Mike Hanley, Chief Security Officer and SVP of Engineering @ GitHub, joins us to discuss how GitHub has successfully combined its engineering & security orgs and shares recommendations for how other orgs can pivot to this model. We cover why it’s so important for eng orgs to collaborate with security early on in the product development cycle and tips for educating your engineers on security best practices. We also discuss how the rise of AI tools / usage is changing how companies need to thi...
Apr 16, 2024•46 min
In this episode, we are talking about adaptability in engineering orgs, building out impactful management systems, and navigating complex transitions as eng leaders with Cosmin Nicolaescu, CTO @ Brex. He shares how his experience moving from Romania to the United States taught him vital lessons in adaptability that he has applied throughout his eng leadership career. We also discuss how to define what success as a manager looks like, Cosmin’s approach to putting out fires (and deciding which one...
Apr 09, 2024•42 min
Have you ever wondered what to do in the “third act” of your career & beyond when it comes to opportunities outside traditional eng leadership / operational roles? In this episode, Nidhi Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder @ SheTO, joins us to share her perspectives on identifying new pathways, taking time for self-discovery, and deciding which career opportunity you’re most passionate about. She defines what the “third act” of your career is & explains roles, such as fractional roles, coaching,...
Apr 02, 2024•38 min
We’re featuring another popular session from ELC Annual 2023 – welcome to “Healthy Tension: GTM & Product/Eng Collaboration at Hundreds of Millions ARR Scale” with Tido Carriero, (Co-Founder @ Koala and Former VPE @ Segment) and Joe Morrissey (General Partner @ a16z & Former CRO @ Segment)! Tido & Joe share stories from the beginning of their partnership at Segment, including their first cross-functional annual planning meeting. They highlight lessons learned from those early days an...
Mar 26, 2024•43 min
We dissect leadership lessons from across vastly different scales of eng orgs – ranging from 13,000-people companies to 10-person start-ups – with Jeremy Burton, CEO @ Observe. He shares how he effectively translated leadership skills from working at large-scale orgs to small, early-stage start-ups & addresses challenges faced when scaling at any point. Jeremy covers start-up strategies for bringing your eng teams closer to your customers & driving innovation at large-scale orgs; charact...
Mar 19, 2024•49 min
We’re sharing a session from ELC Annual 2023 – Thuan Pham (Board Director, Advisor, former CTO of Uber & Coupang) shares pivotal moments from his life, leadership journey & career with Li Fan (CTO @ Circle). Thuan shares his best leadership lessons & strategies for scaling during hypergrowth from his time at Uber and how those skills impacted him in roles since then. He shares stories about working at Uber – including both the highs & lows – and reflects on what could have been d...
Mar 12, 2024•44 min
In today’s episode, we’re resharing Dheeraj Pandey’s popular session from ELC Annual 2023 on the disciplined pursuit of less! As the Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman of DevRev.ai , he shares how AI tools can maximize customer impact & reduce information asymmetry between various teams, including eng, customer support, product, sales, etc., ultimately creating a more customer-centric mindset. He reveals how to leverage AI to tackle “verbs,” such as classifying, routing, attributing, summarizing...
Mar 05, 2024•38 min
In this episode, we chat with Lake Dai (Founder & Managing Partner @ Sancus Ventures), who shares her career story & how to harness AI technology in a way that is both effective & compassionate. We cover the concept of “co-parenting AI”; why ethics in AI is non-negotiable; and how to create compassionate AI. Lake also reveals how she became a veteran at serving on boards & why it is something she is passionate about. We dissect ways current eng leaders who are interested in board...
Feb 27, 2024•52 min
In this episode, we’re resharing one of the most popular & exciting sessions from ELC Annual 2023, featuring a panel of experts discussing what software dev will look like in the decades to come! This conversation features Tara Hernandez, VP Developer Productivity @ MongoDB; Erik Meijer, Sr. Director of Engineering @ Meta; and Jocelyn Goldfein, Managing Director @ Zetta Venture Partners. They debate & dissect how AI is changing what software dev looks like, what capabilities future eng l...
Feb 20, 2024•43 min
We discuss expanding your leadership capabilities to support total business growth & career visualization with Prashanthi Padmanabhan, Head of Engineering @ LinkedIn Premium and Global Women in Tech Lead @ LinkedIn. Prashanthi dissects her career journey & leadership growth practices like creating a half-pager to visualize your potential career path, developing value-based leadership skills, identifying the micro & macro transformation opportunities for your professional growth, and ...
Feb 13, 2024•45 min
Matt Greenwood, Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Investment Management Engineering @ Two Sigma shares some of the most unique and valuable cultural practices behind how the engineering org operates at Two Sigma. We discuss strategies that prepare you for scaling (like intentional relationship-building with your front-line managers); examples of how Two Sigma successfully deployed the “Inverse Conway Maneuver,” how to reinforce a consensus-driven culture from early-days to 1000+, how to nav...
Feb 06, 2024•39 min
In this episode, we are deconstructing the “first team approach” with Monica Bajaj, VPE @ Okta. We cover how to apply “first team" across your org, within different team functions (including architecture, quality, security, etc.) and across all levels. She also shares real-life examples from her experience with “first teams” in scenarios like onboarding new teams after M&As, developing new products, and more. Monica provides tactical steps for implementing the first team concept within your ...
Jan 30, 2024•37 min
In one of our most anticipated conversations of the year, we got the chance to sit down with three of Spotify’s eng leaders: Krisitan Lindwall, Director of Engineering, Data, Insights, Experimentation, & ML Infrastructure; Mark Grey, Senior Staff Engineer; and Pooja Dave, Director of Engineering, Music Promotion. They share insights from their experience building a culture of experimentation & innovation at a massive scale and what elements are necessary for experimentation at scale. The...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Laura Tacho, CTO @ DX, joins us to discuss why changing what you measure doesn’t necessarily lead to improved productivity (and what to do about it)! How to define and measure productivity in your eng org is one of the hottest topics for eng leaders… We cover best practices for identifying what productivity looks like in your org, what motivates your team to reach those goals, how to harness behavioral psychology, and antipatterns to avoid when you focus on productivity. Plus Laura shares some o...
Jan 16, 2024•41 min
Andrew Lau, CEO & Co-founder @ Jellyfish, shares the engineering management principles that eng leaders will most want to develop and invest in as we transition from 2023 into 2024. We cover year-end reflection techniques, how eng leaders can become more resilient / adaptable, why honing financial acumen is key, and how eng leaders can better plan ahead to face upcoming technology & industry challenges. We also preview Andrew’s new podcast called 5 to 9, aimed to identify meaningful ways...
Jan 09, 2024•36 min
As the Field CTO & Head of Strategy @ VAST Data, Colleen Tartow, Ph.D., has a vast resume of building data engineering teams from scratch and beyond. Colleen discusses the necessary components for developing new or reorienting existing data programs, strategies for effective communication & collaboration between data & eng functions, the implications of AI technology on data engineering, and integrating cross-functional partners into the data eng planning process & road map. Plus...
Dec 19, 2023•43 min
In this episode, Emad Elwany, CTO & Co-founder @ Lexion, joins us to discuss navigating the messy “in-between” phase startups face as they scale up! We talk about the dilemma between optimizing for vertical or horizontal teams. And we cover his approach for aligning teams based on strategic themes / “complete units of value” on the company’s product roadmap and navigating trade-offs when choosing your approach to scaling. Emad also shares strategies for successful interpersonal facilitation ...
Dec 12, 2023•45 min
Scott Woody, co-founder and CTO @ Metronome, shares the story of how Metronome, a small startup, made the transition to quickly operate at a global scale while working with complex, public companies. He shares the origin story of Metronome and the roadmap of how they went from early-stage engineering to creating highly specialized teams & in-house experts. Additionally, we cover how to navigate the tension between infrastructure & product eng teams, creating a healthy relationship betwee...
Dec 05, 2023•48 min
In this episode, Jill Wetzler shares practices and principles to help you become a great coach! As an Executive Coach & former VP of Engineering, Jill shares how attending her first coaching workshop impacted her career trajectory and the frameworks she uses to help create a mindset of possibility, foster positive relationships, cultivate trust, navigate threats, and help people think about the future. She shares her own experiences working through these frameworks & how it helped guide ...
Nov 30, 2023•48 min
Kathleen Vignos, VP of Software Engineering @ Capital One, shares how to overcome executive leadership gaps that prevent eng leaders from advancing to the next level in their career. She covers how she applies a portfolio approach to career growth, how that helped her build exec skills in a way, and tips for people who are reorienting their approach to career growth. We also cover how to bridge essential executive skill gaps like facilitation, negotiation, and influencing! Plus strategies for ex...
Nov 21, 2023•51 min
James Everingham, co-founder and VP of Engineering @ Lightspark, joins our podcast to share his best tools for scaling yourself down – not up – as an engineering leader. He discusses his latest career move shifting down in scale and how that impacts your risk tolerance as a leader. We also cover some of James’ favorite leadership methods, including the Socratic method, principle-based decision-making, and creating narratives as a product / eng org goal-setting tool, plus how he’s employed those ...
Nov 14, 2023•44 min
Pete Peterson, CTO @ Riviera Partners, joins our podcast to discuss strategies for gaining stakeholder buy-in in complex stakeholder environments. He shares his experience working as the CIO for the City of Oakland & how he navigated implementing change across 30+ departments & stakeholders. We cover how to find collaborators who share your vision, why quick wins are important for gaining stakeholder buy-in, balancing competing interests from stakeholders, introducing change to your tech...
Nov 07, 2023•48 min
Data leader and author of Self Advocacy: Your Guide to Getting What You Deserve at Work , Shailvi Wakhlu, joins us to discuss practical strategies for becoming a better self-advocate & skills to help you improve negative self-talk and prioritize your happiness. Shailvi also reveals the different types of self-advocacy and how eng leaders can empower/coach their teams to become better self-advocates, plus recommendations for incorporating self-advocacy into key workplace scenarios, including ...
Oct 31, 2023•48 min
Clemens Mewald, Head of Product @ Instabase, joins our podcast to share his insights on how to embrace generative AI tools to enhance engineering leadership, productivity, and problem-solving. We also chat about creative ways to implement GenAI beyond simply chatbots, questions to ask when deciding how to leverage GenAI capabilities, rethinking the productivity aspect of generative AI, and how to use it to address cross-functional collaboration challenges within your org. Additionally, Clemens r...
Oct 24, 2023•46 min
Navigating catastrophes is never easy for eng leaders, but it’s an essential leadership skill in the startup world. Ken Pickering, SVP of Engineering @ Starburst Data, discusses navigating catastrophe, and uncertainty and building a culture of resiliency within startups & eng teams. We cover how to embrace challenges / failure, and cultivate centralized beliefs within your org. Plus the challenges behind finding PMF for a second product, and how to leverage first-principles to avoid a failed...
Oct 17, 2023•43 min
Jamie Tischart, CTO @ Bettercloud, discusses how to identify inefficiencies within your eng org & strategies for creating more efficient teams! He shares his experience at Bettercloud as one of several concurrent senior hires & why he discovered that coordination is key when hiring multiple new senior hires at once. We also chat about strategies for identifying / removing barriers that are getting in the way of your eng team’s success, making / communicating meaningful decisions, identif...
Oct 10, 2023•51 min
Hubert Palan, Founder & CEO @ Product Board, discusses how to achieve successful collaboration between product and eng teams! He addresses the elements that make up healthy collaboration, common areas of tension between product & eng, and steps for aligning the teams on product vision, tooling, and processes. We also cover strategies for engineering leaders who want to contribute more to their business’s product vision, facilitation frameworks to improve communication between product man...
Oct 05, 2023•45 min
In this episode, Bhawna Singh, CTO @ Okta, deconstructs lessons learned from her experience operating in a high-stakes, high-scale environment. She shares strategies for re-architecting your product roadmap, collaborating with customers, first setting up guardrails while scaling, and communicating throughout the prioritization conversation process. We also cover the important principle of “secure by design” & how that process is implemented successfully at Okta. We cover challenges faced &am...
Oct 03, 2023•42 min
In this episode, Ritu Bhargava, Chief Product Officer, CX/CRM @ SAP, joins us to discuss collaboration, relationship building, and navigating conflicts in large-scale organizations with competing priorities. We cover Ritu’s philosophy regarding building bridges between people, how to gain buy-in toward your priorities, unlocking support from fellow exec leaders, and how to address conflicts & competing interests across a massive org. Ritu also shares her strategies for minimizing ego & g...
Sep 19, 2023•38 min
This episode features all things security with our guest, Laura Bell Main, CEO & Founder @ SafeStack. She shares valuable strategies for building your security team & tool stack. We cover why security is a human problem based on human motivations, prioritization conversations for assessing risks, considerations for early-stage security teams, how behavior change & decision making impact security, and considerations for companies in the “messy middle” phase. Laura also addresses commu...
Aug 22, 2023•48 min
