The Engineering Leadership Podcast

We discuss expanding your leadership capabilities to support total business growth & career visualization with Prashanthi Padmanabhan, Head of Engineering @ LinkedIn Premium and Global Women in Tech Lead @ LinkedIn. Prashanthi dissects her career journey & leadership growth practices like creating a half-pager to visualize your potential career path, developing value-based leadership skills, identifying the micro & macro transformation opportunities for your professional growth, and ways to employ empathy within your team & toward customers. We also cover the vital skills & capabilities you’ll need to expand your eng leadership to work in a more cross-functional role and directly impact the growth of your business. Prashanthi also dives into how she lead LinkedIn Premium as it adopts generative AI-based features.ABOUT PRASHANTHI PADMANABHANPrashanthi is a seasoned technologist and product builder with over two decades of experience in the tech industry. Currently, she leads Engineering for LinkedIn Premium, building a world-class subscription platform, helping deliver customer value for millions of members, and growing LinkedIn’s online subscription business line. Prior to joining LinkedIn, she led engineering for large-scale consumer products at Yahoo and Verizon Media. She excels at operating at the intersection of Business, Technology, and People, and her leadership style is rooted in compassion - for her teams and her customers.Prashanthi also leads the global Women In Tech community at LinkedIn and routinely mentors emerging women leaders inside and outside LinkedIn. She writes on LinkedIn on topics spanning engineering, leadership, organizational culture, well-being, etc.. Outside work, she is passionate about maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle."I wrote a half pager about how I'm looking at my career at LinkedIn, what am I passionate about, and these things that I'm passionate about needs to continue to be ingredients in my journey. And then I wrote like, short term micro-transformations that I want to go through. And then, like, longer term, what is the macro transformation that I want to experience? And that macro transformation was I want to lead as an engineering leader, or maybe even a product leader, a line of business.”- Prashanthi Padmanabhan This episode is brought to you by testRigor!testRigor is trusted by tens of thousands of companies across the globe, including Netflix, Splunk, BusinessWire, and more to solve three main problems with end-to-end test automation:It’s challenging, expensive, and slow to hire QA Automation EngineersLow productivity building your own QA AutomationFragile tests, that cause maintenance to consume enormous amounts of timetestRigor solves all of the above by allowing our users to express test cases in plain EnglishTo learn more, check out a case study on testRigor hereSign up for a free trial today at testrigor.comSHOW NOTES:Prashanthi’s early career days to leading LinkedIn Premium (3:12)Deeply understand who you are building a product for (5:10)The pivotal moment that drove Prashanthi’s involvement w/ LinkedIn Premium (8:23)Strategies for creating a career half-pager to think about what’s next (11:49)An example of DEI for micro & macro transformation opportunities (13:35)Steps to ensure your team embodies your values day-to-day (16:05)Creating a pre-transition thesis before stepping into a new role (19:11)Using other leaders as a sounding board for your thesis (21:48)Important skills / capabilities to learn when shifting to a new role (24:13)Employing empathy within a cross-functional leadership team (27:09)Challenges faced & lessons learned during Prashanthi’s leadership evolution (30:06)Demystifying the business (32:07)Why eng teams need to hear from customers & empathize with them (33:06)What gave Prashanthi’s team the confidence to reimagine LinkedIn Premium’s roadmap (35:49)Use cases for generative AI in the business model (37:44)Rapid fire questions (40:31)LINKS AND RESOURCESPossible - a new podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. Most of all, it asks: what if, in the future, everything breaks humanity’s way? Hosted by Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger, each episode features an interview with a visionary from a different field: climate science, media, criminal justice, and more. The conversation also features another kind of guest: GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest and most powerful language model to date. Each episode has a companion story, generated by GPT-4, which will serve as a jumping-off point for a hopeful, speculative discussion about what humanity could possibly get right if we leverage technology—and our collective effort—effectively.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 - Au

Matt Greenwood, Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Investment Management Engineering @ Two Sigma shares some of the most unique and valuable cultural practices behind how the engineering org operates at Two Sigma. We discuss strategies that prepare you for scaling (like intentional relationship-building with your front-line managers); examples of how Two Sigma successfully deployed the “Inverse Conway Maneuver,” how to reinforce a consensus-driven culture from early-days to 1000+, how to navigate both large & small reorgs; and why Two Sigma made the intentional decision to rebrand their R&D org as M&E (modeling & engineering)! Plus, Matt’s approach to full-bodied problem-solving.ABOUT MATT GREENWOODMatt is Chief Innovation Officer and Head of Investment Management Engineering at Two Sigma. He joined Two Sigma in 2003 and since then has led a number of company-wide efforts in both engineering and modeling. Matt is also an Advisor at Two Sigma Ventures and works closely with the business’ portfolio companies as a board member and advisor.Matt began his career at Bell Labs and later moved to IBM Research, where he was responsible for a number of early efforts in tablet computing and distributed computing. In 2000, Matt was lead developer and manager for Entrisphere, Inc., where he helped create a product providing access equipment for broadband service providers. Matt earned a BA and MA in Math from Oxford University, and a Master’s degree in Theoretical Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He also holds a PhD in Mathematics from Columbia University, where he taught for many years."We came to New York in 2003, nothing was happening in New York. Silicon Alley, as they called it back then was just kaput. Then one day, I was browsing Craigslist, because that's what you did in 2003, and there was a little ad, ‘Hedge fund, looking for excellent engineers.’ So I was like, 'All right, maybe.' I said to my wife, 'This is either the sketchiest thing ever or the best decision of my life. It's one of those two things.' On Craigslist, there's no other way you can be, right? And it was probably the best decision of my life.”- Matt Greenwood This episode is brought to you by incident.ioincident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.ioInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Matt’s eng leadership journey & discovering Two Sigma on Craigslist (3:34)Key moments of Two Sigma’s evolution as an org that sparked excitement (7:26)Lessons learned on keeping your work exciting by focusing on “human problems” (10:25)Create a culture of investing in people’s growth across longer timelines (12:22)How Sigma Two intentionally structures its R&D org (15:18)An unexpected way to prepare for scaling your org - intentional relationship-building strategies for your first-line managers (18:10)Frameworks for deploying the inverse Conway maneuver (20:56)The right people / conversations for small & large reorgs (23:30)Consensus-driven culture at 1000+, approaches to create buy-in & ownership with organizational change (26:02)Two Sigma’s approach to full-bodied problem solving (30:26)Rapid fire questions (34:06)LINKS AND RESOURCESWhalefall - A scientifically accurate thriller from Daniel Kraus about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ 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 are deconstructing the “first team approach” with Monica Bajaj, VPE @ Okta. We cover how to apply “first team" across your org, within different team functions (including architecture, quality, security, etc.) and across all levels. She also shares real-life examples from her experience with “first teams” in scenarios like onboarding new teams after M&As, developing new products, and more. Monica provides tactical steps for implementing the first team concept within your org & why it encourages bottoms-up initiatives / self sufficient teams.ABOUT MONICA BAJAJMonica is currently VP of Engineering at Okta where she leads the Developer Experience portfolio for Customer Identity Cloud (CIAM). She is responsible for building a frictionless developer experience for Consumer and SaaS Apps thus securing billions of logins every month. Her expertise spans technology, operations, global expansion, and product launch in areas such as Consumer/Enterprise, Infrastructure, Business Intelligence, DevOps, and Security. She has taken products into the global market by launching localization and globalization programs delivering multi-million dollar growth.Previously she has held senior engineering leadership positions at Workday, Perforce, Network Appliance, and UKG. She holds a Masters in Computer Science from IIT Mumbai. Monica is an active supporter of diversity in STEM, has launched several Women in Technology initiatives, and is now an exec sponsor for Women at Okta. When not obsessing over technology, she can be found spending time with Boy Scouts, enjoying hiking, and supporting the cause of mentorship and uplifting women and young girls."The first team concept was launched at my level and then I went through this journey and I realized like, 'Oh, this is very powerful.' First, it was confusing that I need to put my team aside and take my peers as my first priority, but then I became more curious and then I was intrigued by the results and I'm like, 'Oh, this is so powerful. I need to put this in my own organization.' So I started with my directs like, 'Hey, we have studied about this. We did a whole session and walk them through some real examples. That's where it was like, 'Oh, we need to implement this and see it.'”- Monica Bajaj This episode is brought to you by incident.ioincident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.ioInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Defining the “first team” concept & three characteristics that lead to success (3:22)How applying a first team approach impacts relationships (6:05)Why adopting these principles improved the quality, trust & maturity of eng teams (8:30)What conditions were met to set up the relationship between teams (12:09)Nuances of incorporating a first team approach at different levels of your org (13:48)How the first team facilitates faster pivoting as new priorities arise (16:31)First team frameworks for successfully & quickly onboarding new teams (19:08)An example of this concept applied to an architecture context (20:20)Why “first teams” support / encourage bottoms-up initiatives (23:47)Strategies for leadership to implement first teams @ different levels of their org (27:38)Recommendations for regaining cohesiveness as a first team (29:17)Rapid fire questions (31:28)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Habit of Winning: Stories to Inspire, Motivate and Unleash the Winner withinThis 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 one of our most anticipated conversations of the year, we got the chance to sit down with three of Spotify’s eng leaders: Krisitan Lindwall, Director of Engineering, Data, Insights, Experimentation, & ML Infrastructure; Mark Grey, Senior Staff Engineer; and Pooja Dave, Director of Engineering, Music Promotion. They share insights from their experience building a culture of experimentation & innovation at a massive scale and what elements are necessary for experimentation at scale. They share the origin story of Spotify’s experimentation platform, how to develop eng leaders to think strategically & execute effectively, mistakes to avoid while scaling your experimentation capabilities, and navigating the balance between structured processes vs. unstructured time to ideate.ABOUT KRISTIAN LINDWALLKristian (@klindwall) is an engineering leader at Spotify. He has over 10 years of experience managing and coaching a broad variety of engineering and product teams. He is currently based in New York where he manages the engineering teams working on the company’s data, insights, and machine learning platforms. Prior to that, he led parts of the agile coach practice at Spotify for a few years and has been very active in supporting the growth of a strong agile and lean approach in the company. Before Spotify, Kristian spent 8 years in fintech in Stockholm where he built and grew the engineering team at the largest online broker company in Sweden."How we behave in the organization is really what reinforces and drives the culture and I think there's a few things driving that culture of innovation. Connecting hands to heads, meaning give people an opportunity to engage in ideation and make sure people are involved in strategy work and in the full process of figuring out where we're heading.”- Kristian Lindwall ABOUT POOJA DAVEWith over a decade of experience building and leading several R&D organizations in ad tech, marketing tech, and platforms servicing those, Pooja currently runs the organization at Spotify that helps artists engage and grow their fanbase. Prior to Spotify, she worked at Microsoft on several products including Devices, Browser Rendering Engine, and Advertising/MarTech SDKs. This diversity in experiences has given her a well-rounded exposure to engineer solutions and lead teams with strong backend architecture, client, machine learning, and data practices.“For Spotify, failure is the paradox to success.”- Pooja Dave ABOUT MARK GREYMark is a Senior Staff Engineer at Spotify, where for a decade he has worked on a broad range of distributed systems related to experimentation, data processing, and analytics. Having operated and scaled solutions at all stages of growth, his primary focus is on technical strategy and platformization.Prior to Spotify, Mark worked at the New York Times on personalization infrastructure such as near-realtime article recommendations."We want to ideally maximize the throughput on those things that we see pan out or don't pan out. So kind of a fail faster, double down model and there's all kinds of practices and tools that we put in place that Confidence is just one among many that allow us to increase that throughput. So try and derive insights from a small experiment, validate your hypothesis quickly, and then proceed and scale up from there.”- Mark Grey This episode is brought to you by incident.ioincident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.ioInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:About Spotify’s experimentation platform, Confidence (3:46)Why Spotify decided to offer Confidence externally (5:43)What experimentation without a platform looked like in the early days @ Spotify (6:24)Understanding the scale of the Confidence platform (8:58)Challenges eng leaders face when scaling testing / experimentation processes (10:51)Strategies for determining which experiments & features are most impactful (13:23)How to build a stronger culture of innovation / experimentation at scale (15:47)Frameworks to help develop eng leaders to be both thinkers & doers (19:11)Facilitating conversations around data ideation (23:13)An example of how Spotify ideates around data (26:10)Mistakes to avoid when scaling up & defining the experiment (28:36)How to prioritize experiments when there are conflicts (32:22)Recommendations for captur

Laura Tacho, CTO @ DX, joins us to discuss why changing what you measure doesn’t necessarily lead to improved productivity (and what to do about it)! How to define and measure productivity in your eng org is one of the hottest topics for eng leaders… We cover best practices for identifying what productivity looks like in your org, what motivates your team to reach those goals, how to harness behavioral psychology, and antipatterns to avoid when you focus on productivity. Plus Laura shares some of her favorite practices to identify your skill gaps, and how define what success looks like for yourself and your teams on your productivity journey.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 organizations 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."That is just a ripe environment for the rapid degradation of trust within an organization and has immeasurable consequences when it comes to degrading the culture of a team. I think the temptation is there, understandably, and I think from good intentions of, ‘I want to try to measure unobtrusively. I want to get this data about my team without them knowing about it or minimally knowing about it so that I'm not bothering them.’ That is a trap because we don't need to treat people the same way we treat distributed systems with dashboards and dashboards of telemetry data. People can talk. Just ask them.”- Laura Tacho This episode is brought to you by incident.ioincident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.ioInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Why people care so much about measuring productivity in engineering (3:25)Antipatterns to avoid when tightening focus on productivity (5:08)The role of behavioral psychology with engineering productivity (7:04)What the ideal consulting relationship looks like structurally (8:58)Ensure you’re incentivizing the behavior you want to achieve (12:20)How to cultivate the skill of influencing without feeling too “salesy” (13:59)Understanding the different facets / types of motivation (17:08)Strategies for developing resiliency in “do more with less” environments (19:14)Behaviors that prevent eng orgs & leaders from achieving their goals (23:55)How to identify areas of personal development & closing the skill gap (27:00)Areas that are the most ripe for setting the right expectations / outcomes (29:40)Best practices for eng leaders to gain clarity & define what success looks like (32:01)Rapid fire questions (35:52)LINKS AND RESOURCESRemarkably Bright Creatures -Shelby Van Pelt’s exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.This Podcast Will Kill You - Grad students studying disease ecology, Erin and Erin found themselves disenchanted with the insular world of academia. They wanted a way to share their love of epidemics and weird medical mysteries with the world, not just colleagues.lauratacho.com - Laura’s website where you can find more information about her courses, coaching, and management program.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.

Andrew Lau, CEO & Co-founder @ Jellyfish, shares the engineering management principles that eng leaders will most want to develop and invest in as we transition from 2023 into 2024. We cover year-end reflection techniques, how eng leaders can become more resilient / adaptable, why honing financial acumen is key, and how eng leaders can better plan ahead to face upcoming technology & industry challenges. We also preview Andrew’s new podcast called 5 to 9, aimed to identify meaningful ways eng leaders spend their time outside of the office. Check out Andrew’s new podcast 5 to 9 here: https://jellyfish.co/5-to-9-podcastABOUT ANDREW LAUAndrew Lau is a Co-Founder and CEO of Jellyfish, where he helps leaders use data to align their engineering teams with business strategy. He was trained as an engineer and grew to VP of Engineering at Oracle acquired company, Endeca. He is also a multi-time entrepreneur and co-founder. At every company, Andrew saw the challenges of leading engineering teams at scale. He co-founded Jellyfish to give engineering executives the tools they need to be great leaders.Andrew holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Originally from Oakland, CA, he's a devoted fan of the Oakland A's, despite residing in Red Sox territory for more than two decades. Andrew currently calls Cambridge, MA his home, where he lives with his wife Elsie and their two adorable young children, Callie and Mira.“As a leader, your job is to know the context and translate the context. You have the benefit of seeing more things, but less deeply and your job is to kind of gather these informations and help other people understand it. People forget, you think you're an engineering leader. You think it's actually about making things. It is, but it's also about translating, especially at scale. You're not making anything anymore. You're enabling other people to make, and in order to do that, you've actually got to be translating and providing context.”- Andrew Lau This episode is brought to you by incident.ioincident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.ioInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Andrew’s observations on how the tech industry is evolving from 2023 to 2024 (3:40)Questions to help you reflect at year-end about family, team & business (5:03)How eng leaders can build adaptability & resiliency (7:16)Skills / focus areas eng leaders should hone heading into 2024 (10:51)Developing better financial acumen (13:15)Bridging the gap between engineering strategy & business alignment (16:40)Why it’s important for businesses to build a plan for a year or two out (19:50)How this relates back to eng leadership development & financial acumen (23:00)Tips for identifying skill gaps in financial expertise (24:07)Knowing what metrics to measure your company against (26:07)About Andrew’s new podcast, 5 to 9 (28:42)How eng leaders make it work in business & outside of work (31:35)Where to follow & listen to 5 to 9 (34:40)LINKS AND RESOURCES5 to 9 Podcast - By day, engineering leaders craft innovative solutions with elegant strings of code. But when the work day ends, who do these keyboard warriors and people managers become? Tune in to 5 to 9 to explore this question and others with Jellyfish CEO, Andrew Lau.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.

As the Field CTO & Head of Strategy @ VAST Data, Colleen Tartow, Ph.D., has a vast resume of building data engineering teams from scratch and beyond. Colleen discusses the necessary components for developing new or reorienting existing data programs, strategies for effective communication & collaboration between data & eng functions, the implications of AI technology on data engineering, and integrating cross-functional partners into the data eng planning process & road map. Plus Colleen shares about building the hiring process for data eng functions, when the “data engineering” term or role didn’t exist yet, and how you can apply that to other emerging or undefined functions!ABOUT COLLEEN TARTOWColleen Tartow, Ph.D. is Field CTO and Head of Strategy at VAST Data and has 20+ years of experience in data, analytics, engineering, and consulting. Adept at assisting organizations in deriving value from a data-driven culture, she has successfully led diverse data, engineering, and analytics teams through the development of complex global data management solutions and architecting enterprise data systems. Her demonstrated excellence in data, engineering, analytics, and diversity leadership makes her a trusted senior advisor among executives. An experienced speaker, author, valued mentor and startup advisor, Colleen holds degrees in astrophysics and lives in Massachusetts."Everyone wants to be data driven, right? Like no one's going to say, 'No, we don't want data. We just want to function with opinions.' Like nobody's actually going to say that. But that said, getting started on that can be really challenging...With anything, you have to go back to what does the business really need. Going back to the revenue drivers and the business pain points that you're going to help solve, whether it's monetizing your data directly or using data as an enablement function to actually help in other areas and so I think getting the organization to understand that data is a product of the business and then sort of working back from there into what does that specifically mean.”- Colleen Tartow Interested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Colleen’s experience building a data program from scratch (2:25)What it used to be like building a data engineering team (4:43)Narrowing to first principles when hiring for / building a data eng team (6:44)Frameworks to advocate for more resources to build your org’s data function (7:53)Knowing when you need to transition your data side project to a full data program (10:11)Building data teams from a zero to one perspective (13:05)What “onboarding as discovery” conversations look like (14:38)Joining an existing team to implement a defined data-focused function (16:14)How to have effective conversations & collaborate with other eng functions (19:19)Prioritization strategies when refocusing / creating the data eng org roadmap (21:20)How to integrate cross-functional partners into the data eng planning process (22:51)The implication of AI on data teams & its intersection with eng teams (24:09)Colleen’s decision-making framework (27:54)Recommendations for tackling complex data pipelines in different ways (29:27)Navigating the paradigm of AI & data eng’s impact on other eng orgs (31:31)What the ideal collaboration between data & eng looks like (34:01)Recommendations for dealing with points of friction (35:21)Steps for aligning data & eng under the same goals (37:16)Rapid fire questions (39:04)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Lioness of Boston - Emily Franklin’s deeply evocative novel of the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, a daring visionary who created an inimitable legacy in American art and transformed the city of Boston itself.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, Emad Elwany, CTO & Co-founder @ Lexion, joins us to discuss navigating the messy “in-between” phase startups face as they scale up! We talk about the dilemma between optimizing for vertical or horizontal teams. And we cover his approach for aligning teams based on strategic themes / “complete units of value” on the company’s product roadmap and navigating trade-offs when choosing your approach to scaling. Emad also shares strategies for successful interpersonal facilitation and how to build consensus effectively as an approach to sustain your org’s internal velocity.ABOUT EMAD ELWANYEmad Elwany is the CTO and co-founder of Lexion. Lexion is a powerfully simple operations workflow and contracting platform that helps teams get deals done faster. Lexion streamlines and centralizes the end-to-end contract lifecycle with intuitive email-driven intake and workflows, simple no-code automation, best-in-class AI, and more. Lexion was one of the first AI companies to leverage LLMs in building production-quality applications. The company was founded in 2018 at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, is backed by an iconic Silicon Valley law firm, and recently raised a $20M Series B with support from top-tier VC firms.Prior to co-founding Lexion, Emad held principal engineering roles at Microsoft Research, working on Microsoft's core AI products, specifically as founding and lead engineer on their core conversational AI and NLP platform as well as their AI scheduling assistant.Emad holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Alexandria University and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. He’s an active member of special interest groups in machine learning and artificial intelligence and has published research papers in major computer science conferences like CHI, NeurIPS, and KDD."We said, 'We're not going to do the vertical. We're not going to do horizontal. Instead, let's be roadmap driven.' If you review our roadmap document, there's a section on key learnings from the past, and then there's a section on the three or four strategic areas we're investing in in the next quarter. So we thought, 'Okay, these strategic themes are very coherent. A lot of the projects on them are kind of homogenous but they span the full stack. They also span different functional areas. Why don't we try that? Why don't we have teams aligned to themes?'”- Emad Elwany Interested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Emad’s observations around scaling up @ Lexion (2:50)Strategies for dividing teams / products horizontally or vertically (5:17)Navigating trade-offs when deciding the right approach for scaling up (7:39)How to decide what areas to optimize vs. sacrifice (10:47)Using your product roadmap to drive decision making / optimization (12:59)Emad’s process for forming new teams, identifying strategies & executing vision (15:48)Fitting the trade-off discussion into this organization model (18:51)Determining your org’s specific “budget of problems” (22:21)Balancing the timing of problems vs. the quantity of problems (24:01)Recommendations for interpersonal facilitation & building consensus (27:01)How these actions can help improve & sustain your org’s internal velocity (31:16)Why velocity – or lack of it – impacts speedy, efficient decision-making (33:51)Emad’s favorite examples of his team finding consensus (35:37)Rapid fire questions (38:17)LINKS AND RESOURCESScaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building -Claire Hughes Johnson’s practical and empathetic guide to being an effective leader and manager in a high-growth environment. The tactical information it puts forward—including guidance on crafting foundational documents, strategic and financial planning, hiring and team development, and feedback and performance mechanisms—can be applied to companies of any size, in any industry. Scaling People includes dozens of pages of worksheets, templates, exercises, and example documents to help founders, leaders, and company builders create scalable operating systems and lightweight processes that really work.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.

Scott Woody, co-founder and CTO @ Metronome, shares the story of how Metronome, a small startup, made the transition to quickly operate at a global scale while working with complex, public companies. He shares the origin story of Metronome and the roadmap of how they went from early-stage engineering to creating highly specialized teams & in-house experts. Additionally, we cover how to navigate the tension between infrastructure & product eng teams, creating a healthy relationship between finance & eng orgs, and recommendations for strategically considering pivoting business models.ABOUT SCOTT WOODYScott (@l3amm) is currently co-founder and CTO of Metronome, the usage-based billing platform built to help software companies accelerate their revenue. Prior to Metronome, Scott was a Director of Engineering at Dropbox where he led the growth and monetization team. He previously co-founded Foundry Hiring, an ATS system, that was later acquired by Dropbox."When we were smaller, we had one giant engineering team. What we realized about nine months ago, especially as we started working with these more public companies, was that the needs of the specific personas were so specific that this concept of engineers being able to fit the entire product and need space in their head was impossible. We had to create those experts and decided to have PMs specialize and embed with these teams to become experts on the workflows.”- Scott Woody SHOW NOTES:The origin story of Metronome & Scott’s transition from Dropbox (3:14)How Metronome gained & maintained its first customers (5:36)Metronome’s two products / distinct user personas (7:58)Challenges from multiple complex stakeholders and users (10:17)The difficulty in solving & prioritizing user problems (12:23)Navigating the tension between product eng & infrastructure sides (15:41)How Metronome created experts in house & built a retainer of consultants (19:29)Roadmap for going from early-stage engineering to specialized teams (21:10)Processes for standardizing the knowledge base & communicating the info (23:16)Using brown bag talks to onboard new hires (26:16)Implications of a usage-based business model for eng leaders (28:26)Lessons learned when changing your business model (30:22)Making the shift to a consumption-based model (32:45)Strategies for rationalizing which pricing model to follow & knowing when to pivot (36:23)Developing & testing a value hypothesis (38:19)Lead with customer value in mind & communicate that value factor (40:59)Rapid fire questions (42:21)LINKS AND RESOURCESElon Musk - From Walter Isaacson, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.Foundation - The first novel in Isaac Asimov's classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series.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, Jill Wetzler shares practices and principles to help you become a great coach! As an Executive Coach & former VP of Engineering, Jill shares how attending her first coaching workshop impacted her career trajectory and the frameworks she uses to help create a mindset of possibility, foster positive relationships, cultivate trust, navigate threats, and help people think about the future. She shares her own experiences working through these frameworks & how it helped guide her career decisions. Plus we discuss tools for implementing a peer coaching structure into your org & how to make the most of peer group discussions!ABOUT JILL WETZLERJill Wetzler is a leadership coach, consultant, and former VP of Engineering with more than 15 years of experience leading engineering teams at some of Silicon Valley's fastest-growing companies. She works with organizations who want to strengthen and uplevel their management teams, and she coaches leaders at all levels to help them advance their skills and find fulfillment at work and in life. Jill has built and scaled engineering orgs at companies like Salesforce, Twitter, Lyft, and Pilot through periods of high growth. Find out more at www.jillwetzler.com"Imagine yourself five years from now. You're completely happy, you're completely fulfilled in your job. What are you spending your day doing? So not what is your job? What's your job title? But literally, what is the day to day activity? You get up at nine o'clock, you walk into a meeting, what are you doing in that meeting? Once I had all of that in sort of like a three paragraph form, I actually started to write my ideal job description.”- Jill Wetzler SHOW NOTES:The story of Jill’s first coaching workshop & its impact on her as an eng leader (3:29)Questions & topics to focus on to be a better coach (6:27)Asking questions related to vision that inspire a possibility mindset (8:49)Frameworks for helping people shift into a creative brain space (10:26)How to navigate the topic of fairness & what elements threaten it (14:33)Identifying what you want your day-to-day to look like in the future (17:25)Jill’s decision to create her own role @ Lyft working w/ L&D (20:42)Her biggest takeaways & recommendations for managers (26:05)Tips for breaking out of your pre-established identity (30:10)Implementing a “team roadshow” practice in your org (32:06)Jill’s approach for introducing a peer coaching structure into their team (34:30)Talk from your own experience & avoid simply giving advice (36:39)Rapid fire questions (40:45)LINKS AND RESOURCESFinding Me - Viola Davis’ story, in her own words, that spans her incredible, inspiring life, from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present day.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.

Kathleen Vignos, VP of Software Engineering @ Capital One, shares how to overcome executive leadership gaps that prevent eng leaders from advancing to the next level in their career. She covers how she applies a portfolio approach to career growth, how that helped her build exec skills in a way, and tips for people who are reorienting their approach to career growth. We also cover how to bridge essential executive skill gaps like facilitation, negotiation, and influencing! Plus strategies for exceptional facilitation, balancing option limiting & option exploration, dealing with conflict / reframing, and negotiation strategies to aid in decision making.ABOUT KATHLEEN VIGNOSKathleen Vignos is a VP of software engineering at Capital One. Her organization, Customer Resiliency, builds web, mobile, and backend applications to meet customer needs in times of financial hardship so they can resolve their debt and get back on track. These applications run on a modern stack with ML decisioning and serverless components hosted on AWS. Previously in her 6 years at Twitter, Kathleen worked on promoted tweet review, tweet translation, abuse tooling, and infrastructure automation across on-prem, Google Cloud, and AWS environments. She also ran Twitter’s development programs for engineering managers, personally training 300+ managers across the topics of people management, hiring, technical skills development, and project execution/delivery. Outside of strategic technology work, Kathleen is a distance runner and loves travel. She lives with her husband in San Francisco. They have 2 adult children and are working on plans to visit their sixth continent."I was hearing this message, 'You need to be more strategic.' I realized my definition of strategy in my head was not actually strategy and I needed to reframe strategy as being willing to completely blow everything up because there's a bigger, better thing you need to do and I think that if you are very organized and very goal oriented, you don't want to blow up your plan. You want to execute your plan. You're a great executor and that will get you to a certain level. So I think that's inflection point number one, at least it was for me and I think that's true for a lot of people. I see it over and over again.”- Kathleen Vignos SHOW NOTES:How the career portfolio concept strategically drives career growth (2:33)Surprising discoveries in Kathleen’s transition to tech (5:07)Parallels between Kathleen’s early work & current eng leadership (7:12)The impact of a career portfolio on acquiring skills in a nonlinear way (10:47)Kathleen’s tips for someone reorienting their approach to career growth (15:18)Common gaps / blocks people encounter on their career growth journey (17:08)Understanding your audience & the reach of your influence (20:13)Navigating the shift between being a great executor to a great strategist (22:23)Key principles of influencing & facilitation (24:49)Strategies for option limiting as a facilitator (27:01)How to facilitate to achieve time efficiency & positive option exploration (30:01)Applying facilitation strategies during the candidate hiring process (32:39)Examples of “polite interruption” phrases to use (35:31)Approaches for dealing with conflict & reframing (36:49)Recommendations for negotiating & decision making (39:47)Rapid fire questions (44:13)LINKS AND RESOURCESGetting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World - Based on Professor Stuart Diamond’s award-winning course at the Wharton Business School, Getting More concludes that finding and valuing the other party’s emotions and perceptions creates far more value than the conventional wisdom of power and logic. It is intended to provide better agreements for everyone no matter what they negotiate – from jobs to kids to billion-dollar deals to shopping.Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works - A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, doubled P&G’s sales, quadrupled its profits, and increased its market value by more than $100 billion in just ten years. Now, drawn from their years of experience at P&G and the Rotman School of Management, where Martin is dean, this book shows how leaders in organizations of all sizes can guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business success— where to play and how to win.The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music - Dave Grohl’s memoir chronicling his early days growing up in the suburbs of Washington, DC, to hitting the road at the age of 18, and all the music that followed.Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts - Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions.This episode wouldn’t have been possible wi

James Everingham, co-founder and VP of Engineering @ Lightspark, joins our podcast to share his best tools for scaling yourself down – not up – as an engineering leader. He discusses his latest career move shifting down in scale and how that impacts your risk tolerance as a leader. We also cover some of James’ favorite leadership methods, including the Socratic method, principle-based decision-making, and creating narratives as a product / eng org goal-setting tool, plus how he’s employed those tools effectively throughout his career. We also address navigating the balance between process & anti-process, approaches to product planning & finding PMF, and adapting your communication style to work within a smaller vs. large org.ABOUT JAMES EVERINGHAMJames Everingham (@jevering) is co-founder and VP of Engineering at Lightspark. Lightspark is building core infrastructure on the Lightning Network. Most recently he was Vice President of Engineering for Novi (Meta) and co-creator of Diem. Previously, James was the Head of Engineering at Instagram. James has led many world-class engineering teams throughout his 35-year career as a manager, entrepreneur, and technology developer. At Yahoo, he was Vice President of Engineering for Yahoo media properties after acquiring Luminate, an interactive image technology company he founded. Other previous roles include CTO and founding team member of LiveOps, Senior Director of Engineering at Tellme (acquired by Microsoft), and Senior Director of Engineering at Netscape Communications, where he was responsible for the flagship Netscape browser. Before joining Netscape, James held engineering and management positions at Oracle and Borland International."We had a great story in our head of like if we can simply make money flow or value flow fast and free frictionlessly around the world like a lot of good is going to happen but then that's the ending. That's the happy ending. Like, what are the chapters that we're going to write in between to get there? The first one was, 'Well, we're going to build this new infrastructure. Let's start getting it out there and getting it quickened in an area where it's already accepted.' And that's what we did. You know, that was the first one and we worked backwards from that. They're trying to make the story happen. They're not trying to make a list of tasks happen. And I think that's a really important distinction.”- James Everingham SHOW NOTES:James’ latest experience scaling down in his career (2:44)Increasing your risk tolerance as an eng leader (5:15)Surprising ways eng leaders operate in a smaller org vs. a larger org (7:16)Optimizing communicating patterns when scaling down as a leader (10:23)Strategies for creating high-impact conversations within teams at a small org (12:12)How to use the Socratic method effectively as an eng leader (14:04)James’ framework for anchoring decision-making principles (17:05)Why focusing on customer problems before business problems is a key principle (19:30)Layering the Socratic method approach & principle-based decision making (21:43)Tips for implementing these approaches early on & scaling them up (24:31)The trap of “process” & knowing when / where to introduce processes (25:41)Navigating the balance between complete process & anti-process (27:59)Deconstructing James’ approach to product planning & goal setting (29:51)How James introduced the product planning narrative @ Lightspark (34:15)Advice for newcomers looking to identify & share a product narrative (36:38)Rapid fire questions (38:31)LINKS AND RESOURCESHow to Scale Yourself Down — Not Up — as a Leader - An article outlining the narrative goal setting framework that James discusses in the episode.Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know - Adam Grant’s book about the benefit of doubt and how we can get better at embracing the unknown and the joy of being wrong.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Pete Peterson, CTO @ Riviera Partners, joins our podcast to discuss strategies for gaining stakeholder buy-in in complex stakeholder environments. He shares his experience working as the CIO for the City of Oakland & how he navigated implementing change across 30+ departments & stakeholders. We cover how to find collaborators who share your vision, why quick wins are important for gaining stakeholder buy-in, balancing competing interests from stakeholders, introducing change to your tech team when there’s resistance, and more. Pete also shares his favorite leadership practices & tips for eng leaders who are presenting to stakeholders.ABOUT PETE PETERSONAndrew (Pete) Peterson is the Chief Technology Officer of Riviera Partners, a leading executive search firm for engineering, product, and design leadership roles. With over 30 years of experience in cloud/SaaS platform and solution development, Peterson oversees Riviera's technology vision, direction, and development by leading the engineering, product, and data science teams. Prior to Riviera Partners, Pete served as the Chief Information Technology Officer for the City of Oakland and held various leadership roles in technology and operations at Up Communications, Xtiva Financial Systems, and CallidusCloud Software. Pete holds an M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco and a B.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University."You have 30, 40 different fiefdoms. Everyone's doing whatever they want to do to a degree. How do you convince these 30 different directors or whatever that we do have common objectives? We do have some things in common. There are places where we can collaborate. There are places where we can have sort of economies of scale if we pool all of our resources together and we can all benefit from these things.”- Pete Peterson We’re hosting the first ELC Annual Watch Party on 11/8!We’re livestreaming the most popular sessions from the ELC Annual 2023 conference + hosting virtual roundtable discussions to connect you with eng leaders around the globe AND in your city.Our first topic covers Generative AI & engineering leadership with Wade Chambers… no this isn’t about the tech - it’s about the leadership skills and competencies you need to evolve and adapt to lead in this next generation!We have different events for Europe, East Coast & West Coast! To RSVP, find your location HERE:EuropeWest Coast & MidWestEast CoastSHOW NOTES:Pete’s experience as CIO for the City of Oakland (3:19)Lessons learned in this CIO role & how it differed from traditional tech roles (7:08)Navigating a complex stakeholder environment from a technology perspective (9:15)Finding collaborators with a shared sense of vision (10:54)Why a quick win & great results can make later conversations easier (13:10)How past work w/ stakeholders impacted Pete’s current initiatives @ Riviera (15:13)Tips for balancing different / competing interests from stakeholders (21:27)Tapping into stakeholders’ motivations to create a unified front (25:17)How to bring your team along when there’s resistance to change (29:09)Breaking down Pete’s two main leadership practices (34:49)Pete’s favorite tips for eng leaders presenting to various stakeholders (38:13)Rapid fire questions (40:50)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Wisdom Of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return -Mihir Desai’s lucid exploration of the ideas of finance as seen through the unusual prism of the humanities. Through this novel, creative approach, Desai shows that outsiders can access the underlying ideas easily and insiders can reacquaint themselves with the core humanity of their profession.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.

Data leader and author of Self Advocacy: Your Guide to Getting What You Deserve at Work, Shailvi Wakhlu, joins us to discuss practical strategies for becoming a better self-advocate & skills to help you improve negative self-talk and prioritize your happiness. Shailvi also reveals the different types of self-advocacy and how eng leaders can empower/coach their teams to become better self-advocates, plus recommendations for incorporating self-advocacy into key workplace scenarios, including job promotions, negotiating a job offer, and more.ABOUT SHAILVI WAKHLUShailvi Wakhlu is a data leader, International Keynote Speaker, and author of Self Advocacy: Your Guide to Getting What You Deserve at Work. She is the former Head of Data & Analytics at Strava and Komodo Health. Her sixteen-year data and engineering career has included companies such as Salesforce, Fitbit, and a software startup she co-founded. Shailvi’s self-advocacy expertise comes from being a practitioner at tech startups and large companies across three continents.Annually, Wakhlu speaks at twenty-five or more global conferences and corporate events hosted by Fortune 500 companies on Self-Advocacy and Data. She also teaches online courses on these subjects to a global audience.Wakhlu offers individual and group coaching. She has helped hundreds of people grow their self-advocacy skills and reach important career milestones faster. She is also an investor and advisor to several high-growth startups.Wakhlu grew up in India and studied Computer Engineering at Illinois Tech in Chicago. She loves to travel and has visited thirty-two countries. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Govind, and their sixty plants."I believe that advocating for yourself is also advocating for the needs of the people that you care about. So if you consider yourself as part of a team, part of a community, part of a group, and if you know their happiness matters to you, if their comfort matters to you, advocating for them is advocating for yourself because if they're happier, you're happier. So I feel that for leaders who want their teams to be successful, this is something you do for yourself too because you want them to be successful.- Shailvi Wakhlu We’re hosting the first ELC Annual Watch Party on 11/8!We’re livestreaming the most popular sessions from the ELC Annual 2023 conference + hosting virtual roundtable discussions to connect you with eng leaders around the globe AND in your city.Our first topic covers Generative AI & engineering leadership with Wade Chambers… no this isn’t about the tech - it’s about the leadership skills and competencies you need to evolve and adapt to lead in this next generation!We have different events for Europe, East Coast & West Coast! To RSVP, find your location HERE:EuropeWest Coast & MidWestEast CoastSHOW NOTES:How Shailvi became passionate about self-advocacy as a data leader (2:21)The inspiration that ignited Shailvi’s need for a self-advocacy talk (4:36)Advice for reflecting on experiences & sharing your story in a meaningful way (7:25)Defining self-advocacy in an eng leadership context (9:12)Examples of proactive & reactive self-advocacy in the workplace (11:15)Why self-advocacy can be so hard for people (13:52)Strategies for identifying opportunities for self-advocacy (15:42)Frameworks for changing your self-talk / perception of self (18:13)How to encourage eng leaders to proactively share their stories / experiences (21:26)Practices to help embrace opportunities for self-advocacy (23:11)Why eng leaders need to help their teams cultivate self-advocacy skills (27:00)The benefit of recognizing & embracing what you’re most proud of (30:34)What successful self-advocacy within the job promotion conversation (32:37)Self-advocating while negotiating a job offer (36:57)The importance of prioritizing happiness along with self-advocacy (39:35)Rapid fire questions (43:49)LINKS AND RESOURCESSelf-Advocacy - Shailvi’s book that presents a practical guide that anyone can use to master self-advocacy and equips leaders with tools to train others effectively.More from Shailvi on self-advocacy!The Speaker Author: Sell More Books and Book More Speeches - Lois Creamer and Cathy Fyock have teamed to help you become a Speaker Author and ramp up your impact to build your business. Whether you are a coach, consultant, or other expert who benefits by positioning your intellectual property, you will benefit from this idea-packed book.TickTick - a to-do list app for freelancers or small businesses that want to stay on top of tasks.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/

Clemens Mewald, Head of Product @ Instabase, joins our podcast to share his insights on how to embrace generative AI tools to enhance engineering leadership, productivity, and problem-solving. We also chat about creative ways to implement GenAI beyond simply chatbots, questions to ask when deciding how to leverage GenAI capabilities, rethinking the productivity aspect of generative AI, and how to use it to address cross-functional collaboration challenges within your org. Additionally, Clemens reveals how he translates his deep technical / research knowledge on generative AI into meaningful business & product outcomes.ABOUT CLEMENS MEWALDClemens Mewald is the Head of Product at Instabase. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Clemens Mewald has built a successful track record as a product and technology leader in the AI and machine learning space. Previously Clemens held leadership positions at Databricks, where he spent more than three years leading the product team for Machine Learning and Data Science. Before Databricks, Clemens served on the Google Brain Team building AI infrastructure for Alphabet, where his product portfolio included TensorFlow and TensorFlow Extended (TFX). Clemens holds an MSc in computer science from UAS Wiener Neustadt, Austria, and an MBA from MIT Sloan."Whenever a new technique or like innovation comes out. It's not the product, right? So like AI is not the product. LLMs are not the product. A lot of people get caught up in the innovation, like the technology if you will, but people don't buy AI. People don't buy LLMs. They buy tools and products that like solve their own problems in the world. So really what you gained is like a new tool in your tool belt to solve your customer's problems, not a new thing that you can sell.”- Clemens Mewald We’re hosting the first ELC Annual Watch Party on 11/8!We’re livestreaming the most popular sessions from the ELC Annual 2023 conference + hosting virtual roundtable discussions to connect you with eng leaders around the globe AND in your city.Our first topic covers Generative AI & engineering leadership with Wade Chambers… no this isn’t about the tech - it’s about the leadership skills and competencies you need to evolve and adapt to lead in this next generation!We have different events for Europe, East Coast & West Coast! To RSVP, find your location HERE:EuropeWest Coast & MidWestEast CoastSHOW NOTES:Why Clemens got involved with Instabase & the GenAI space (2:08)Clemens’ observations on how eng leaders are applying GenAI tools (4:56)Where GenAI tools can fit the needs of an executive leader (7:00)The impact of generative AI on product building (9:04)Creative ways to apply GenAI beyond a chatbot (12:41)Strategies for better framing questions to leverage different GenAI capabilities (17:37)Understanding the unreliable aspects of generative AI tools (20:52)Leveraging these tools to tackle eng leadership-specific challenges (24:25)Rethink the productivity aspect of GenAI tools (25:59)Using GenAI tools to address cross-functional collaboration challenges (28:32)How to align / educate different stakeholders around new generative AI capabilities (32:24)Translating technical research on GenAI into business outcomes or products (35:22)The “identify, verify, amplify” framework (36:46)Clemens’ favorite methods for verifying in a lightweight way (39:35)Rapid fire questions (40:46)LINKS AND RESOURCESAI Will Save The World with Marc Andreessen and Martin Casado - In this timely one-on-one conversation with a16z General Partner Martin Casado, Marc discusses how this technology will maximize human potential, why the future of AI should be decided by the free market, and most importantly, why AI won’t destroy the world. In fact, it may save it.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.

Navigating catastrophes is never easy for eng leaders, but it’s an essential leadership skill in the startup world. Ken Pickering, SVP of Engineering @ Starburst Data, discusses navigating catastrophe, and uncertainty and building a culture of resiliency within startups & eng teams. We cover how to embrace challenges / failure, and cultivate centralized beliefs within your org. Plus the challenges behind finding PMF for a second product, and how to leverage first-principles to avoid a failed second product.ABOUT KEN PICKERINGKen Pickering is the SVP of Engineering at Starburst Data, where he is privileged to work alongside some of the best product and engineering humans in the world. Prior to his role here, he held leadership roles at large-scale consumer SaaS and enterprise security companies."Communication and context are some of the things that are most successful in feeding an engineering organization because engineers are generalized problem solvers. We all want to be engaged with the problem and then apply a methodology to that problem. Even in high stakes situations, articulate the problem clearly, give people the timeline, give people the constraints, and let them rip. The people that can do that and perform in different kinds of environments and be flexible and adaptable are really key to driving that kind of culture.”- Ken Pickering We’re hosting the first ELC Annual Watch Party on 11/8!We’re livestreaming the most popular sessions from the ELC Annual 2023 conference + hosting virtual roundtable discussions to connect you with eng leaders around the globe AND in your city.Our first topic covers Generative AI & engineering leadership with Wade Chambers… no this isn’t about the tech - it’s about the leadership skills and competencies you need to evolve and adapt to lead in this next generation!We have different events for Europe, East Coast & West Coast! To RSVP, find your location HERE:EuropeWest Coast & MidWestEast CoastSHOW NOTES:Why the right team / culture can successfully navigate catastrophes (2:30)Ken’s leadership approach to tackling challenges & embracing risk (3:52)How Ken navigated an unexpected catastrophe @ Rue La La (5:58)Practices that can prepare a team for handling obstacles well (8:12)The “Travel Deal Tuesday” story @ Hopper (10:24)Hiring leaders & creating teams built to endure challenges (12:58)How a startup’s centralized beliefs impact leadership styles / decision-making (15:09)Ken’s perspective on cultivating shared beliefs within eng teams (17:01)Tips for preparing people to better endure catastrophe during downtime (19:10)Key takeaways / follow-ups from practice disaster drills (21:14)Strategies for coaching people through their first failure (22:38)Sharing examples of resilient eng leadership (24:44)Balancing the reality of an unknown future vs. the demand to execute now (27:05)Why communication & context are key for navigating uncertainty (30:11)Challenges that come with finding PMF for a second product (33:34)Ken’s examples of enduring through repeated failures / iterations (35:46)Facilitating conversation on first principles while working on a second product (38:09)Rapid fire questions (39:53)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country - In this thrilling adventure, a blend of enthralling historical fiction and fantastical horror, Matt Ruff returns to the world of Lovecraft Country and explores the meaning of death, the hold of the past on the present, and the power of hope in the face of uncertainty.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.

Jamie Tischart, CTO @ Bettercloud, discusses how to identify inefficiencies within your eng org & strategies for creating more efficient teams! He shares his experience at Bettercloud as one of several concurrent senior hires & why he discovered that coordination is key when hiring multiple new senior hires at once. We also chat about strategies for identifying / removing barriers that are getting in the way of your eng team’s success, making / communicating meaningful decisions, identifying inefficiencies that come up within cross-functional relationships, and frameworks for turning communication from your org’s greatest area of inefficiency to an asset.ABOUT JAMIE TISCHARTJamie Tischart serves as the Chief Technology Officer, where he is responsible for the broader technology strategy of the business as well as the day-to-day leadership of development, quality and architecture teams for the BetterCloud product suite.Jamie brings nearly three decades of experience leading technology and product teams through periods of rapid growth and product transformation. Most recently, he served as GM and VP, Software Engineering of the Marketing & Growth BU at Twilio where he was responsible for defining the product and technical strategy while focusing on the customer experience and driving highly reliable solutions for Twilio’s customers.Previously, Tischart was VP, Technical Operations at SendGrid where he led the company’s Global Data Center and DevOps strategies across the business. Prior to that, he served as CTO of the Security-as-a-Service business at McAfee where he led the creation of Intel Security's future generation Cloud solutions. He has also held leadership roles at a number of other prominent technology companies including Intel. Jamie holds an MBA from Aspen University and B.A from St. Lawrence College."The biggest value for us is to move purposely and slowly and hear what is going on before we make decisions. The second was, what is the biggest problem that we are coming in to solve? Like why were each of us hired? It came down to, and this was difficult for a couple of the department heads was, 'Look, the biggest problem isn't in your area. I'm sorry. Yes. Let's put together a plan of how do we improve and what do we focus on in your group? But quite frankly, the focus is going to be in this area.' That was difficult for people to accept.”- Jamie Tischart Check out Jellyfish's Scenario Planner to help you accelerate your development!With Jellyfish’s Scenario Planner, you can analyze tradeoffs, and optimize resources - to ensure your highest priority initiatives meet your delivery goals and deadlines!To learn more about how Scenario Planner can help you better accelerate, predict & plan your software delivery 👉 head to jellyfish.co/elcSHOW NOTES:Strategies for creating efficient orgs & getting the most out of your eng team (3:00)How the “refine, remove, reduce” framework plays out in Bettercloud (5:41)Balancing involving the right people & achieving an efficient outcome (8:06)Most beneficial structures for enabling your eng team to be high impact (10:04)Jamie’s framework for self-assessing inefficiencies (12:26)Inviting new hires to share their perspectives right away (15:42)Neuro-leadership principles to help remove barriers for eng teams (18:16)Practices for better assessing what’s getting in the way of eng teams (22:20)Identifying inefficiencies that come up between cross-functional relationships (25:37)Why coordination is key when bringing on new senior eng leaders (27:45)Jamie’s approach to making & communicating meaningful decisions (30:08)Navigating the balance between onboarding & executing defined priorities (33:28)Define your team’s core principles early on together (36:13)Strategy for mapping out your org’s changes (38:08)Practices that changed Jamie as a leader & he still leverages today (40:50)Why communication can be an eng org’s greatest area of inefficiency (43:42)Rapid fire questions (45:57)LINKS AND RESOURCESGrit - Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed—be it parents, students, educators, athletes, or business people—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.”The Speed Of Trust - Collaboration is the foundation of the standard of living we enjoy today. Trust is the glue. This is the first book that teaches the ‘whats’ and the ‘hows’ of trust.Gwendy's Button Box - Stephen King teams up with long-time friend and award-winning author Richard Chizmar for the first time in this original, chilling novella that revisits the mysterious town of Castle Rock.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 Ang

Hubert Palan, Founder & CEO @ Product Board, discusses how to achieve successful collaboration between product and eng teams! He addresses the elements that make up healthy collaboration, common areas of tension between product & eng, and steps for aligning the teams on product vision, tooling, and processes. We also cover strategies for engineering leaders who want to contribute more to their business’s product vision, facilitation frameworks to improve communication between product management & eng teams, and how to best advocate for engineering’s most important considerations.ABOUT HUBERT PALANHubert Palan is Founder and CEO of Productboard. Driven by a passion for building truly excellent products, he started the company when he saw a hole in the market for a dedicated product management platform. Before Productboard, Hubert was VP of Product Management at GoodData and a management consultant at Accenture. Hubert mentors and advises startups and judges teams at entrepreneurship competitions and frequently speaks at his two alma maters – UC Berkeley, where he got his MBA, and the Czech Technical University, where he received an MSc. in Computer Science."When the engineering partner would come to the conversation talking about how other products that are successful have approached that and what choices they made, as opposed to just talking about the technology in the abstract, the business aspect of it, how it helped drive business results for other companies that are in similar markets or adjacent spaces, t hat's something that's super valuable because it shows that you are thinking about the technology, just not for the love of technology, but in the business context and in the appreciation of how the technology decisions drive the business outcomes.”- Hubert Palan Check out Jellyfish's Scenario Planner to help you accelerate your development!With Jellyfish’s Scenario Planner, you can analyze tradeoffs, and optimize resources - to ensure your highest priority initiatives meet your delivery goals and deadlines!To learn more about how Scenario Planner can help you better accelerate, predict & plan your software delivery 👉 head to jellyfish.co/elcSHOW NOTES:Elements that contribute to successful collaboration between product & eng (2:34)Tools for understanding customer demographics & behavior (4:50)Greatest areas of friction between engineering and product (8:11)How to determine who is driving what initiative (11:03)Tactics for splitting responsibilities between EMs, PMs, tech leads, etc. (13:03)Hubert’s favorite tooling techniques (15:39)Strategies for aligning eng & product management processes (17:51)Frameworks for developing product vision & breaking it down into steps (19:27)Solving friction points between existing & new customers (23:16)How eng leaders can get involved with the product vision side of the business (24:28)Handling conflicting priorities & misalignment between teams (27:42)Tips for successful communication between product & eng (29:16)Advocate for engineering’s most important considerations (31:32)Specific conversations for facilitating communication between eng & PM teams (34:32)Steps to ensure engineers are involved in defining product vision / strategy (37:27)Rapid fire questions (40:55)LINKS AND RESOURCESOutlive: The Science and Art of Longevity - In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.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, Bhawna Singh, CTO @ Okta, deconstructs lessons learned from her experience operating in a high-stakes, high-scale environment. She shares strategies for re-architecting your product roadmap, collaborating with customers, first setting up guardrails while scaling, and communicating throughout the prioritization conversation process. We also cover the important principle of “secure by design” & how that process is implemented successfully at Okta. We cover challenges faced & lessons learned from the secure by design application & high-stakes scaling process.ABOUT BHAWNA SINGHBhawna Singh is a senior technology executive with 20+ years of experience in successfully transforming products and scaling technology for a global user base. In her career as an executive leader, advisory board member, and investor, Bhawna has worked across multiple high-growth companies to grow & scale platforms from 0 to 100+ million monthly users, led global expansion of products, steered multiple acquisitions and spearheaded innovation to drive user growth and engagement, delivering multi-million dollar revenue growth.As CTO at Okta, Bhawna leads tech strategy and vision for its Customer Identity product. Bhawna frequently connects with senior executives of Okta’s global customer base, to build deep trust by delivering highly scalable, stable, and secure products serving billions of logins per month.Bhawna sits on the Advisory board of early-stage startups and VC groups. Bhawna’s deep expertise in the area of high-growth, enterprise SaaS, and cybersecurity is frequently published in the press and podcasts.Okta's annual in-person and online gathering Oktane kicks off on 10/3! Oktane discusses the latest innovations in authentication and authorization and reveals new products. Online tickets are FREE - check it out here https://www.okta.com/oktane/"Plan for 10x and build for 3x, which is, ‘Think big, but build for what is needed.’ As you know, many of the AI companies saw a big, big growth in their space and the space we operate in, we are offering them the logging capability. So we sit at the front door of their business, you can say, which means we have to scale faster than them so that we are never a blocker and this time it wasn't plan for 10x and build for 3x. It was build for 10x right away and with absolute urgency.”- Bhawna Singh Check out Jellyfish's Scenario Planner to help you accelerate your development!With Jellyfish’s Scenario Planner, you can analyze tradeoffs, and optimize resources - to ensure your highest priority initiatives meet your delivery goals and deadlines!To learn more about how Scenario Planner can help you better accelerate, predict & plan your software delivery 👉 head to jellyfish.co/elcSHOW NOTES:Bhawna’s experience shifting to a high-scale focus @ Okta (2:01)What it was like adjusting priorities & rearchitecting (6:08)Strategies for collaborating with customers in shaping a product roadmap (9:30)Challenges faced when making the shift for scale (11:54)Factors that contribute to building trust & respect with peers (13:47)Bhawna’s approach to prioritization conversations with stakeholders (16:06)Ensuring the right guardrails are in place while scaling (20:29)How Okta’s balanced portfolio & engineering radar guardrails works (22:15)Frameworks for first setting up / building a guardrail within an org (24:48)Defining the “secure by design” principle & how it’s applied @ Okta (27:15)Challenges of implementing a secure by design process (30:28)How to gain buy-in / universal adoption of a new process (31:44)The role of security leaders working directly w/ customers (35:18)Rapid fire questions (37:56)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe 6 Types of Working Genius - New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni unveils a truly groundbreaking new model that will change the way we think about work and teams forever.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, Ritu Bhargava, Chief Product Officer, CX/CRM @ SAP, joins us to discuss collaboration, relationship building, and navigating conflicts in large-scale organizations with competing priorities. We cover Ritu’s philosophy regarding building bridges between people, how to gain buy-in toward your priorities, unlocking support from fellow exec leaders, and how to address conflicts & competing interests across a massive org. Ritu also shares her strategies for minimizing ego & generating curiosity as an eng leader, her most valuable prioritization tool & how it works for SAP, and identifying / managing conflicts before they become an issue.ABOUT RITU BHARGAVARitu Bhargava (@ritubhargava) is the Chief Product Officer of SAP Customer Experience (CX). In her role, she heads product, engineering, user experience, strategy, and operations for the entire CX portfolio and recently has been appointed to the Qualtrics Board of Directors.Before joining SAP at the end of 2021, Ritu held various technology leadership positions and most recently came from Salesforce as the Senior Vice President of Engineering for Sales Cloud, Salesforce’s flagship product suite. Having started her career as an SAP developer, Ritu went on to work at Oracle for ten years and was responsible for financial applications in various roles. With extensive experience in enterprise applications and the CX space, Ritu brings a strong market focus, both from a business and engineering perspective. Ritu holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Psychology from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, and an M.B.A. in Finance and IT from the University of Lincolnshire, U.K. She recently joined the Qualtrics Board of Directors and co-chairs the West Coast Advisory Board for Asian University for Women. AUW is a Bangladesh-based nonprofit dedicated to women’s education and leadership development. She also enjoys supporting cricketing initiatives in America, having played on the U.S.A. Women’s Cricket team."If we were to rely purely on just having to re-org for every business requirement that we need to deliver to or a customer need that we need to execute to, we would endlessly be re-orging and it's just not possible, which means that we have to and we must operate in matrix words, which also then further means that we have to be okay with working with each other in a way that is not just, 'Hey, if I don't report to you or you're not on my team is only when I will make you successful.'- Ritu Bhargava Check out Jellyfish's Scenario Planner to help you accelerate your development!With Jellyfish’s Scenario Planner, you can analyze tradeoffs, and optimize resources - to ensure your highest priority initiatives meet your delivery goals and deadlines!To learn more about how Scenario Planner can help you better accelerate, predict & plan your software delivery 👉 head to jellyfish.co/elcSHOW NOTES:How to maximize time & attention of senior leaders at massive scale (2:13)Tactics for building bridges across a large-scale organization (4:52)Gaining buy-in toward prioritizing dependencies over feature work (7:23)How to unlock greater support / influence from another exec leader (9:01)Frameworks for better communicating intentions & removing misconceptions (12:05)Strategies for approaching progress updates in a massive scope (14:14)Cultivate positive relationships with peers by navigating conflicts (17:08)Acting with compromise & humility while working toward a shared goal (18:55)Questions to ask to minimize ego & generate curiosity around learning (20:46)Examples of navigating conflicting priorities within a large-scale org (21:55)Ritu’s prioritization tool: vision, values, themes, and KPIs (23:41)How to address conflicts between cross-functional partners (26:06)Tips for managing conflicts before they happen (28:38)Why you should identify how much time to invest in a decision (31:35)Rapid fire questions (34:04)LINKS AND RESOURCESMindset: The New Psychology of Success - After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities.The Light We Carry - There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with.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 Engine

This episode features all things security with our guest, Laura Bell Main, CEO & Founder @ SafeStack. She shares valuable strategies for building your security team & tool stack. We cover why security is a human problem based on human motivations, prioritization conversations for assessing risks, considerations for early-stage security teams, how behavior change & decision making impact security, and considerations for companies in the “messy middle” phase. Laura also addresses communicating about security in terms of tech debt, recommendations for incorporating security monitoring tools, how to measure those tools’ ROI, and more.ABOUT LAURA BELL MAINWith over twenty years of experience in software development and information security, Laura Bell Main (@lady_nerd) specialises in bringing security into organisations of every shape and size.She is the co-founder and CEO of SafeStack, an online education platform offering flexible, high-quality, and people-focused secure development training for fast-moving companies, with a focus on building security skills, practices, and culture across the entire engineering team.Laura is an experienced conference speaker, trainer, and regular panel member, and has spoken at a range of events such as BlackHat USA, Velocity, and OSCON on the subjects of privacy, covert communications, agile security, and security mindset.She is also the co-author of Agile Application Security and Security for Everyone."The most important thing that we forget to tell folks when they're starting out in security is most of our tooling is about being more effective and efficient. It's not about doing something you can't do yourself. Security isn't about a magic box. I wish it was, it would be a lot easier if we could just buy a magic box. Done! Off we go to the beach, but what we have is a really human problem.”- Laura Bell Main 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 proven strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:What to do about security if you don’t already have a security team (2:28)Security as a “human problem” in the scope of eng orgs (4:58)Why you need to understand human motivations (7:21)Prioritization frameworks & chaos engineering for assessing threats (9:14)Considerations for the early stages of forming a security org (11:47)Understanding security through a behavior change model (14:57)How to operationalize a security mindset within a software team (18:00)Examples of how decisions can flag security risks (20:50)Approaches for tracking & managing security as tech debt (23:20)Addressing security considerations as a “messy” middle-stage company (27:17)High friction aspects of security behavior change for eng orgs (30:51)Tips for knowing if you have the right security tool (34:41)How to evaluate the ROI of tools you’re considering (38:06)Methods for incorporating security monitoring into your current tool stack (39:32)Rapid fire questions (42:45)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Body Keeps The Score - The inspiring story of how a group of therapists and scientists— together with their courageous and memorable patients—has struggled to integrate recent advances in brain science, attachment research, and body awareness into treatments that can free trauma survivors from the tyranny of the past.Open source checklist for high-growth CTOsThis 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, Jessica McKellar, CTO & Founder @ Pilot, shares her story as a serial founder and the lessons that can help you become a more impactful, strategic business contributor & eng leader. She reveals strategies for identifying your company’s ideal end state & the steps needed to achieve product-market fit, daily practices that help measure important metrics, business-building disciplines that need to be prioritized long term, and steps for creating positive collaboration between product, eng & design teams.For more episodes of Engineering Founders, subscribe here: https://engineering-founders.simplecast.com/ABOUT JESSICA MCKELLARJessica McKellar (@jessicamckellar) is a repeat founder and the CTO of fintech unicorn Pilot, an accounting firm powered by software.Previously, she was a founder and the VP of Engineering for Zulip, a real-time collaboration startup acquired by Dropbox, where she then served as a Director of Engineering. Before that, she was a computer nerd at MIT who joined her friends at Ksplice, a company building a service for rebootless kernel updates on Linux that was acquired by Oracle.Jessica is a former Director for the Python Software Foundation and PyCon North America Diversity Outreach Chair. For her outreach efforts in the Python community, she was awarded the O'Reilly Open Source Award.Open source meets criminal justice reform in Jessica’s work with The Last Mile, a job training and re-entry program that has implemented the first computer programming curriculum inside US prisons. She teaches Python at San Quentin State Prison in California, hires formerly incarcerated software engineers, and uses that bridge between the tech industry and prisons to get people activated and acting for decarceration."You need to be able to think about the business in a way where you have ideas that inflect the business. What is a gap in the product that needs to be addressed? What's an idea for a way to achieve a step function improvement in margin? How can we save the company money that it is spending via an engineering investment?- Jessica McKellar 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:Jessica’s founder story @ Pilot (3:26)How founding Pilot is different from past experiences w/ Zulip & Ksplice (4:29)The story behind Pilot’s “power team” of founders (7:06)Distinctions between Jessica’s focus as CTO / founder & eng roles (11:36)How eng functions can help the exec team hit important metrics (14:40)Daily actions that help optimize & monitor metrics like margin (16:33)Frameworks for identifying business trajectory (19:46)What parts of business-building discipline need to be prioritized long-term (21:29)Use market fit & size of market to determine your company’s goal end state (22:48)Past lessons the founding team applied while starting Pilot (24:45)Things Jessica thinks she & her co-founders do right (25:23)Recommendations for exploring potential paths & aligning on the final decision (29:20)Steps for becoming a more impactful, strategic business contributor (30:55)How eng leaders can identify ideal end state & achieve product-market fit (35:15)Create collaboration between product, eng & design teams (37:28)Rapid fire questions (37:09)LINKS AND RESOURCESCool People Who Did Cool Stuff - This weekly podcast dives into history to drag up the wildest rebels, the most beautiful revolts, and all the people who long to be—and fight to be—free. It explores complex stories of resistance that offer lessons and inspiration for us today, focusing on the ensemble casts that make up each act of history.And Away… - Bob Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him, but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework for his hilarious and moving memoir, And Away…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.

Alamelu Radhakrishnan reveals her best frameworks for making great decisions quickly without fear in one of our favorite ELC Annual sessions last year. She covers her threefold approach to knowing when to make a decision, pitfalls & anti-patterns to avoid throughout the decision-making process, and strategies for delegating and avoiding decision fatigue, all while working around fear of failure & empowering other decision-makers to act with confidence. Alamelu also shares some interesting decision-making concepts including first principles, the 40% to 70% guide, and more.Interested in topics like this, and beyond? #ELCAnnual2023 is happening 8/30 & 8/31! You can get your ticket to join your peers, check out all our speakers + explore additional topics at sfelc.com/annual2023ABOUT ALAMELU RADHAKRISHNANAlamelu is a technology leader, operator, and advisor with experience at scale and in high-growth environments across eCommerce, energy, and professional services. She's excited to start her next chapter with Homebase as VP, Engineering leading Product Delivery, helping small and medium businesses maximize their potential.Previously, she was Chief of Staff to the CTO at Shopify, supporting the Engineering organization, leading the teams responsible for building the systems, technology, and technical programs that power Shopify. Prior to Shopify, Alamelu has worked with some of Canada’s most innovative product and consulting agencies, leading engineering and delivery teams and helping organizations leverage technology to create maximum impact.Alamelu finds joy in solving business problems through technology, strives for organizational excellence, and is passionate about supporting and sponsoring underrepresented folks in the industry. Alamelu lives in Toronto, and loves food, travel, the outdoors, and horror movies."Any decision you make is better than not making a decision. Most of the decisions that we make in our job are reversible decisions, but the time that we lose by not making a decisionis irreversible. The opportunity cost of that time, you're never gonna get that back.”- Alamelu Radhakrishnan 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 proven strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Introducing Alamelu @ Shopify (2:54)Why we make decisions as eng leaders (4:11)Understand your top priority & its influence on decision-making (11:05)Common pitfalls & anti-patterns to avoid in the decision-making process (12:28)Tips for making a successful decision stick (16:20)Avoiding decision fatigue & learning to delegate when possible (19:51)Decision-making, autonomy, & navigating fear of failure (22:41)Audience Q&A: decision-making artifacts & organizational aspects (25:39)When your gut feeling contradicts your framework / decision (28:39)Examples of Alamelu’s first principles concept (30:15)Approach for knowing if you’re not delegating enough (31:49)Decision-making in remote environments (33:20)How to delegate without being perceived as disengaged (34:54)The “40% to 70%” guide & knowing when to make a decision (36:40)Alignment vs. consensus (37:32)Techniques for gaining team / individual buy-in (39:59)When you’re on the receiving end of an overly abstracted problem (41:30)Strategies for empowering decision-makers as an eng leader (43:31)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.

Prachi Gupta, VP of Engineering @ Discord, shares her best strategies for growing your career & leadership skills through transitions, moderated by Chris Chiu, Director of Engineering - Collaboration @ Figma. Prachi and Chris also cover what tactics work well for building community & leading in a remote / hybrid environment, frameworks for operating during wartime, recruiting with the whole person in mind, and why you need to “give away their legos” in order to grow as an eng leader.Interested in topics like this, and beyond? #ELCAnnual2023 is happening 8/30 & 8/31! You can get your ticket to join your peers, check out all our speakers + explore additional topics at sfelc.com/annual2023ABOUT PRACHI GUPTAPrachi Gupta heads engineering at Discord. With close to two decades of experience in consumer technology companies, she is responsible for leading the strategy and execution of a highly scalable and distributed technology stack that powers millions of conversations. Prachi enjoys building engineering teams and defining culture and processes that enable teams to grow and succeed in a repeatable and predictable manner. As an entrepreneurial engineer at heart, she enjoys prototyping ideas and conceptualizing, designing, and delivering impactful software. Prachi is an active supporter of diversity in STEM, co-founded LinkedIn's Women in Technology initiative, and is an alumnus board member of Women's Audio Mission.Prachi holds a Master's in Computer Science and has significant experience in working with startups to explore innovative solutions to real-world problems, from socially-driven consumer websites to enterprise business intelligence & analytics software."You have to learn how to build something, get it to a point that's satisfactory enough to you and be okay handing it off to someone else so they can run with it. That's essentially beenhow I've operated in my career, not because I had this like grand vision in my mind of this is how I get to like the thing I want to get to, but because I was just hungry to learn. I just gained this reputation of, 'Oh, like if something's broken or something needs fixing or something needs figuring out, here's a flexible person that we can throw at it.'”- Prachi Gupta ABOUT CHRIS CHIUChris Chiu is a Director of Engineering at Figma. Figma is a web-based design tool, and Chris’s teams work on Collaboration & Community as well as Figma’s mobile, tablet, and desktop platforms. Before Figma, Chris led product engineering and platform teams at Flexport and OpenGov.Chris was born in Brazil and has lived in the Bay Area for 14 years. He loves e-bike rides with his kids and reading fantasy & sci-fi novels.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:What doesn’t work in a remote / hybrid work environment (2:42)Tactics Discord utilizes to enhance the remote / hybrid workspace (4:39)Strategies for building teams w/ a strong sense of community & belonging (7:13)Defining what it means to assess the whole person (10:58)How Discord applies the “whole person” assessment to recruiting (12:42)Prachi’s advice for operating / executing during wartime (14:54)Why understanding the “giving away your legos” philosophy is important (18:09)Prachi’s defining inflection points in her leadership journey (21:15)Balancing your career & parenthood (23:43)The best career advice Prachi has ever received (26:21)Audience Q&A: building trust w/ a new team that is more technically proficient than you are in their domain (28:55)Tips for empowering individuals to their full potential (31:12)How senior eng leaders can help frontline EMs handle their tasks (32:42)Strategies for being the unseen hand vs. seen hand in an org (35:50)Practices Prachi kept & discarded during her pivotal transitions (38:35)Navigating where to allocate your time w/ direct reports (41:50)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.

In this week’s episode, we’re featuring another of our most popular, inspiring sessions from ELC Annual 2022. Oksana Kubushyna, former VP of Entertainment Operations @ Riot Games, shares her best strategies for turning your career into a rocket, along with plenty of inspiring stories from her eight years and multiple promotions within Riot Games. She reveals why your mindset is the most important driver of career success, the importance of prioritizing your team, customers, & company over yourself when it comes to getting ahead, and tips for getting feedback, asking for help, prioritizing relationships, showing initiative, and much more. This is a featured session from ELC Annual 2022. Interested in topics like this, and beyond? #ELCAnnual2023 is happening 8/30 & 8/31! You can get your ticket to join your peers, check out all our speakers + explore additional topics at sfelc.com/annual2023ABOUT OSKANA KUBUSHYNAAs VP of Entertainment Operations, Oksana Kubushyna (@GLHF2U) oversees operations of Riot’s Entertainment division with a goal to imagine and develop bespoke IP experiences and products - animation, film, interactive narratives, music, consumer products and beyond - that deepen players’ and fans’ connections to the universe Riot has created in League of Legends.After joining Riot in 2014, she quickly rose through the ranks, holding positions including Head of Infrastructure, Development Director for League of Legends, founder and Head of Riot Platform Group, and VP of Game Studios Operations, helping build the foundation for, launch and operate Riot’s new games globally.She has also been a leader of Diversity and Inclusion efforts within Riot. Her passion for the advancement of women in games and tech reaches beyond Riot, and she has been honored by groups such as Girls Inc. and Wonder Women Tech."If you're asking, 'How can I get ahead?', I'm here to tell you also that you gotta flip that. That's exactly the wrong question to ask because the more you ask questions like this, the more people will perceive you as self-serving. There is no quicker way to lose somebody's trust than for them to believe you are acting in your best interests and not in theirs, not in your company's, not in your customer's. Focusing on your customer, focusing on your manager's needs, on your company's needs, on your team needs is a much more effective way to move forward.”- Oksana Kubushyna 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:Introducing Oksana & her roles within Riot Games over the past eight years (2:37)Secondary drivers impacting career success (5:53)Why your mindset is the primary driver of success (7:52)Always prioritize the company & customers over your own self-interests (9:57)Strategies for becoming non-reactive & showing initiative (12:53)The importance of prioritizing relationships (15:12)How to incorporate feedback to improve your leadership skills (16:38)Be in the right place so you’re not a $10 watch (19:09)Audience Q&A: tips for going about getting feedback & asking for help (20:48)How to tell stories & adapting the skill for a remote environment (22:52)Tips for recognizing your value & overcoming imposter syndrome (25:10)Knowing you’re not the right “watch” in your company / team (27:37)Defining anti-fragility & its impact on career success (29:14)Serve your team by managing up (30:32)Making the best use of your time in a one-on-one w/ high-level leadership (31:58)Why you should create time to think strategically (33:15)Frameworks for driving change within a larger organization (34:48)Oksana’s advice for moving forward instead of retreating into your comfort zone (36:10)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.

What's helped you succeed in the larger company you are at (or left), seldom translates in the new smaller company you find yourself in. This conversation covers strategies for finding the next opportunity, tips for making your transition smooth, frameworks for being a successful leader at a smaller org, what skills / attributes you’ll need to succeed, and how to integrate teams that consist of original startup members & hires from larger companies Featuring Vinod Marur, SVP of Engineering @ Databricks & moderated by Ali Irturk, Vice President of Engineering @ CommerceHub. This is a featured session from ELC Annual 2022.Interested in topics like this, and beyond? #ELCAnnual2023 is happening 8/30 & 8/31! You can get your ticket to join your peers, check out all our speakers + explore additional topics at sfelc.com/annual2023ABOUT VINOD MARURVinod Marur is the SVP of Engineering at Databricks. He was previously at Rubrik where he served as SVP Engineering and established a mature engineering organization geared for rapid product development and innovation with a deep focus on product quality and organizational development. Prior to that, Vinod spent nearly 15 years in leadership roles across some of Google’s most critical business units, including Search, Ads, and Payments as well as tapping into his passion for developer platforms to create and lead the Actions on Google platform, used by third parties to develop for Google Assistant and other Google products."You've got to want to build houses, not paint walls. Painting walls is fine and it's totally good, but if you do not like to build houses, actually don't make that transition because you're literally gonna go like, 'Oh my God, there is no wall here.' And you're gonna have to build it from scratch. Everything you need to be able to do yourself.”- Vinod Marur ABOUT ALI IRTURKAli's day-to-day passion is creating and being part of efficient and effective engineering organizations that are firing on all cylinders where team members can achieve autonomy, mastery, and purpose in a psychologically safe environment. Ali is currently realizing this passion by working at CommerceHub as their Vice President of Engineering.He previously worked at rocketship start-ups funded by some of the top VCs in the world including a16z, SoftBank, Microsoft Ventures, and Lightspeed Ventures to name a few. He was the Vice President of Engineering at WorkBoard, a strategy and results enterprise SaaS platform helping large organizations align quickly for results, leading product delivery as well as accessibility, application security, release engineering, platform, and infrastructure teams. Previously, Ali was the Vice President of Engineering at ALICE Technologies working on revolutionizing the construction industry with an artificial intelligence-powered enterprise SaaS product.Ali also created and managed the advanced products group at Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ: CGNX) for 8 years while working as an adjunct professor at UC San Diego. His team worked on creating innovative industrial vision systems and software to help companies improve their product quality, eliminate production errors, and lower manufacturing costs. Examples of the products I worked on were the world's first vision system on chip and the world's fastest 3D scanning system to name a few.Where he is today is quite different from where his journey began. Born and raised in Istanbul, Ali graduated from the Turkish Naval Academy and served as an officer in the Turkish Navy. After leaving the Navy, he earned Master's degrees in Computer Engineering and Economics at UC Santa Barbara, a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at UC San Diego, and an MBA at UC Berkeley.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:Introducing Vinod & Ali (3:17)Vinod’s experience @ Google & the motivation to move to smaller startups (3:23)Strategies for searching for the next opportunity (7:07)Taking action vs. stagnation mode (9:31)Know your role within a smaller organization (10:27)Recommendations to make transitioning to a small org smoother (13:11)How long the transition period typically lasts (17:35)Frameworks for being an effective leader at a smaller org (18:42)Eng leadership skills & attributes that matter the most (23:25)Use coaches / mentors to help support your transition (25:55)Things Vinod says he would do differently in his earlier transitions (28:13)Audience Q&A: how leading at a small vs. large company is like working out (30:55)Switching your mindset from top-down to bottom-up (32:37)Navigating the balance between celebrating new f

This episode features one of our most fascinating sessions from ELC Annual 2022 – we explore how businesses, creators, and researchers are building the “generative generation” & harnessing generative AI’s potential – featuring Mira Murati, CTO @ OpenAI, Naveen Gavini, SVP, Products @ Pinterest & moderated by Vijay Karunamurthy Head of Engineering @ Scale AI. This session covers the current state & future of generative AI, its potential impacts, what is being done to mitigate potential risks, how smaller companies can take advantage of open-source generative AI technology, and the factors impacting future generative AI innovation.Interested in topics like this, and beyond? #ELCAnnual2023 is happening 8/30 & 8/31! You can get your ticket to join your peers, check out all our speakers + explore additional topics at sfelc.com/annual2023ABOUT MIRA MURATIMira Murati (@miramurati) is the CTO of OpenAI. Mira and her teams are pushing the frontiers of what neural networks can do, seeking to better understand the behavior of powerful AI systems and make them safer, and align them with human intentions and human values. Prior to joining OpenAI, she led the product and engineering teams at Leap Motion (VR/AR startup), and led the design, development, and launch of vehicle products at Tesla, including Model X."We've always wanted human helpers. We've always tried to build tools like since the beginning of life we've created tools. They're just such a natural thing and now this is different because it extends the range of our mental capabilities, of our creativity and intuition and imagination. So we are sort of exploring this new era where tools are helping us extend the range of our minds.”- Mira Murati ABOUT NAVEEN GAVININaveen Gavini (@ngavini) is the SVP of Products at Pinterest, where he oversees all design and product efforts for both consumer and advertiser products. He is incredibly passionate about building great user experiences and creating environments that stimulate creativity and innovative thinking. Prior to this role Naveen led both the design and engineering functions and was one of Pinterest's earliest engineers, joining in 2012. Since then, he played a critical role in scaling the engineering team, and was involved in almost every major new product initiative the company has developed for users.ABOUT VIJAY KARUNAMURTHYVijay Karunamurthy (@vjkaruna) is Scale’s Head of Engineering. He was the Director of Engineering at Apple for 5 years. He was the Co-Founder and CEO of Nom Labs, a community for food lovers to create, share and watch their favorite stories in real-time, and Co-Founder of AVOS Systems.Additionally, he was an Engineering Manager at Google and Youtube.Vijay is an expert in data-centric AI and building Machine Learning teams. He believes that the next decade of AI achievement is going to be built by teams that take on outsized ambitions, and understand that it is not always a straight line to get there.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:Introducing Mira, Naveen & Vijay (3:33)Mira discusses the current state & future of generative AI (3:51)Naveen’s perspective on how these changes impact curation (7:12)How engineering teams can bring generative AI into their own practice (10:27)Strategies for smaller companies to incorporate this technology into their work (12:54)Marketing & creative industries’ views on generative AI & its potential impact (14:32)Naveen shares his experience with guided search @ Pinterest & generative AI’s role w/ the act of discovery (17:05)The intersection of art & generative AI (19:57)Mira & Naveen’s opinions on if generative AI will replace or enhance current jobs (21:47)How generative AI is being used in highly skilled industries (25:55)Risks of generative AI, such as perceived generation of misinformation (28:13)Mira explains how OpenAI mitigates risks & spread of misinformation (31:14)Three pillars of future innovation for generative AI (33:39)Naveen answers what he sees “next week” in generative AI development (35:04)What’s in store for OpenAI (37:32)What’s next for Pinterest & ML (39:25)Audience Q&A: how to democratize AI & make it beneficial for humanity (40:11)Quantum computing / other computing considerations @ OpenAI (42:31)Weighing the pros & cons of generative AI adoption (43:49)The future of ML & mathematical / scientific discovery (46:42)4This 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

In this episode, we cover compassionate accountability & facing difficulties head-on with Marc Lesser, author of Finding Clarity. He shares what it was like living in a Zen monastery for 10 years and the leadership lessons he learned while working in their kitchen. We also address strategies for conversations around high standards, accountability, agreements, and alignment; models for correcting negative self-talk; closing the gap between seemingly combative standards, such as speed vs. quality; and how to transition from avoiding conflicts to accepting them. Lastly, we close with a three-minute meditation that can help bring much-needed well-being into your workspace.ABOUT MARC LESSERMarc Lesser (@marclesser) is a CEO, executive coach, and Zen teacher. He founded and was CEO of 3 companies, and helped develop a mindfulness program inside of Google's headquarters. Marc was a resident of the San Francisco Zen Center for 10 years, and director of Tassajara, Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen monastery in the western world. He is the author of Finding Clarity."So to me it's really maybe about high standards and aligning around those standards. Avoiding those conversations is the problem and this is where I think the whole realm of emotions and emotional intelligence and self-awareness comes into play. Five emotionally intelligent engineers working together will produce much, much greater outcomes than people who are not really aligned, not really having those real conversations.”- Marc Lesser 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:Marc’s experience working / living in a zen monastery for 10 years (3:30)Leadership lessons learned from the monastery’s kitchen (6:09)Exploring accountability & confronting conflict (8:37)Frameworks for conversations around high standards / accountability (10:26)How to incorporate compassionate accountability (13:53)Practices that help teams develop greater alignment (17:04)When leaders practice accountability w/ kindness (19:53)Model for correcting negative self-talk & how it impacts team alignment (21:23)Closing the gap between speed vs. quality, or other combative standards (24:22)Curiosity & flexibility as core values (26:49)Best practices for forming agreements (27:50)How to move from avoiding difficulties / conflicts to accepting them (29:57)Rapid fire questions (32:28)Marc’s three-minute closing meditation (35:27)LINKS AND RESOURCESFinding Clarity - Marc Lesser’s book that shows how, together, compassion and accountability play an absolutely critical role in transforming how we communicate in our work and family relationships.Think Again - Adam Grant, the bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people’s minds, which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life.Peace Is Every Step - In this book Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to make positive use of the very situations in our daily life that usually pressure and antagonise us. The most profound satisfactions, the deepest feelings of joy and completeness lie as close at hand as our next conscious breath and the smile we can form right now.These Truths: A History of the United States - Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history.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.

Ludo Antonov, VP of Engineering @ WhatNot, shares how eng leaders can better operate from their organization’s first principles. He defines the concept & what that looks like for WhatNot through their values of listening to customers, moving uncomfortably fast, and more – plus what happens when optimizing for one principle conflicts with another! We also cover Ludo’s leadership journey, how he navigated the transition from a business model focused on discovery & matching to two-sided marketplaces, and challenges / lessons learned from working within the social, community, & marketplace space.ABOUT LUDO ANTONOVLudo (@ludo_antonov) is the Vice President of Engineering at Whatnot. He has an extensive background in building engineering teams at fast-growing startups including Hulu, Pinterest, and Lyft. He led the Pinterest Growth team as the company was going through hyper-growth up to IPO. Prior to joining Whatnot, he served as an engineering executive at Lyft, overseeing the company’s core rideshare products including the rider, driver, marketplace, and growth organizations."That's one of the important parts is it allows for common language to fall back to whenever these problems actually happen because they tend to be more and more complex and take more and more nuance in order to get right and sometimes, especially like it's very powerful to take it back to first principles and say, 'How would we do this if we have to be ruthlessly prioritizing? Are we moving comfortably fast in thinking of our approach?' And then everyone understands because it's part of our vocabulary and it takes repetition to build that.”- Ludo Antonov 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:Ludo provides a status update on recent milestones @ WhatNot (2:40)What operating from first principles looks like within an eng org (4:08)Strategies for going back to your founding leadership principles (6:35)Overcoming product challenges by leading through listening to your customers (8:34)How the eng team pivoted their approach based on that first principle (9:40)Deconstructing “moving uncomfortably fast” & its impact on operating systems (12:13)Incorporating first principles with WhatNot’s international strategy (13:35)When optimizing for one value is in conflict with another (15:32)Frameworks that aid in ruthless prioritization (16:41)Assess impact, likelihood of success & effort during prioritization conversations (19:05)Lessons learned from building Pinterest that Ludo applied to WhatNot (19:57)Ludo’s transition from discovery / matching to a two-sided marketplace (23:40)How Ludo applied two-sided marketplace elements to WhatNot (24:53)Working business model aspects into an engineering context (26:23)Ludo’s favorite seller experiences (28:30)Engineering approaches to & impact on two-sided marketplaces (30:18)Recommendations for eng leaders operating in a new business model (31:57)Rapid fire questions (33:39)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Upside of Stress - Drawing from groundbreaking research, psychologist and award-winning teacher Kelly McGonigal, PhD, offers a surprising new view of stress—one that reveals the upside of stress, and shows us exactly how to capitalize on its benefits.Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey A. Moore’s bible for bringing cutting-edge products to larger markets—now revised and updated with new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing.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.

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/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We’re taking this week off for a short summer holiday. Until then, here are a few episodes from the backlog we highly recommend, for a little fun summer listening... Leveraging OODA Loops in Leadership with Oksana Kubushyna #118 - https://elc.community/home/podcasts/building-platforms-vs-products-and-leveraging-ooda-loops-in-leadership-oksana-kubushnya-riotgames Navigating Multiproduct Expansion + other eadership & career insights from Kris Rasmussen #124 - https://elc.community/home/podcasts/navigating-multi-product-expansion-leadership-and-career-insights-kris-rasmussen-figma Alignment is the key to delivering great product & team outcomes w/ Jonathon Hensley #90 - https://elc.community/home/podcasts/alignment-is-the-key-to-delivering-great-products-and-outcomes And a deep cut from the archives… Conscious Career Growth parts 1 & 2 with Wade Chambers!! #20 & #21- https://elc.community/home/podcasts/conscious-career-growth-wade-chambers-part-1 Want to get involved with ELC? Visit elc.community sign up with your email for membership (it’s free) and we’ll include you on the events & programs we have coming up! Join us at our flagship conference for eng leaders, ELC Annual on 8/30-31! sfelc.com/elcannual2023 Thanks for listening to the engineering leadership podcast. We’ll see you next week! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Barbara Nelson, VP of Engineering @ InfluxData, joins us to share her eng leadership philosophies on career adaptation and helping teams adapt to meet both business needs & individual interests / strengths. We cover how her leadership journey has shaped her perspective on adapting to new career opportunities, implementing boundaries within eng teams to foster creativity, approaching problem sets with eng teams, and building a healthy relationship between product & eng orgs. Additionally, Barbara shares strategies for adapting a team based on personality dynamics, meeting developers where they are, and why she’s built her career on building products with purpose.ABOUT BARBARA NELSONBarbara leads the engineering team at InfluxData. She has extensive experience leading globally distributed teams in designing, developing, deploying, and supporting products and services that are delivered on a cloud-based service platform and on a range of client platforms. Prior to InfluxData, Barbara had a variety of engineering and technical leadership roles, including VP of Engineering at iPass, CTO at Cirrent, and Principal Architect at eBay. Barbara has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University College Dublin, Ireland."There was an assumption that we had more shared context than we really had. So the engineers kind of thought, 'Well, it'll be obvious to the operations folks that this thing is deployed correctly or incorrectly.' There was no reason for it to be obvious to the operation folks. What would've made it obvious to the operations folks?”- Barbara Nelson 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:Barbara’s favorite leadership dilemma – job efficiency vs. enjoyment (1:57)How Barbara has adapted to various roles throughout her leadership journey (3:42)Lessons learned from diving into the role of Interim VP of Operations (6:19)Formal & informal frameworks for making / communicating adjustments (9:03)Barbara’s perspective on pursuing new opportunities & the “career ladder” (11:33)Advice for those who feel stuck on that ladder (13:25)How Barbara’s experience at General Magic impacted her leadership philosophy (15:07)Why boundaries help foster creativity (17:30)Barbara’s approach to introducing problem sets to eng teams (19:14)Strategies for aligning eng teams to reach an intended output (21:55)Driving a healthy relationship between product & eng teams (23:58)Recommendations for bridging the gap between product & engineering (26:02)Adapt a team based on personality dynamics & what gets them excited (28:49)The power of building a product with purpose (36:31)How AI trends will impact eng team adaptation & alignment (38:12)Rapid fire questions (39:45)LINKS AND RESOURCESBuild: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making - Written for anyone who wants to grow at work—from young grads navigating their first jobs to CEOs deciding whether to sell their company—Tony Fadell’s Build is full of personal stories, practical advice, and fascinating insights into some of the most impactful products and people of the 20th century.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.

We discuss rapid prototyping & how eng leaders can develop better product instincts with David Crawshaw, CTO & Co-Founder @ Tailscale! He shares his leadership journey from Google to Tailscale and how the early product development days at his startup lead to incorporating rapid prototyping principles within their eng org. We also cover strategies and recommendations for those who are new to rapid prototyping, how to work with design & product teams while quickly iterating, navigating the tension between speed & quality, and how to avoid common pitfalls while implementing the process.ABOUT DAVID CRAWSHAWDavid Crawshaw (@davidcrawshaw) is co-founder and CTO of Tailscale. Previously he was a staff engineer at Google, where he specialized in petabyte-scale logs processing. He implemented TCP/IP networking for Fuchsia, as well as ported the Go language platform to iOS and Android."If you're a pre-seed startup in the Bay Area and you are trying to ship something to your first few customers and you ship with 40-something languages, then you've made a mistake, but it's not necessarily true that a large company has made that mistake. For larger companies with more total requirements, I think the big question is can you construct environments where you can experiment without all of these requirements?”- David Crawshaw 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:David’s background at Google & the transition to founding Tailscale (1:51)Early-day challenges at Tailscale w/ prototyping (4:03)How Tailscale discovered & employed rapid prototyping during its early days (6:41)Paradigm shifts around the product-building process & feedback loop (8:37)Recommendations for those new to rapid prototyping (11:20)Shifting your org’s culture toward accelerated iteration cycles w/ arbitrary limits (13:36)Frameworks for getting to a faster prototype (16:52)How to work w/ design & product throughout rapid prototyping process (19:26)Navigating the tension between doing things quickly vs. working well (21:51)Where large companies try to rapid prototype & things go wrong (26:29)Trains vs. EVs in the Bay area – a metaphor for rapid iteration (28:46)Bringing that metaphor to software development (31:37)David’s perspective on widespread adoption of OpenAI (34:31)Rapid fire questions (39:19)LINKS AND RESOURCESTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - In this exhilarating novel from Gabrielle Zevin, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.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.

Matt Spitz joins our latest podcast to discuss leading beyond domain expertise! As Head of Engineering @ Vanta, Matt shares his experience managing & developing a security program in the early days of Vanta before hiring for a specialized skillset. We also cover strategies on maximizing security at your organization as it grows, developing a company culture that invests in security, identifying when your org is ready to hire a domain expert, and how to effectively communicate with & lead domain experts within your org. In addition, Matt reveals what qualities he believes a security culture expert should possess & how eng leaders (who aren’t domain experts in security) can help set the org’s right technical direction.ABOUT MATT SPITZMatt Spitz is the Head of Engineering at Trust Management Platform provider, Vanta, where he helps companies practice better security. Previously, he co-founded and led Dropbox's NYC office, started a company, and has built and scaled diverse engineering teams solving complex product and infrastructure challenges. He lives in San Francisco and rides his bike to work."The value that I can provide to all these departments is visibility and context. The perfect strategy for support or something like security doesn't exist. It's contextual, right? And the things that we are trying to do as a business, the things that are happening outside of those departments that maybe I have visibility into, that is value that I can provide to those people in shifting their strategy and setting the right strategy that's contextually appropriate.”- Matt Spitz 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:Matt’s observations around leading beyond your expertise (2:45)Leadership tactics to employ when transitioning to a role outside your expertise (5:02)Matt's transition from Dropbox to Vanta (7:31)Paradigm shifts when transitioning between large & small orgs (9:01)How to improve in leading teams beyond your skill set (11:01)Recommendations for probing / gathering information from experts (13:19)Matt’s experience leading a successful security program before hiring an expert (15:27)Strategies to maximize the area of security as an individual (18:27)How to lay the foundational elements of an early-stage security program (22:14)Knowing when your org is ready for a domain-specific expert (24:05)Indicators to identify when seeking an expert (25:12)Frameworks for hiring / managing an expert beyond your domain (27:03)Evaluating culture fit in hiring security experts (28:54)Effective communication strategies when working with various domain experts (31:44)Setting the right technical direction when you’re not the expert (34:40)Rapid fire questions (36:22)LINKS AND RESOURCESLost Dogs - Matt’s Pearl Jam cover bandThis 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.

Han Yuan, Founder of Post-PC Labs, joins us to discuss some of the biggest converging trends hitting our industry – the rise of AI along with the tech bubble that’s poised to burst at any time. We cover not only these trends’ impact on eng leaders, but we also cover how technology trends can drive opportunities for eng leaders to become key strategic partners toward their orgs’ business strategy. Han shares advice for how to evaluate business needs, align your attitude / work toward those goals, earn a seat at the leadership table, build credibility, and use that credibility to implement strategic changes.ABOUT HAN YUANHan Yuan is the founder of Post-PC Labs, LLC. Post-PC Labs is wholly-owned and funded by Han, powered by a global team of freelancers. The group's focus is building cash-flow breakeven projects with product-market fit. Early investment themes include wellness and corporate productivity.Before Post-PC Labs, Han was SVP of Engineering at Upwork, where he led one of the world's most distributed engineering teams: 350+ engineers in 40 countries around the world. In this role, Han was responsible for any function that had anything to do with a computer, including Information Security, IT, QA, Application Engineering, Cloud Engineering, Data Science, Infrastructure Engineering, and Program Management. During his tenure at Upwork, Upwork's revenue doubled, and the company went public in 2018.In a previous life, Han was an influential mobile engineering leader, having incubated world-class teams for eBay and Netflix. Han's early work in mobile proved that it was possible to sell billions of dollars of goods and entertain hundreds of millions of people globally using just a mobile phone. Together with his teams, Han helped launch and scale the eBay and Netflix programs from small incubation teams. At eBay, he was the first engineer on his team. When Apple announced its one billionth download in the app store and celebrated the top 25 apps in the store of all time, eBay and Netflix were both on the list.Han started his career in enterprise software specializing in the finance and human resources domains and was a co-founder of Buddystumbler.com. Han has a B.S and M.S in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from U.C. Berkeley with a minor degree in Computer Science and a Management of Technology Certificate from the Haas School of Business."That's the language that you need to communicate with your colleagues, your peers. That's what everybody else understands. They're not going to understand, 'Oh, we need to migrate the data center to the cloud.' They're not going to understand that, 'Hey, these are all the technical reasons why a forklift could be very complicated.' You have to put it in terms that the business is going to understand. That is going to be the art, and along the way, I think if you use that framework, it helps your own teams understand why their work is relevant to the business.”- Han Yuan 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:Converging industry trends that eng leaders should be aware of (2:45)The impact of these trends on tech leaders (6:54)“Opaque” technology & how it can drive innovation in eng leaders (9:48)Emerging opportunities that may intimidate, such as LLMs (11:34)Han’s litmus test to determine your risk of irrelevance as an eng leader (12:55)Framework for eng leaders to increase their value-add to business / product strategy (15:31)Evaluating the business’s needs & aligning your values toward those goals (18:02)How eng leaders can make strategic impact on the business (19:37)Key questions to help eng leaders identify strategic solutions (22:30)Tips for establishing (or reestablishing) your role as a strategic partner (24:00)How Han built credibility during his time @ Upwork (27:40)Using newfound credibility to implement strategic changes (29:54)Rapid fire questions (32:28)LINKS AND RESOURCESSapiens – A Brief History of Humankind - Sapiens, the book, takes us on a breath-taking ride through our entire human history, from its evolutionary roots to the age of capitalism and genetic engineering, to uncover why we are the way we are. Sapiens focuses on key processes that shaped humankind and the world around it, such as the advent of agriculture, the creation of money, the spread of religion and the rise of the nation-state. Unlike other books of its kind, Sapiens takes a multi-disciplinary approach that bridges the gaps between history, biology, philosophy and economics in a way never done before. Furthermore, taking both the macro and the micro view, Sapiens conveys

Abi Noda, Co-founder & CEO @ DX returns to the show to discuss his latest research on measuring & improving developer productivity, and provides a practical, developer-focused framework to give you clear, actionable insights into what to measure and where to focus in order to improve developer productivity. Abi reveals the inspiration behind his whitepaper / research, elements of their new DevEx framework, and how eng leaders can implement it into their org’s practice in order to increase developer productivity. We also cover the evolution of measuring developer experience (including output metrics, DORA & SPACE frameworks) and the benefits / shortcomings of each approach. In addition, learn not only the importance of having a dedicated DevEx team, but also how to implement these insights if your org isn’t ready to have a dedicated team yet.ABOUT ABI NODAAbi (@abinoda) is the CEO and co-founder of DX, the world's first developer experience management platform. He was previously the CEO and founder of Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub in 2019. At GitHub he led research collaborations with Dr. Nicole Forsgren, McKinsey, and Microsoft Research, which was the impetus for founding DX."Oftentimes, organizations that are larger that get started with these types of measurements in their framework, they're really surprised. They realize that, 'Oh man, there's all these opportunities we didn't even realize and developers are telling us these are the most important things. These aren't the things we're working on and we need to shift our focus.' So, I think there's a huge opportunity to refocus by getting a holistic picture of the developer experience.”- Abi Noda 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 background behind Abi’s developer productivity research & why it matters (2:50)The evolution of measuring developer productivity (5:50)Moving beyond output metrics to DORA (and how that fell short of solving engineering measurement problems) (7:43)Challenges, drawbacks, and limitations to current measurement approaches (like DORA & SPACE) (11:51)What is the SPACE framework & how it manifests in eng orgs (15:14)Distinction between measuring the notion of productivity vs. focusing on measurements that improve productivity (17:07)Overview of Abi’s new DevEx framework & examples of it in use (19:52)Recommendations for frontline managers, ICs, engineers, etc. to apply the DevEx framework (22:26)How DevEx uncovers blind spots (like requirements quality) (24:21)When engineering orgs should consider separating out productivity (27:44)Strategies for broad-scope leaders to apply the DevEx framework (29:21)Using local teams to address specific DevEx issues (31:30)Why the VP of Eng / org leadership’s values drive developer experience (33:00)Tips for implementing the DevEx framework as a startup vs. mature company (35:06)How Abi is incorporating DevEx strategies into his own company @ DX (37:47)What positive developer experience looks like within an eng team (39:35)The most important step a team w/o a DevEx team can take (41:29)Rapid fire questions (43:17)LINKS AND RESOURCESAbi’s new DevEx whitepaper - “DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity” by Abi Noda, DX, Margaret-Anne Storey, University of Victoria, Nicole Forsgren, Microsoft Research, Michaela Greiler, DXObviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It - Obviously Awesome goes beyond teaching you what positioning is and why you should care. It gives you a step-by-step process that any startup can follow to position their product, service or company. This book will teach you how to find your product’s “secret sauce” and then sell that sauce to those who crave it.Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a "position" in a prospective customer's mind-one that reflects a company's own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of persona

In this episode, we redefine what successful, productive engineering looks like with Tammarrian Rogers. As the former Inclusive Engineering Director @ Snap, Tammarrian shares her perspective on global relational healing and what pulled her away from her traditional eng leadership role to explore this topic further. We cover the importance of incorporating relational healing practices into eng leadership & product development, the importance of the “healing profit,” how technology can help manifest healing opportunities for users, and how to align eng teams on embracing relational healing as a practice. We also cover how individual eng leaders can build awareness around internal self-talk – critical & positive – and explore self-love / reflection practices daily.ABOUT TAMMARRIAN ROGERSTammarrian (@tammarrian) has enjoyed acquiring over 30 years of engineering leadership experience in both hardware and software at General Motors, Apple, Microsoft and Snap. She has had the opportunity to lead cross-functional teams with a focus on inclusive product engineering, quality assurance, release management and product localization and globalization. She has also served on community non-profit and for-profit organizations including Ada Developers Academy, NordVPN, Northwest Tech Equity Initiative (NWTEI) and OPTYVA, a social purpose organization with a business sustainability focus.In November 2021, Tammarrian left her position as Snap’s first Inclusive Engineering Director to redirect her energy to developing methodologies that promote and facilitate global relational healing; healing that will lead to a sustainable, healthy planet and future for us humans. Ultimately, her goal is to systematically embed these successful methodologies into emerging and evolving technologies.As a solo nomad today, Tammarrian is enjoying meeting and connecting with people and land around our world. You’ll likely find her on an urban or nature hike, in some body of water or giving much love to a stranger’s dog."We really have to be aware of what is the impact of the product that we're building on our communities beyond the typical metrics that we use to say that we're being successful. So for example, we talk a lot about success being financial, right? It's a profit. How are we profiting? And that also hinges upon everything from our engagement metrics, the visits, the retention, the click-through rate. Whatever your product is, what is it that you're measuring to say that you're building and retaining a community of people and you're growing your business? We're all familiar with that, and I think what I'm inviting us to do as engineering leaders across our industry is to shift the currency of success and to bring in an entirely different currency.”- Tammarrian Rogers 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:Tammarrian’s transition from eng leadership @ Snap (2:45)Redefining what a productive day means & focusing on global relational healing (5:09)How Tammarrian felt pulled to move away from traditional eng leadership (6:31)Exploring what global relationship healing means (10:03)Strategies for building awareness around critical internal talk (12:16)Frameworks for practicing self-love (13:47)Tammarrian’s strategies for diverting outward distractions & focusing inward (15:32)Using your physical space to impact your perspective & vice versa (18:15)Encouraging eng leaders to consider the “healing profit” (20:19)Technology / products that manifest healing opportunities (23:12)An example of how Snap’s technology helped users feel seen (25:19)Make sure your team is aligned on if healing is a value (28:06)Tammarrian’s approach to dissonance between perceived & actual lived-out values (31:25)Active ways someone can transition from surviving mode to thriving mode (35:32)The No. 1 practice to embody the thriving mindset (38:20)Rapid fire questions (39:49)LINKS AND RESOURCESProfit Without Oppression - Profit Without Oppression unapologetically identifies the systems, institutions, and policies that privilege the few while excluding and harming the many. This book charts an inclusionary strategic path forward that seeks to develop an economic ethos and series of business models that are supremacy, coercion, discrimination, and exploitation free.The Silent Patient - A shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.Humankind: A Hopeful History - International bestseller Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting ou

We tackle the trend toward engineering efficiency with Alamelu Radhakrishnan, Head of Engineering Operations @ Shopify. She reveals strategies to move your eng org toward greater efficiency while maintaining high levels of impact & creativity. We also share how eng leaders can identify opportunities for efficiency, giving engineering a seat at the leadership table during efficiency-focused conversations, frameworks for removing toil within your eng team, how to avoid burnout while optimizing for efficiency, and the role of decision-making in maximizing efficient eng orgs.ABOUT ALAMELU RADHAKRISHNANAlamelu leads Engineering Operations at Shopify, leading the teams responsible for building the systems and technical programs that power Shopify RnD. Her mandate is to maximize the impact of engineers on Shopify’s Missions, and her role spans across team health, engineering craft excellence, strategic planning and prioritization, and successful business operations within RnD.Prior to Shopify, Alamelu has worked with some of Canada’s most innovative product and consulting agencies, leading software delivery teams and helping organizations leverage technology across a variety of industries.Alamelu finds joy in solving business problems through technology, strives for organizational excellence, and is passionate about supporting and sponsoring underrepresented folks in the industry. Alamelu lives in Toronto, and loves food, travel, the outdoors, and horror movies."The thing that I've been telling my team is that this is not a time to get through. This is a time to lean in. Let's not treat it as, 'Oh my God, you focus on efficiency. Let's just do it, and then it'll be done. It'll be back to the fun times.' These are the fun times. They're just fun in a different way, but these constraints are making us even more creative, and these challenges are going to lead to us doing some of the best work of our lives. That's the exciting thing, and so I think the way through the fear is actually into excitement."- Alamelu Radhakrishnan 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 FranciscoTo get early access to tickets - email us at [email protected] Jellyfish's GLOW conference on 5/16 & 5/17 to maximize engineering impact!Learn from industry experts, connect and share challenges with peers as you learn effective strategies to expand your leadership!Register now at https://www.jellyfishglowsummit.com/SHOW NOTES:How Alamelu’s role @ Shopify is like an extension of eng leadership (2:52)Working yourself out of a job & identifying blind spots in the eng org (5:23)Alamelu’s approach to building a new system from scratch (7:00)Prioritization strategies when developing new systems (10:34)Inside the industry trend toward optimizing for efficiency vs. experimentation (11:45)Recommendations for how managers can find opportunities / make adjustments (14:10)Frameworks for helping your eng team overcome fear & embrace creativity (16:50)How to communicate the impact of engineering on the business (19:44)Ensure engineering has a seat at the table during efficiency conversations (21:37)The value of ad hoc vs. planned meetings (24:08)Alamelu’s perspective on helping eng teams find time for flow (26:19)Why leadership should encourage eng teams to “remove the toil” (27:44)Areas of toil that Alamelu has identified & how to address them (29:51)How to alleviate burnout while shifting toward efficiency (33:04)Decision-making as an opportunity for greater efficiency (36:24)Rapid fire questions (39:06)LINKS AND RESOURCESLand of the Giants - Big tech is transforming every aspect of our world. But how? And at what cost? In Land of the Giants: Dating Games, The Verge and New York Magazine's The Cut trace the evolution of the multi-billion dollar dating app industry.Cloud Cuckoo Land - Five protagonists dwell in the heart of Cloud Cuckoo Land: Anna and Omeir, on opposite sides of the city walls during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour and octogenarian Zeno in an attack on a public library in present-day Idaho; and Konstance, on an interstellar ship bound for an exoplanet, decades from now. Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno, and Konstance are dreamers and outsiders who find resourcefulness and hope in the midst of peril. A book written in ancient Greek—the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky—provides solace and mystery to these unforgettable characters.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 &

Welcome to the ELC Annual Pop-Up Podcast Booth! This episode features behind-the-scenes conversations of engineering leaders who joined us at ELC Annual last October. These community members jumped into our recording studio to share their best strategies for good communication and providing critical feedback; using OKRs to realign your org; lessons learned from early leadership days; balancing speed vs. quality within your eng team; how technology shifts / bets impact your org; challenges with rapidly changing workspaces between remote, in-person & hybrid; creating a culture of pride & celebrating wins; and combining empathy with the best engineering qualities to determine what you really want.Our featured guests include:Nate Lee, CISO @ TradeshiftGaurav Nigam, VP of Engineering @ WorkBoardCynthia Tham, VP of Engineering @ GMG AmericasMitchell Arnett, Engineering Manager @ Life360Jeremy Eastwood (Head of Eng @ Drone Deploy) & Dobromir Montauk (VP of Engineering @ Doxel.AI)Lizzie Masutov, Co-Founder & CEO @ QuotientShweta Saraf, Director of Platform Engineering @ NetflixWen Hsu, Founder & CEO at Wen CoachingJoin 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 FranciscoTo get early access to tickets - email us at [email protected] Jellyfish's GLOW conference on 5/16 & 5/17 to maximize engineering impact!Learn from industry experts, connect and share challenges with peers as you learn effective strategies to expand your leadership!Register now at https://www.jellyfishglowsummit.com/SHOW NOTES:Why Nate Lee @ Tradeshift believes good communication is critical as an eng leader (7:06)Know your audience, meet them where they’re at & learn to communicate up (8:44)Strategies for delivering critical feedback (11:00)Gaurav Nigam @ WorkBoard: how OKRs can be used to resync your org (14:35)Tips for first-timers establishing realistic OKRs (17:56)Things Cynthia Tham @ GBG Americas wishes she knew when she started her eng leadership journey (20:21)Identifying & maintaining consistent behaviors as an eng leader (22:58)Mitchell Arnett @ Life360 discusses speed vs. quality (25:19)Components that lead to a culture of success around speed & quality (29:01)Jeremy Eastwood @ Drone Deploy & Dobromir Montauk @ Doxel.AI on how tech shifts impact eng orgs (32:41)Jeremy & Dobromir’s predictions for the next technology curve (37:14)Commit to change & don’t go in half-heartedly (39:55)How to navigate hybrid & remote work challenges w/ Lizzie Matusov @ Quotient (48:11)Lizzie’s advice for returning to in-person networking (50:42)Practices for navigating shifting work environments between remote, hybrid & in-person (53:07)Lizzie’s vision for successfully integrating teams & developing a sense of belonging (56:23)Tips for starting conversations around belonging within eng teams (1:02:10)Shweta Saraf @ Netflix reveals how her org has built a culture of celebration (1:04:11)Tips for building moments of self-recognition as an eng leader (1:08:11)Strategies for establishing goals & providing clarity (1:10:59)Create a safe space for experimentation (1:16:57)Wen Hsu on the most important question you can ask yourself (1:19:26)Recommendations for taking steps toward what you really want (1:22:33)How to prioritize making time to move toward your “north star” (1:25:13)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.

Sandeep Chennakeshu, Chief Operating Officer @ Uhnder Inc., joins us to discuss how eng leaders can adopt a GM mindset & strategies for building a resilient business. The author of Your Company Is Your Castle, Sandeep also reveals the key structural elements of all successful businesses, methods to improve your business’s financial fitness / cash flow, how to overcome operational inefficiencies, why strong decision-making matters when it comes to saving money, and much more.ABOUT SANDEEP CHENNAKESHUSandeep has spent thirty-four years in three industries and led teams across the globe that pioneered amazing products in wireless (2G, 3G, 4G mobile phones, Bluetooth, Mobile-Satellite technology), semiconductors for consumer, automotive, and medical electronics, and safety-critical software for cars, medical equipment, nuclear power plants, high-speed rail, and industrial robots. Along the way, he transformed companies to grow profitably in a sustained manner using the principles outlined in his book “Your Company Is Your Castle”. He is a fellow of the IEEE and a named inventor on 180 issued patents."The single metric that I use to say, 'Am I doing well?' Because how do I know that the cash I'm generating is a good or bad? I use a very simple metric. If you take the enterprise value and you multiply it by the cost of borrowing money, your free cash flow must be higher than that product. When I'm doing better than that metric, then I know that I have a future.”- Sandeep Chennakeshu Looking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] NOTES:Sandeep’s most significant career milestones (2:23)Why there is no difference between an eng leader & GM (6:39)Sandeep’s passion for & background of transforming business (9:18)Key structural elements of successful companies (12:17)How a successful business resembles a castle (13:59)Strategies to improve financial fitness & generate cash flow (15:17)Metrics to determine how well you’re optimizing your cash flow (17:54)Examples of how strong decision-making led to cost savings (19:45)Frameworks for overcoming operational inefficiencies (22:12)Sandeep’s tips for categorizing / prioritizing where the cashflow’s impact hits (24:21)Why it’s important to stay ahead of the “gorilla in the room” (26:33)Resilient business models utilize stickiness & have high operating leverage (28:23)Questions eng leaders can ask to adopt a more effective GM mindset (33:30)Rapid fire questions (36:02)LINKS AND RESOURCESGetting To Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In: This worldwide bestseller by William Ury provides a concise, step-by-step, proven strategy for coming to mutually acceptable agreements in every sort of conflict.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.

Johnny Ray Austin, Head of Technology, Flexible Rent @ Best Egg, joins us to discuss Best Egg’s recent acquisition of Till and some of the strategic & operational shifts that happen post-acquisition. He shares reflections on integrating the team within the new company, communicating both within the leadership team and within the overall team, how product launch / development changes throughout the acquisition process, shifts in the org’s distribution model & its impact on eng functions, and what it’s like relearning your role in the scope of an acquisition. Additionally, Johnny reveals some of his greatest paradigm shifts throughout this period & how the acquisition is better supporting the flexible rent model.ABOUT JOHNNY RAY AUSTINJohnny (@recursivefunk) is an experienced award-winning engineering executive focused on shipping world-class products while building high-performing engineering teams. He is also an international public speaker, speaking on engineering leadership, system design, and the JavaScript programming language. Johnny is the former Chief Technology Officer for Till, a company that built financial products to help renters pay, stay and thrive in their homes. After Best Egg acquired Till in late 2022, he transitioned to Best Egg's Head of Technology for Flexible Rent, where he continues to scale the flexible rent platform to service millions of units."At the time, we were thinking about raising money and also in acquisition and we didn't really know exactly which route we were gonna go down. We shared that with the team. You know, we said, 'Hey, this is path number one. This is path two. Path three is a shutdown.' We were very open in talking about, 'This is a path. It's very unlikely, but this is a thing that could happen.' And so we chose transparency from the very beginning because one, we thought it was the right thing to do. Two, we knew the team could handle it, and three, it was really just one of those things where it was gonna make the process easier."- Johnny Ray Austin Looking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] NOTES:Johnny’s pop culture reflections & tips for protecting your energy (2:42)An inside look at Best Egg’s recent acquisition of Till (6:42)What it’s been like post-acquisition to integrate the team (10:12)How leadership communicated with their team throughout the acquisition (12:25)Lessons learned about communicating during early exploratory phase (15:54)Strategies for minimizing distractions resulting from uncertainty (18:08)Helpful conversations to host between leadership for effective coordination (19:18)Questions to help gain personal alignment (21:03)How product launch / development changed mid- and post-acquisition (23:11)Introducing a new methodology to the team (26:14)The new distribution model & its impact on eng functions (28:46)Differences between BNPL & Best Egg’s rent payment model (31:31)What it’s been like for Johnny to relearn his role as part of a broader eng org (34:56)Frameworks for navigating new dependencies (37:05)Johnny’s paradigm shift around planning for scale (39:21)Rapid fire questions (41:50)LINKS AND RESOURCESDark Money: The Hidden History Of The Billionaires Behind The Rise Of The Radical Right - Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump’s victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system.Snowfall - Over the course of five seasons, FX’s Snowfall has chronicled how an off-the-books CIA operation contributed to the destruction rock cocaine leveled upon the vibrant community of South Central L.A.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 from our new show “Engineering Founders” - Lizzie Matusov, CEO & Co-Founder @ Quotient, shares her unique founder journey – from Harvard’s dual-degree grad program & Innovation Lab to founding Quotient! She also reveals strategies for fundraising, including utilizing your relationship pipeline, incorporating story arcs into your pitch, overcoming pattern-matching bias, and how fundraising today is different than it used to be. We also cover Quotient’s major pivots, tips for not becoming too attached to your first idea & making space for new ideas, defining idea-mazing & its impact on your product, and developing clarity as a founder. For more episodes of Engineering Founders, subscribe here: https://engineering-founders.simplecast.com/ABOUT LIZZIE MATUSOVLizzie Matusov (@lizziematusov) is the co-founder and CEO of Quotient - a toolkit to supercharge engineering teams. Today, their first tool is an onboarding platform that leverages behavioral research best practices to ramp up engineers more effectively. Quotient’s mission is to democratize access to the best engineering cultures.Previously, Lizzie built software to improve access to medical-grade genetic testing at Invitae. She was also a software engineering consultant at Red Hat, where she built software applications for companies across various industries, including fintech and biotech. She holds a bachelor of science from UCLA, and an MBA and Masters of Engineering Sciences from Harvard."Let's say in a four-month period, you check in with investors or founders that you're working with two or three times. Now what they have is not just one call to base their opinion on, but an entire story arc that they can use to say, 'All right, in August they were doing this and by October they already did this, and then by December they were here. I'm now seeing sort of a preview of what I'm backing.' I think that that really helps founders sort of help investors make decisions, right? You are de-risking for them, you are sharing more of the milestones as you're doing them.”- Lizzie Matusov ABOUT QUOTIENTQuotient is a toolkit to supercharge engineering teams. Their mission is to democratize access to the best engineering cultures.Today, their first tool is an onboarding platform that leverages behavioral research best practices to ramp up engineers more effectively. With Quotient you can build and deliver a high-quality, research-backed onboarding experience, and get data-driven insights into how your team changes and grows together.Check out Quotient and join the waitlist HERE - https://www.getquotient.com/waitlistLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] Out Engineering Founders!We cover the stories, pivotal moments and critical insights from former engineering leaders turned founders - that helped them take the earliest steps to launch!You can find it wherever you get your podcasts - Spotify / Apple / Google / WebSHOW NOTES:The backstory behind Quotient (3:01)Why the atomic unit is the team, not the individual & how that impacts Quotient (4:03)Lizzie’s leadership journey before Quotient (5:25)Why Lizzie chose Harvard’s dual-degree grad program as part of her founder’s journey (8:43)How Harvard’s program helped Lizzie accelerate founding Quotient (12:43)The community aspect of entrepreneurship & Harvard’s Innovation Lab (15:48)Lizzie’s favorite grad school hacks (17:58)Frameworks behind Quotient’s key pivots (20:12)How Quotient pivoted to better support companies & the onboarding process (23:02)Tips for making space for new ideas (25:59)Defining idea-mazing & how it impacts your product / solution (28:13)Where Quotient is in terms of fundraising (31:02)How assumptions & expectations around fundraising have changed (32:43)Collect data points that show your ability to execute, lead, & grow (34:06)Strategies to help overcome pattern matching bias (36:09)How Lizzie utilized story arcs while fundraising for Quotient (38:32)Why clarity as a founder is vital & frameworks for developing clarity (41:05)The renaming process & unveiling the new name “Quotient” (44:52)Rapid fire questions (46:38)LINKS AND RESOURCESShantaram - Gregory David Roberts’ novel following an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine - Michael Lewis documents the real story of the crash th

Madalina Tanasie joins us to share her unique leadership journey as she transitioned from eng to operations, then back to her current technical role as CTO @ Collibra. We also cover strategies to improve engineering efficiency within your organization, factors to consider when scaling eng teams, maximizing your ROI when it comes to R&D, dispelling concerns when implementing culture changes, frameworks for scaling up, and more.ABOUT MADALINA TANASIEMadalina Tanasie is the Chief Technology Officer and an Executive Committee member at Collibra, where she oversees and leads the Software Engineering, Architecture, Production Engineering, Test Engineering, and Security activities.Madalina has over 18 years of software engineering leadership experience and her expertise is in service-oriented architecture, cloud-native distributed systems, and product operations with a focus on engineering practices, scale, and operational excellence. Prior to joining Collibra in 2020, she was the Engineering VP for Medidata Solutions’ Unified Platform Organization, an organization she built from the ground up and led since 2010.She has been recognized as one of the Top 25 Software CTOs of 2023 by The Software Report.Additionally, she is a proud sponsor of Collibra’s Women in Technology, and an active member of CHIEF, a network focused on connecting and supporting women executive leaders. Ms. Tanasie earned her BS and Master’s in Computer Science at Polytechnics University of Bucharest."The reality is that they need process and structure to eliminate the noise and to create a space for solving really, really deep challenging problems. They actually want the process for the part that is mundane and boring and disruptive. So as they discuss about what's making their life harder than it needs to be, we are coming back to a lack of process, a lack of uniformity, a lack of clear communication channels between themselves or between other departments.”- Madalina Tanasie Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] NOTES:Madalina’s unexpected career journey, beginning @ Medidata (2:13)How Madalina transitioned from engineering into operations @ Collibra (4:57)Qualities that make Collibra’s culture stand out (5:46)What opportunities stood out when Madalina was evaluating the Collibra role (7:35)Four considerations to keep in mind when scaling eng teams (9:07)The Spotify model vs. Agile model & what worked for Collibra (15:19)Challenges to adopting new management models (19:18)Strategies for navigating people’s expectations (20:58)Insights gained from Madalina’s “listening tour” (23:20)Frameworks for addressing concerns around culture while scaling (25:04)Madalina’s perspectives on improving engineering efficiency (26:51)The right balance between cost of ownership and R&D (30:07)Collibra’s new product introduction process & its impact on R&D (31:28)Questions to help guide teams throughout the new framework (33:11)Rapid fire questions (34:22)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.

We cover making intentional career shifts and leadership challenges navigating multi-product expansion with Kris Rasmussen, CTO @ Figma. He shares his experience transitioning from contractor work with Figma to a full-time role & the benefits of joining an eng org during its early stages. We also address Figma’s transition from a one-product company to a two-product company, Kris’s process for determining the eng org’s core areas of focus, challenges faced when becoming a multi-product org, frameworks for determining solutions to challenging projects, and lessons learned around releasing products with heavy collaboration.ABOUT KRIS RASMUSSENKris Rasmussen is the Chief Technology Officer at Figma, where he leads the engineering, security, and data science teams. Prior to joining Figma in 2017, Kris served as engineering lead and a technical advisor at Asana, where he co-authored many aspects of the framework and infrastructure that powers the company's real-time collaborative features. Before Asana, Kris co-founded RivalSoft Inc., a web-based application that gives companies an internal hub for market information and served as Chief Architect at Aptana."One of the things that's helped me is just really kind of focusing on the outcome that I'm trying to create and trying to think about the most effective way to do that. All of us want to feel respected. We want to feel valued. We want to feel heard, but at the end of the day, we also want to create something that's greater than ourselves. We want to work on something that kind of outlives us and if you really want to do that, it doesn't really matter whose idea it was or who said what. All that really matters is that you come to the right solution as a group.”- Kris Rasmussen Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] NOTES:Kris’s backstory with Figma & transitioning from contractor to CTO (1:02)What factors validated Kris’s decision to join Figma full-time (4:50)Leveraging the benefits of joining an eng org during its early stages (7:27)Figma’s recent milestone shifts & how Kris’s responsibilities changed in response (9:09)Transitioning from a one-product company to a two-product company (12:15)Kris’s process for identifying the most important problems (13:57)Strategies for determining core areas of focus (17:09)Knowing when to shift to become multi-product (19:12)How processes / org structure shifted in response to Figma’s second product (21:59)Defining Figma’s vertical product-related org structures (23:22)Challenges faced when getting to the multi-product moment (24:44)Frameworks for determining when an idea is validated enough to staff it (29:57)Kris’s process for determining a solution to a challenging R&D project (31:52)Lessons learned around releasing highly collaborative products (36:06)Strategies for letting go of your ego (39:46)Rapid fire questions (40:47)LINKS AND RESOURCESOn Writing Well - On Writing Well, which grew out of a course that William Zinsser taught at Yale, has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity, and for the warmth of its style. It is a book for anybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does.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.

Albert Strasheim, CTO & SVP of Engineering @ Rippling, joins us to share the riveting story of how Rippling’s leadership navigated the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. He reveals what was at stake for his company & the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake for customers & their employees, how Rippling’s core values influenced their critical decision-making, tips for communicating with clarity both internally & externally, and tactics that allowed the team to respond with precision during crisis. Additionally, Albert shares the pre-crisis strategies, habits & systems he is most thankful for that helped Rippling leadership respond successfully throughout this critical period.ABOUT ALBERT STRASHEIMAlbert Strasheim is Rippling's CTO and SVP, Engineering. Albert leads the global engineering team as it continues to expand the capabilities of Rippling’s products and the platform itself. Prior to Rippling, Albert served as VP of Engineering at Segment, where he spent more than five years building and leading the infrastructure and product teams responsible for creating Segment’s market-leading Customer Data Platform product. He was born and raised in South Africa and earned a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Engineering from Stellenbosch University. Albert lives in the Bay Area and is an avid skier and surfer."I think we had about $130 million on the way to employees of our clients. This was more than 50,000 people. They are not like rich Silicon Valley tech workers. It's everyday Americans making less than $55,000 a year. Some of them are living paycheck to paycheck and so missing a paycheck can have devastating consequences. We had to move really quickly to make sure these folks got paid. Basically, no matter what happened with SVB, those were the stakes. It's like people that critically needed money just wouldn't get it otherwise.”- Albert Strasheim Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] NOTES:How Albert’s team @ Rippling responded to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse (2:56)Rippling’s SVB story & how payroll was impacted by its collapse (6:24)Identifying who was needed to coordinate Rippling’s response / decision making (9:49)Albert discusses the millions of dollars of payroll at stake on Thursday (11:47)How the SVB issue progressed into Thursday / Friday (13:07)Communicating with customers during crisis & how Rippling ultimately made the payments (15:47)Tactics that allow eng teams to respond with precision during crisis (19:57)How leadership determined the right step in the right order to achieve the intended outcome (21:56)Communicating context on how to think about a problem (23:21)What the weekend looked like & the half a billion dollars of payroll at stake (24:39)Internal communication systems that lead to Rippling’s success (26:34)Tips for communicating with absolute clarity (28:40)Albert’s SVB story: picking back up on Sunday going into the week (31:24)Implementing an external communication strategy (33:07)Pre-crisis habits & leadership systems that played a significant role in successfully navigating this issue (35:12)Reflecting on the impact of this effort externally & internally one week out (38:17)Rapid fire questions (40:27)LINKS AND RESOURCESScaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building - Scaling People is a practical and empathetic guide to company building and scaling the most important resource a company has: its people. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience as a Google and Stripe executive, Claire Hughes Johnson offers actionable insights and tactical guidance on everything from crafting foundational documents to hiring and team development to feedback and performance mechanisms.An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management - Will Larson’s explores the specific challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to developing succession planning—and provides a guide to solving complex managerial problems.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/

Shailesh Kumar, Sr. Vice President of Engineering @ ClickUp, joins us to share his insights on scaling eng orgs efficiently & cost-effectively. He reveals his strategies for gaining customer insights, identifying areas to invest in, navigating cloud cost efficiency, and optimizing your software & performing a software audit. Additionally, we cover approaches to balancing headcount & team efficiency, creating clarity around a problem, increasing the net output of your eng org, identifying where / when to add headcount, and making your EPD flywheel run smoothly.ABOUT SHAILESH KUMARShailesh Kumar is the Sr. Vice President of Engineering at ClickUp, leading the Engineering, Security, and IT operations for the company. He has more than 18 years of experience in building large-scale organizations and cloud platforms for high-growth enterprise companies, including his role as VP of Engineering at Mulesoft (and Salesforce post-acquisition) and Head of Data Platform and Server teams at Tableau."You have to force yourself in having a discipline of asking the hard questions about all those ideas. What's the impact? What's the revenue goals? What's the target market? How much time are we talking about? The ideas are plenty. There are a lot of great ideas. You have to figure out which great idea is gonna turn into the highest revenue and that's a very hard exercise. I've seen many leaders know that they have to do that, but not do that very diligently and in a very disciplined way.”- Shailesh Kumar Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] NOTES:Shailesh’s paradigm shift regarding scaling / eng org efficiency @ ClickUp (2:32)How Shailesh is navigating ClickUp through the current cost-sensitive market (4:46)Cost-effective areas that eng leaders should consider (6:55)Shailesh’s recent insights on how to better serve customers (8:43)Strategies for identifying areas to invest in & navigating difficult conversations with customers (10:02)Questions to assess challenging areas (16:44)Optimize your software & perform a software audit (18:49)Tips on building teams to optimize engineering efficiency (20:07)How to balance headcount and team efficiency (22:37)Shailesh’s approach to challenges around team efficiency (24:22)Frameworks for creating clarity of a problem / vision & refocusing a team (25:59)What makes an EDP flywheel run smoothly (27:39)Tactics to help increase the net output of your eng org (28:48)Strategies for hiring without losing efficiency & identifying where to add them (30:36)Frameworks Shailesh uses before adding a new function to the eng org (33:32)The story behind building out the TPM function (35:18)Rapid fire questions (38:24)LINKS AND RESOURCESAmp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity - Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman is one of the tech world’s most accomplished executives in enterprise growth, having led Snowflake to the largest software IPO ever after leading ServiceNow and Data Domain to exponential growth and the public market before that. In Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity, he shares his leadership approach for the first time.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.

Kenny Shin, CTO @ Fundrise, joins us to discuss Fundrise’s journey, specialization dilemmas as an early-stage org, why specializing eng functions can help overcome plateaus in the business, plus other insights on operating in highly regulated environments like FinTech. He also reveals another dimension of the product design process – legal / regulators – and shares how regulatory environments impact the eng team’s developmental process. Plus Kenny dishes on Fundrise’s Innovation Fund, its impact on the engineering org, and how they’re re-applying tech in new sectors.ABOUT KENNY SHINKenneth J. Shin (@kennyshin7) is Chief Technical Officer of Fundrise, America’s largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager. He has served in this role since the company’s inception in March 2012.Fundrise’s mission is to use technology to build a better financial system for the individual investor, one that is simpler, lower cost, more reliable and transparent. They build software that enables the company to develop and manage investments uniquely well-positioned to grow and preserve their clients’ capital in any economic environment.Since launching America’s first online real estate investment platform in 2012, Fundrise has now become the largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager with more than 1.6 million active users, more than $3.3 billion worth of equity under management, and $7 billion worth of real estate transacted. From private credit to real estate private equity to growth-stage venture capital, Fundrise offers investors exposure to some of the most prized asset classes in the world.Prior to Fundrise, Kenny has consulted for Fortune 500 clients in financial services and technology, including Fannie Mae, Oracle, Lockheed Martin and Computer Science Corporation. Kenny has also consulted for government clients including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Defense and NATO. Kenny earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania."The entire industry generally has to try to abstract all of that complexity and regulation away from the end user and the companies that do that the best, that's one of their main value propositions.I think it's key to our operations because the opposite of it is you leave that complexity to a few subject matter experts in the organization and they become the bottleneck for everything.”- Kenny Shin Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elc Looking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at [email protected] SHOW NOTES:Kenny’s journey co-founding Fundrise (2:37)What Kenny’s early risk assessment looked like (4:58)Advice for young eng talent considering taking a riskier role (8:12)Fundrise’s evolution & key inflection points (9:45)How Fundrise tackled uncertainty during the pandemic’s early days (11:52)Addressing specialization dilemmas as an early-stage org (14:45)Why specializing eng functions helped Fundrise overcome its plateau (16:08)Kenny’s approach to identifying new opportunities around specialization (19:53)Challenges of operating in a constrained space, like Fintech (23:38)Why constrained industries require orgs to abstract away more complexities (25:03)How regulatory environments impact the eng team’s developmental process (26:46)Incorporating legal / regulators into your product design process (29:17)The Innovation Fund & its role within Fundrise’s overall strategy (31:52)Unexpected ways the Innovation Fund is impacting the engineering function (34:04)Rapid fire questions (36:47)LINKS AND RESOURCESCrying in H Mart - In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.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 Overh

As eng leaders, we’re often strapped for resources – so learning how to advocate for more support is vital. Megan Kacholia, VP of Engineering @ Google, reveals her best strategies when it comes to asking for more resources, removing linchpins / critical points of failure from your eng team, encouraging others to accept changes that will benefit them, knowing when to say “yes” vs. “no” to new responsibilities (and the trade-offs that come with that decision), and navigating challenging situations as a manager.ABOUT MEGAN KACHOLIAMegan Kacholia is a Vice President of Engineering within Google's Core organization. She is a leader in the Cross-Google Engineering (xGE) effort, which is responsible for company-wide technical coordination. Her passion is building effective teams and addressing barriers to help Googlers do their best work.Previously, Megan was and VP in Google’s Research organization, where her team’s work spanned machine learning in research as well as production, including products such as TensorFlow, and prior to that she had a long tenure in Google’s Ads organization, where she ran the serving system for Google’s DisplayAds business. Megan has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from UIUC."At the end of the day, we had to be able to explain it to the team. Right? And I can't go and tell the team and be like, 'Well, the opex costs are too high because you know of this reason with the headcount and this and that and I know so and so told you they love you, but really it didn't mean this thing.'In some ways, those details don't matter, right? What matters is these people are worried that their project's getting shut down. So when it came time to communicate that we actually were gonna shut it down. We have to do an official shutdown because we have to announce it externally. So that means we have to make sure people only have so many weeks to find a new project and all of these things. So the main thing I emphasize when I talked to them wasn't about like, 'Oh, I did all of this work to try and save your project, and I couldn't.' That was irrelevant. It couldn't be saved.The most important thing was about what's the impact for the people? Well, I've already lined up options and positions for every single one.”- Megan Kacholia Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams.Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcJoin us for one of our in-person community events!That's right! We're hosting in-person community events in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Chicago! Break out of your comfort zone and join us in a casual environment to connect, problem-solve, and support each other in our engineering leadership journeys.Don't see your city on the list? No problem!Reach out to Tim at [email protected] and let's bring ELC to you - and make it happen!TO GET INVOLVED, EMAIL OUR HEAD OF COMMUNITY TIM AT [email protected] NOTES:How Megan advocated for more resources / support at Google (3:07)Convincing direct reports to accept changes & understand benefits (6:07)Insights on how to drive change within your eng team (10:20)Balancing accuracy & simplicity when communicating with your team (12:29)Frameworks for saying “yes” vs. “no” to new responsibilities (16:41)What to do when the decision to say “yes” or “no” isn’t clear (19:46)Having the confidence to say “no” (20:53)Find ways to give your team control within the given situation (24:38)The hardest situations to say “no” to as an eng leader (25:54)Megan’s approach to managing people with more experience than you (28:57)How to navigate managing someone you have a pre-existing peer relationship with (31:09)Knowing when to help vs. fix as a manager (35:14)Tips for removing “linchpins” / critical points of failure from your eng team (37:34)Rapid fire questions (41:12)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Emperor of All Maladies - Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.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.

Bhavini Soneji, VP of Product Engineering @ Cruise, shares her leadership journey & how she gained cross-functional experience working at both large & small organizations. We cover how to gain product experience alongside engineering, deciding which elements of your org to mature/invest in, why you should examine the role of fear in your decision-making, and strategies for asking for more experience & opportunities to gain confidence.ABOUT BHAVINI SONEJIBhavini loves using human-centered design with streamlined automation to create experiences that improve people’s lives. Previously, she has led teams through different growth stages at Microsoft, Snapchat, Headspace, and Heal. Additionally, she enjoys giving back to the community, advising C-level executives, mentoring at Techstars, First Round, and has also founded a group of Women Technology Executives in Los Angeles to support and foster this group while playing an active role in the LA CTO Forum. When she’s not working, she loves the outdoors and enjoys boogie boarding with her husband and twins."Just knowing kind of the imposter syndrome that is holding you back. For me, it is like I'm always having a very high bar so am I hitting myself more and how do I be kind to myself? How do I support myself better? So I think that's one thing first, looking back and saying, 'No. I've done this, this, this. So my fears are not true, otherwise, I wouldn't be here.'”- Bhavini Soneji Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams.Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcJoin us for one of our in-person community events!That's right! We're hosting in-person community events in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Chicago! Break out of your comfort zone and join us in a casual environment to connect, problem-solve, and support each other in our engineering leadership journeys.Don't see your city on the list? No problem!Reach out to Tim at [email protected] and let's bring ELC to you - and make it happen!TO GET INVOLVED EMAIL OUR HEAD OF COMMUNITY TIM [email protected] NOTES:Bhavini’s leadership journey & gaining cross-functional experience (2:47)How Bhavini tactically transitioned from each role into the next (7:24)Watch for fears & biases throughout your decision-making (11:53)Frameworks for identifying fears that are holding you back (13:41)Examples of how cross-functional leadership differs at large vs. small orgs (16:32)Conversation tips for getting stakeholders back on track (20:08)Determining which elements of an org to mature/invest in (21:32)Questions to consider when investing in technology or processes (24:03)What to invest in when an organization’s scale starts picking up (26:06)Why investing in the people element can be trickier than processes or tooling (29:26)Strategies for asking for new experiences (32:03)Bhavini’s favorite question for identifying/clarifying what you want next (34:22)Rapid fire questions (35:52)LINKS AND RESOURCESPrisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall - an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers.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.

We discuss the differences between building a platform versus a product with Oksana Kubushyna, Head of Operations, Entertainment @ Riot Games! She shares about her leadership journey building the Riot Platform Group and transitioning from a technical lead to management role, tips for empowering your team, how to utilize cross-discipline thinking, the importance of internal measurement metrics, and how Oksana strategically utilizes OODA loops in her leadership style.ABOUT OKSANA KUBUSHYNAAs VP of Entertainment Operations, Oksana Kubushyna oversees operations of Riot’s Entertainment division with a goal to imagine and develop bespoke IP experiences and products - animation, film, interactive narratives, music, consumer products and beyond - that deepen players’ and fans’ connections to the universe Riot has created in League of Legends.After joining Riot in 2014, she quickly rose through the ranks, holding positions including Head of Infrastructure, Development Director for League of Legends, founder and Head of Riot Platform Group, and VP of Game Studios Operations, helping build the foundation for, launch and operate Riot’s new games globally.After a few years working on establishing Riot Games' Entertainment division and releasing the award-winning Arcane animated TV series, Oksana has shifted her focus back to Riot's Game Studios where she recently took on managing Riot's Production, QA, and Creative departments.She has also been a leader of Diversity and Inclusion efforts within Riot. Her passion for the advancement of women in games and tech reaches beyond Riot, and she has been honored by groups such as Girls Inc. and Wonder Women Tech."So for one decision of a CEO, the entire company can take months and months of work on observing, orienting, and deciding before that decision is settled throughout the organization. Now, imagine if CEO the very next day comes in and makes another decision of the same scope, and another one, because for CEO that decisions already done. He can move on or she can move on, but the team is still like wrangling. So it's very important for you as a leader to understand the speed at which your company or your team can process your decisions and act and settle in them before you make the next one.- Oksana Kubushyna Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams.Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcSHOW NOTES:Oksana’s experience building & leading the Riot Platform Group (2:15)Lessons learned while transitioning from product to platform (4:23)How to utilize cross-discipline thinking when building out something new (7:30)Strategies for transitioning from single- to multiple-discipline thinking (11:14)The benefits of empowering the team around you (13:37)Differences between building a product vs. building a platform (17:08)Tactics for balancing building ahead of stakeholders with maintaining vision (20:32)Internal measurement metrics that are key to Oksana’s team (23:03)How Oksana utilizes OODA loops within her leadership style (25:55)Tips for reducing the pain of the decision-making process (29:27)What drawing a picture of decisions looks like (33:25)Rapid fire questions (36:04)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.