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In this episode, Patrick discusses what it means to build an empowered career & explore creative career portfolios with Jean Hsu (VP of Engineering @ Range) and Cate Huston (author of The Engineering Leader and fractional CTO @ Twill). Both share their unique engineering leadership journeys & how they built creative career paths through exploration & finding room for optionality. We dissect the identity crisis that eng leaders face – whether they are ICs or managers – and how to navi...
In this episode, we’re joined by Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup , to discuss insights from his latest book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great . Eric shares what inspired him to write the book and why we need to move beyond and redefine what true profit looks like. He shares the history behind businesses transitioning from serving public interests to shareholder primacy and why leaving behind a people-first business approach can actually reduce p...
In this episode, Geddes Munson (SVP of Engineering @ Affirm) joins us to discuss operational / engineering excellence, scaling, and AI-native transformation! We explore Affirm’s approach to operational and engineering excellence and how a 2024 outage became a turning point in refining that focus. We deconstruct “AI retooling week”, the internal tools it inspired (including an incident tracing system), how the AI-native transition is impacting operational / engineering excellence, and how to conn...
Andrew McNamara, Director of Applied Machine Learning @ Shopify, joins the ELC podcast to share insights on building agentic platforms at scale, like Sidekick, that must keep reliability for its users at the forefront. Andrew describes the building philosophy behind Shopify and what it means to cultivate a culture of prototype-first while prioritizing hiring early-stage talent. We cover Sidekick’s development journey and how user feedback impacted its product vision, why evaluation is so importa...
Inbal Shani (CPO and Head of R&D @ Twilio) deconstructs the transformation of the R&D org at Twilio! We explore the shift from a GM-led model to a unified platform strategy and “why structure must always follow strategy.” Inbal shares her framework for moving from output-focused metrics to input goals, prioritizing “time-to-value,” and the nuances of measuring AI products. We discuss using "R&D roadshows" as a strategic company transformation tool and why engineering leaders must mas...
Rajat Monga, CVP AI Frameworks @ Microsoft, joins the podcast to discuss his leadership and founder journey, from Google Brain / Tensorflow to inference.io and back to Microsoft. He dissects what it means to refound vs. start from scratch, the value of the open source community, and strategies for discovering what problem to solve when going the startup route. We also cover how to determine your users’ hidden incentives and what that means for both product development & marketing, along with...
Enterprise customers demand 99.9% availability, regardless of how the underlying software is built. In this episode, Murali Swaminathan (CTO @ Freshworks) discusses how enterprises actually win with AI! We explore the “Architecture of Predictability” – proactive architectural safeguards to scale “responsible AI by design” across a global organization serving 75,000 customers. Murali shares his leadership playbook for implementing the technical safeguards and product trust controls that empower h...
Jon Hyman (CTO & Co-Founder @ Braze) returns to the podcast to share how he balances a mature, public-company roadmap with visionary AI innovation! We deconstruct Braze’s quantitative "Product Health" framework - a scoring system used to resolve competing prioritizations and mandate technical remediation. We also discuss shifting engineering leaders to think like GMs, how to realign teams by connecting abstract “vision” to specific releases, goals & outcomes. Plus, Jon’s three-tier menta...
We discuss what effective leadership looks like across three organizational archetypes: product-led, business-led, and design-led companies with Sebastiano Armeli (Engineering Leadership @ Meta). Drawing from his leadership journey at places like Meta, Spotify, Snap, and PayPal, Sebastiano deconstructs the situational leadership frameworks required to thrive in different environments. Plus we discuss how AI is moving managers from implementation to architecture, why the next bottleneck is managi...
Lindsey Simon, VP Engineering at Vercel, discusses modern engineering management and career development, explaining Vercel's demo-centric all-hands for real-time context and his "vote with your wallet" approach to career changes. He also highlights the "janitor mindset" for mission-driven work, Vercel's "dig deep" value exemplified by code-first support, and the necessity for VPs to engage in hobby projects to build AI competency and user empathy. The discussion concludes with insights on interviewing trends in the AI era and the resurgence of in-person collaboration.
This episode features Chris Chiu, VP of Engineering at Salesforce, sharing insights on engineering career growth in the AI era. He deconstructs how to navigate non-linear career paths by building a personal "career thesis," leveraging networks for market understanding, and applying the "Running Framework" to ensure successful transitions. The discussion also emphasizes the critical need for modern engineering leaders to develop deep technical competence, especially with the rise of AI, and to learn through imitating exemplary leaders.
Sulman Choudhry, Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI, discusses how AI is transforming engineering teams, roles, and workflows. He explains the shift to fluid, mission-driven teams, the application of vertical and horizontal structures, and the importance of cross-functional collaboration. The conversation also covers the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) framework, AI's impact on manager roles, two-way mentorship in an AI-native environment, and the critical skill of problem framing for modern engineers.
Kiren Sekar, CPO at Samsara, deconstructs the company's innovation engine, emphasizing its decade-long compound product strategy. The discussion highlights how accelerating feedback loops, leveraging a unique data flywheel from trillions of data points, and embedding engineers directly into customer problems drive real-world impact and ROI. Samsara's approach transforms physical operations, exemplified by their support during extreme weather, showcasing customer-driven innovation through advisory boards and "spark sessions."
Founders often delay leadership coaching until a major crisis hits, leading to significant costs in productivity, team churn, and poor decisions. In this episode, James Birchler (Technical Advisor & Executive Leadership Coach) argues that early coaching is a game-changer for a startup's success. We explore the hidden costs of waiting and the benefits of intentionally installing leadership and communication systems before you scale. James shares specific self-awareness mechanisms, like adviso...
This episode features Jaikumar Ganesh, Head of Engineering at Anyscale, who shares insights on scaling engineering organizations across different tech eras and the unique challenges of the AI age. He emphasizes the new bottleneck of "knowing what to build" and the critical role of product thinking for engineers. The discussion also covers the emerging infrastructure needs for AI agents, such as context graphs and data source of truth platforms, and practical leadership lessons from his GM experience on breaking down silos and fostering customer-centricity across engineering, product, and sales teams.
Vineeta Puranik, CPTO at SmartBear, shares how the company transformed individual tools into a unified, AI-powered product suite by focusing on end-to-end workflows and "jobs to be done." She explains the critical difference between "AI bolt-on" and "AI native" strategies, frameworks for seamless M&A integration, and designing user experiences for both human personas and AI agents across varying levels of customer AI readiness. This episode offers key insights into modern product vision evolution and strategic AI implementation.
Tyson Singer, SVP of Technology and Platforms at Spotify, explains how Spotify is moving from "localized speed" to "systematic speed" by deploying AI in the "Think It" (prototyping/strategy) and "Maintain It" (fleet management) phases, rather than solely on code generation. He details internal tools like AiKA and Honk, discusses challenges like code quality and PR review bottlenecks, and emphasizes that systems change is fundamentally about people, advocating for a shift from I-shaped specialists to T-shaped generalists across the entire organization to drive impact.
James Tyack, an engineering manager, shares the complete operational playbook for ELC's successful hackathon where 14 senior leaders built and shipped functional apps. The discussion covers everything from structuring ideation and async collaboration to addressing imposter syndrome and the evolving role of engineering leaders in an AI-driven world. Learn how this unique experiment fostered innovation, exposed leaders to new tools, and provided a blueprint for future cross-functional hackathons, emphasizing a problem-first approach.
Bill Coughran and Bret Reckard discuss the evolving role of engineering leadership in the AI era. They emphasize the importance of staying technically grounded, avoiding AI hype, and identifying real business value. The conversation also covers organizational design, the "apprentice model" for leadership development, and strategic transitions from large tech companies to startups, highlighting the human element of leadership.
This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! OpenAI evolved from a pure research lab into the fastest-growing product in history, scaling from 100 million to 700 million weekly users in record time. In this episode, we deconstruct the organizational design choices and cultural bets that enabled this unprecedented velocity. We explore what it means to hire "extreme generalists," how AI-native interns are redefining productivity, and the real-time trade-offs made during ...
Reforge Founder & CEO Brian Balfour explores the dual challenges of deciding what to build and how to evolve EPD workflows in the AI era. He warns against optimizing only for code velocity, advocates for "skunkworks" teams for high-risk AI bets, and details how to leverage AI for faster product discovery. The discussion also covers the "Great Distribution Shift" from open to closed platforms, emphasizing the need for products to adapt and de-risk by building proprietary moats and specialized workflows. Finally, Balfour proposes a shift for specialists from "inboxes" to system builders to optimize EPD functions.
Rajeev Rajan (CTO @ Atlassian) shares the leadership playbook he used to transform Atlassian’s engineering culture, and how that cultural foundation directly powered the build and launch of Rovo (Atlassian’s new AI powered app). We cover how they reduced ship time from 120 days to zero, why “developer joy” is the metric that matters, and how to create a community of developer productivity champions to scale DevEx transformation. Rajeev also breaks down his principles for systematizing autonomy a...
In this episode, Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer @ Monday.com ) shares how they are evolving their engineering roles from developers to builders & system designers, where the lines between product, engineering, and design are intentionally blurred, and developers manage AI Agents as team members, tackling an ever-expanding list of projects. We explore the shift from "developer" to "system designer" and why managing AI agents requires the same skills as managing people. Pl...
This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! The true promise of AI isn’t in replicating human intelligence. It’s in developing entirely new forms of non-human intelligence that perceive and understand the world in fundamentally different ways. Jamie Lien (Co-Founder and Chief Scientist @ Archetype AI) and Rashi Agarwal (Head of AI Engineering @ GoodLeap) explore the emergence of "Physical AI" - machines that sense the world through modalities beyond human biology to f...
Ruslan Belkin discusses fundamental shifts in engineering leadership, from documentation as the source of truth to AI-driven evaluations and the future of user interfaces where agents become pilots. He shares frameworks for establishing product vision and effective decision-making using an 'investment deck' approach. The episode also delves into cultivating outcome-oriented engineering cultures, keeping up with rapid AI research, and the implications of synthetic data on market defensibility, concluding with his predictions for the AI market's opportunities and threats.
James Reggio (CTO @ Brex) shares the story of "Brex 3.0", an 18-month journey behind their operational evolution. We explore how they rewound their org from a Series E to a Series C mindset, and replaced siloed OKRs with seasonal "marquee initiatives." James deconstructs the “Brex Hacker House”, an AI-focused startup within a startup experiment aimed to disrupt their core business. This conversation is all about evolving operational rhythms, layers of management, product building, and culture ch...
Jonathan Raymond, founder of Ren, explores the overwhelming cognitive load faced by modern managers and proposes a new model of co-piloted leadership with AI. He outlines how AI can enhance human skills by detecting signals and prompting reflection, emphasizing that AI should guide, not replace, human interaction and feedback. The discussion also covers the "Growth Loop" system for effective management, product principles for building relational AI systems, and the critical importance of AI asking questions to foster curiosity and deeper human engagement.
Businesses are spending millions on AI tools hoping to accelerate time-to-market but aren't seeing organizational-level results. Laura Tacho (CTO @ DX) explains why an "individual productivity" mindset fails and how AI merely accelerates the condition of the system it enters. She provides a framework for leaders to shift to a systems-level approach, find high-leverage ROI by looking outside the 20% of time spent coding, and understand what sets high-ROI orgs apart. Plus Laura shares data literac...
What happens to platform engineering when natural language becomes the primary interface to infrastructure? Miriam Aguirre (Co-founder & CEO @ Ingenimax) joins us to explore how AI is fundamentally reshaping platform strategy, team structures, and the very role of the platform engineer. We deconstruct the shift from tactical "how" to strategic "why" and explore what it means to lead and build resilient systems in this new paradigm. ABOUT MIRIAM AGUIRRE Miriam Aguirre is the Co-Founder and CE...
In this episode, we’re addressing one of the biggest challenges current eng leaders are facing – balancing yesterday’s constraints with tomorrow’s potential! Chrystal Henke Ball (VP of Engineering @ Yahoo) shares insights on why it’s important to constantly challenge your assumptions and how vision can sometimes work as a bottleneck for your organization. We dissect how the traditional product lifecycle is evolving to become more fluid and what that means for the collaborative relationship betwe...
