Today's guest is Pat Kua! Pat is a professional engineering and leadership coach with more than 20 years of experience in tech. He was CTO of N26 and principal consultant at ThoughtWorks. He is an accomplished speaker and writes an awesome newsletter for tech leaders called Level Up. With Pat, we talked about his journey in tech, from Australia to London to Berlin. We talked about the future of engineering management and technical leadership and the ever controversial founder mode. Here is what we talked about: (02:17) Introduction (03:05) Pat's journey in tech (12:17) Engineering management evolution (18:27) Balancing people and tech management (21:55) The paybacks of a good management (25:25) System thinking in people's management (28:39) Finding the balance in hybrid roles (31:52) The foundation skill (37:42) About Paul Graham's essay (45:22) The maker vs multiplier framework (48:15) The evolution of practices in tech — This episode is brought to you by https://sleuth.io — You can also find this at: - 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm - 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw - 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305 — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Francesco Dominidiato! Francesco Dominidiato is CTO at Moneyfarm, one of the largest wealth management companies in Europe, and former CTO at high-growth startups like Casavo and Docebo. During his career he scaled organizations from zero to hundreds of employees, and has incredible experience at all levels: from leading small teams to NASDAQ-listed companies. With Francesco, we talked about career frameworks, how to create a path that creates opportunities for both individual contributors and managers, how to address career development issues, organizational debt and more. Here is what we talked about: (02:09) Introduction (03:07) Francesco's journey in tech (06:57) Today's industry direction (18:17) A path for all careers (23:36) Salary range & defining roles (34:24) The cost of organizational debt (41:10) Evolving the career framework (53:35) Scaling the ladders (57:02) Tricky roles (01:04:21) The path of engineering career — This episode is brought to you by https://sleuth.io — You can also find this at: - 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm - 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw - 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305 — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Stephanie Wong! Stephanie is the Head of Technical Marketing at Google Cloud, where she blends storytelling and technology to inspire developers and build customer growth. She’s an award-winning host, global keynote speaker, and creator of viral tech content. With Stephanie, we talked about her journey from sales to content creation to product management and generative AI. We talked about technical storytelling, how to craft great stories around technical products. And finally we discussed product management for generative AI and the challenges of driving adoption for AI products. Here is what we talked about: (01:58) Introduction (02:52) Stephanie's journey into tech (07:31) Pioneering content creation for tech (10:05) Learning through experience (13:17) How to tell a tech story (16:47) Branding and content creation (23:12) How to improve your storytelling (28:28) Finding the way to grow (34:11) "Get the ball rolling!" (41:40) Content creation and product management (44:20) AI's role in today's tech — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Pramoda Vyasarao! Pramoda is a leadership and communication coach, he has 20+ years of experience in big tech, wrote the book “Beyond Your Limits”, and runs a course called Communication Engineering With Pramoda, we will talk about what good communication looks like, especially for engineers and managers, how it impacted his career and the career of the leaders he helps. Here is what we talked about: (02:05) Introduction (02:51) The Toastmasters Club (07:12) Engineering Communication issues (10:18) Communication through Pramoda's career (13:28) The TALL framework (19:11) Evaluation vs Information (20:44) The TALL framework: Asking (34:19) The GROW model (36:18) The TALL framework: Listening (38:05) The Path to action (46:04) From feelings to facts (50:38) The TALL framework: Leadership (53:51) Get a coach! (55:28) Mentoring vs Coaching (58:39) Beyond your Limits: a look on Pramoda's work Learn more about Pramoda's work: Communication Engineering course: https://www.changesmith.me/communication Beyond Your Limits book: Amazon — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Camille Fournier! Camille is an accomplished CTO and executive with 20+ years of experience in tech, and author of the timeless The Manager’s Path, possibly the most influential book ever about engineering management. With Camille we talked about good vs bad management, the controversial new founder mode, career advice for managers and her next book about platform engineering. Here is what we talked about: (02:01) Introduction (03:51) About the founder mode (11:46) Good weed, bad weeds (17:49) Finding "the formula" (21:24) Managing at different levels (28:03) The identity war (32:55) The staples of management (39:53) Having a strong opinion (43:21) Staying valuable (49:53) Keep your skills valuable (55:15) Platform engineering — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is David Heinemeier Hansson! David is the creator of Rails, co-founder & CTO of Basecamp, a NYT bestselling author, and professional racing driver for 10+ years! In our chat, we explored many of David's strong opinions on software development, including today's excessive complexity in software and infrastructure, the role of AI, and the future of open source. We also talked about his racing and how he approaches learning any topic from scratch. Here is what we talked about: (02:20) Introduction (03:42) Merchants of Complexity (13:19) Innovating the dev experience (21:53) Complexity in small projects (28:14) Incentives hurt open source (32:49) Subscription vs ONCE (35:24) David and AI (47:27) Using AI as training wheels (49:42) The art of learning — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Henry Poydar! Henry is CEO and founder at Steady, with more than 25 years of experience in tech leadership roles. With Henry, we talked about continuous coordination, an open source framework he co-created, providing a set of principles and practices for running modern, effective engineering teams. Here is what we talked about: (01:25) Introduction (02:25) Henry's Career (13:23) Create async communication (16:47) Keeping a steady beat (23:02) Define a necessary meeting (26:00) The proper alignment (30:58) Applying continuous coordination (37:06) Discovering how your team works (38:38) Managing in the AI era (44:27) How remote can improve working (48:20) How AI is affecting team work — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Dana Lawson! Dana is CTO at Netlify and held leadership roles at incredible companies like GitHub, New Relic, InVision, and more. With Dana, we talked about her journey, starting in the military, becoming a manager and major lessons she has learned. We also talked about how to hire engineers, how to create a diverse and inclusive team, and the impact of AI on engineering. Here is what we talked about: (01:25) Introduction (02:07) Dana's tech journey (08:43) Career's tipping points (14:53) Balancing technical and managing skills (19:32) Connecting is key (22:11) Hiring in 2024 (28:04) How AI is affecting hiring (32:54) Pursuing diversity in a team (43:39) Pushing boundaries and growth (45:47) Integrating AI in the workflow — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Irina Stanescu! Irina is a full-time engineering coach, course instructor, and former manager at Uber and Google. With Irina, we talked about her journey through Silicon Valley, big tech, and high growth startups, balancing IC and management duties, and achieving impact through influence. Here is what we talked about: (01:21) Introduction (02:02) Irina’s first steps (06:10) Joining Google (08:15) From Google to Uber (10:16) Being a young TLM (14:34) The restraints of a TLM (18:14) Uber vs Google (22:01) Impact through influence (28:09) Training your influence skills (35:42) Applying influence in specific roles (38:04) How to be an helpful EM — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Greg Foster! Greg is CTO at Graphite, a tool that helps teams doing better code reviews, and smaller and faster code changes. With Greg, we talked about what good code reviews look like, how AI is changing the development process, and how the Graphite engineering team works. Here is what we talked about: (02:01) Introduction (03:06) What is Graphite? (05:05) Graphite's code reviewing (09:58) Combining different workflows (13:07) Monorepos vs polyrepos (17:28) Conducting code reviews (21:57) The landscape of automated review (25:09) The hidden meaning behind skipping code reviews (27:43) Common mistakes (29:53) Integrating AI in code review (34:36) AI - human balance (38:27) Tech apprenticeship in the AI era (41:14) Graphite's structure (45:15) A dev tool from devs (47:23) Delivery process at Graphite — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Malte Ubl! Malte is CTO at Vercel, the frontend cloud provider, and creator and maintainer of Next.js, the most popular React framework. Malte has also been Engineer Director at Google, where he led Google Search for desktop computers. With Malte, we deep dived into how Vercel works as a team, what could developer experience look like, and the future of AI-enabled applications. Here is what we talked about: (01:21) Introduction (02:17) How Vercel works (05:01) Vercel team strategy (06:29) The journey of a new code (13:45) Do we need engineering managers? (16:59) Necessary and useless roles (22:51) Vercel' developing strategy (33:19) The ideal development process (37:25) Finding and avoiding bottlenecks (40:48) Thoughts on AI shift (47:46) Adapting software to AI interaction (53:01) AI and open source — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected] can also find this at: - 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm - 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw - 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305 — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Anna Shipman! Anna is CTO at Kooth, former Technical Director at Financial Times, a Keynote speaker and accomplished author. With Anna, we talked about her journey in tech and how to develop a good technical strategy, drawing from stories and examples from her 20 plus years of engineering experience. Here is what we talked about: (00:54) Introduction (01:20) Anna's journey in Tech (06:36) Going from public to private (09:17) What does Kooth do? (12:53) Technical strategy definition (15:01) Applying the strategy (24:53) Improving over time (30:10) The strategy framework (33:38) The pitfalls of setting up a strategy (36:23) Converge team and strategy (41:45) The strategist authority Here are a few articles and resources that were mentioned throughout the interview: A faster FT.com No next next Building Kooth Anna’s website — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected]

Today's guest is Rebecca Murphey. Rebecca is field CTO at Swarmia, former manager at Stripe and Indeed, and the author of Build: Elements of an Effective Software Organization. With Rebecca, we talked about her journey through Indeed, Stripe and Swarmia and the three pillars of her book, business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience. Here is what we talked about: (00:58) Introduction (02:15) Rebecca's Journey (08:24) Joining Swarmia (15:02) 1st Pillar: Business outcomes (23:08) Team structure & Company architecture (29:18) Keeping the lights on (33:56) 2nd Pillar: Developer productivity (38:44) Using numbers in the right way (43:25) The best way of working (51:07) 3rd Pillar: Developer experience (56:52) The effects of "Build" on Swarmia — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected] — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Rachel Potvin. Rachel is SVP of Engineering at Sanity, ex-VP of Engineering at Github, and previously worked at Google and Ubisoft. She has had an incredible career journey and is a world renowned speaker. With Rachel we talked about her journey across what feels like different generations of companies. We talked about scaling teams, challenges, lessons learned and the great work she's doing at Sanity right now. Here is what we talked about: (01:37) Introduction (02:39) Rachel's journey at Google (08:06) From Google to GitHub (14:29) Building healthy engineering culture (18:56) GitHub growth & hiring (21:44) Rachel's career at Sanity (26:21) Being a VP in Big tech (29:36) The road to "Sanity" (28:17) Startup planning (39:22) The fun factor (40:51) Adapting your experience to a new journey (47:13) Startup focus vs Big tech focus (49:13) Top-down strategy is good — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: [email protected] — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Denis Yarats. Denis is co-founder & CTO at Perplexity, one of my favorite products and one of the most successful AI startups today. Perplexity was founded less than two years ago and has just raised $250M in venture capital, at a $2B+ evaluation. With Denis, we talked about the state of AI products and his vision of where they're going. Then we talked about Perplexity as a company, how the team is organized, how engineers work, and how they use AI themselves. —— I am sorry for the bad audio quality on my side 🙏 the recording picked up the wrong mic and we realized it only during editing 🙏 —— Here is what we talked about: (02:04) Introduction (03:08) The History of Perplexity (09:35) Startup and AI costs (12:14) The proper AI model (14:47) Open vs Proprietary Source (15:51) Is AI evolution saturated? (17:07) How Perplexity uses AI (18:49) Perplexity Engineering team (21:48) Trials, teams and management (28:17) Startup planning (31:53) Team structure (33:33) Developing procedures (37:35) Perplexity's "secret sauce" (40:31) Metrics in Perplexity (44:38) Perplexity's future — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Aditya Agarwal. Aditya is a legend: he joined Facebook as employee #10 and, years later, joined Dropbox as CTO when there were ~20 engineers. Today, he is partner at South Park Commons, through which he invested in more than 300 companies. Today we talked about early stage Facebook, differences and similarities with Dropbox, engineering teams in hyper growth and the future of engineering management. Here is what we talked about: (02:17) Introduction (03:10) Facebook Employee n 10 (09:57) The value of being a "generalist" (12:46) Moving fast and breaking things (19:24) From Cove to Dropbox (22:10) Dropbox vs Facebook (25:56) Finding company's culture (29:23) The challenges of hyper growth (34:42) The hyper growth in the next era (39:35) Engineering managers are more technical (42:42) Being a technical CTO (45:33) South Park Commons — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Charity Majors, CTO at Honeycomb and one of my absolute favorite writers. I believe I have recommended more articles from her blog than any other author on the newsletter. Today we talked about observability, testing in production, continuous delivery, developer experience and much more. Here is what we talked about: (00:49) Introduction (01:57) What is observability (07:00) Observability in microservices (12:51) From monitoring to observing (16:20) Start observing now (19:36) How to use observability (26:11) Observability costs (31:23) Testing in production (34:09) Continuous delivery (38:24) The greatest productivity offenders (43:04) Caring about the business (46:54) Generative tools add complexity (49:15) Junior engineers leverage — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Laura Tacho, CTO at DX, engineering leadership coach, and speaker. At DX, she works with hundreds of companies on improving their developer experience and engineering productivity. Here is what we talked about: (02:20) Introduction (03:36) Why measure engineering productivity (05:58) Finding the proper framework (13:33) Value metrics to find issues (15:00) Identify and ease the pressure (18:12) Reaching the proper execution (21:16) Measuring in different environments (25:25) The DevEx framework (27:58) Empowering DevEx in a business (31:56) Patterns for DevEx integration (41:03) Responsibilities ownership (47:48) The DevEx offenders — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Daniel Vassallo, the creator of the Small Bets community, which counts more than 5 ,000 members and includes engineers, entrepreneurs, and creators of all kinds. Daniel is also a former software engineer at AWS, the author of The Good Parts of AWS and created a successful Twitter course. With Daniel, we will talk about his unconventional journey in tech, the Small Bets philosophy, and advice for engineers about careers, site projects, technology and skills. Here is what we talked about: (01:11) Introduction & background (05:21) Small Bets' genesis & philosophy (14:36) Understanding the market (19:36) Taking care of the downsides (24:43) Improving your lifestyle first (29:05) The dangers of labelling yourself (32:10) Allocating your time (37:13) Self-managing your own work (45:34) Transitioning to a self-employed lifestyle (52:21) The selection criteria for your ideas — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Thiago Ghisi, Director of Engineering at Nubank. Thiago has had an incredible tech career. Before Nubank, he worked at Apple, Amex and ThoughtWorks. He is also a deep thinker, hosts a podcast and constantly shares great advice on X and LinkedIn. During our chat with Thiago, we talked about what makes managers successful, career expectations and frameworks and how to build a great tech career in 2024. Here is what we talked about: (01:13) Introduction (03:11) What makes people in tech productive (07:57) Beyond the feedback loop (11:24) Becoming a technical manager (18:45) How to be successful as Staff+ Engineer (26:47) From expert to achiever to strategist (34:46) Know your context but don't attach to it (46:00) The Four Ps (56:43) Q&A — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Andrew Weaver is co-founder and CEO of CTO Academy, an educational product that works with thousands of CTO today. Andrew has over 25+ years of executive-level experience with companies of various size, including enterprises, SME and early-stage companies across multiple sectors. With Andrew, we discussed gaining the proper skillset to be a good CTO, the imbalances in the tech space, and how to keep up with the current technologies. Here is what we talked about: (00:00) Introduction (03:02) What is CTO Academy and how it works (07:53) What makes a good CTO (14:01) The CTO mindset (20:06) Being a CTO in a remote environment (23:20) Unleashing the "quiet genius" (28:11) How AI is changing tech (36:58) Education & micro-learning (45:11) Q&A — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Wes Kao is a marketing executive, entrepreneur, and advisor who writes an amazing newsletter for high-performers in tech. She is co-founder of Maven, an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz. Previously, she co-founded the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin. Here is what we talked about: (00:00) Introduction (03:08) Managing up (10:13) Bridging the gap between managers and reports (13:33) The “Bad Things / Good Things” framework (19:14) Good communication in the remote era (24:17) The transition to remote work at Maven (29:28) Sync vs async communication (33:41) Asynchronous videos (38:39) Transitioning to a Manager (46:57) Psychological safety (53:03) Over-communicating is communicating (58:59) Wes’ approach to reading — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Maria Gutierrez is the VP of Engineering at Personio, and ex VP of Engineering and Operations at Twitter. With Maria we talked about how to build healthy and impactful engineering orgs as they scale. We touched on everything from processes to remote work, development cycle, hiring, structuring teams and more. (00:00) Introduction (02:12) Maria's career journey (05:18) How hyper-growth breaks engineering teams, and how to prevent it (09:32) How to balance speed and quality (13:40) What a high performing team looks like (15:46) How to scale without adding friction (19:22) Personio's engineering team and growth (21:02) Remote work: impact, relationships, and challenges (32:54) How remote work impacts different roles (38:09) Transition from engineer to manager (45:08) How to use engineering productivity metrics (51:05) The use of AI in Maria's teams (54:50) The evolution of engineering managers (58:11) Career advice for engineers — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠Apple⁠

Kathryn Koehler is the Director of Productivity Engineering at Netflix. Her teams focus on the development environment and associated experiences, which enable and empower developers at Netflix to bootstrap, code, build, test, debug, and maintain software more effectively and efficiently. Productivity is an ever-controversial topic in engineering, and with Kathryn we dived right into it! Here is what we talked about: (00:00) Introduction (03:54) Netflix Culture (10:37) Developer Productivity (22:54) Platform Teams (28:57) Meetings, Processes & Planning (41:26) Productivity Metrics (52:44) Q&A: AI, metrics, remote — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠Apple⁠

Farhan Thawar is VP of Engineering at Shopify, angel investor, and entrepreneur. Shopify is a public company with thousands of employees, and one of the very few companies of its scale to be remote-first. While other big tech quietly issued RTOs, Shopify doubled down on processes and culture that allowed it to stay remote, or, in their own words: digital-first. So, today, Shopify has ports instead of offices, does VR meetings, has a unique collaboration culture, and completely embraced AI for productivity. Here is everything we covered in the chat: (00:00) Introduction (05:49) Balancing Remote & IRL (09:20) Remote Communication (15:15) Remote vs IRL culture (21:30) Using VR for meetings and work (26:53) Pair Programming (39:57) The role of managers (46:20) Be an AI Centaur (51:23) Engineering Productivity Metrics (58:33) Q&A — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠Apple⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email [email protected]

Today’s guest is Kent Beck, original signer of the Agile manifesto, creator of Extreme Programming, and all-round programming legend. With Kent we had the unique opportunity to talk about the big picture. I inquired him about the state of the software engineering craft today, discussing things like: (00:00) Introduction (02:27) Agile vs Power Structures (08:37) The Return of Waterfall (12:33) Extreme Programming & TDD (23:29) Feedback Loops (33:46) Code Reviews & Stacked diffs (43:06) AI for Writing and Engineering — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠Apple⁠

Disheng Qiu is VP of Engineering at Translated, one of the largest translation companies in the world, powering localization for the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Skyscanner, and more. Translated has been working on proprietary AI models and tools for 20+ years. It has an internal research team and develops tools that power the work of tens of thousands of professionals. With Disheng we explored what it means to be an AI-first company. We talked about many things, including: (00:00) Introduction (03:24) What does Translated do? (12:40) Challenges and costs of fine-tuning AI models (30:36) Bringing AI research into products (43:30) The role of AI in enhancing productivity (57:12) The future of AI and human collaboration — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠Newsletter⁠ 📺 ⁠Youtube⁠ 📱 ⁠Apple⁠

Aadil Maan is Lead Engineering Program Manager at Humane and a big tech veteran, having worked at the likes of Google, Apple, and Blackberry. Today’s theme is The World Builder Framework — Aadil's own approach to problem solving and solutioning processes, frameworks and workflows for product and engineering teams. Here are a few things we discussed in our chat: What do TPMs do? 🗺️ The World Builder Framework 🌎 Startups vs Big Tech 🏢 Hardware vs Software 🤖 Joining a new team 🎽 — This episode is brought to you by LinearB, the software engineering intelligence platform enabling engineering leaders improve their team’s operational efficiency, and align R&D investments to business goals. — Here are the key chapters from the interview: (00:00) Introduction (04:30) What is Technical Program Management (09:21) The World Builder Framework (25:44) The Anti-Framework Approach (31:49) Mixing Frameworks for Bespoke Solutions (40:33) Startup vs Big Tech (50:35) Hardware vs Software (01:00:30) The Power of Conversations — You can also find this at: 📬 Newsletter 📺 Youtube 📱 Apple — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email [email protected]