Jason and Eiso explore the implications of Mark Zuckerberg's plan to flatten Meta's management layers and examine the current ratio of engineers to managers, questioning if this balance is truly efficient or if it's simply a byproduct of Silicon Valley culture. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at developingleadership.substack.com/p/how-many-ems-to-change-a-lightbulb Subscribe on Substack for weekly deep dives, topic digests, and more! developingleadership.substack.com Join the...
May 02, 2023•36 min•Ep. 44
Eiso and Jason discuss how engineering leaders can fall into the trap of midwit thinking (the infamous bell curve meme) where they have a surface level understanding of complex topics and use buzzwords to sound knowledgeable. Why do managers become overly obsessed with specific tools? Why do companies encourage this behavior? What should leaders really be focusing on? Listen and find out! Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode on substack: developingleadership.substack.com/p/the-mid...
Apr 18, 2023•21 min•Ep. 43
Former Atlassian CTO Sri Viswanath shares his lessons on engineering leadership, such as aligning goals, handling difficult situations, and optimizing team metrics. Jason, Eiso and Sri talk about their experiences with system failures and the importance of technical mentors and CTOs in promoting better leadership. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep42 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @devleadership_ Watch this episode on Youtube: https...
Apr 04, 2023•54 min•Ep. 42
Jason and Eiso share their love-hate relationship with OKRs and discuss the pedantic nature of setting objectives and how they ultimately help to align and empower organizations. They talk about setting and tracking goals, the often performative nature of OKRs, and the dangers of abstracting oneself away from the product you’re building. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep.41 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Watch this...
Mar 21, 2023•21 min•Season 2Ep. 41
Jason and Eiso explore the intersection between finance and engineering leadership and discuss the importance of position sizing in engineering orgs. From promotions to product initiatives and technology choices, leaders are constantly making bets. So the guys delve into decision making, risk management, trust, and the dangers of placing the wrong bets. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep40 Watch this episode YouTube > https://youtu.be/tYtA4FF1...
Mar 07, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 40
Jason and Eiso get real about censorship culture in the tech industry. From free speech to the rights of employees and the role of companies in society. They chat about privilege in tech, whether we need democracy within tech companies, the role of culture stewards, and more. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep39 Watch this episode YouTube > https://youtu.be/BvFpe2mlWWw Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Le...
Feb 21, 2023•44 min•Season 2Ep. 39
Jason and Eiso deep dive into corporate politics, hierarchies, and the sociopaths that often sit at the top as they analyze the behaviors of famous C-Level leaders, such as Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, and pick apart what Engineering Leaders can learn from them. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep38 Join our Engineering Insights Series on Feb 9th! > rebrand.ly/eis1-pod Watch this episode YouTube > https://youtu.be/QK3ZumAWUuU Join the discussi...
Feb 07, 2023•39 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Phil Calçado is the Global CTO at PicPay, one the largest engineering orgs in Latin America. He joins the podcast to re-tell his war stories as an engineering leader at SoundCloud, Digital Ocean, SeatGeek, MeetUp, and more celebrity-tier tech companies. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep37 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are introducing the world of enginee...
Jan 24, 2023•48 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Happy 2023! or is it?… Jason and Eiso talk about the economic recession and share their predictions for the year ahead. They chat about what happened in 2022 that set the stage for 2023, what the hiring halt means for software engineers, what will happen to those that didn't prepare, and more! Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep36 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian...
Jan 10, 2023•44 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Allison McMillan, VP of Engineering at Quota Path, joins us to talk about the transformation engineering leaders go through when they become parents and the lessons we can take parenting to our day-to-day as managers. From communication to rewards vs. consequences to dealing with other humans and their unique challenges. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep35 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a p...
Dec 27, 2022•43 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Alexandra is a Senior Engineering Manager at Fellow.app and the author of Remote Engineering Management: Managing an Engineering Team in a Remote-First World. She joins us to discuss creating an excellent remote work foundation and the challenges of jumping back into in-person interactions when needed. We also chatted about how remote emotions translate to in-person ones, segmenting emotional reactions, wearing different masks, and more. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go....
Dec 13, 2022•43 min•Ep. 34
Bethany Foote is the Head of Infrastructure Engineering at Outschool and has had a hell of a journey as a software engineer. She joins us to talk about how diversity makes companies better, share the stories she's heard from women in tech over the years, and how they taught her how to be a better leader, mentor, and coach. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep33 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a...
Nov 29, 2022•41 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Shannon Vettes is a transversal Product and Engineering Leader and self-proclaimed "process nerd" with a knack for reorgs (as long as you reaally need them!) and for making engineering leaders' lives easier. She joins the podcast for a deep dive into the PMOs and Program Manager's roles and when's the right time to introduce these roles and processes in your organization. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep32 Join the discussion and follow us on t...
Nov 15, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Adrienne Lowe shares her journey as an empathetic leader and how her goal to give people energy (rather than take it away) paved her way through a success engineering leadership career. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep31 Watch this episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/pmldFEnT7Xc Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are introducing the world of engineering to ...
Nov 01, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Jason & Eiso talk about Velocity in Software Engineering, what it means, how to measure it, why data and metrics won’t magically solve all your problems, and what engineering leaders can do for their teams to go faster. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep30 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are introducing the world of engineering to metrics and data that ...
Oct 18, 2022•39 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Kohsuke Kawaguchi, the creator of Jenkins, pulls back the curtain on building tech companies in Japan. He shares his lessons from Cloudbees and how building two very different engineering organizations from the ground up showed him the importance of diversity in engineering teams. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep29 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are intr...
Oct 04, 2022•35 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Join Chad Fowler, Jason Warner, and Eiso Kant in a heartfelt existential episode on what it means to be an engineering leader that will have you question if the manager path is the right one for you. An essential listen for anyone trying to find meaning in their role. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep28 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are introducing the w...
Sep 20, 2022•41 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Cesar Lugo, Software Engineer and founding member of the Engineering Intelligence team at Typeform, joins us to talk about the power of engineering metrics and how data can help influence how organizations behave. Learn about continuous improvement frameworks that work and why industry benchmarks fall short of their goal to help engineering organizations thrive. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep27 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ d...
Sep 06, 2022•43 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Jason and Eiso ad lib on a variety of topics. From consensus-driver cultures, the trouble with software engineering endorsements and capacity planning best practices. Warning: Eiso recorded this episode from a boat out at sea (ahoy!), so that’s why you can sometimes hear background noises coming from his side. We apologize for this and will try to keep all recording sessions on land from now on. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep26 Join the discu...
Aug 23, 2022•36 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Craig Kerstiens joins us for a chat on decalcifying engineering teams, why you need to get your teams to ship more, and finding A-Players. Craig runs product and engineering at Crunchy Data and has been incredibly influential in the Postgres community. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep25 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are introducing the world of engineer...
Aug 09, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Meri Williams, one of the most inspiring engineering leaders in the world, joins us for a discussion on managers vs. leaders, coaching vs. mentoring, how leaders can advise team members from different backgrounds, and the power of sponsorship. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep24 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are introducing the world of engineering to me...
Jul 26, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Jason and Eiso explore what motivates engineering leaders. They chat about how engineering value creation differs from other functions, what role ego plays as a motivating factor, engineering leadership role models, and more. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep23 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by Athenian. We are introducing the world of engineering to metrics and data tha...
Jul 12, 2022•33 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Charity Majors, co-founder, and CTO of honeycomb.io , joins us to talk about everything that's wrong with engineering cycles, how throwing money at the problem by hiring more people is making it worse, and what we can do about it. Find out: How to create systems that increase software engineering productivity, Which toolsets can enable shorter feedback loops, How elite teams have figured it out, How infrastructure engineering is key to all of this and more! Deep dive into the topics discussed in...
Jun 28, 2022•36 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Dana Lawson, SVP of Engineering at Netlify and the human incarnation of sunshine, joins us on the podcast to share her lessons on hiring engineers and the interview process. We also spoke about the tech industry's changes in the last decade and how you can build inclusive software engineering teams. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep21 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast presented by At...
Apr 19, 2022•46 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Andrew Conner, Co-Founder and Engineering Leader at Levels, joins us to share his journey of leading an engineering team at a company with a strong hardware component. We spoke about building remote asynchronous companies, the importance of feedback loops, deep work, and transparency as you collectively build software and hardware. Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep20 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leader...
Apr 05, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Katie Wilde, the VP of Engineering at Ambassador Labs, joins us to spill the tea on Holacracy and decentralized management systems. Find out why these organizational structures don’t work for companies building software and how they can drive your best people away. Katie also shared how her previous company, Buffer, transitioned from a Holacracy into a strong engineering leadership culture, through goal-oriented 1:1s, effective feedback, and creating a strong sense of responsibility among its le...
Mar 22, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Co-Founder and CEO of Moov Financial, Wade Arnold, has had a hell of a journey as a software engineering leader. He joins us on the podcast to chat about building companies, attracting great software engineering talent, and increasing velocity as you scale. Key takeaways: Software engineers love working in an environment where their craft shines. If you manage to provide this, you will have no issues growing your team. Finding technical engineering leaders is easy. You want to find technical eng...
Mar 08, 2022•45 min•Season 1Ep. 18
We welcome Jonathan Nolen, Senior VP of Engineering and Product at LaunchDarkly, to talk about his 100+ people Product Delivery team - a term coined by the company, where Engineering, Product, and Design come together. Key Takeaways: Tech companies should shift their mindset from building and shipping software to delivering services to customers. Having Engineering, Product, and Design as one team with shared goals is key for all companies delivering services. Impact is not just about visibility...
Feb 22, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Eiso and Jason step up to the mic to make their wild guess on how the state of software engineering will evolve, given what we know now. The tech industry will look a lot different in 20 and 30 years. From autonomous coding to self-driving cars to automatically powered engineering leadership. We might not be ready for that yet, but our kids are gonna love it! Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep16 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devl...
Feb 08, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 16
In an episode dedicated to what we think the next generation of engineering leaders should avoid, Jason and Eiso talk about the books every engineering leader reads, the over-glorification of 80’s maniacal leaders, OKRs, and other tech industry things we love to hate. Come for the roast. Stay for the solutions! Deep dive into the topics discussed in this episode at go.developingleadership.co/ep15 Join the discussion and follow us on twitter @ devleadership_ Developing Leadership is a podcast pre...
Jan 25, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 15
