Interview with Steve Tauber, CTO at madewithlove. He shares his secrets to productive IT audits from preparation to execution. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The basics of tech audits Different approaches to IT audits Making the most out of the IT audit process Flexmail's tech audit story What auditors observe How to prepare for an IT audit Excerpt from the interview: "We were teaching people how to communicate in a more agile way, and to collab...
Jul 06, 2022•38 min•Ep. 65
Interview with Pau Minoves, CTO at Typeform. He talks about leaders' role in managing culture change in the workplace during rapid growth in a company's scaleup phase. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Establishing the right environment for growth Culture change management as a leader Benefits of strong company culture Challenges of culture change in the workplace Introducing new standards Importance of team autonomy Scaling tips Excerpt from the i...
Jun 22, 2022•45 min•Ep. 64
State of Engineering Management 2022 report Interview with Dylan Hansen, Senior Director of Engineering Enablement & Engagement at Salesforce dicussing the results of the State of Engineering Management 2022 report. We analyze the most interesting findings to get more insight and commentary from a fellow engineering leader. In this interview we're covering: Self-improvement in leadership Hiring and retention People and performance management Engineering brand Remote work Sign up for the Leve...
Jun 08, 2022•49 min•Ep. 63
Interview with David Siegel, CEO at Meetup. He talks about ways the leaders at Meetup and he has been utilizing to motivate employees and combat the Great American Resignation. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Takeaways from the pandemic Improving employee retention and motivation Communication in a hybrid environment Supporting leaders at Meetup Improving work-life balance Building a community Communicating your mission right Excerpt from the int...
May 25, 2022•46 min•Ep. 62
Interview with Charles Roman, Technical Director at Respawn Entertainment. He talks about setting up, leading, and scaling the engineering team behind Respawns' upcoming Star Wars FPS with no official title yet. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The path to Respawn Entertainment Adapting to remote management Hiring video game engineers Process changes Utilizing feedback in video game engineering Excerpt from the interview: "Video game development i...
May 11, 2022•52 min•Ep. 4
Interview with Zoe Sobin, Senior Engineering Manager at HubSpot. She tells her story of turning an engineering project into a centralized platform solution and how he managed communication, prioritization and every other challenge along the way. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Signs that you need a platform Getting buy-in for a platform product Communication in platform engineering Prioritization in platform engineering Necessary skills for platf...
Apr 27, 2022•39 min•Ep. 61
Interview with Anand Safi, Senior Engineering Leader at Mark43. He covers methods and metrics for building trust in virtual teams while telling his story of taking over a newly founded remote team and scaling it up. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definition of trust in the workplace Differences between building trust in virtual teams vs the office Methods for building trust in a virtual team Encouraging team members to build trust among each oth...
Apr 13, 2022•52 min•Ep. 60
Interview with Robert C. Martin a.k.a. Uncle Bob. He explains his views and ideas about the need for a set of software engineering ethics, universal quality standards and how they may translate to reality. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Importance of ethics Applying ethics to software engineering Current ethical problems in the software industry Selling companies on software engineering ethics Cornerstones of software quality Thought experiments...
Mar 30, 2022•42 min•Ep. 59
Interview with Ankit Patel, SVP of Engineering at Foursquare. He explains how he realized that Foursquare's decision making process requires a rehaul, and what he did to completely restructure the entire organization to create more efficient decision making. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Organizational decision making issues New organization structure Finding the solution Role of leadership in rebuilding organizational decision making Getting b...
Mar 16, 2022•36 min•Ep. 58
Interview with Maura Kelly, VP of Engineering at Mailchimp about injecting customer obsession into software engineering. She details organizing an event to actualize customer obsession and promote it across every level of the company and shares everything she's learned along the way. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Customer obsession in software engineering Customer obsession event Origins of the customer obsession event Getting buy-in from leade...
Mar 02, 2022•38 min•Ep. 57
Interview with Mike Seavers, VP of Online Development at Epic Games about becoming a manager of managers. He talks about his hardships as a new director, he tells the story of overcoming them, and shares other stories about coaching other leaders to turn them into great directors. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Differences between managing ICs and managing managers Story of transitioning from manager to director Necessary skills to managing mana...
Feb 16, 2022•52 min•Ep. 56
Interview with Jossie Haines, VP of Engineering and Head of DEI at Tile. She talks about the place of empathy in leadership and in the workplace in general, and shares her stories about mastering empathy and coaching others to lead with empathy as well. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Defining empathy in the workplace Defining empathetic leadership Infusing leadership with empathy Challenges of leading with empathy remotely Story of learning abou...
Feb 02, 2022•49 min•Ep. 55
Interview with Joseph Gefroh, Engineering Director at HealthSherpa. He goes into detail about preparing a team to scale up. He shares his experiences and tells stories about what processes do you need to put in place, why they're necessary and how you can sell your teams on them. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Defining a team that's ready to scale The first challenges of scaling a team Improving knowledge sharing to scale your team Top processes...
Jan 19, 2022•55 min•Ep. 54
Interview with James Trunk, VP of Engineering at Griffin. He talks in-depth about coming up with his principles of decision making, the ways you can do the same, and their utility in leadership. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Utilizing your principles of decision making Role of decision principles in leadership Using decision principles with your team Using decision principles with your peers and manager Dangers of using decision principles Orig...
Jan 05, 2022•49 min•Ep. 53
Interview with Dylan Hansen, Senior Director of Engineering Enablement and Engagement at Salesforce. He talks about leadership and work-life balance, telling stories and tips about improving it in your own life, and supporting your team in achieving a better work-life awareness as well. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The definition of work-life balance The process of improving work-life balance in leadership Strategies for a healthy work-life ba...
Dec 15, 2021•54 min•Ep. 51
Interview with Allison McMillan, Director of Engineering at GitHub. She shares her best virtual offsite ideas, hands out some tips you can try yourself and warns you of the pitfalls to avoid. Real life stories from behind the scenes at GitHub. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definition of virtual offsites Ground rules for virtual offsites Realistic expectations for virtual offsites Challenges of virtual offsites Preparations for virtual offsites ...
Dec 01, 2021•41 min•Ep. 52
Interview with Jose Roca, VP of Product and Engineering at Prezi. He tells his story about going from shy kid to great engineering leader, building and scaling Prezi's platform team, overcoming internal resistance on different levels, and much more. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Getting into leadership at Prezi Scaling yourself with your company Finding mentors and mentoring others Overcoming internal resistance Key leadership skills Balancing ...
Nov 17, 2021•44 min•Ep. 3
Interview with Camille Fournier, Managing Director and Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma. She talks about the role of platform teams, the most important skills for platform engineers, creating smooth communication with product teams and more! Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definition of a platform engineering team Differences between product and platform engineering Priority differences for product and platform teams Communication channe...
Nov 03, 2021•47 min•Ep. 50
Interview with Erica Greene, Senior Engineering Manager at Etsy about the importance of writing in software engineering. She goes into details about why you need to write well, how to get good at it, how to coach your team in writing and much more. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The importance of writing in engineering management Why is writing important in software engineering Why is writing important in meetings Improving your writing skills a...
Oct 20, 2021•42 min•Ep. 49
Interview with Pat Kua, former engineering leader, current leadership coach about applying systems thinking to management. We start from the defintion systems thinking and discuss applying it to leadership with clear steps and concrete examples. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The definition of systems thinking Applying systems thinking to leadership Key concepts and potential traps of systems thinking The steps of applying systems thinking The i...
Oct 06, 2021•41 min•Ep. 48
Interview with Radoslav Stankov, Head of Engineering at Product Hunt. He tells stories about him going from IC to Head of Engineering, the different stages he led through Product Hunt, the challenges he faces in product development, his leadership journal and much more. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The evolution of Product Hunt's structure Going from IC to leader Evaluating yourself as a leader The effects of the pandemic on remote work Leader...
Sep 22, 2021•39 min•Ep. 2
Interview with Tom Sommer, Director of Engineering at Redbubble about creating an internship program for software engineers. Tom tells stories about setting up the internship program at Redbubble and the iterations they've gone through over the years to give you a headstart at building your own program. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Mistakes while creating an internship program for software engineers Recruiting to an internship program Evaluati...
Sep 08, 2021•36 min•Ep. 47
Interview with Lara Hogan, legendary leadership coach and former engineering leader about building a performance review process. Lara goes into detail about building a process from the bottom up and takes a deep dive into synthesizing and delivering feedback to your direct reports for maximum effectiveness. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definition of performance reviews Steps of a performance review process Preparation tips for giving and recei...
Aug 25, 2021•48 min•Ep. 46
Interview with Greg Dick, Senior Engineering Manager at Hudl about building engagement with remote employees in distributed teams. They miss out on a lot of professional and personal interactions, and don't integrate well into the team. Check out Greg's tips to learn how you can kickstart that process as a manager! Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definition of remote employees and distributed teams Integrating remote employees to distributed team...
Aug 04, 2021•53 min•Ep. 45
Interview with Michael Lopp, Rands about his time as VP of Product Engineering at Slack. He tells stories about the darkest day of Slack, the mistakes he made along the way and how he grew into his executive role. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Leadership takeaways from Slack The darkest day of Slack Tactical vs strategic focus as VP of Product Engineering Retaining your direct reports Creating processes before they're necessary The experience o...
Jul 14, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 1
Interview with Mark Kinsella, VP of Engineering at Opendoor about what makes entrepreneurial engineers great and how to lead them. We go in-depth from the definition through the key qualities of entrepreneurial engineers, hiring and retaining them, and much more. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definition and qualities of entrepreneurial engineers Hiring entrepreneurial engineers Onboarding and retaining entrepreneurial engineers Nurturing the bu...
Jun 30, 2021•34 min•Ep. 44
Interview with Jean Hsu, VP of Engineering at Range about structuring, scheduling and making your remote meetings productive. Learn from her stories about handling an avalanche of remote meetings, and what she's learned along the way about transforming these meetings and supporting her team. Sign up for the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The optimal number of remote meetings daily Making remote meetings productive Structuring remote meetings Necessary extra me...
Jun 16, 2021•50 min•Ep. 43
Interview with Mike Seavers, former CTO at Riot Games about building self-managed teams for high performance. Learn from a seasoned leader about making sure you have the right people, and coach them the right way to empower them so you can stop holding their hands. Unlock your team's potential and unleash them to do great work! Sign up for the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Relationship between performance and autonomy Role of the leader in self-managed teams ...
Jun 02, 2021•47 min•Ep. 42
State of Software Development 2021 report Interview with John Ford, VP of Engineering and Country Leader at LogMeIn discussing emerging industry trends based on data from the State of Software Development 2021 report. We touch on the effects of COVID-19 on the industry, old and new challenges, hiring, retention and more. Sign up for the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The effects of COVID-19 on the software industry Top challenges in software development Compar...
May 19, 2021•50 min•Ep. 41
Interview with Ellen Wong , Director of Engineering at Calm about leading partially remote and partially on-site hybrid teams. She shares her experience in hiring the right people for hybrid teams, creating processes, and handling all the day-to-day difficulties of the hybrid environment. In this interview we're covering: Advantages and disadvantages of a hybrid team Leadership challenges in a hybrid team Preparing your team for hybrid processes Extra support requirements in hybrid teams Future ...
Apr 28, 2021•40 min•Ep. 40
