The Engineering Leadership Podcast

Organizational change is hard. In part 2, Jean-Denis Greze explores how you can adapt and transform the strengths, capabilities or “spikes” of your organization by intentionally using the strategies of “Isolation”, “Outlets” and “Shocks.” He shares a ton of great real-world examples and case studies to help you apply these strategies in your org."The thing that I think makes over a 10 year period, a really good engineering organization is that at any one moment in time, it has very few spikes, but over a long period of time, it has all the spikes." - Jean-Denis Greze ABOUT JEAN-DENIS GREZEJean-Denis Greze is Head of Engineering at Plaid, the technology company giving developers access to the financial system and the tools to build many of the most influential applications and services of the modern financial era. Companies such as Venmo + Paypal, Coinbase, Robinhood, Acorns, Clarity Money and hundreds more are built on Plaid.Prior to joining Plaid, Jean-Denis was Director of Engineering at Dropbox, where he led the growth, identity, notifications, Paper and payments teams.Prior to Dropbox, Jean-Denis worked in fintech in New York and has CS degrees from Columbia as well as a JD from Harvard Law School. SHOWNOTESHow to mitigate weaknesses in your organization using the strategies of Isolation & Outlets (2:47)How to use “Isolation” in your business units as an org building strategy: examples from Plaid and Xbox (8:44)How to use “Isolation” in recruiting & product strategy: examples of apprenticeships to hire, roles you've never hired for, and incubator programs (12:17)How to use "Outlets" to create different conversations, adopt different values, and set new priorities (16:38)The “Portfolio Theory of Time Allocation” (19:41)How to introduce "Shocks" proactively to change and adapt your organization (28:32)How to intentionally use Acquisitions to “Shock” your organization (33:35)How to intentionally use Reorgs to “Shock” your organization (36:06)The power of peer groups and re-reading (45:19) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ https://sfelc.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Organizational change is hard. Jean-Denis Greze shares how he thinks about building organizations that can adapt in a way that preserves strengths, mitigates weaknesses, and develops new capabilities or “spikes” through periodical “forced changes.” He’ll explore what those forced changes are and what they’ve looked like at Plaid and other companies."You're asking me what makes us different. I think it's that we've been really deliberate about building what I would call a ‘spiky org’ as opposed to a very balanced organization. The reality is when you're in a fast-growing company, it's much easier to do a few things well than to try to do everything.” - Jean-Denis Greze ABOUT JEAN-DENIS GREZEJean-Denis Greze is Head of Engineering at Plaid, the technology company giving developers access to the financial system and the tools to build many of the most influential applications and services of the modern financial era. Companies such as Venmo + Paypal, Coinbase, Robinhood, Acorns, Clarity Money and hundreds more are built on Plaid.Prior to joining Plaid, Jean-Denis was Director of Engineering at Dropbox, where he led the growth, identity, notifications, Paper and payments teams.Prior to Dropbox, Jean-Denis worked in fintech in New York and has CS degrees from Columbia as well as a JD from Harvard Law School. SHOWNOTESWhat you should focus on when building an organization: Be a "spiky" org (2:31)How to change and adapt your organization that preserves your strengths, mitigates weaknesses, and develops new capabilities: force yourself to adapt your “spikes” (7:01)Recruiting, Growth and Performance Management as “spike” examples in organization building (and why it's NOT useful to be good at all three of them) (8:15)The org design dilemma between "Hiring Well" vs. "Firing Fast" (12:01)The org design dilemma between business impact vs. craft and quality (18:27)How you know when you should change your strengths, values and build a new "spike" (24:48)The dilemma of building an organization with bottom-up vs. top-down decision making (27:47)How to develop new strengths, capabilities, or “spikes” in your engineering organization (32:20)Jean-Denis's process to create space for questions, creativity, and problem-solving (36:33) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Eisar Lipkovitz shares the value of being direct as well as other insights on leadership. You’ll hear how to practice the art of direct communication, how to prepare for difficult conversations, and overcome the fear of being direct. Plus Eisar’s insights on where engineering leaders get stuck in their career and how to help them grow."At the end of the day, the main reason I think direct is effective is you actually sort of get to the core of the issue where a lot of people dance around the details and they're conflict-averse" -Eisar Lipkovitz ABOUT EISAR LIPKOVITZEisar is Executive Vice President of Engineering at Lyft. Prior to Lyft, Eisar spent 15 years at Google in various leadership roles, overseeing the tremendous growth of that business while streamlining operations and reducing product complexity. Since 2014, his team of several thousand engineers built Google’s Display, Video, and Apps Advertising products.Previously, Eisar worked on the infrastructure behind Google Search, driving many innovations during a tremendous increase in scale and a transition from web to structured data. Prior to that, he worked for four years at Akamai during the explosive growth of the Internet. Eisar began his career at Israeli Air Force after graduating from Tel Aviv University with B.Sc and MBA. ShownotesWhy being direct is more effective and how to practice the art of direct communication (2:27)How to overcome conflict aversion and the fear of being direct (9:16)How to prepare yourself for a direct, difficult conversation (13:14)How to balance communicating vision and strategy vs. the details (16:42)How to navigate conversations when people don’t understand you (20:31)How to make your conversation more direct when someone is speaking ambiguously or in code (26:07)How to help junior engineering leaders grow (28:29)Where people typically get stuck in the engineering leadership career track (32:59)How inclusion creates environments for more direct conversations about real world challenges (36:26)What has brought you the greatest amount of joy as an engineering leader? (38:00) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Vidhya Srinivasan shares her framework for how she’s navigated her career and operated under high pressure. You’ll learn the practices she uses to deal with and diffuse pressure plus how to coach and create opportunities for engineering leaders to be more comfortable with failure and risk."one question that I often ask myself is... 'Given how I feel right now if I, were to fast forward five years and I look back, would I feel the same level of pressure or anxiety about the situation?' And I've yet to come across a situation where it would still be that relevant five years out" -Vidhya Srinivasan ABOUT VIDHYA SRINIVASANVidhya is the VP/GM at Google Ads responsible for engineering and product for Measurement & Analytics @ Google Ads. Previously, she led engineering, operations & product management for Amazon Redshift and other analytics services at AWS. Before that, she was an engineering leader for 10 years at IBM. SHOWNOTESHow Vidhya has approached and navigated her career (2:04)Vidhya’s framework she uses to deal with high pressure (7:20)How to diffuse pressure (12:55)How Vidhya’s dealt with and diffused pressure personally and professionally (15:44)How Vidhya learned to operate out of hunger vs. fear (19:35)How to coach engineering leaders to be more comfortable with failure and risk (28:28)How to create opportunities for your team to fail and take on more risk (33:38)When you should step in and help your team (36:23)Who is someone who’s most inspired you to be a better leader? (38:39)What’s brought you the greatest joy as an engineering leader? (40:01) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Darian Shimy (@dshimy) shares the lessons he’s learned as a longtime sports coach and engineering leader. You’ll learn coaching techniques he’s applied in his engineering teams you can leverage to increase the value and productivity of your teams. Plus how to scale your leadership through effective delegation and how to create environments of trust, ownership, and accountability."when someone comes to you from a management standpoint says, 'is this okay? Can I do this?'They're implicitly removing the accountability and responsibility from that decision" - Darian Shimy ABOUT DARIAN SHIMYDarian Shimy is the Engineering Lead @ Square. As an engineering leader who scales teams and products, Darian Shimy is an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience. He is currently at Square with prior leadership positions at Weebly, Attensity, and eHarmony.com. He received an MS in Computer Science from The University of Southern California and continues to code as a hobby. Outside the professional setting, Darian is a softball coach for various age levels from the recreation to competitive level. SHOWNOTESHow to scale leadership through effective delegation (1:40)How to create environments of trust, ownership, and accountability (5:25)The power of repetition in communication and how to get feedback on your message (13:11)How trust saves you time and creates leverage to scale (15:26)Improve communication by adjusting your style and asking more engaging questions (22:15)How to reduce fear and increase team input in large meetings (27:37)How to read the room: what cues and signals you need to pay attention to (33:11)The leader who most inspired and impacted Darian (36:20)The simple power of smiling (38:31) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Darian Shimy (@dshimy) shares the lessons he’s learned as a longtime sports coach and engineering leader. You’ll learn coaching techniques he’s applied in his engineering teams you can leverage to increase the value and productivity of your teams. Plus how to scale your leadership through effective delegation and how to create environments of trust, ownership, and accountability. "You should be a coach, not a referee. And the coach is the person who is there to help you improve. The referee is the one who is there to point out all the problems. They're not there to make you better." - Darian Shimy Darian Shimy is the Engineering Lead @ Square. As an engineering leader who scales teams and products, Darian Shimy is an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience. He is currently at Square with prior leadership positions at Weebly, Attensity, and eHarmony.com. He received an MS in Computer Science from The University of Southern California and continues to code as a hobby. Outside the professional setting, Darian is a softball coach for various age levels from the recreation to competitive level. SHOWNOTES Darian's lessons from coaching sports applied to engineering leadership (1:29) How to communicate when someone is doing well but can still improve (9:20) How to leverage your time to create more productivity and value for your team (13:08) How to elevate and scale productivity and learning in your junior “players” (18:22) (20:47) How to handle the risk of failure when delegating (21:39) Create consistent, good management by modeling the way (25:14) The impact when you treat your team as humans (30:36) Our key takeaways from the episode (33:20) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/engineeringleadership/message Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

David Silverman (@dksilverman) shares how to prioritize effectively, regain productivity, compartmentalize pain, and accelerate your rate of learning to succeed through a crisis. You’ll also hear how to apply his lessons to real case studies shared by engineering leaders from our community.“When you're dealing with uncertainty, the main thing you're trying to drive and change as the leader, is you're trying to increase the rate of learning.” ABOUT DAVID SILVERMANLeadership expert and best-selling author David Silverman has paved the way in transforming groups into high-performing, agile, and adaptive teams that drive success. David continues to bring out the best in people as CEO and Founder of CrossLead. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, David served in the US Navy as a SEAL Officer for 12 years. Building off of his collective leadership experiences, David created CrossLead as a holistic performance management solution for today’s environment. CrossLead is designed to empower leaders, teams, and organizations to scale the adaptability of elite small teams to the entire enterprise.David previously co-founded the McChrystal Group and led the company as CEO from 2011 through 2015. During his time at McChrystal Group, David laid out the framework for CrossLead as a co-author in the New York Times bestseller Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World.If you want to learn more about David Silverman and CrossLead, connect with him on LinkedIn or check out CrossLead.SHOWNOTESDavid’s experience with uncertainty from the Navy SEAL’s (1:15)How to compartmentalize and deal with physical and mental pain (5:16)How to restore and improve your productivity (13:11)How to increase your rate of learning to succeed when things are changing fast (16:26)The difference between “wartime” and “peacetime” leaders (26:10)How to prioritize effectively in a crisis applying the framework “Ship, Shipmate, Self” (29:33)How you can build trust in a crisis (34:29)Applying Dave’s lessons in a company trying to find product-market fit (38:11)How to apply the tools to deal with uncertainty to support your family (40:55)How to deal with uncertainty when you’re not the decision-maker (45:23)How you can boost team morale in the short and long term (48:41)How to create trust and camaraderie remotely (51:56)How to deal with cross-team or cross-organization issues and negotiations (54:06) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How do you have an effective performance conversation during a pandemic? Jonathan Raymond (@jonathanrefound) will introduce us to a super-easy to use and effective framework to provide critical feedback. You’ll learn how to apply the framework using real community challenges and tease out the actual language you can directly use to initiate those conversations.“That's what feedback is about. It's not to correct the mistake, it's to start a conversation.” JONATHAN RAYMOND - Author of “Good Authority”, Founder & CEO @ RefoundJonathan spent 20 years building careers in business development and personal growth before figuring out a way to bring them together. He advises CEOs and organizational leaders on how to create a people-first culture that drives results. Refound works with organizations going through dynamic change, from Fortune 100 companies like Panasonic and McKesson to tech startups. Jonathan loves being a dad to two girls, surfing, and yoga. He also has a surprisingly good jump shot. SHOWNOTESWhat to do when someone on your team is obviously less productive (1:17)Why people are afraid to give critical feedback and what makes it hard (6:01)What is “The Accountability Dial?” (9:06)How you can open a feedback conversation using “The Mention” (11:04)Understanding the reality of where people are at and how you can move forward using “The Mention” during this pandemic. (17:21)The right time to deliver critical feedback effectively. (23:06)What happens if the first feedback conversation doesn’t work? Reopen it by applying “The Invitation” (30:41)Signs you know your feedback is working. (33:04)How to have a performance conversation during the pandemic by applying “The Mention” & “The Invitation” (36:39)Introducing the other stages of “The Accountability Dial” (42:50)How to increase team morale and give positive feedback using “The Accountability Dial” (53:34)How to create an environment where feedback goes both ways between manager and employee. (55:04) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Farhan Thawar (@fnthawar) , VP of Engineering @ Shopify shares the hiring framework he’s built where 15-minute interviews result in both faster placements AND better fits. You’ll hear how to find talent in non-traditional ways, what happens when you leverage creativity, and how speed in hiring is a massive competitive advantage.“The problem with interviews in general are they're very biased to either things you've done before or they're biased to some other signal...like school you went to company, you worked for, GPA in some cases, right? Google used to use that... And it excludes a wide swath of people. That's my number one problem with interviews. Not that good candidates can pass an interview. It's that non-traditional candidates will likely fail your interview” ABOUT FARHAN THAWARFarhan is currently VP, Engineering at Shopify via the acquisition of Helpful.com where he was co-founder and CTO. Previously he was the CTO, Mobile at Pivotal and VP, Engineering at Pivotal Labs via the acquisition of Xtreme Labs. He is an avid writer and speaker and was named one of Toronto's 25 most powerful people. Prior to Xtreme, Farhan held senior technical positions at Achievers, Microsoft, Celestica, and Trilogy. Farhan completed his MBA in Financial Engineering at Rotman and Computer Science/EE at Waterloo. Farhan is also an advisor at yCombinator and holds a board seat at Optiva (formerly Redknee). SHOWNOTESFarhan’s origin story being recruited to start Helpful.com by Daniel Debow. (1:28)Impact and examples of going above and beyond in recruiting using unusual ways to reach potential candidates. (8:30)Using speed as a competitive advantage, especially when you’re small. (12:44)How to prevent speed from backfiring by thinking about decisions as “one-way” or “two-way doors.” (14:36)Critical structures to best assess candidate fit. (15:17)How Farhan starts from first principles to leverage creativity in recruiting. (20:38)Farhan’s MOST IMPORTANT indicator of performance, and how to uncover it in an interview. (25:49)Results of speed in the hiring process - 15 min interview (31:36)How the 15 min interview works. (33:47)What’s different in hiring an engineering leader. (35:41)How to increase your pool of potential candidates through “backward promotions,” interim titles, and recruiting people who haven’t “done it” before. (42:41)Examples of what happens when bias is removed in the interview process and people are given a shot. (48:03)Farhan’s most terrible leadership mistake & how to turn underperformers into extremely high performers in 30 days with Performance Improvement Plans (PIP’s). (49:36)Farhan’s most impactful leadership action: the power of personalization. (53:56) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Max Levchin shares lessons and stories that have been critical to his development as an engineering leader. He shares stories from the early PayPal days and foundational insights for leading Affirm as a mission-driven, values-based company. He also shares essential principles for building and hiring, and how the hardest problems are almost never about code. “I should just solve the thing that matters. I don't need to worry about the hard stuff, it will show up on its own. And there's plenty of hard problems and the more you work with people, the more you'll realize that the truly hard problems are always about humans, they're never about code.” - Max Levchin MAX LEVCHIN - Founder and CEO @ Affirm Max Levchin is the founder and CEO of Affirm, a financial services technology company, co-founder and Chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company, and co-founder and general partner at SciFi VC, a private venture capital firm. All three companies were created and launched from his San Francisco based innovation lab, HVF (Hard, Valuable, Fun). Max was one of the original co-founders of PayPal where he served as the CTO until its acquisition by Ebay in 2002. In 2002, he was named to the Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world as well as Innovator of the Year. In 2004, he founded Slide, a personal media-sharing service for social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which he sold to Google in August 2010. Also in 2004, he helped start Yelp, where he was the first investor in and Chairman of the Board from 2004 until 2015. He has served on several boards such as Yahoo!, Yelp, and Evernote. Max is a serial entrepreneur, computer scientist, philanthropist and active investor in more than 100 startups. BEN JUN - CEO @ HVF Labs Benjamin Jun is Chief Builder at HVF Labs (hard / valuable / fun), a fintech startup studio. The lab focuses in areas where technically differentiable solutions can unlock world-changing companies. HVF founders have spun out companies such as Affirm, Divvy Homes, and Yelp. Ben was co-founder and CTO of Cryptography Research, which provides security technologies for payment systems, mobile handsets, digital content protection, and the manufacturing supply chain. While there, he developed and architected security technologies that shipped in over 25 billion consumer devices. Cryptography Research was acquired by Rambus for $340M in 2011. SHOWNOTES Max’s unsung passion for cryptography and how it came to be. (4:53) Max’s cryptography side-hustle stories while starting PayPal. (6:01) How Ben tried to convince Max to leave Peter Thiel and PayPal. (9:58) PayPal’s early milestones, and why that’s different than what’s commonly celebrated in the press and Silicon Valley. (11:46) PayPal’s “one metric” that matters. (13:10) How Max is different as a leader now vs. during his time at PayPal. (18:00) What to think about when transitioning from a VP of Engineering to becoming CEO (20:52) How Max builds complimentary teams. (24:25) “Max’s aura test” or “the hallway avoidance test” in hiring. (26:16) How to guide your company and know you’re doing the right thing. (29:00) Join our community of engineering leaders at sfelc.com Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/engineeringleadership/message Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What should be the role of engineering leaders in recruiting? What levers do they have at their disposal? In this fireside chat, you'll hear the perspectives of two recruiting heavy-hitters, Aditya Agarwal & Dan Portillo, on how engineering leaders can optimize for successful hiring outcomes. ADITYA AGARWAL - Former CTO Dropbox; Partner-in-Residence @ South Park Commons (@adityaag)Aditya Agarwal is a Partner-in-Residence at South Park Commons - a collective of technologists, tinkerers, and entrepreneurs who have come together to freely learn, explore new ideas, and help each other launch their next venture. Aditya was the CTO and VP of Engineering at Dropbox. He scaled the Engineering team from 25 to 1000 and was responsible for new product development, infrastructure, and technical operations. Aditya came to Dropbox via the acquisition of Cove, a company that he co-founded. Prior to Cove, Aditya was one of Facebook’s first engineers. He helped build the first versions of key products like Search, NewsFeed and Messenger. He was Facebook’s first director of Product Engineering, overseeing engineering for products like NewsFeed, Profile, Groups and Events. Aditya serves as an independent director on the board of Flipkart, India’s leading e-commerce company, the advisory board of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science and on the board of trustees of the Anita Borg Institute. He is also an active investor and advisor to Silicon Valley startups. DAN PORTILLO - Talent Partner @ Greylock (@dan_portillo)Dan is Talent Partner at Greylock. Previously, he was VP of Success & Engagement at Rypple, and VP of Organizational Development at Mozilla, creators of Firefox. Earlier in his career Dan spent a decade building out successful early-stage, venture-backed consumer and enterprise companies. Dan also served as a Council member for Code2040.org, a non-profit creating opportunities for underrepresented minorities in tech. SHOWNOTESHave you ever not promoted an engineering leader because they couldn’t recruit a good team? (3:18)What is the role of engineering leaders in the recruiting process? (5:21)Sourcing advantages from Aditya’s experiences from Dropbox and Facebook. (7:34)On taking the long view and thinking long term about recruitment. (9:42)How Aditya closes candidates creatively. (11:21)Aditya’s favorite story from Dropbox closing a talented intern. (14:23)How to leverage compensation, even if you’re a small stack at the table. (18:59)What Aditya tells engineering leaders who are building teams for the first time. (21:48)Does comp asymmetry reward good performers or good negotiators? (23:03)Using comp as a tool to value, reward, and recognize performers not on the sexiest problems. (25:32)Recruiting when you don’t have a brand. (27:58)What engineering managers need to know to effectively sell the company and recruit. (29:53) Join our community of engineering leaders at sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Alyssa and Chanda share stories and mental frameworks about how to strategically think about and accelerate your career journey. You’ll hear examples of how to navigate between large and small companies, how to level the playing field by strategically leveraging emerging tech fields, intentionally harnessing skip-level managers, and establishing a growth mindset. Alyssa Henry - Head of Seller & Developer Business Units & Infrastructure Engineering @ Square Alyssa Henry is the Seller Lead at Square, which creates tools that help sellers start, run, and grow their businesses. She leads product management, design, and engineering for Square’s seller- and developer-facing products. Alyssa has been integral to shifting Square from a single app focused on payment processing into a broad financial services platform and commerce ecosystem that serves the complex needs of verticals from restaurants to retail. Prior to joining Square in 2014, she previously served as VP of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Storage Services and Product Unit Manager for Microsoft SQL Server Data Access. “People want to work on something that matters, something where they’re growing and learning. Autonomy, mastery & purpose resonates with everyone.” Alyssa Henry Chanda Dharap - VP of Engineering @ NodeSource She is currently the VP Engineering at NodeSource, bringing 20+ years experience leading Engineering and Product teams with a strong focus on emerging trends and new technologies. With a solid mix of both global corporate and startup experience, Dharap has a proven track record of excellence, most recently in the the Node.js ecosystem, leading cross-functional efforts around solutions to drive the API economy. Prior to joining NodeSource, she held a product leadership role at Adobe, where she was responsible for the vision and technical direction of a next-generation search platform for Adobe’s cloud ecosystem. Dharap holds a Masters and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Pennsylvania State University, and has also earned a certificate in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from Stanford University’s Center for Professional Development. SHOWNOTES Alyssa’s work at Square supporting new entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. (5:13) The experience and challenges transitioning from a large to small company. (6:51) How you transition from running an engineering team to broad cross-functional teams. (8:49) How Alyssa grew her teams at Amazon and Square. (11:41) Early adoption of emerging technology, having a growth mindset, and the power of skip level mentoring to drive career development (15:28) Alyssa’s questions she asks to assess her next career opportunities. (18:59) When should product and engineering be in the same organization? (20:45) Lessons from growing at hyperscale. (21:13) How to retain core members of a team, especially in a high-turnover industry. (23:29) Want to get involved with our community of engineering leaders? Check us out at sfelc.com Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/engineeringleadership/message Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

While you don't jump out of bed excited about it, you know how powerful it is for morale when you make the choice to tackle technical debt. Learn a framework for how to do the same thing with organizational debt, and unlock untapped energy, creativity and connection on your team in the process.“As organizational leaders, when it comes to organizational debt, we know that we take shortcuts. We make easy decisions. We do things that are expedient in the moment. But it has a cost. But we have to deal with it as a responsible leader.” ABOUT JONATHAN RAYMONDJonathan Raymond (@jonathanrefound) is the CEO at Refound and author of the award-winning book, Good Authority. In 2018, he was named one of Inc. Magazine’s top 100 leadership speakers. Refound trains leaders on how to give effective feedback and create a culture of accountability. The former CEO of EMyth, Jonathan has led business transformation projects in technology, renewable energy, and the coaching industry. He’s a half-decent barista, a bad-but-enthusiastic surfer, and will never give up on the New York Knicks. SHOWNOTESWhat is “organizational debt?” (3:45)Defining technical debt. (5:05)How you know when you have technical or organizational debt. (6:34)The first step to solve technical/organizational debt. (7:26)Second step, what’s next before entering “solution mode.” (10:47)Understanding the problem now that the issue is in the open. (12:03)How you sell someone on doing something new (13:05)Where we often leave the process of solving organizational debt unfinished. (15:10)The active solution after the first three steps. (17:25)What separates good engineering leaders from mediocre ones. (20:00)Become the engineering leader your team is waiting for. (21:39)Additional examples of organizational debt. (23:48)Who owns organizational debt. (24:53)Dealing with over-leveling or title inflation. (25:48) Join our community of software engineering leaders @ sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jason Warner (@jasoncwarner), CTO @ Github shares management principles fundamental to how he leads remote engineering teams. He shares how to scale leadership by applying the right tools and frameworks for effective communication. Jason also tells us the structures and strategies he applies to build & maintain trust throughout an organization.“Every leader in an organization should make THE SET of decisions that ONLY they can make. And then delegate all the other ones. And the only way that you can do that is if everyone is empowered to make the right decisions with the right context, and you have invested ahead of time and trained the neural net of the organization to make those appropriate decisions well.” - Jason Warner ABOUT JASON WARNERJason oversees the Office of the CTO, whose mission is to explore the unknown and non-existent aspects of technology and software in order to build a map of GitHub’s future. He oversees over 704 engineers, 85% of whom operate remotely. He was previously Senior VP of Technology at GitHub, where he played an integral role in scaling the Engineering, Product, and Security Teams, and built GitHub’s product roadmap.He’s been the leader of fully distributed companies for the last 10 years. Prior to GitHub, Jason was VP of Engineering at Heroku. He oversaw Product Engineering for Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Phone at Canonical.He’s also a member of the Advisory Board of INNOVATE Ohio - reporting to the Lt. Governor advising policy decisions that impact growth in technology and aim to make Ohio the most INNOVATIVE state in the country in the next 5 years. RESOURCESThe Art of Simple Sabotage SHOW NOTESWhy challenges with trust, communication, and engagement are NOT unique to remote teams. (2:34)The differences between building trust in remote and co-located teams. (4:05)Why micromanaging is the easiest way to cause breakdowns, destroy productivity and negatively affect morale. (5:40)Jason’s biggest fear as a leader and the fundamentals he uses to scale leadership. (9:17)Structures for effective communication at different scales. (12:20)Early signs of mistrust and how to easily measure the health of an organization(14:39)How you can use “organizational canaries” to get unfiltered feedback (19:26)How to maintain trust & avoid destroying relationships. (24:14)Effective executive communication using the “V-shaped” pathway. (27:17)Examples of how to measure gaps in your communication feedback loops. (31:46)How to turn concepts of healthy communication into mechanisms in your team. (34:48)Signs of bad communication and you can overcome them. (37:10)How to train your organization to make better decisions when you’re not in the room (41:17)Why you should prioritize tools for asynchronous communication and institutional memory (43:45)How you can increase the fidelity of your communication. (46:56)Frameworks to think about team engagement. (51:53)Why Jason believes the role of in-person communication will diminish over time. (57:54)Two actions you can take IMMEDIATELY to improve hiring for your remote team. (1:03:05)Back pain as a metaphor for addressing the root issues in your organization. (1:07:36)Jason’s greatest joy as an engineering leader. (1:12:35) Want to get involved with our community of engineering leaders? Check us out at sfelc.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The hardest business problem has a soft solution. Scientists and engineers display a (well-deserved) skepticism toward touchy-feely ideas such as leadership. Fred shows there's a very technical way to understand why most organizations, from couples to multinational corporations, die a premature death... and what can be done to extend their lifespan. FRED KOFMAN - Advisor, VP of Leadership Development @ Google (@fredkofman)“No gun in the world can get your best. No incentive can get your best. You can only give your best because you want to. It’s not contractible. And that’s the difference between leadership and management for me. Leadership is about eliciting internal commitment. You do it because it comes from the inside.” - Fred KofmanFred Kofman earned his PhD. in Economics from the UC Berkeley, is Google’s Vice President and advisor of leadership, a director of the Conscious Leadership Center at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, & a founder and president of the Conscious Business Center International. Previously, he was a VP of Executive Development at LinkedIn & a co-founder of Axialent, a global consulting company that has delivered leadership programs to more than 15,000 executives around the world.Fred is the author of the trilogy Metamanagement ('01), Conscious Business ('06) and The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership ('18). Since 1990, Fred has designed and facilitated programs on leadership, personal mastery, team learning, organizational effectiveness and coaching for thousands of executives, and consultants worldwide. His book, Conscious Business, has been translated to more than ten languages, received numerous awards and was recently named by Sheryl Sandberg in her New York Times interview as "the business book every executive should read" RESOURCESMeaning RevolutionConscious Business SHOW NOTESYou don’t know your job. (2:52)Why you’re wrong, how this organizational disease works and kills your organization (8:19).Looking at the whole organizational system vs. the parts. (10:24)The problem you can not avoid. (13:25)Why doing your job may be hazardous to your career. (15:38)Why we’re screwed - the two issues in economics of information. (18:28)Issues with decentralization vs centralization of the system. (27:27)So we’re screwed... but here’s the solution. (33:56)The assumptions you need to change. (36:27)What makes you give your best effort. (37:21)The two tools incentivizing people’s best. (41:33)The absolute human need. (43:36)Q & A. (48:14) Want to get involved with our community of engineering leaders? Check us out at sfelc.com.We're working on a number of interesting projects to continue to empower engineering leaders. Join us at sfelc.com to be included in updates with our content, events, and all other new opportunities we’re creating!Learned something impactful? Have an idea to improve our show? We'd love to hear your insights and feedback! ... Send us a message at [email protected] you enjoyed this or found it impactful, share the episode with someone who might find it meaningful! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In an interview between Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo, they discuss “Blitzscaling” and how companies achieve massive scale at incredible speed. Reid shares insights and lessons on how to prioritize speed and efficiency in an environment of uncertainty, the benefits of intense collaboration found in Silicon Valley, and non-obvious rules needed to succeed. REID HOFFMAN - Co-Founder of LinkedIn, Partner @ Greylock Partners (@reidhoffman)“Part of the secret and the thing that’s great about Silicon Valley is that, while we compete intensely, we also collaborate intensely.” - Reid HoffmanAn accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses including co-founding PayPal & LinkedIn.In '09 he joined Greylock Partners where he serves on the boards of Airbnb, Apollo Fusion, Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Gixo, Microsoft, Nauto, Xapo. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards, including Kiva, Endeavor, CZI Biohub, & Do Something. He is the host of the podcast Masters of Scale, co-author of two New York Times best-selling books: The Start-Up of You & The Alliance. His new book is Blitzscaling, based on his Stanford course. SARAH GUO - General Partner @ Greylock Partners (@saranormous)Sarah joined Greylock Partners as an investor in '13 and focused on B2B apps & infrastructure.Prior, she was at Goldman Sachs, where she invested in growth-stage tech startups like Dropbox & advised pre-IPO tech companies like Workday as well as public clients like Zynga, Netflix & Nvidia. RESOURCESGreylockBlitzscaling: The Lightning Fast Path to Creating Massively Valuable CompaniesMasters of Scale Podcast SHOW NOTESDiscovering the “secret sauce” to Silicon Valley and discovering “Blitzscaling” (3:50)Defining the framework of “Blitzscaling.” (7:01)The OODA Loop. (7:21)Reid’s first insight to Blitzscaling at PayPal when they were compounding at 2-5% daily user growth. (8:28)Do rapidly scaling companies ever stop Blitzscaling? (11:39)The dynamics of prioritizing speed over efficiency in the face of uncertainty. (13:25)Why Reid chose collaboration and to publicly share the “secret sauce” to Silicon Valley. (15:45)What Reid’s learned about rapid scaling from his portfolio at Greylock. (17:45)How Blitzscaling applies to different company scales. (20:10)Where Blitzscaling goes bad. (21:48)How Blitzscaling applies to technical leaders. (23:25)Facebook’s example emphasizing speed at different scales. (26:18)How to make decisions when you don’t have full data or an opinionated team. (29:26)Reid’s three non-obvious rules of management. (32:02)How to be comfortable “embracing chaos.” (33:55)How do you think about product development when scaling fast? (37:03)How Blitzscaling accounts for the “tech-lash,” the changing cultural perception of Silicon Valley, and perceived obsession with speed over accountability. (38:42)How Blitzscaling applies to deeply technical problems with a long time-horizon. (40:45)Get involved at sfelc.com! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Facebook’s James Everingham shares about his early leadership and management experiences and the secrets he learned from quantum mechanics to manage creative teams. You’ll hear insights about how to unleash creativity by focusing on outcomes and environments instead of process and key differences between optimizing for efficiency and invention. James Everingham - Head of Engineering, Calibra @ Facebook (@jevering)“His approach was just to start collecting, recruiting, the smartest scientists he could find, and tell them what the end result needed to be. He trusted them to just go figure it out.” -James EveringhamJames is an engineering leader at Facebook. Previously, James was the Head of Engineering at Instagram. Throughout his 35-year career as a manager, entrepreneur and technology developer, James has led many world-class engineering teams. At Yahoo he was Vice President of Engineering for Yahoo media properties after the company acquired Luminate, an interactive image technology company which he founded.Some of his 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. SHOW NOTESJames’ early introduction to management at Penn State & Borland. (3:30)What managing creative teams and quantum mechanics have in common. (7:56)A simple explanation of Classical physics and quantum mechanics. (8:40)Henry Ford and classical management. (9:35)Robert J. Oppenheimer and “quantum management.” (10:24)The distinction between classical and quantum managers. (12:41)Other examples of quantum managers. (14:16)The observer effect. (17:00)Translating the principle of “superposition” into management. (18:16)Quantum entanglement, “spooky action at a distance”. (23:15)Creating positive “entanglements” and “spooky management at a distance” in your teams using reciprocity, empathy, and camaraderie. (23:39)How to get better results for yourself using feedback. (26:06) Want to get involved with our community of engineering leaders? Check us out at sfelc.com. We’re working on a number of interesting projects to continue to empower engineering leaders. Join us at sfelc.com to be included in updates with our content, events, and all other new opportunities we’re creating!Learned something impactful? Have an idea to improve our show? We’d love to hear your insights and feedback! … Send us a message at [email protected]!If you enjoyed this or found it impactful, share the episode with someone who might find it meaningful! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Difficult conversations for engineering leaders range from telling someone they have lettuce in their teeth to delivering life-changing bad news. Learn to level-up your ability to handle difficult conversations with a few techniques, practice and hopefully a little humor from Sarah Clatterbuck's personal experiences. SARAH CLATTERBUCK - Director of Engineering, YouTube @ Google (@girodchatterbox)"Your discomfort is less important than your colleague's embarrassment" - Sarah ClatterbuckSarah Clatterbuck joined Google in 2018. She currently leads four teams focused on Alternative Monetization for YouTube Creators. Prior to joining Google, she was a Sr. Director of Engineering at Linkedin focused on Application Infrastructure. She previously held roles at Yahoo! and Apple while progressing in leadership ranks. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of San Francisco and her graduate degree from San Jose State University. She is passionate about getting girls interested in technology and from 2013 until 2018, she served on the board of Girl Scouts of Northern California, leading the board STEM task group. SHOW NOTESWhere engineering leaders are woefully ill-prepared. (2:48)Level One: Awkward conversations. (4:58)The self-talk, script & power-up tips. (6:32)Level Two: Addressing Misalignment. (7:54)Level Three: The Apology… (10:49)Next Level: Delivering Feedback - Sarah’s most effective 3-part script. (15:10)The Last Level: The Agonizing Conversation - delivering news with a significant negative impact. (18:06)Suggestions to get team members to express themselves when uncomfortable. (22:10)How to talk to someone who doesn’t admit to faults, performance problems or passes blame. (23:21)Want to get involved with our community of engineering leaders? Check us out at sfelc.com. We’re working on a number of interesting projects to continue to empower engineering leaders. Join us at sfelc.com to be included in updates with our content, events, and all other new opportunities we’re creating!Learned something impactful? Have an idea to improve our show? We’d love to hear your insights and feedback! … Send us a message at [email protected]!If you enjoyed this or found it impactful, share the episode with someone who might find it meaningful! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.