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Sarah Milstein, VPE @ Daily, joins us to discuss the most surprising aspect of remote teams – the opportunity for higher trust teams. She covers counterintuitive perspectives & non-obvious practices that can benefit distributed orgs, including why hard conversations can be easier when done remotely and how remote teams are less political & more productive than co-located teams. Sarah also dives into Daily's unique salary & promotion process and how eng leaders could implement this method into their teams. Lastly, we cover “swift trust” and Sarah's recommendations for creating the optimal conditions for it to thrive.ABOUT SARAH MILSTEINSarah (@SarahM) joined Daily as VP of Engineering, bringing 25 years of deep experience developing products, setting strategy, and leading teams at startups. Most recently, Sarah was VP of Engineering at ConvertKit. Prior to that, she was Senior Director of Engineering at Mailchimp. Sarah has extensive experience in media as a producer and author, having programmed, co-hosted, and managed conferences and trade shows, including the Web 2.0 Expo. Sarah holds an M.B.A. from University of California, Berkeley."Swift Trust is an idea from workplace psychology about teams that come together quickly counterintuitively often build higher levels of trust and do it with very little structure, and it turns out that actually the coming together quickly and the less structure are themselves some of the conditions that can help. It turns out that those are the kind of conditions that are often true in software development. Those conditions of it's clear what you're working on, everyone has a role, there's time involved, like some sense of timing. A lot of times those conditions are available to you but maybe not being used.”- Sarah Milstein Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You'll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:The most surprising aspect of working remotely: higher trust (3:24)Sarah's Slack experiment & how it revealed team dynamics (6:15)Additional benefits & accommodations provided by remote work (8:26)Non-obvious communication practices that benefit remote orgs (11:18)Strategies for having hard conversations one-on-one in a remote setting (13:52)Recommendations for facilitating big group conversations remotely (16:34)Why distributed teams are less political & more productive than co-located teams (18:58)Internal practices to reduce politics (21:48)How Daily's salary & promotion process works (23:40)Frameworks for aligning projects toward peoples' strengths within a remote team (27:04)Process for implementing a new salary & promotion model (30:28)Defining “swift trust” & creating conditions for it to be present (34:20)Benefits of creating agreements on how you're going to work as a team (37:04)Rapid fire questions (40:28)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Staff Engineer's Path - For years, companies have rewarded their most effective engineers with management positions. But treating management as the default path for an engineer with leadership ability doesn't serve the industry well--or the engineer. Tanya O'Reilly's staff engineer's path allows engineers to contribute at a high level as role models, driving big projects, determining technical strategy, and raising everyone's skills.Rethinking levels, promotions and salaries - Sarah's blog post on Daily's restructuring of levels, promotions, salaries, and how Daily approaches career compensation.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/
“Understand the stage of your company and the kind of risks you face at that stage, make decisions that are appropriate, and remind other people about that all the time." Sarah Milstein is the VP of Engineering at Daily and has run remote teams for 25 years. In this episode, Sarah started by sharing some remote work insights we may not have heard before, such as why remote distributed teams often have higher propensity of trust, how remote work could help make difficult conversations easier, and how leaders can establish swift trust by having more intentional communications. In the second half of our conversation, Sarah shared about her experience of leading engineers as someone from a non-tech background. She explained why a lack of technical expertise can sometimes be useful and pointed out some leadership qualities an engineering leader should have to balance out the need for technical acumen. Sarah also shared her few tips on how to upskill herself in technical stuffs and her perspective on whether a company should consider having non-tech engineering leaders. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:49] Remote Work Insights - [00:08:04] Propensity of Trust - [00:12:26] Working Back in Office - [00:15:39] Other Remote Work Insights - [00:17:36] Ingroup Bias - [00:20:47] Swift Trust & Intentional Communication - [00:23:21] Accountability - [00:28:28] Being an Engineering Leader from a Non-Tech Background - [00:30:50] Leadership Qualities - [00:33:31] Benefits of Non-Tech Background - [00:35:15] Self-Learning Technical Stuffs - [00:39:23] Company Accepting Non-Tech Engineering Leaders - [00:41:51] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:45:14] _____ Sarah Milstein's BioSarah Milstein is VP of Engineering at Daily, which lets developers add real-time video and audio to any app or website. Before Daily, Sarah held executive roles at ConvertKit, Mailchimp,18F.gov, and indie.vc. She was also CEO and co-founder of Lean Startup Productions and co-author of The Twitter Book. Earlier, she was a freelance journalist writing regularly for The New York Times. She holds an MBA from UC Berkeley and has run remote teams for 25 years. Follow Sarah: Website – sarahmilstein.com LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/sarahmilstein _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/130 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.
Sarah Milstein talks to Scott Hanselman about leading engineers as a non-engineer. They discuss how to build trust with engineers and how to communicate effectively with them. They also talk about how to manage technical projects when you're not a technical person yourself. Sarah Milstein is the VP of Engineering at Daily, a WebRTC Video PaaS. Sh'es also the co-founder of Lean Startup Productions and the author of The Twitter Book. Remote workLeading engineers as a non-engineer https://www.sarahmilstein.com/
In this episode, Laura interviews Sarah Milstein, VP of Engineering at Daily. They talk about how to position smaller companies to compete with the big corporations and be appealing even in a hot market. Drink Pairing: Lambrusco
In this very first live episode of Lead Time Chats, Jean Hsu, Range's VP of Engineering, chats with Sarah Milstein, VP of Engineering at ConvertKit, about how to set remote and hybrid teams up for success. Sarah and Jean discuss: The biggest challenges hybrid and remote teams face Tactical tips for making hybrid meeting inclusive The importance of exercising your team's experimentation muscle, as there's no one-size-fits-all answer for teamwork or meetings The role of equity in forming team and company policies about who can work remotely
From 2009 - Sarah Milstein, co-author of "The Twitter Book." This book was published just three years after Twitter was launched, at a time with most of the public had little or no understanding of what Twitter was or represented.
Panel discussion interview with Sarah Milstein, Sr. Director of Engineering at Mailchimp, and Tanisha Barnett, Director of Engineering at Mailchimp. They get into the details of holding skip level meetings, let them be one-on-ones or group meetings. Here's everything you'll ever need to know about why you want to have your own skip level meetings, what they look like, what questions to ask, how to break the ice, keep track of them all, and much more. Master skip level meetings to become a great engineering leader yourself! In this interview we're covering: Skip level meeting definition The reason they started doing skip level meetings Skip level one-on-one meeting and regular one-on-one comparison Choosing the people to schedule skip level meetings with Notifying the in-between manager about skip level meetings Skip level meetings' role at Mailchimp's engineering culture Keeping track of the content of skip level meetings Skip level meeting questions Icebreakers for skip level meetings Sensitive topics at skip level meetings Advice for new leaders on skip level meetings Skip level meeting stories Excerpt from the interview: "Even though a key reason for the meeting is to talk about the manager, I don't want to support gossiping. It's a structured meeting that we use for giving feedback, not to talk trash behind people’s backs. When I get feedback about what employees wish their manager would do, I listen, but I try not to reinforce it in any inappropriate way. I say things like, "That sounds difficult," or "I understand why you want that," while I avoid saying, "Your manager really screwed up." I have to be..." https://codingsans.com/blog/skip-level-meeting (Click here to read the full interview!)
In episode 28, Sarah reflects on some “bad boss behaviour” she has witnessed in her career… and shares how behaviour affects output. Sarah Milstein is the Senior Director of Engineering at Mailchimp, where she leads and coaches product teams. In this interview, Sarah talks about why diagnosing the conversations we have with our team matters… and why learning to listen and understand is often better than only reacting and responding. Tune in to hear all about Sarah’s leadership journey and the lessons learned along the way!
Opening Remarks: Office Optional | Sarah Milstein by Lean Startup
Opening Remarks: The Lean Startup Conference 2013 | Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries by Lean Startup
Closing Remarks: The Lean Startup Conference | Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries by Lean Startup
Opening Remarks: The Lean Startup Conference | Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries by Lean Startup
Key Staff HD | Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries by Lean Startup
Vox.com has been one of the most closely watched media launches of the year–and it took the team just nine weeks to develop the high-profile site. As its Senior Product Manager and Executive Editor, Melissa Bell has been responsible for leading a lot of Vox.com’s success. Sarah Milstein interviews Melissa to learn how the company has moved unusually quickly and how it continues to experiment on a scrutinzed site.
Lean Startup 101 Featuring: Janice Fraser and Sarah Milstein Who It's For: Standalone startups; corporate innovators; non-profit, government and education leaders We'll explain the important concepts of Lean Startup, demystify the jargon and supply examples to help you understand what Lean Startup is good for and when you can use it. You'll come away with an understanding of the method and what frequently-used terms like MVP, pivot and innovation accounting are really about.
Matt is the founder of Automattic, the company behind WordPress, which powers approximately 20% of the web’s biggest sites. His team experiments constantly, yet they nearly all work from home. How do they do it? Sarah Milstein will interview Matt.
This podcast is produced by The Lean Startup Conference, December 9 - 11, 2013 in San Francisco. Visit leanstartup.co for more information. Speakers: Diane Tavenner (@summitps), Steven Hodas (@stevenhodas) and Sarah Milstein (@SarahM) Slow product cycles, massive bureaucracy, customers with conflicting interests–those are just a few of the challenges facing leaders in the education sector. And none of those conditions would seem to support Lean Startup principles. But sectors with the most entrenched systems often need innovation the most, and we’re impressed with the work Steven Hodas and Diane Tavenner have done to apply Lean Startup methods in New York and California schools, respectively. Join us for a webcast conversation about what’s worked and what hasn’t. Their conversation will be followed by live Q&A with the webcast attendees, so come with your questions in mind.
Twitter may be based in San Francisco, but it's used by folks in nearly every country in the world. In this university podcast, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, author Sarah Milstein shows you the ins and outs of how to use this real-time information network for your personal or business advantage. She offers tips on searching, posting, and making an impact on the world with your ideas. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/sarah_milstein_-_using_twitter_for_social_change
Demonstrating your thought leadership is one of the best marketing techniques for service professionals, and Twitter has quickly become one of the tops platforms for doing so. It's a great way to do lightweight marketing, says Sarah Milstein, author of The Twitter Book, as well as to network with prospects and clients. Listen as Sarah reviews how to get started using Twitter, what you must do to get people following you, and the business benefit of using Twitter.