercel recording studio, Lindsey Simon (VP Engineering @ Vercel) joins us to deconstruct the evolution of management craft and career growth strategies! We dissect the practice of live all-hands demos as a tool for context, accountability and inspiration. Plus, Lindsey's "vote with your wallet" framework for career strategy, how Lindsey's open source project inspired him to apply to Vercel, and why the most effective VPs are building hobby projects to maintain AI competency and empathy for non-technical users.   ABOUT LINDSEY SIMON Lindsey Simon is VP of Engineering at Vercel. Making the Web better has been his lifelong career ambition. Prior to Vercel, Lindsey spent seven years at Google, where he helped launch App Engine as an original core team member, and worked as a tech lead on the Google Translate and Web Performance teams. Lindsey has lived in San Francisco for the past 15 years, and his creative hobbies (beyond coding) include writing music and hunting for wild mushrooms.   This episode is brought to you by xMatters! xMatters automates the entire incident lifecycle with their purpose-built AI powered workflow, giving your team the context they need to stop disruptions before they start and minimize resolution times. Head over to xmatters.com to learn more!   SHOW NOTES: The evolution of Vercel's all hands to demo days: using live show-and-tell to maintain context and inspire the team (2:4p) Accountability for what's real: Why live visual demos help engineering teams with real-time workflow adjustments (4:36) Strategies for creating a successful live visual demo without over-rehearsing (6:20) Lindsey's career inflection point: Navigating the transition from a large ecosystem at Salesforce to a mission-driven startup (10:08) Career advice: Vote with your wallet and go somewhere with pre-existing PMF that feeds your ambition (12:33) The "Janitor" Mindset: Why prioritizing the company's mission over a specific job title can lead to unique opportunities (14:36) How Lindsey's open source hobby project led to a code-first interaction with @ Vercel (19:17) Vercel's "Dig Deep" value: Breaking down the company culture and the importance of technical support for developers (21:26) Standing out in the interview process: Why managers must bring a strong "Point of View" on what a company should do differently (23:51). The Swiss Army Knife Manager: Why today's leaders must also be salespeople, PMs, and customer support engineers (24:46). The death of pure "people management": Re-centering on the IC craft and why managers must maintain AI competency (26:12). Adopting better IC skills: Building hobby projects for non-technical users to maintain empathy for the user experience (28:33) Management principles that remain true today (32:54) Combatting imposter syndrome: Building trust by being vulnerable and learning alongside your team (36:45). Interviewing trends: Assessing how candidates operate with and without AI tools (38:05). The return of "In Real Life" work: Why the Bay Area culture is refocusing on "sweating the details" in person (39:15) Rapid fire questions (41:33)   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Career progression is rarely a straight line. More often, it only makes sense in hindsight. Chris Chiu (VP of Engineering, Agentforce @ Salesforce) joins us to deconstruct how to navigate these non-linear career paths! We talk about identifying the mismatch in your current role, building a personal "career thesis," how to engineer a productive exploration phase and leverage your relationships / VC networks to understand the market. Plus, how to apply the "Running Framework" to ensure success in your next role and why technical depth is no longer optional for modern engineering leaders.   ABOUT CHRIS CHIU Chris Chiu is a VP of Engineering at Salesforce, where he helps build Agentforce, a platform for building enterprise AI agents. Prior to Salesforce, Chris was Head of Engineering at Moonhub, building AI recruiting agents. He has experience building and scaling product engineering teams that consistently deliver great products through rapid growth and change. Earlier in his career, he led engineering teams across companies ranging from early-stage startups to late-stage growth companies, including Figma, Flexport, and OpenGov.   This episode is brought to you by xMatters! xMatters automates the entire incident lifecycle with their purpose-built AI powered workflow, giving your team the context they need to stop disruptions before they start and minimize resolution times. Head over to xmatters.com to learn more!   SHOW NOTES: How Chris navigated the transition from Figma to Moonhub (3:47) Energy alignment: identifying the mismatch between your role and your drives (6:27) Sidesteps aren't inefficiencies: Why it's okay to not have a specific and/or linear career plan (8:26) Building a career “thesis” by balancing passions with industry shifts (11:18) The exploration phase: Strategies for a productive four-month “sabbatical” (14:07) Leveraging your network and venture capital relationships to understand the market (16:45) The utility of “status”: When the “logo” matters & when it's overrated (19:18) The "Running" Framework: Why you shouldn't increase career "speed" and "distance" simultaneously (21:33) How Chris applied these ideas to his move from Figma to Moonhub (24:33) Avoiding "career injury": Why stretching too thin hinders your flow state (27:07) Developing technical depth and leadership in the AI space (29:15) Learning through imitation: Finding and emulating leaders five years ahead of you (31:20) Chris's observations on the evolution of technical leadership (34:14) The shift from “peacetime” to “wartime” (37:58) The "Leaky Abstraction" litmus test: Why leaders must stay in the technical details (39:40) Now: Chris' transition to Agentforce and the future of AI at Salesforce (41:38) Rapid fire questions: Growth mindsets and holding identity loosely (43:59)   LINKS AND RESOURCES: 99% Invisible: The design and architecture podcast Sulman has followed for over a decade. The Invisible Cow Tunnels of Chicago: A specific episode of 99% Invisible mentioned by Patrick.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Send a textWhat happens to engineering systems when fear shapes the conditions under which people work, or are allowed to work?In this episode of ENGINEERING CH∆NGE®, I examine how fear-driven decisions inside organizational systems can reshape their capacity to produce research, education, and societal outcomes, and not for the better.Drawing from lived experience and patterns emerging across institutions, this conversation explores how organizational systems lose capacity, expertise, and knowledge when silence replaces truth and optics replace accuracy. This episode invites listeners to reflect on the often invisible organizational inputs that shape engineering outcomes and what leaders must be willing to see if our systems are to serve society effectively.In this episode:How fear reshapes organizational decision-makingWhat happens when systems lose people, knowledge, and capacityWhy engineering outcomes depend on organizational conditionsA “System Check” reflection for leaders responsible for engineering and research outcomesIf this conversation resonates with you, follow ENGINEERING CH∆NGE® and leave a five-star review to help more engineers and leaders join the conversation.Visit the ENGINEERING CH∆NGE® podcast website to learn more and to request a free copy of my new brief, Engineering for Society.Support the showENGINEERING CHΔNGE® is a registered trademark held by Dr. Yvette E. Pearson for producing and providing podcasts.

In this episode, recorded live at the OpenAI studio, Sulman Choudhry (Head of ChatGPT @ OpenAI) pulls back the curtain on how they structure engineering teams! We talk about shifting from silos to fluid mission-driven teams, vertical vs. horizontal teams, maximizing cross-functional collaboration between research, engineering, product and design. Plus we cover “directly responsible individuals” for high accountability, managers as systems designers, scaling decision-making to prevent leadership from becoming bottlenecks, frameworks for mentoring junior engineers, why “problem framing” is the most critical skill, and how managers can stay close to problems and maintain technical intuition.   ABOUT SULMAN CHOUDHRY Sulman leads ChatGPT Engineering at OpenAI, driving the development and scaling of one of the world's most impactful AI products. He pushes the boundaries of innovation by turning cutting‑edge research into practical, accessible tools that transform how people interact with technology. Previously at Meta, Sulman founded and scaled Instagram Reels, IGTV, and Instagram Labs, and helped lead the early development of Instagram Stories. He also brought MetaAI to Instagram and Messenger, integrating generative AI into experiences used by billions. Earlier in his career, Sulman was on the founding team that built and launched UberEATS from the ground up, helping turn it into a global food delivery platform. With a track record of marrying technical vision, product strategy, and large‑scale execution, Sulman focuses on building products that meaningfully change how people live, work, and connect.   This episode is brought to you by xMatters! xMatters automates the entire incident lifecycle with their purpose-built AI powered workflow, giving your team the context they need to stop disruptions before they start and minimize resolution times. Head over to xmatters.com to learn more!   SHOW NOTES: The Shift to AI-Native Engineering: How AI is collapsing the "Inner Loop" and reshaping engineering team composition (2:48) Mission-Driven Teams: Moving from traditional functional silos to integrated, problem-centric units (4:45) Vertical vs. Horizontal Team Architecture: How OpenAI structures specialized horizontal teams (ex. Infrastructure, RTC/Voice) with product verticals (7:04) Fluid org charts & blurring functional roles: AI-Native teams require proactive mission alignment and coordination over rigid structure (8:48) The Lifecycle of Problem-Oriented Teams: What happens when a "strike team" solves the problem (10:02) Maximizing cross functional collaboration between engineering, research, product and design (11:52) The DRI Framework: Implementing the "Directly Responsible Individual" model for high-velocity accountability (13:32) Thriving in the "Chaos Factory": Addressing bottlenecks in highly dynamic, high-volume environments (16:02) Prioritization & "Letting 1,000 Flowers Bloom": How OpenAI decides which AI bets to double down on (19:13) Scaling Decision-Making: Preventing leadership from becoming the bottleneck as volume increases (21:19) Knowing when to call it quits on a bet and reallocate talent for maximum impact (23:29) The Manager as "Systems Designer": Shifting the EM role from people logistics to technical orchestration (24:49) The Barbell Talent Strategy: Optimizing for innovation by pairing "super seniors" with "super juniors" (28:10) Mentorship in the AI Age: How to coaching junior engineers when the "cost of code" is approaching zero (30:19) Technical Intuition for Leaders: Sulman's frameworks for staying "close to the metal" as a manager (33:17) Cultivating Judgment: Why "Problem Framing" is the most critical skill for the modern engineer (37:01) Rapid fire questions (38:59)   LINKS AND RESOURCES: 99% Invisible](https://99percentinvisible.org/): The design and architecture podcast Sulman has followed for over a decade. The Invisible Cow Tunnels of Chicago](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/cow-tunnels/): A specific episode of 99% Invisible mentioned by Patrick.   This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kiren Sekar (CPO @ Samsara) joins us to deconstruct the "Innovation Engine" behind Samsara, and how this system drives real-world impact and ROI across their products. We explore Samsara's decade-long compound product strategy and the mechanics of accelerating feedback loops in an era where the primary bottlenecks shift from code generation to customer feedback and absorption of change. Kiren details how their data flywheel expands the aperture of what is possible to build and we dive into the system of customer-driven innovation: advisory boards, “spark sessions” to test hypotheses and gain unfiltered feedback. Plus we talk about the power of embedding engineers in frontline environments (from truckyards to construction sites) to cultivate “taste,” customer empathy and trigger non-linear ideas. ABOUT KIREN SEKARKiren Sekar is the Chief Product Officer at Samsara (NYSE: IOT), where he has helped lead the company from a hardware-hacking startup in a basement to a global leader in Connected Operations with over $1.5B in ARR. An early leader at Meraki (acquired by Cisco for $1.2B) and an Apple veteran with multiple patents, Kiren specializes in the rare intersection of hardware, massive-scale data, and AI. He is the architect of a platform that now processes trillions of data points for the industries that keep the world running—trucking, construction, and logistics. This episode is brought to you by Retool!What happens when your team can't keep up with internal tool requests? Teams start building their own, Shadow IT spreads across the org, and six months later you're untangling the mess…Retool gives teams a better way: governed, secure, and no cleanup required.Retool is the leading enterprise AppGen platform, powering how the world's most innovative companies build the tools that run their business. Over 10,000 organizations including Amazon, Stripe, Adobe, Brex, and Orangetheory Fitness use the platform to safely harness AI and their enterprise data to create governed, production-ready apps.Learn more at Retool.com/elc SHOW NOTES:Real-world ROI The Intersection of Bits and Atoms: How Samsara supported customers through a once-in-a-century snowstorm using real-time AI insights (3:59)The Practicality Filter: Why low-margin, high-utility businesses are the best "BS detectors" for product builders (9:25)Deconstructing the compound product strategy: 10 years of feedback loops, scaling empathy, and technical capabilities (10:53)Accelerating your innovation flywheel, customer and product feedback loops (14:39)The New Bottleneck: Why writing code is no longer the constraint, and how to optimize for customer absorption of change (19:58)The Data Flywheel: Leveraging trillions of proprietary data points to solve new problems and expand your innovation engine into new capabilities (23:36)Embedding engineers in customer problems: Why there is no substitute for engineers seeing the frontline environment firsthand (29:56)How customer empathy and "taste" amplify the benefits of AI coding agents (33:26)Building a system of customer-driven innovation: Utilizing Advisory Boards and "Spark Sessions" to turn 10,000+ customers into co-creators (37:40)Rapid fire questions (47:50)This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Founders often delay leadership coaching until a major crisis hits, leading to significant costs in productivity, team churn, and poor decisions. In this episode, James Birchler (Technical Advisor & Executive Leadership Coach) argues that early coaching is a game-changer for a startup's success. We explore the hidden costs of waiting and the benefits of intentionally installing leadership and communication systems before you scale. James shares specific self-awareness mechanisms, like advisory groups and feedback loops, to help founders design their day and create accountability. You'll also learn practical strategies like the "5-Minute Alignment Loop" for spotting communication breakdowns & for reinforcing clarity. Plus insights on how to "install your leadership OS" so it can scale with your company. ABOUT JAMES BIRCHLERJames Birchler is an executive leadership coach and technical advisor who specializes in helping engineering leaders and founders develop greater self-awareness and build high-performing teams. He combines deep technical expertise with practical leadership development, making him particularly valuable for technical leaders scaling their organizations.As both a founder and engineering leader, James has more than 20 years of experience leading teams at companies ranging from early-stage startups to Amazon, where his current role is Technical Advisor to the VP of Amazon Delivery Routing and Planning. Most recently, he founded NICER, a premium natural personal care company, and Actuate Partners, his executive coaching and technical advisory practice. He also held VP of Engineering roles at companies including Caffeine (backed by Greylock and Andreessen Horowitz), SmugMug (where his team acquired Flickr), and IMVU.At IMVU, James implemented the Lean Startup methodologies alongside Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and creator of the methodology, literally the first company to apply these principles. His team helped pioneer the DevOps movement by building infrastructure to ship code to production 50 times per day and coining the term "continuous deployment." This experience in systematic experimentation and continuous improvement now informs his coaching approach through frameworks like CAMS (Coaching, Advising, Mentoring, Supporting) and the Think-Do-Learn Loop.James completed his executive coaching certification at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Executive Coaching Institute. His coaching practice focuses on self-awareness, integrity, accountability, and fostering growth mindsets that support continuous learning and high performance. He writes the Continuous Growth newsletter and offers both individual executive coaching and peer learning circles for technical leaders.Through his advisory work with growth-stage startups in the US and Europe, James helps leaders navigate common scaling challenges including hiring and interviewing, implementing development methodologies, establishing operational cadences, and developing other leaders. His approach treats leadership development like product development—with systematic feedback loops, measurable outcomes, and continuous improvement.You can find James at jamesbirchler.com, LinkedIn, and Substack. This episode is brought to you by Retool!What happens when your team can't keep up with internal tool requests? Teams start building their own, Shadow IT spreads across the org, and six months later you're untangling the mess…Retool gives teams a better way: governed, secure, and no cleanup required.Retool is the leading enterprise AppGen platform, powering how the world's most innovative companies build the tools that run their business. Over 10,000 organizations including Amazon, Stripe, Adobe, Brex, and Orangetheory Fitness use the platform to safely harness AI and their enterprise data to create governed, production-ready apps.Learn more at Retool.com/elc SHOW NOTES:Why founders should seek coaching earlier rather than waiting for a crisis to occur (2:45)The high stakes of ignoring this critical advice & how this leads to communication & scaling problems (4:50)The importance of effective communication channels & leadership mechanisms before pressure increases (6:12)How investing a small amount in coaching early on can prevent hundreds of thousands of dollars in future costs (8:07)Frameworks for cultivating self-awareness / leadership blind spots (11:06)James's practice of "designing your day" around a desired identity, not just a list of tasks (12:30)Why designing your day is about intentionality (15:13)How this practice leads to better relationships & opportunities to reflect (17:44)Reflective listening & its impact on customer relationships (19:32)Strategies for improving self-awareness / uncovering blind spots (22:05)An example of how awareness can lead to better results  (26:03)Day-to-day rituals for improving self-awareness (28:14)Signals that your communication methods are effective & getting through (30:37)Reflect on & define the desired outcome you want to generate (33:26)The five-minute alignment loop for creating clarity & confirming ownership as a leader (35:21)Why creating clarity & finding alignment is key as a founder (37:02)How the same communication & leadership patterns recur as your org scales, from small startup to large enterprise (39:46)The increasing importance of human skills like emotional intelligence and reflective listening in an age of AI (42:03)Rapid fire questions (44:38)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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

¿Tu equipo tiene licencias de copiloto pero no ves mejoras reales en productividad? El 90% de los equipos de ingeniería ya usa IA, pero solo una minoría logra impacto medible. Álvaro Moya, experto en adopción de IA con +15 años en tech y fundador de LIDR.co, comparte un framework pragmático para pasar de "tener licencias" a "lograr resultados". Hablamos del concepto 10x Team, cómo estructurar contexto para copilotos, y las directivas y métricas para ser el AI Champion de tu organización.00:00 Intro y bienvenida01:28 La paradoja del 90%: adopción sin resultados12:20 La brecha de talento en IA17:00 De 10x Engineer a 10x Team20:40 Estructurando contexto: de specs a PRs29:15 Roles en transformación: QA, diseño y frontend34:25 AI Champion: metodología como stack38:10 Spec-Driven Development vs Agilismo43:00 Juniors vs Seniors en la era IA44:30 Datos: 90% adopción, 41% churn, +91% PR review48:00 Consejo de carrera: las 11 semanas clave52:12 Contratando al AI Product Engineer57:05 LIDR: workshops y el futuro01:02:22 Cierre y despedida✩ CURSOS DISPONIBLES

In our latest ELC episode, we are addressing some of the biggest challenges facing engineers today: identifying your scaling thesis, putting that thesis into practice, and addressing implementation challenges. Jaikumar Ganesh, Head of Engineering @ Anyscale, shares insights from his experience working at top tech companies like Android and Uber, and how to apply those lessons within your own orgs. We also cover strategies for identifying what to build, using data effectively when it comes to understanding AI agents, and keeping your intent (and customer success) top of mind. Additionally, Jaikumar discusses his experience as a GM and why all orgs should adopt cross-functional skillsets as part of their company culture. ABOUT JAIKUMAR GANESHJaikumar Ganesh is an accomplished technology leader and the Head of Engineering at Anyscale. With a deep background in engineering and customer-facing roles, Jaikumar has a proven track record of building and scaling engineering organizations. He is passionate about pushing the boundaries of product and engineering innovation while ensuring customer needs are met, and is committed to building empowering organizations rooted in trust, respect, and growth. Jaikumar is excited about working with companies to harness the power of AI and distributed computing to achieve their goals. He previously co-started and co-led Uber's AI group—the central ML group at Uber—and was also on the early team at Android @ Google. This episode is brought to you by Retool!What happens when your team can't keep up with internal tool requests? Teams start building their own, Shadow IT spreads across the org, and six months later you're untangling the mess…Retool gives teams a better way: governed, secure, and no cleanup required.Retool is the leading enterprise AppGen platform, powering how the world's most innovative companies build the tools that run their business. Over 10,000 organizations including Amazon, Stripe, Adobe, Brex, and Orangetheory Fitness use the platform to safely harness AI and their enterprise data to create governed, production-ready apps.Learn more at Retool.com/elc SHOW NOTES:Reflecting on scaling patterns across the 2000s, 2010s, and the AI era (03:27)Why "copy-pasting" scaling strategies from other companies leads to failure (5:56)How to define a scaling thesis by mapping revenue projections to infrastructure strategy (7:52)Infrastructure shifts: From Android's OS abstractions to Uber's on-prem data centers (9:56)The "Build vs. Buy" dilemma in the age of AI agents and third-party solutions (12:09)Why "Knowing What to Build" is the new long pole in engineering productivity (20:17)Developing "Product Thinking" within engineering and infrastructure teams (23:10)The emergence of Context Graphs and "Source of Truth" platforms for AI agents (24:46)How to avoid data & context graphs becoming bottlenecks (27:05)Lessons from GM leadership: Bridging the gap between engineering, product, and sales (29:06)The "6-20" Initiative: Uniting cross-functional teams around specific customer wins (32:45)Training engineers to empathize with customer pain and translate technical wins into the language of sales (33:48)Utilizing cross-departmental daily standups and leaderboards to drive aggressive "block and tackle" execution (36:18)Tracing execution failures back to early decision-making and judgment gaps (38:42)Rapid fire questions (45:28) This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tom Pethtel, VP of Engineering at Flock Safety, breaks down the real learning curve of moving from builder to manager, and how to keep your technical edge while scaling your impact through people.You will hear how Tom's path from rural Ohio to leading high stakes engineering teams shaped his approach to leadership, hiring, and staying close to the customer. Key Takeaways​ Promotions usually come from doing your current job well, plus stepping into the work above you that is not getting done​ Great leaders do not fully detach from the craft, they stay close enough to the work to make good calls and keep context​ Put yourself where the real learning is happening, watch customers, go to the failure point, get proximity to the source of truth​ Hiring is not only pedigree, it is fundamentals plus grit, the willingness to solve what looks hard because it is “just software”​ As you scale to teams of teams, your job becomes time allocation, jump on the biggest business fire while still making rounds everywhereTimestamped Highlights00:32 What Flock Safety actually builds, from AI enabled devices to Drone as a First Responder02:04 Dropping out of Georgia Tech, switching disciplines, and choosing software for speed and impact03:30 A life threatening detour, learning you owe 18,000 dollars, and teaching yourself to build an iPhone app to survive06:33 Why Tom values grit and non traditional backgrounds in hiring, and the “it is just software” mindset08:46 Proximity and learning, go to the problem, plus the lessons he borrows from Toyota Production System09:55 A practical story of chasing expertise, from Kodak to Nokia, and hiring the right leader by going where the knowledge lives14:27 The truth about becoming a manager, you rarely feel ready, you take the seat and learn fast19:18 Leading teams of teams, you cannot be everywhere, so you go where the biggest fire is, without neglecting the rest22:08 The promotion playbook, stop only doing your job, start solving the next jobA line worth stealing“Do your job really well, plus go do the work above you that is not getting done, that's how you rise.”Pro Tips for engineers stepping into leadership​ Stay technical enough to keep your judgment sharp, even if it is only five or ten percent of your week​ If you want to grow, chase proximity, sit with the customer, sit with the failure, sit with the best people in the space​ Measure your impact as leverage, if a team of ten is producing ten times, your role is not less valuable, it is multiplied​ When you lead multiple disciplines, rotate your attention intentionally, do not camp on one fire for a full yearCall to ActionIf this episode helped you rethink leadership, share it with one builder who is about to step into management. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, and follow Amir on LinkedIn for more conversations with operators building real teams in the real world.

How do you transform a collection of individual tools into a cohesive, AI-powered symphony? Vineeta Puranik (CPTO @ SmartBear) dissects the strategy behind evolving a product vision from point solutions to a unified multi-product ecosystem. We explore the critical architectural distinction between "AI bolt-on" and "AI native" strategies, frameworks for seamless M&A integration, and how to design for varying levels of customer AI readiness. Vineeta also discusses the shift to test “does it match intent”, using “jobs to be done” to drive solving entire workflows not just tool capabilities, and designing user experiences for both human personas and AI agents. ABOUT VINEETA PURANIKVineeta Puranik serves as Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) at SmartBear, where she leads the company's global technology and product strategy to empower developers and enterprises worldwide. A seasoned technology executive with over two decades of experience, she combines strategic vision with hands-on leadership to drive innovation, growth, and operational excellence.At SmartBear, Vineeta oversees development, cloud engineers, AI, and architecture, and has been instrumental in scaling centers of excellence in India and Poland, launching the Developer Academy, and advancing the company's hub-based product strategy – Swagger suite for API capabilities, Test Hub, and Insight Hub. Recognized for her collaborative, people first leadership and commitment to inclusion, she was named a 2024 Women Worth Watching in STEM by Profiles in Diversity Journal. This episode is brought to you by Retool!What happens when your team can't keep up with internal tool requests? Teams start building their own, Shadow IT spreads across the org, and six months later you're untangling the mess…Retool gives teams a better way: governed, secure, and no cleanup required.Retool is the leading enterprise AppGen platform, powering how the world's most innovative companies build the tools that run their business. Over 10,000 organizations including Amazon, Stripe, Adobe, Brex, and Orangetheory Fitness use the platform to safely harness AI and their enterprise data to create governed, production-ready apps.Learn more at Retool.com/elc SHOW NOTES:SmartBear's evolution from individual tools to a connected ecosystem (3:34)The cultural shift toward vendor consolidation and avoiding context switching (5:39)Why "Jobs-to-be-Done" must drive the workflow, not just the tool capabilities (9:35)The shift in testing: Moving from "does it crash?" to "does it match intent?" in an AI world (14:26)The architectural difference between "AI Bolt-On" and "AI Native" products (20:44)The levels of autonomy: A framework for moving from manual control to autonomous testing (24:10)Designing for different customer personas: Addressing security, policy, and AI readiness (30:01)Rapid Fire Questions (32:50) LINKS AND RESOURCES Books MentionedOwn the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins.The Leader You Want to Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self--Every Day by Amy Jen Su.SmartBear Tools & ProductsSmartBear[**Reflect**](https://reflect.run/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=smartbear.com&utm_campaign=prodnav&_gl=1*4gpwr4*_gcl_au*MTAzOTk0MjM2LjE3Njk0NjU4NTA.) – Mentioned as their "AI Native" product for autonomous testing.Zephyr Scale – Mentioned regarding the Atlassian ecosystem integration.[**QMetry**](https://www.qmetry.com/?_gl=1*1d5sv56*_gcl_au*MTAzOTk0MjM2LjE3Njk0NjU4NTA.) – Recently acquired test management product.[**Swagger**](https://swagger.io/product/?_gl=1*gtu348*_gcl_au*MTAzOTk0MjM2LjE3Njk0NjU4NTA.) – Mentioned as the suite for API design and compliance. 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tyson Singer (Head of Tech & Platforms @ Spotify) joins us to unpack how Spotify is transforming its product development lifecycle across creation, experimentation and maintenance to shift from "localized speed" to "systematic speed." We explore why the industry's current obsession with the "Build It" phase of development is shortsighted, and how Spotify is aggressively deploying AI in the "Think It" (prototyping/strategy) and "Maintain It" (fleet management) phases. Tyson also details the internal tools driving this shift, including AiKA and Honk, and shares why the future of engineering relies on moving from I-shaped specialists to T-shaped generalists. ABOUT TYSON SINGERTyson Singer is the SVP of Technology & Platforms at Spotify, where he leads technology infrastructure, developer experience, cybersecurity, and finance IT. Tyson is the executive behind Spotify's internal developer portal, Backstage, and Spotify's experimentation system, Confidence, which are now both commercially available. He has a background as an engineer, architect, and product lead, and he holds a Master's in Computer Science from Stanford University. Tyson is also an avid outdoor adventurer. This episode is brought to you by Retool!What happens when your team can't keep up with internal tool requests? Teams start building their own, Shadow IT spreads across the org, and six months later you're untangling the mess…Retool gives teams a better way: governed, secure, and no cleanup required.Retool is the leading enterprise AppGen platform, powering how the world's most innovative companies build the tools that run their business. Over 10,000 organizations including Amazon, Stripe, Adobe, Brex, and Orangetheory Fitness use the platform to safely harness AI and their enterprise data to create governed, production-ready apps.Learn more at Retool.com/elc SHOW NOTES:Tyson's 9-year journey @ Spotify: From the "crucible" of hyper-growth to leading Tech & Platforms (3:46)The pivot from "localized speed" to "systematic speed" (7:27)Core principles of Spotify's Platform org: Partnering with customers & "Taking the pain away" (10:37)The "Think it, Build it, Ship it, Tweak it" lifecycle framework & why the industry obsession with "Build It" (coding agents) is missing the bigger picture (14:57)How Spotify is investing in the "Think It" phase: AI prototyping with deep business context (16:49)AiKA (AI Knowledge Assistant): Context engineering for humans and bots (18:47)"Honk": Spotify's internal framework for large-scale automated code changes (22:17)Addressing the decline of code quality and the bottleneck of human PR reviews (25:50)Probabilistic vs. Deterministic code reviews: A new approach to quality checks (29:43)Identifying bottlenecks to company value outside of R&D (Legal, Licensing, etc.) (32:12)Why systems change is fundamentally about people and identity shifts (35:57)Rapid fire questions (38:49) 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It started with a simple idea from James Tyack: “What if we hosted a hackathon at ELC Annual?” The result was a unique experiment where 14 senior engineering leaders stepped away from strategy to build and ship functioning apps in one weekend, unlocking new insights on AI-native workflows, "vibe coding," and the future of engineering. In this episode, we deconstruct the entire hackathon operational playbook, sharing lessons on everything from “best failure awards” and async collaboration structures to structuring ideation periods for maximum business alignment. Beyond the logistics, we explore how getting hands-on helped these leaders overcome imposter syndrome and why "rolling up your sleeves" is now a prerequisite for leading effective engineering teams. Plus, James shares how he plans to evolve the hackathon format at ELC and beyond. If you've been curious about leveraging hackathons to drive innovation, expose your team to new tools, or evolve how your org builds, this episode provides the blueprint for successful implementation. ABOUT JAMES TYACKJames is an engineering manager with a passion for people, technology, and learning. He's built and led distributed, diverse teams of engineers across locations and timezones for 10 years. James believes strongly in the value of diversity and championing a sense of belonging for everyone, from day 1. He's well versed in growth strategy, chaos engineering, major incident response, and blameless practice, and culture grounded by trust and psychological safety. He leads the Growth Acquisition team at Coursera where he's proud to be part of an organization that's transforming lives through learning. Previously, James enjoyed building and leading the Growth and Integrations engineering teams at PagerDuty. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:The results of ELC's first-ever hackathon: 14 leaders shipping fully functional apps (2:21)The “Scrappy” beginning: Extending the invitation and early community engagement (4:50)The most surprising insights: Problem solving for “life outside of work” and micromanaging AI agents (5:42)Navigating the shifting boundaries between product, engineering, and management roles (8:43)James' personal journey: Building 5 apps in 5 hours to stay relevant and relatable (10:05)Deconstructing the Hackathon structure: The “Take-Home Assignment” approach (16:16)The Hall of Fame: Creating artifacts to recognize contribution (18:00)Iterating on the format: Pivots made for the next hackathon iteration at Coursera (18:47)The importance of a 2-week ideation period for alignment (20:59)A recap of the playbook: Seeding ideas, easy tooling, and safe deployment (22:15)The future of hackathons: Cross-functional participation beyond engineering (26:46)Rapid Fire Questions (28:15) This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! Bill Coughran (Partner @ Sequoia Capital & former SVP of Engineering @ Google) and Bret Reckard (Talent Partner @ The General Partnership) deconstruct the evolving role of engineering leadership in an era dominated by AI hype. Bill is a legendary leader who joined Google right after the .com bubble and has seen every major industry shift since. Drawing on his experience scaling Google and advising world-class startups, Bill shares why the best leaders are "catastrophic thinkers," how to balance servant leadership with the need for decisive action, and why AI is forcing every leader to return to their technical roots. Plus they cover enduring companies and real value capture in the AI era, the nuances of organizational design, the "apprentice model" for mentorship and the dangers of over-layered hierarchies that stifle speed. Bill also provides a candid look at leadership transitions, offering a tactical guide for those moving from Big Tech to early-stage startups. ABOUT BILL COUGHRANBill Coughran works as a founders' coach and partner at Sequoia Capital to help build spectacular technology-centric companies. Previously, Bill was Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google with oversight of Chrome, YouTube, maps, google.com, underlying infrastructure systems, and security.ABOUT BRET RECKARDBret Reckard is Talent Partner at The General Partnership (TheGP), a hands-on venture firm working alongside ambitious founders in talent, engineering, go-to-market, and product. He leads TheGP's Talent vertical, matching foundational leaders, early engineers, and key specialists across the portfolio. Before this role, Bret spent over a decade at Sequoia Capital leading Talent and Network, where he helped hundreds of founders at companies like Stripe, Confluent, Retool and DoorDash build their early teams. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:Introduction and Bill Coughran's background at Sequoia and Google (1:36)Hiring pitfalls and the biggest mistakes made as a leader (3:49)Managing crises: Acting as a dictator during the 2010 Google hack (5:25)Building for the AI world without chasing "shiny objects" (7:09)Developing context: How to learn AI without relying on LLM summaries (9:02)Identifying enduring companies and real value capture in the AI era (10:53)The debate on coding assistants and the future of junior engineering talent (13:23)Transitions: Making the leap from large organizations to early-stage startups (15:59)Staying curious and finding excitement in the next professional challenge (18:23) LINKS AND RESOURCESLink to the video for this sessionLink to all ELC Annual 2025 sessions 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! OpenAI evolved from a pure research lab into the fastest-growing product in history, scaling from 100 million to 700 million weekly users in record time. In this episode, we deconstruct the organizational design choices and cultural bets that enabled this unprecedented velocity. We explore what it means to hire "extreme generalists," how AI-native interns are redefining productivity, and the real-time trade-offs made during the world's largest product launches. Featuring Sulman Choudhry (Head of ChatGPT Engineering) and Samir Ahmed (Technical Lead), moderated by Lawrence Bruhmeller (Eng Management @ Sigma). ABOUT SULMAN CHOUDHRYSulman leads ChatGPT Engineering at OpenAI, driving the development and scaling of one of the world's most impactful AI products. He pushes the boundaries of innovation by turning cutting‑edge research into practical, accessible tools that transform how people interact with technology. Previously at Meta, Sulman founded and scaled Instagram Reels, IGTV, and Instagram Labs, and helped lead the early development of Instagram Stories.He also brought MetaAI to Instagram and Messenger, integrating generative AI into experiences used by billions. Earlier in his career, Sulman was on the founding team that built and launched UberEATS from the ground up, helping turn it into a global food delivery platform. With a track record of marrying technical vision, product strategy, and large‑scale execution, Sulman focuses on building products that meaningfully change how people live, work, and connect.ABOUT SAMIR AHMEDSamir is the Technical Lead for ChatGPT at OpenAI, where he currently leads the Personalization and Memory efforts to scale adaptive, useful, and human-centered product experiences to over 700 million users. He works broadly across the OpenAI stack—including mobile, web, services, systems, inference, and product research infrastructure.Previously, Samir spent nine years at Snap, working across Ads, AR, Content, and Growth. He led some of the company's most critical technical initiatives, including founding and scaling the machine learning platform that powered nearly all Ads, Content, and AR workloads, handling tens of billions of requests and trillions of inferences daily.ABOUT LAWRENCE BRUHMELLERLawrence Bruhmuller has over 20 years of experience in engineering management, much of it as an overall head of engineering. Previous roles include CTO/VPE roles at Great Expectations, Pave, Optimizely, and WeWork. He is currently leading the core query compiler and serving teams at Sigma Computing, the industry leading business analytics company.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 and Masters in Mathematics and Engineering from Harvey Mudd College. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife and their three daughters. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:From research lab to record-breaking product: Navigating the fastest growth in history (4:03)Unpredictable scaling: Handling growth spurts of one million users every hour (5:20)Cross-stack collaboration: How Android, systems, and GPU engineers solve crises together (7:06)The magic of trade-offs: Aligning the team on outcomes like service uptime vs. broad availability (7:57)Why throwing models "over the wall" failed and how OpenAI structures virtual teams (11:17)Lessons from OpenAI's first intern class: Why AI-native new grads are crushing expectations (13:41)Non-hierarchical culture: Using the "Member of Technical Staff" title to blur the lines of expertise (15:37)AI-native engineering: When massive code generation starts breaking traditional CI/CD systems (16:21)Asynchronous workflows: Using coding agents to reduce two-hour investigations to 15 minutes (17:35)The mindset shift: How rapid model improvements changed how leaders audit and trust code (19:00)Predicting success: "Vibes-based" decision making and iterative low-key research previews (20:43)Hiring for high variance: Why unconventional backgrounds lead to high-potential engineering hires (22:09) LINKS AND RESOURCESLink to the video for this sessionLink to all ELC Annual 2025 sessions 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Brian Balfour (Founder & CEO @ Reforge) deconstructs the two core, interconnected challenges leaders face in the AI age: deciding what to build and evolving the Engineering, Product, Design workflow to deliver it. We cover why you should avoid “the local maxima trap” and siphon off "skunkworks" teams to take high-risk, AI-native bets. Brian provides the blueprint for the "Great Distribution Shift," detailing how to reshape your product from the ground up to avoid being left behind as platforms close, and how to emerge as a winner in the new AI landscape. Plus, learn how to rethink what to build, avoid commoditization, compress product discovery from weeks to hours, scale feature variations & prototypes, evolve products to solve harder classes of problems and shift specialist roles from "inboxes" to system builders. ABOUT BRIAN BALFOURBrian Balfour is the Founder & CEO of Reforge, which provides expert training and tools for AI-native product teams. Previously, he served as VP of Growth at HubSpot, spearheading launches like HubSpot CRM and building the growth team that propelled the company's next chapter. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:Brian's reaction to the 5:1 gap between AI coding usage and actual product quality challenges (1:57)Why your system only goes as fast as the slowest part, and how hyper-optimizing engineering moves bottlenecks elsewhere (4:53)The "Local Maxima" trap: Why turning designers and PMs into mediocre developers is a waste of opportunity cost (6:04)Siphoning off "Skunkworks" Teams for AI-Native Innovation (7:53)Moving from exploring two solution paths to ten by simulating "product reps" through AI prototyping (13:24)Reforge's AI-native suite (Build + Research): Scaling prototypes, feature variations and compressing product discovery & validation from weeks to hours (15:43)Case Study: How Captions evolved to solve harder classes of problems, using a creator-tool wedge to fund custom AI emotion-models for the media studio market (19:54)Case Study: How Shopify reframed support agents as multimodal "Business Advisors" to provide outsized value (22:24)Navigating the great distribution shift: Understanding the lifecycle from open platforms to closed ecosystems (25:10)The lifecycle of distribution shifts: Navigating the "Open Phase" growth to "Closed Phase" monetization w/ examples from Facebook, Google, and Apple (29:30)OpenAI, memory & context as moat, and why you need to reshape your product from the ground up to win in this distribution shift (31:16)Strategic de-risking for EPD leaders: Building proprietary moats through memory, context, and specialized workflows (32:51)Optimizing EPD workflows and structures: Separate high-risk "skunkworks" from core product optimization, lean cross-functional teams for faster iteration / decisions, and avoiding too many specialized roles (35:25)Dissolving the "Octagon of Specialists": Shifting researchers and PMMs from "inboxes" to builders of self-serve systems (36:57)The five types of product work and why there is no "one-size-fits-all" system for EPD (41:25)Rapid fire questions (43:25)LINKS AND RESOURCESAbout Reforge: Expert training & AI-powered tools for product teamsReforge Build: The prototyping tool discussed for exploring multiple feature variations without designer constraints.Reforge Research: The AI-interviewer tool used to compress user discovery and validation from weeks to hours.Reforge Insights: The platform that aggregates qualitative customer feedback into a self-serve system for EPD teams.Brian Balfour's Research & FrameworksBrianBalfour.com: Brian's personal blog featuring deep dives into growth and product strategy.The Next Great Distribution Shift: The foundational article explaining the lifecycle of open vs. closed platforms.The Four Fits Framework: A refresher on the system of Product-Market Fit, Product-Channel Fit, Channel-Model Fit, and Model-Market Fit.Reforge Strategic Deep DivesAI Disruption Risk Assessment: A guide for engineering leaders to determine if their product is at risk of being commoditized.Product-Market Fit (PMF) Collapse: How to identify and avoid the risk of your core product losing relevance in the AI era.MentionsInvest Like the Best podcastThis 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rajeev Rajan (CTO @ Atlassian) shares the leadership playbook he used to transform Atlassian's engineering culture, and how that cultural foundation directly powered the build and launch of Rovo (Atlassian's new AI powered app). We cover how they reduced ship time from 120 days to zero, why “developer joy” is the metric that matters, and how to create a community of developer productivity champions to scale DevEx transformation. Rajeev also breaks down his principles for systematizing autonomy and empowerment, including frameworks for giving direct reports more ownership. Plus, a look at the future of Atlassian's “Systems of Work”! ABOUT RAJEEV RAJANRajeev Rajan is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Atlassian. Rajeev joined the company in May 2022 and is responsible for Atlassian Engineering, IT, Security and Trust, and the Engineering Operations teams. His focus areas include the company's continued transformation to Cloud, Developer Platform, and Product lines. Additionally, he is passionate about continuing to develop Atlassian's world-class engineering organization and making it a top choice for aspiring engineering talent worldwide.A long-time resident of Washington state, Rajeev previously acted as the Vice President and Head of Engineering for Facebook and Head of Office for Meta in the Pacific Northwest Region. Prior to Meta, Rajeev spent more than two decades with Microsoft, first joining as an intern in 1994. During his time there, he worked on many products, culminating in Office 365 where he built and led the team responsible for all of the Cloud Infrastructure for Office 365.Rajeev is married with two children and a spunky yellow lab named Rayna. He is very involved in and passionate about a number of efforts that uplift the local community, ranging from the arts to STEM programs. SHOW NOTES:The "Listening Tour": Grounding leadership in reality and identifying friction points (3:52)The Confluence Editor story: Reducing ship time from 120 days to 0 (6:26)Moving beyond productivity: Why "Developer Joy" is the metric that matters (8:45)Creating a community of Developer Productivity Champions and the power of a Productivity Summit (13:44)Elevating productivity to a company-level OKR and measuring qualitative sentiment (17:12)Leadership framework: Deciding when to "manage through people" vs. "manage through process" (19:05)How to give more direct ownership / responsibility to a DRI (23:03)Alignment conversations about prioritizing developer joy & productivity (24:22)Challenges faced during Atlassian's developer joy transformation journey (26:23)How the "Developer Joy" foundation enabled building Rovo in just 6 months (30:02)The "System of Work": Expanding Jira's utility beyond engineering to finance, marketing, and legal (33:22)Rapid Fire Questions (40:48) 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/5 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Synopsis: This episode is proudly sponsored by Quartzy. What happens when engineering discipline, business pragmatism, and breakthrough immunology collide? In this episode of Biotech 2050, host Alok Tayi sits down with Jay Hartenbach, President & COO of Diakonos Oncology, to unpack one of the most unconventional—and promising—approaches in cancer immunotherapy today. Jay traces his journey from biomedical engineering into biotech operations, sharing how Diakonos was built outside the traditional venture playbook and why the company chose to tackle two of the most punishing cancers first: glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer. He reveals how Diakonos' dual-loading dendritic cell platform creates an exponentially stronger immune response—essentially tricking the body into launching a viral-level attack against cancer. From capital-efficient clinical execution to nontraditional fundraising and early signs of durable patient responses, this conversation offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how bold science, disciplined operations, and relentless persistence can reshape what's possible in oncology. Biography: Jay Hartenbach is a distinguished leader in the biotechnology and wellness sectors, known for his passionate commitment to advancing innovative healthcare solutions and transforming patient outcomes. He currently serves as President and Chief Operating Officer at Diakonos Oncology, where he is leading the team through the development and clinical advancement of pioneering immunotherapies targeting some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers, including glioblastoma and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.​ Since joining Diakonos Oncology, Jay has been instrumental in achieving significant milestones such as attaining FDA Fast Track and Orphan Drug Designation for the company's lead candidate, DOC1021, securing greater than $30 million in financing, and establishing research collaborations with leading cancer centers to advance the clinical trials of the company's novel dendritic cell vaccine platform. Before his role at Diakonos, Jay co-founded Medterra, a globally recognized wellness company that set industry standards for quality and innovation, and where he continues to serve as Chairman of the Board, shaping high-level strategic direction. He also co-founded Perland Pharmaceuticals, an early-stage biotech firm focused on developing therapies for arthritis conditions, and has held leadership and board advisory roles across several life sciences ventures.​ Jay holds a degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Miami and a Master of Engineering Management from Duke University, grounding his entrepreneurial leadership with scientific expertise.

In this episode, Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer @ Monday.com) shares how they are evolving their engineering roles from developers to builders & system designers, where the lines between product, engineering, and design are intentionally blurred, and developers manage AI Agents as team members, tackling an ever-expanding list of projects. We explore the shift from "developer" to "system designer" and why managing AI agents requires the same skills as managing people. Plus, a case study where the Monday.com team leveraged AI agents to decompose a monolith, autonomously manage the project board and assign strategic / high-risk tasks to humans. ABOUT DANIEL LEREYADaniel Lereya has served as Chief Product and Technology Officer at monday.com since 2023. In this role, he focuses on advancing monday.com's multi-product vision and operational efficiencies while driving execution to support company growth. Previously, he was Vice President of R&D and Product, leading global teams in shaping and executing the company's product strategy through innovation and technology. Before joining monday.com, Daniel held leadership and engineering roles at IBM and SAP. SHOW NOTES:The three core principles of monday.com's culture: Ownership, Transparency, and Speed of Execution (3:59)How AI acts as an accelerant to implement these cultural principles at scale (8:36)Why the “Developer” role is evolving into a “Strategic Builder” and “System Designer” (13:47)Breaking silos: How the “Builder” role blurs the lines between product, engineering, and design (17:13)Real-world example: A designer using AI to submit code and fix UI issues independently (19:09)Case Study: The “Agent Factory” & how a weekend prototype by one leader shifted the product roadmap (21:25)Operationalizing transparency: Using internal tools (“Big Brain”) to align every builder on daily business impact (25:58)The “Kickoff Meeting” framework: A strict protocol for falling in love with the problem, not the solution (32:26)The new management paradigm with AI agents as team members (37:31)Rapid fire questions (42:09) 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! The true promise of AI isn't in replicating human intelligence. It's in developing entirely new forms of non-human intelligence that perceive and understand the world in fundamentally different ways. Jamie Lien (Co-Founder and Chief Scientist @ Archetype AI) and Rashi Agarwal (Head of AI Engineering @ GoodLeap) explore the emergence of "Physical AI" - machines that sense the world through modalities beyond human biology to form internal representations free from our biases. This means building machines that can directly sense the physical world through modalities beyond human biology, form their own internal representations and interpretations free from our biases, and then translate that understanding back to us in human terms. ABOUT JAIME LIENJaime Lien, Ph.D. is Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Archetype AI, a pioneering startup advancing Physical AI, artificial intelligence that understands the real world through real-time sensor data fusion.With over a dacade of experience in radar-based sensing, signal processing, and hardware engineering, Jaime's career bridges cutting-edge research and consumer-ready innovation. Before Archetype, she led radar sensing development for Google ATAP's Project Soli and contributed wireless communication and localization expertise at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ABOUT RASHI AGRAWALRashi Agrawal is Head of AI Engineering at GoodLeap, where she leads enterprise-wide AI initiatives that deliver real business impact. An accomplished speaker, she covers the latest in AI, including context engineering, evaluations, and multi-agent collaboration, while driving Applied AI innovation in the enterprise. Previously, she scaled engineering teams at Yahoo, advancing its multibillion-dollar advertising business. A passionate world traveler to 40+ countries, Rashi brings global perspective and energy to her leadership and storytelling. SHOW NOTES:Archetype AI's mission: Building a foundation model for physical reality (2:24)The potential for discovery: Using AI to observe phenomena humans cannot perceive (3:36)Augmentation vs. Replacement: Giving humans "superpowers" rather than automating them away (5:48)The "Perfect Storm" for Physical AI: Transformers, self-supervised learning, and commodity sensors (6:04)Defining “Non-Human Intelligence” and removing the constraints of human labels (8:34)Why language is inherently lossy and insufficient for true physical understanding (10:28)Real-world application: How Physical AI aids safety decision-making in the solar industry (12:35)Use case: Improving pedestrian safety and traffic signaling in Bellevue (14:51)The biggest engineering leadership challenge: Embracing the “messiness” of real-world data (16:21)Q&A: Why we shouldn't teach AI physical laws, but let it discover them (18:50)Q&A: Validating models when there is a defined ground truth vs. subjective language (20:49)Q&A: Compute requirements and the future of active learning at the edge (22:05) LINKS AND RESOURCESVideo version of Jaime and Rashi's session at ELC Annual 2025 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dr. Ruth Jones - Physicist and STEM AdvocateDr. Ruth Jones has over 25 years in the Aerospace Industry, skilled in Mishap Investigation, Optical Physics, and Engineering Management. She's also founded It's All About MEI, LLC, delivering speeches on topics like leadership, career development, and mindset. I'm curious to learn more about her founding It's All About MEI, her journey to get to where she is now, and how a Physics major embraced public speaking. To learn more about Dr. Jones, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/drruthjones/__TEACH THE GEEK (http://teachthegeek.com) Prefer video? Visit http://youtube.teachthegeek.comGet Public Speaking Tips for STEM Professionals at http://teachthegeek.com/tips

John Helveston of George Washington University discusses why a U.S. pullback from China on EVs is risky, and why engagement could strengthen America’s auto industry. --- China has rapidly become the center of global EV innovation, producing cars that are cheaper, faster to develop, and increasingly competitive in international markets. The United States, by contrast, is pulling back, eliminating incentives and pursuing policies that distance the country from China just as the global EV transition accelerates. George Washington University’s John Helveston, whose work focuses on global EV markets and China’s manufacturing system, argues that this course risks sidelining the U.S. from the technologies and supply chains shaping the automotive future. On the podcast, he explains why a more pragmatic approach that protects national security and workers while engaging with China’s central role in the EV ecosystem may be essential for America’s long-term position in the global auto industry. John Helveston is an associate professor in the department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at George Washington University. Related Content Electric Vehicle Penetration and Urban Spatial Restructuring: A Case Study of Beijing with Geospatial Machine Learning https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/electric-vehicle-penetration-and-urban-spatial-restructuring-a-case-study-of-beijing-with-geospatial-machine-learning/ Battling for Batteries: Li-Ion Policy and Supply Chain Dynamics in the U.S. and China https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/battling-for-batteries-li-ion-policy-and-supply-chain-dynamics-in-the-u-s-and-china/ Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to another episode of Road to CTO, our series where we sit down with some of the most experienced and influential technology leaders in the world.In this episode, we talk with Dorion Carroll, a veteran with 35 years of tech leadership experience, former CTO at Zynga, VP at Amazon, and one of the most insightful engineering minds in the industry.From scaling engineering teams from 280 to 3,600 people, to navigating billion-dollar decisions, to understanding what truly makes a great CTO, Dorion shares the lessons, stories and frameworks that shaped his extraordinary career.If you're an aspiring CTO, an engineering manager, or simply passionate about how world-class tech organisations operate behind the scenes, this is a masterclass.Support the show

Send us a textRick James is the Chief Executive Officer at SimuTech Group, North America's largest ANSYS Elite Channel Partner. With a 25+ year career at the intersection of mechanical and electrical engineering, he has spearheaded multi-million dollar projects, FEA analyses, drop testing, and reliability-driven design efforts in industries from semiconductors to medical devices.Holding a Doctor of Engineering in Engineering Management and both BSME and MSME degrees from Southern Methodist University, Rick blends deep technical expertise with strategic insight. He began his career at Texas Instruments, tackling IC packaging and structural analysis, progressing through leadership roles at Sulzer, and later heading consulting services at SimuTech.At SimuTech, Rick leads a multidisciplinary team offering simulation and physical testing services across a vast range of disciplines—including structural, thermal, fluids, RF/electromagnetics, optics, VR/AR, and probabilistic design—to “solve the unsolvable.” He is passionate about simulation-driven innovation, the rise of digital twins, and elevating engineering through mentoring and workflow optimization.His thought leadership extends to speaking engagements on fracture mechanics, predictive maintenance, and digital twin methodologies. Rick also serves on Southern Methodist University's Mechanical Engineering Industrial Advisory Board, shaping the future of engineering education.LINKS:Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardjames/Guest website: https://simutechgroup.com/ Aaron Moncur, hostAbout Being An Engineer The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community. The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

James Reggio (CTO @ Brex) shares the story of "Brex 3.0", an 18-month journey behind their operational evolution. We explore how they rewound their org from a Series E to a Series C mindset, and replaced siloed OKRs with seasonal "marquee initiatives." James deconstructs the “Brex Hacker House”, an AI-focused startup within a startup experiment aimed to disrupt their core business. This conversation is all about evolving operational rhythms, layers of management, product building, and culture change! ABOUT JAMES REGGIOJames Reggio is Brex's Chief Technology Officer. James is a forward thinking technology leader who currently oversees Brex's entire Engineering org. James joined Brex in 2020 as Principal Engineer and has played a vital role in building the company's mobile app and AI capabilities. Prior to Brex, James had an extensive career as a Software Engineer at leading companies such as Microsoft, Salesforce, AirBnB, Stripe and more. Additionally, James founded two companies: Altair Management and Banter, a social discovery platform for podcasts that was later acquired by Convoy in 2018. James received his B.A. of Science from The University of Texas Austin. SHOW NOTES:The birth of Brex 3.0: Using a layoff as a "moment to refound the company" (3:38)Moving from a Series E to a Series C operational mindset (5:28)The problem with a GM model: How siloed OKRs and roadmaps created "deadlock" (6:07)New rituals: Why the CEO became "chief editor of the roadmap" (8:16)The impact on morale: "Folks just knew how their work fit into the bigger picture" (11:16)The challenge of the new model: Who do you hold accountable when you "win and lose as a team"? (13:43)The lesson for reintroducing systems: "Less is more" (15:43)The "Startup within a Startup": Launching an internal team to disrupt Brex (16:49)“What if we were founding Brex again today?” The 4 constraints for the "Hacker House" experiment (17:58)Questions eng leaders should ask when running a similar experiment to Brex (21:02)Aha moment: "With agentic coating, code is so cheap" (22:35)Managing the two narratives: "compounding" the core biz vs. “innovating" with AI (26:01)A surprising dynamic: Why the AI team struggled to see their impact (while the core team didn't) (29:38)Building alongside your customer to iterate / experiment faster (36:06)The turnaround is over: Brex hits 50% YoY growth and cash-flow positive (38:45)Rapid fire questions (42:10) 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In today's technology landscape, management as a skill is becoming more complex as teams become larger & managers must navigate the balance between relationships and strategic execution. So how can AI tools help managers level up their game? Jonathan Raymond (Founder & CEO @ Ren) shares insights that can help managers navigate their modern-day invisible cognitive loads. We cover how AI can be used to enhance – not replace – inherently human skillsets, the three components that make up an effective manager / employee relationship, product-building principles for building relational systems, and using AI to guide rather than provide concrete answers.ABOUT JONATHAN RAYMONDJonathan Raymond is the CEO at Refound and author of the award winning book, Good Authority. In 2018, he was named one of Inc. Magazine's top 100 leadership speakers. Refound trains leaders how to give effective feedback and create a culture of accountability. The former CEO of EMyth, Jonathan has led business transformation projects in technology, renewable energy, and the coaching industry. He's a half-decent barista, a bad-but-enthusiastic surfer, and will never give up on the New York Knicks.SHOW NOTES:Jonathan's perspective on the impossible cognitive load & colliding pressures of modern managers (2:31)The complicated workflow it takes to be a great manager (6:05)“Field Intelligence” and the need to ingest non-technical data such as (mood, sentiment, and alignment) to make better leadership decisions (9:52)The managerial matrix: high/low performers and the 10-person team that feels like 50 (12:46)The cost of mismanaging your team & why it's so easy to get it wrong (16:02)What's uniquely human vs. where AI provides leverage (18:01)AI's role: detecting signal and prompting human reflection (21:04)The “Growth Loop”: a 3-part system for effective leadership (27:20)Incorporating AI tools to enhance the manager / employee relationship (31:20)The future vision: an “in-ear” AI coach that closes the gap between learning and applying (33:09)Closing the gap between learning a new skill & it becoming an unconscious habit (35:59)Product Principle: Building a “Relational System,” not just a task manager (37:49)Product Principle: Why an AI coach must ask questions, not provide answers (40:50)How to harness AI tools for better emotional articulation / processing (45:11)A simple behavioral change to try this week (47:58)Rapid fire questions (49:57)LINKS AND RESOURCESGood Authority: How to Become the Leader Your Team is Waiting For - Jonathan's book in which he brings together what he has learned over a twenty-year journey as an executive, entrepreneur, team leader and leadership trainer.Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures - Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems.Jonathan's session at ELC Annual 2025This 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sudeendra's journey spans science, innovation, entrepreneurship, art, and acting. From filing patents to mentoring global teams, he shares how curiosity, creativity, and a stretch mindset drive human potential and shape the future of innovation.00:09- About Dr Sudeendra Thirtha KoushikSudeendra Koushik (Vice President, IEEE) is the Chief Innovator and Cofounder of PRASU, a unique consulting company.He advises major companies, such as Bosch, Continental, General Motors, Mercedes Benz, and Volvo, on delivering innovation by developing innovators. 

Businesses are spending millions on AI tools hoping to accelerate time-to-market but aren't seeing organizational-level results. Laura Tacho (CTO @ DX) explains why an "individual productivity" mindset fails and how AI merely accelerates the condition of the system it enters. She provides a framework for leaders to shift to a systems-level approach, find high-leverage ROI by looking outside the 20% of time spent coding, and understand what sets high-ROI orgs apart. Plus Laura shares data literacy tools to cut through the "whiplash" of conflicting AI reports and provides key considerations for 2026 budgeting, detailing where and how companies are planning to strategically invest.ABOUT LAURA TACHOLaura Tacho is CTO at DX, a developer experience company. She previously led teams at companies like CloudBees, Aula Education, and Nova Credit. She's an expert in building world-class engineering organisations that consistently deliver outstanding results. Laura has coached CTOs and other engineering leaders from startups to the Fortune 500, and also facilitates a popular course on metrics and engineering team performance.SHOW NOTES:Downsides to approaching organizational outcomes from an individual task level (2:59)Why individual product gains don't always equate to systems-level improvements (4:56)How the quality of existing systems impacts the improvements AI can foster (7:26)Strategies for shifting mental models from the individual to systems level (9:09)Implement training & enablement techniques as an organizational lever (11:22)Common workflows that can unlock new problem-solving methods (14:46)Understanding what impact you want to see / getting the most ROI from AI (18:40)How to interpret the data when it comes to AI & its true ROI (21:22)AI data literacy for engineering leaders (23:06)Interpreting the meter study & what it means for engineers using AI (25:49)Quality vs. quantity when it comes to AI implementation on the org level (28:43)Characteristics that high-ROI companies possess when it comes to AI (30:35)Strategies to invest in that may lead to higher ROI (32:29)Laura's observations on time & money budgeting / investments for 2026 (35:28)Embracing cost savings & opportunity generation as an eng org (38:08)Tackling fear / uncertainty when it comes to AI adoption, budgeting, & ROI (40:01)LINKS AND RESOURCESPrevious Episode with Laura TachoIntroducing the AI Measurement Framework from DXAtlassian State of DevEx ReportMETR StudyDORA Report (2025)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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What happens to platform engineering when natural language becomes the primary interface to infrastructure? Miriam Aguirre (Co-founder & CEO @ Ingenimax) joins us to explore how AI is fundamentally reshaping platform strategy, team structures, and the very role of the platform engineer. We deconstruct the shift from tactical "how" to strategic "why" and explore what it means to lead and build resilient systems in this new paradigm.ABOUT MIRIAM AGUIRREMiriam Aguirre is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ingenimax, the company behind StarOps, an AI-powered platform engineering engine that helps teams deploy and manage kubernetes and other cloud-native systems in minutes, not months. Before Ingenimax, Miriam served as CTO and engineering leader at two startups that successfully scaled from early stage through IPO. Her career spans deep expertise in high-throughput, scalable systems and machine learning, with a focus on building the technical and organizational foundations for hypergrowth. Miriam is passionate about engineering leadership that turns complex technology into intuitive, reliable platforms, and about helping teams scale without losing their soul. ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI AgentsSo you've invested in AI agents for code generation, but they're limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev SHOW NOTES:The Origin Story of Ingenimax (3:05)The recurring scaling problem: Why "scaling teams" means scaling systems first (5:23)How the age of AI forces platform strategy to evolve earlier in a company's journey (8:48)The decline of vendor lock-in and the rising appetite for experimentation with tech (10:56)The paradigm shift that breaks the old model: natural language as the new interface (14:11)Why deep knowledge of fundamentals is now more important than syntax (16:56)Shifting requirements conversations from tactical inputs to strategic outcomes (20:22)Balancing standardization and flexibility with guardrails in an AI-driven environment (22:58)The challenge of getting from an AI prototype to a polished product (26:42)How platform team roles will evolve to focus more on curation (29:32)How to become a great technology curator (37:30)Rapid Fire Questions (39:56)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Book of George - From the author of the critically acclaimed Laura & Emma comes a The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. for our times: Kate Greathead's razor-sharp but big-hearted excavation of millennial masculinity.Can Animals and Machines Be Persons?: A Dialogue - This is a dialogue about the notion of a person, of an entity that thinks and feels and acts, that counts and is accountable. Equivalently, it's about the intentional idiom --the well-knit fabric of terms that we use to characterize persons. Human beings are usually persons (a brain-dead human might be considered a human but not a person). However, there may be persons, in various senses, that are not human beings. Much recent discussion has focused on hypothetical computer-robots and on actual nonhuman great apes. The discussion here is naturalistic, which is to say that count and accountability are, at least initially, presumed to be naturally well-knit with the possession of a cognitive and affective life.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, we're addressing one of the biggest challenges current eng leaders are facing – balancing yesterday's constraints with tomorrow's potential! Chrystal Henke Ball (VP of Engineering @ Yahoo) shares insights on why it's important to constantly challenge your assumptions and how vision can sometimes work as a bottleneck for your organization. We dissect how the traditional product lifecycle is evolving to become more fluid and what that means for the collaborative relationship between product, eng, and design. Additionally, Chrystal defines grit, why it's important for leaders to model it, and strategies for cultivating the trait within your eng team in order to move past short-term challenges and focus on long-term goals! ABOUT CHRYSTAL HENKE BALLChrystal Henke Ball a seasoned engineering leader, currently serving as VP of Engineering at Yahoo, where she leverages her experience to accelerate product development across core products such as Yahoo.com and the Yahoo News app. Prior to Yahoo, she led engineering organizations at Google Search, Pandora, Pachama, and Arcadis, building highly available systems, guiding architectural transitions, spearheading novel solutions, and delivering delightful user experiences. Chrystal excels at designing purpose-driven, scalable architectures, streamlining development processes, and mentoring teams to work effectively and openly together. ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI AgentsSo you've invested in AI agents for code generation, but they're limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev SHOW NOTES:Navigating the challenge of balancing constraint vs. innovation (3:05)Considerations for balancing current capabilities w/ your roadmap to change (4:34)Frameworks for categorizing what's fixed vs. in flux to aid decision-making (6:14)Conversation points for checking your assumptions (7:36)The new leadership challenge: vision as a bottleneck (14:45)Evolving feedback loops to address a more fluid product lifecycle (19:43)Defining product vision in today's fast-paced, fluid landscape (23:57)Defining grit as an essential trait & ways to cultivate it as an eng leader (31:57)Building AI-incorporated products with trust as a foundational principle (40:46)Rapid fire questions (43:01) LINKS AND RESOURCESTalking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know - Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong.Terrestrials - A show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone. 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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How do you apply your leadership skills to a new, mission-driven industry and effectively lead teams across multiple technical domains? In this episode, Simone Kalmakis (VPE @ Viam) shares her playbook for successfully transitioning between industries from health-tech and climate to her current work in robotics and AI. We deconstruct the leadership models she uses to prioritize her time, manage multiple technical experts, and why she focuses on "depth with 1-2 teams > breadth". Plus, her framework for onboarding in a new domain, the lifecycle of a leadership "deep dive," and communication practices that build trust and empower your entire organization to stay aligned and motivated.ABOUT SIMONE KALMAKISSimone Kalmakis is the VP of Engineering at Viam, a platform unlocking AI, data, and automation for devices in the physical world. She has deep experience applying AI and machine learning to big data and big missions, and is known for building healthy engineering organizations that drive business value and real-world progress.Prior to Viam, Simone was Senior Director of Engineering at Arcadia, a climate tech company building an API platform for residential utility data to power solutions that fight climate change. Before that, she served as Director of Engineering at Flatiron Health, where she helped accelerate the development of cancer treatments through real-world data.Simone began her career at Microsoft, developing machine-learned relevance algorithms for Bing. She's also a successful founder––after Microsoft, she built and sold Symbi, a roommate-matching startup. She holds a degree in Mathematics and Economics from Yale University. ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI AgentsSo you've invested in AI agents for code generation, but they're limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections!

"If we were building Box today, what would we do?” Ben Kus (CTO @ Box) deconstructs their playbook for enterprise AI innovation. We cover their journey to reimagine & reorient the company to a new technical vision, how they run a “multi-speed” org that balances startup agility and & enterprise-grade stability, and their “platform first” approach to build AI features. Ben also explains why security/compliance was foundational from "day negative one" in their AI strategy, the evolution of agentic AI, determining the right guardrails for AI agents & the future of multi-agent systems, enterprise trends & more. ABOUT BEN KUSBen Kus is the Chief Technology Officer at Box, where he leads technology and AI strategy to help enterprises securely unlock insights from their unstructured data. Ben's career spans engineering, product leadership, and startup innovation—including co-founding Subspace (acquired by Box) and being an early employee at BigFix (acquired by IBM), where he later served as Chief Architect of Mobile Security. Ben holds a degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI AgentsSo you've invested in AI agents for code generation, but they're limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections!

BONUS: The Platform-as-Product Revolution: How to Turn Your Biggest Cost Center Into Your Secret Weapon With Alvaro Lorente In this BONUS episode we explore a topic that's creating a lot of discussion—and sometimes confusion—in the software community: Platform Teams vs DevOps. In this conversation, we dive into Alvaro Lorente's journey from delivery teams to platform leadership, exploring how to treat platforms as products, avoid common pitfalls, and build bridges between engineering and product leadership. The Evolution from DevOps Role to Platform Team "DevOps is a culture, not a role." Alvaro's journey into platform work began when he joined a company where the infrastructure team was left behind and struggling with traditional DevOps approaches. Initially, they had a single DevOps person who became a bottleneck rather than an enabler. This experience highlighted a fundamental misunderstanding that many organizations face—treating DevOps as a job title rather than a cultural shift toward collaboration and shared responsibility. The team experimented with a "DevOps buddy" approach, placing experienced individuals within each delivery team, before eventually consolidating into a dedicated platform team with the clear intention of treating it as a product-focused unit. Platform as a Product: A Scaling Strategy "Platform as a product is a scaling strategy. Look for common problems that you can then solve once, and serve many." The concept of treating platforms as products emerged from recognizing that feature delivery teams have continuity and ongoing needs that a platform team should serve. Rather than solving their own problems first, successful platform teams focus on making other teams' work easier and more comfortable while managing costs effectively. This approach requires identifying common problems across multiple teams and creating solutions that can be implemented once but serve many. The key insight is that platform teams exist to facilitate the delivery of value in a scalable way for other teams, not to pursue their own technical interests. Understanding Your Customer and Validating Value "I want to see platform team members talking to their customers. Understand their pains, and what they struggle with." Effective platform teams operate like any other product team by actively listening to their customer-teams rather than pushing ideas onto them. This means platform team members should regularly engage with their internal customers to understand pain points and struggles. Success requires defining clear KPIs for the platform and focusing on the quality of deliverables including release notes, demos, bug fixing processes, and feature prioritization. The validation comes from observing whether teams willingly adopt platform features rather than being mandated to use them. Building Bridges with Product Leadership "Focus on the key impact and value that the platform team can bring to the company." Making the case for investing product talent in platform teams requires demonstrating concrete business value. This includes quantifying how many incidents are being resolved faster or prevented entirely, and highlighting the money saved through internal platform development versus external solutions. Platform work offers excellent growth opportunities for Product Owners, serving as a training ground for product thinking and stakeholder management. The focus should always be on measurable impact rather than technical complexity. Avoiding Common Platform Team Traps "Don't just start working on what you think is important! Start with the Product process, listen to the client-teams, and help them directly." When standing up a platform team, several critical mistakes can derail success. The most important trap to avoid is immediately diving into what the platform team thinks is important without first understanding customer needs. Platform teams should resist delivery pressure that might compromise quality and never mandate adoption of their features—teams should want to use what the platform provides. Treating the platform as a genuine product with quality standards is essential, and leaders should view the creation of a platform team as the beginning of a change management process rather than just a technical reorganization. Resources and Continuous Learning "One size does NOT fit all!" For teams looking to improve their platform work, Alvaro recommends Camille Fournier's work on platform teams and resources focused on "The value of product thinking in platform teams." The key is to get experiments running within your team and recognize that there's no universal solution—each organization must find its own path based on its unique context and needs. About Alvaro Lorente Currently Director of Engineering at Voxel (an Amadeus company), Alvaro is a software engineer who has grown in the people leadership path, experimenting with everything from product development to startups and open source projects. He embraces the idea of being a jack of all trades, helping wherever needed to drive value and impact. You can connect with Alvaro Lorente on LinkedIn and follow his insights through his Substack newsletter titled Leads Horizons.

Engineering leadership is undergoing a seismic shift, requiring playbooks to be rewritten, in real-time. In this special episode, hosts Patrick Gallagher and Jerry Li give you an inside look at the ELC Annual 2025 experience, and how the two-day conference will equip you with new mental models, skills, and frameworks required to lead.Get a preview of tactical takeaways from deep operational dives into companies like OpenAI, Amplitude, and HeyGen. Discover how the conference will help you redesign your innovation engine, transform your team's workflows, and blur the lines between engineering, product, and business to drive impactful change. Through a unique mix of tactical sessions, peer-led roundtables, and curated mentorship, you'll learn how to find the community and coaching needed to lead through uncertainty and invest in your own career growth.To learn more & get tickets, go to sfelc.com/annual2025Use code podcast15 for 15% off tickets - group tickets / discounts available. ABOUT ELC ANNUALThe playbook for engineering leadership is being rewritten. ELC Annual 2025, happening September 10-11 in San Francisco, is where you'll gain the insights, strategies, and deep connections needed to lead in this new era. 50+ speakers, 50+ peer-led roundtables discussions, 1:1 matching to expand your network. Insights, connections & support.Join the community of engineering leaders who are co-creating the future of our field.Listener Discount → Use code podcast15 for 15% offGroup Tix → For teams looking to attend together, special group discounts can be found under the 'Tickets' section of our website!Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2025 ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI AgentsSo you've invested in AI agents for code generation, but they're limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections!

James Phoenix is an expert in agentic coding, particularly Claude code, a tool that I have been using to great effect over the last couple months. I chatted with James just a couple days ago and have implemented several of the tips that he gave me during a conversation, and I'm already almost twice as effective at using this already magically effective tool. So I don't think I can overpromise how much insight into well-structured and highly optimized agentic coding you will get from this conversation. This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.comThe blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/james-phoenix-claude-code-masterclass/ The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/409-james-phoenix-claude-code-masterclassCheck out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fmSend me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvidYou'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.comPodcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcastNewsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletterMy book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.comHere are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

What if your engineering team didn't just write code, but owned product discovery, wrote the launch messaging, and handled early sales? In this episode, Michael Grinich, CEO and founder of WorkOS, deconstructs their playbook for collapsing the product/engineering stack: no design leads, only one PM, and engineers who own product end-to-end. Michael breaks down how they teach product thinking, build with deep customer insight, and why his most important job is often to "cut scope." You'll learn how to remove the "lossy translation layers" between teams, build a culture of curiosity and customer obsession, and ship higher-quality products, faster.ABOUT MICHAEL GRINICHMichael is the founder and CEO of WorkOS, a developer platform that enables companies to become Enterprise Ready through features like Single Sign-On (SAML). Their customers include many of the fastest-growing startups including Webflow, Drata, Loom, and +200 others. Before WorkOS, Michael co-founded Nylas and studied CS at MIT. ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI AgentsSo you've invested in AI agents for code generation, but they're limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections!

Influencing without authority is the hidden superpower of security leadership—and a crucial skill every engineering leader must master. In this episode, Srinath Kuruvadi (Head of Cloud Security @ JPMorgan Chase) breaks down how to influence without formal authority and advocate when ROI isn't immediately clear. We cover tactics for shaping problems from the POV of other stakeholders, Plus, strategies to establish shared outcomes, insights on optimizing your time, emerging AI x security trends, and how his team is operationalizing curiosity & experimentation through The Innovation Lab.ABOUT SRINATH KURUVADISrinath Kuruvadi is a globally recognized cybersecurity executive and cloud security leader with over two decades of experience driving security innovation at some of the world's most influential technology companies, including Netflix, Meta, Google, Lyft, and JPMorgan Chase. Currently serving as Managing Director and Head of Cloud Security at JPMorgan Chase, he leads the enterprise-wide security strategy across APIs, containers, and cloud platforms, shaping the future of banking technology.Srinath's approach blends deep technical expertise with executive-level risk management. At Netflix, he headed cloud security for one of the largest AWS environments globally, pioneering scalable governance and identity systems that supported massive data throughput. At Meta and Google, he led the development of custom infrastructure security systems protecting billions of users, including Facebook's Blackbird SIEM+SOAR platform.Beyond his executive roles, Srinath is a strategic advisor and angel investor, with five successful startup exits including Bridgecrew, Lightspin, Oxeye, Gem Security, and Kivera. He is also a trusted advisor to venture capital firms like YL Ventures and Glilot Capital Partners, and served on Amazon's Global CISO Advisory Council.He holds multiple patents in web application security, database protection, and abuse detection, and has authored research on algorithmic solutions in industrial systems. Srinath is also multilingual and committed to lifelong learning, exemplified by a sabbatical that took him to over 35 countries for cultural, linguistic, and creative growth.With a Master's degree in Computer Science from North Carolina State University and a Bachelor's from BITS Pilani, Srinath is known for transforming security from a blocker into a business accelerator.Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections!

I'm angry! A Once-UndocumentedImmigrant Speaks from the Heart-- Live Work with Sunny, Part 1 Sunny Choi is a beloved member of the TEAM community. He grew up in Hong Kong before emigrating with his family to the United States when he was 11 years old. He graduated from UCLA with a major in engineering, completed a master's degree in Engineering Management at Stanford, and developed a successful career in high tech Silicon Valley companies. However, he left his work to pursue additional graduate training in clinical social work because he discovered that his strongest call was to help individuals who were being marginalized by American culture and suffering. He then obtained an MSW degree with a specialty in Community Mental Health from California State University. We were fortunate when Sunny discovered and joined our free Stanford TEAM CBT training group, and blossomed into an expert TEAM therapist and beloved colleague and friend. Today, Dr. Jill Levitt and I worked with Sunny because he requested a session to work on his own troubled feelings concerning the recent political developments. He emphasized that he wanted to do personal work, rather than focusing too heavily on the current political controversies and battles. You can find the Daily Mood Log (DML) that Sunny prepared just prior to his session if you click here As you can see, at the top of his DML, he described the upsetting event as tearing up when he was teaching a class and discussing a case of a transgender Mexican American man, and he began reflecting on his own memories of growing up as a gay male and undocumented immigrant. Sadness and anger were the two strongest negative feelings (rated 70 and 80, respectively on a scale from 0 to 100), although he was also moderately anxious, guilty, rejected, hopeless, and frustrated. You can also see the ten negative thoughts he recorded on his DML, and how strongly he believed each one, on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 1000 (completely.). During the session he added three more thoughts: 11.  I (shouldn't be) living such a happy and pleasurable life when others are suffering. 70% 12.  I should be helping others more. 80% 13.  I have to figure out the correct way to be thinking and feeling. 50% At the start of the session, he said that he felt vulnerable and nervous discussing such personal feelings, memories, and thoughts. He also said that after doing much personal and professional work, he was generally happy and loving, but felt profoundly disturbed when he thought about so many people who are suffering. He said, “Many of my clients are being deported. And those who are gay are worried that they'll lose access to their medications.” These were the kinds of thoughts that triggered his feelings of guilt. During the empathy phase, Jill mentioned that she felt honored to be talking to Sunny today and proud to be a member of a community where you can reach out when you're suffering. She added that she felt torn, as I did, because it seemed to us that many of his negative thoughts were realistic, and not distorted, and that it makes sense to feel sad, anxious, worried, and angry. For example, his first negative thought on his DML was, “The world is much more unstable and dangerous now.” Sunny emphasized that most of the time he does feel happy, especially when involved with friends and family, and doing the things he loves. But then he gets confused and guilty, wondering if it is right to feel happy when things are looking so dark for so many people. It certainly makes sense to feel unhappy when, as Sunny said, some of his clients and friends have lost their jobs and people in the LGBTQ+ community are afraid they'll get deported. And we're all afraid to speak up and talk about diversity, which has become a dirty word that can get you into trouble. And when Sunny thinks about this, he feels profound sadness and compassion. But as previously noted, this has caused confusion for Sunny, and he struggles with feelings of guilt about the fact that he is truly happy so much of the time. He's happy about his beautiful life, his marriage, and more—this, in fact, is his happiest he's ever been. Here's how he puts it: “I used to be undocumented. The experience and the hostility and bias I confronted traumatized me. And when I heard Trump talk about all the ‘murders and rapists' invading our country from Mexico, I became tearful. I feel angry—they don't think we're human. “I want people to be more compassionate. . . . To say we're rapists and criminals, it's not okay. . . it's mean, and it's very harmful to mental health. . . . It's like repeatedly poking at someone who is recovering from a terrible wound, and it hurts.” Jill was touched, and found Sunny's vulnerability heart-warming, beautiful, and refreshing. Rhonda reminded us that unless we are Indigenous Native Americans, all Americans are descended from immigrants. In my own case, all my ancestors came from Sweden in the late 1800s during the potato famine. Sunny pointed out the European immigrants have not been discriminated against in the same way as the Africans, Asians, Latinos, Islamic, and dark-skinned individuals: “Let's be open. It's racism. I felt it right from the start.” Sunny gave us an A+ on empathy, and then we worked to set the agenda for the session. What did Sunny hope to get from the session? What did he want help with? What changes was he hoping for? He said: “Maybe my feelings are appropriate, but some may be too intense. My goal is to find peace; to have hope, and to try to do something to help. . . I want to feel proud of who I am and what I stand for. I want to try to be loving and compassionate, even to people who don't have the same beliefs and values. . . . Although that can be incredibly challenging!” When you listen to today's podcast, you will hear the T = Testing and E = Empathy portions of the session. Next week, you will hear the A = Paradoxical Agenda Setting and M = Methods portions along with the conclusion, including the final T = Testing to evaluate his end of session scores on the Brief Mood Survey and Evaluation of Therapy Session. Thank you for joining us. Rhonda, Jill, Sunny, and I appreciate all of you!