Level-up Engineering

‌

Episodes

‌

Level-Up Engineering brings you actionable management insights straight from top tech leaders. Each episode tackles real challenges faced by engineering managers—like hiring, motivating teams, and scaling organizations—and shares how they have navigated them. Discover best practices in management and leadership to master the art of understanding people and organizations, just as well as you understand code. Brought to you by **Apex Lab**, a software development agency creating stress-free, expert-led digital products. Tune in to level up your skills and take your team to new heights! Learn more at [apexlab.io](https://www.apexlab.io/). Got feedback or want to be featured on **Level-Up Engineering**? Reach out to us at [podcast@apexlab.io](mailto:podcast@apexlab.io).

Episodes

Handling Conflicts, Giving Feedback: Tom Bartel (Engineering Manager at Trivago)

Handling conflicts and giving feedback are two of the most important things a manager needs to do. It has to be a given to lead a productive developer team. So we interviewed Tom Bartel, Engineering Team Leader at trivago to share some of the tips he picked up over the years he spent as a manager. In this interview we're covering:   Common conflicts in an engineering team   How to step in and handle conficts as a manager?   Steps to prevent conflicts   Rul...

Feb 05, 2020•22 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast

Engineering Productivity: Camille Fournier (Managing Director at Two Sigma)

In software development when capacity is the problem, most managers think they need to hire more developers. But you can push engineering productivity higher by creating the right context for your existing developers. We interviewed Camille Fournier on the topic of productivity, to learn what she's been doing as a tech leader to keep it high in her developer teams. In this interview we're covering: Defining engineering productivity How to measure engineering productivity Challenges for managers ...

Jan 22, 2020•31 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast

Scaling Distributed Engineering Team: Juan Pablo Buriticá (ex-VP of Engineering at Splice)

Scaling is a massive challenge for an engineering manager to overcome, let alone scaling in a distributed environment. Juan Pablo Buriticá had done it, and in this interview he shares how he managed to pull it off. You'll get his insights and actionable tips to overcome all the issues a tech leader will face when scaling distributed engineering teams. In this interview we're covering: Challenges of scaling distributed engineering teams Steps of scaling distributed engineering teams Difference be...

Jan 07, 2020•45 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast

Managing Distributed Developer Teams: Tim Olshansky (VP of Engineering at Zenput)

In software development it's more likely now than ever, that as a manager, you'll face the challenge of leading a fully or at least partially distributed developer team. It's a brand new thing for everyone, but Tim Olshansky, current VP of Engineering at Zenput has faced this already. In this interview he shares what he learned on managing distributed developer teams over the years, and gives you actionable tips on making it work as well as possible. In this episode, we're covering: Challenges o...

Dec 17, 2019•37 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast

Training Engineering Managers: Matt Greenberg (CTO at Reforge, ex-VPE at Credit Karma)

Training engineering managers doesn't get the attention it deserves. It's extremely valuable to keep and grow your own talent, rather than get all your tech leaders from a competitive workforce market. We interviewed Matt Greenberg, who has gained years of experience training new engineering managers. In this episode, we're covering: How to make sure an engineering manager prospect is ready? Challenges of training engineering managers Challenges of transitioning to engineering management Common ...

Dec 04, 2019•25 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast

Creating Psychological Safety: Dan Rummel (Senior Director of Engineering at One Medical)

How do you build psychological safety in your team? Why is it important? We sat down for an interview with Dan Rummel. He is currently the Senior Director of Engineering at One Medical, and he’s held engineering and leadership positions at various Bay Area startups. He shares this invaluable insight with you on creating a workplace with psychological safety, so you get to understand his way of thinking and pick up actionable tips you can apply at your company. In the interview we're co...

Oct 29, 2019•21 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast

Managing Remote Teams: Katie Womersley (VP of Engineering at Buffer)

Working with a remote team has many upsides, but managing a remote developer team is one tough job to have. There are loads of challenges you wouldn’t have to worry about in an office, like possible time zone differences or making sure people feel part of the company. It requires a lot of attention to keep everything on track. We sat down with Katie Womersley, the VP of Engineering at Buffer. She’s managing many remote engineering teams, and she shared a lot of invaluable experience sh...

Oct 03, 2019•23 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast

Mentoring Developers: Gergely Orosz (Engineering Manager at Uber)

Mentoring is underutilized in the software development industry today. So, we did an interview with Gergely Orosz, currently an engineering manager at Uber, who has gained a lot of experience with mentoring over his years as a developer/manager. In this episode, we're covering: Mentoring in tech today His approach to mentoring Challenges in mentoring How to build a mentoring program Excerpt from the interview: How do you think a company could implement a mentoring program? "I've n...

Sep 30, 2019•33 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast

Scaling Developer Teams: Rich Archbold (Senior Director of Engineering at Intercom)

Software companies often grow quickly, which means developer teams often suffer to manage scaling at the pace of growth and necessary workload. We sat down with Rich Archbold to pick his brain on how they scaled developer teams at Amazon, Facebook and Intercom. In this episode we’ll be covering: Biggest challenges when scaling a developer team How he overcame these challenges First steps to scaling teams How to get hiring right Excerpt from the interview: Common mistakes when scaling e...

Sep 30, 2019•32 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast