The Engineering Leadership Podcast

ABOUT ANDY KORTZ

Andy Kortz is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Integra Testing, where he leads technology transformation and drives operational efficiency in aggressive growth organizations. Andy also is a co-lead for the ELC Local Chapter initiative in Chicago. With over 20 years of experience in enterprise architecture and software development, Andy has consistently delivered innovative solutions while reducing IT expenses and improving application value. Drawing on his expertise in cloud technologies, data solutions, and integrations, Andy focuses on fostering a culture of continuous learning, building and empowering high-performing teams, and delivering customer-centric solutions in fast-paced environments.

ABOUT JAMES TYACK

James is an engineering manager with a passion for people, technology, and learning. He's built and led distributed, diverse teams of engineers across locations and timezones for 10 years. James believes strongly in the value of diversity and championing a sense of belonging for everyone, from day 1. He's well versed in growth strategy, chaos engineering, major incident response, and blameless practice, and culture grounded by trust and psychological safety. He leads the Growth Acquisition team at Coursera where he's proud to be part of an organization that's transforming lives through learning. Previously, James enjoyed building and leading the Growth and Integrations engineering teams at PagerDuty.

ABOUT JOHN ROSS

John Ross is the Director of Infrastructure and Cloud at KUBRA, expertly navigating IT infrastructure and cloud solutions. Based in Toronto, John's career showcases a diverse range of experiences from large corporations to dynamic startups. He has a knack for aligning technology with business objectives, building robust teams, and managing platform migrations to the cloud. With experience in leading industry names like Ingram Micro and Symantec, as well as in the telecommunications sector, John combines strategic insight with a personable approach. His passion for sailing mirrors his love for innovation and precision in professional pursuits.

SHOW NOTES:

• Scaling communication practices in parallel with scaling your org with Andy Kortz (1:18)
• Tools for bridging communication gaps between groups & building trust (2:49)
• Use humor strategically to break tension / build trust (5:16)
• Andy’s introduction to ELC Chicago & the best parts of that community (8:57)
• Engineering challenges / conversations from ELC Chicago (10:24)
• What engineering leaders can learn from the best online courses - making a “Day One” commitment with James Tyack (12:28)
• Frameworks for putting the “Day One” commitment into practice (14:49)
• What making a “Day One” commitment looks like @ Coursera (17:59)
• Why the commitment needs to be made explicit (19:25)
• Practical exercises to encourage innovation & foster creativity (21:06)
• Strategies for getting hands-on with your learning (23:10)
• James’s experience with ELC South Bay & connecting with leaders in a specific space (25:05)
• How to make the most out of attending your first ELC event (26:27)
• How to level up your teams through servant leadership with John Ross (27:52)
• Realizing you’re the bottleneck & tips for stepping back / increasing team trust (30:49)
• John’s experience with ELC Toronto & what ELC means to him (33:12)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Check out all of our local chapters & get involved here: elc.community/home/clubs

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

ABOUT ANURAG AGARWAL

Anurag Agarwal leads the Google Workspace engineering organization, overseeing products such as Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet that help billions of users and customers across the world to connect, create, and build together.

With over 18 years of experience at Google, Anurag’s expertise spans a wide range of consumer and enterprise products and technologies. His career began in the Display Ads team, where he played a pivotal role in developing publisher ad-serving products from the ground up. He then worked on the Search Ads team driving a number of large-scale infrastructure improvements and leading initiatives such as online-to-offline measurement and monetization of surfaces like Maps and Discover. Prior to his role in Workspace, he spearheaded some early-stage incubation projects at Google like Google Health’s CareStudio project aimed to help clinicians get a comprehensive view of patient’s health information.

Anurag spent his childhood in Delhi, India and now resides in the Bay Area with his family.

SHOW NOTES:

• A current update on Google Workspace (2:46)
• Strategies for getting teams to faster iteration & execution (4:41)
• Prioritizing the right problems & how to set a unified vision to work toward (7:11)
• Questions to ask to help rationalize during prioritization conversations (10:48)
• Components of streamlining the decision-making process (13:33)
• Anurag’s recommendations for facilitating decision-making conversations (15:00)
• How to encourage your team to ask the right questions & push back (16:55)
• Frameworks for identifying areas of inefficiency / friction (20:17)
• Steps for increasing confidence on the front end for an AI product experience (23:38)
• Filtering insights for faster iteration on AI product concepts (25:59)
• Measure user impact & make adjustments quickly based on that feedback (27:38)
• Reducing barriers to feature discovery (29:33)
• Enabling discovery & engagement of new product experiences (32:05)
• The role of pilots when testing different product experience changes (35:17)
• The future product launches Anurag is most excited (39:10)
• Rapid fire questions (40:36)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Google AI is now included, with no add-ons required or usage limits, in Workspace Business and Enterprise plans. Find out more: https://goo.gle/3PsIwf1
• How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen - Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, David Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to helping readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

Kathryn Vandiver (Former VP of Engineering @ Quanata) shares insights on providing new leadership during significant organizational change. First, we dissect what transitioning from an individual contributor to engineering manager is like. Then, we discuss what it’s like stepping into an EM role informally vs. formally; how to host conversations that foster trust; tips for transforming teams from competition to collaboration; helping people get unstuck; and tools for changing hearts and minds. Kathryn also covers frameworks for creating collective agreements between eng leaders & eng teams – and identifying what a successful outcome for collective agreements looks like.

ABOUT KATHRYN VANDIVER

With over 30 years of experience as a global engineering leader, Kathryn has guided companies ranging from agile startups to Fortune 500 enterprises toward growth and scalability in both B2B and B2C technology areas. She has held leadership roles at VMWare, HPE, NetApp, and Quanata, a State Farm Company. Specializing in engineering and team culture turnarounds, she frequently steps in to provide decisive leadership during periods of transition. Kathryn is committed to valuing every team member's unique contributions, actively seeking the perspectives of both influencers and naysayers to foster positive change. Her collaborative approach has consistently helped teams double or even triple business growth, significantly enhancing company value through successful turnarounds.

Passionate about 'paying it forward,' Kathryn mentors, teaches leadership skills, and supports young women in tech on their career journeys. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking the trails of the Bay Area and spending quality time with her family.

SHOW NOTES:

• Shifting from projects to people - dissecting the mindset shift from IC to engineering manager (2:21)
• What makes the transition from IC to EM challenging (5:05)
• Taking on informal EM responsibilities vs. a formalized role (8:13)
• Frameworks for building trust through early conversations (10:13)
• Tips for approaching the scenario of a resistant / combative team (12:15)
• Transforming teams during an M&A, from competition to collaboration (14:20)
• Why listening is key to changing hearts & minds as an eng leader (17:34)
• Practices to help people get unstuck in their perspective (20:50)
• Questions to help people uncover where they’re stuck & think critically (23:13)
• Kathryn’s approach to identifying criteria for success (24:30)
• How to determine what the endpoint looks like (26:27)
• Processes for creating collective agreements of how people operate (28:18)
• Identifying the expectations your team has of you as a leader (31:58)
• Common areas of friction when creating these collective agreements (33:46)
• Steps leaders can take to resolve friction within the agreement process (35:13)
• Signs that your collective agreement practice is successful (36:38)
• Rapid fire questions (40:01)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Super Psyched: Unleash the Power of the 4 Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love - Connection is everything. Let Adam Dorsay, the leading therapist to Silicon Valley’s top executives, help you become super psyched by discovering your personalized formula for more energy, higher performance, better relationships, and a more meaningful life.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

We discuss the four modes of coaching and navigate career growth in expanding / contracting companies with James Birchler. James shares highlights from the recent coaching / mentoring workshop he facilitated, and breaks down how each mode of coaching differs tactically. We also cover the dilemma of linear career/leadership growth vs. exponential company growth, different common communication challenges eng leaders face, why people / organizational challenges are harder than technical issues, and how to prepare for & execute uncomfortable conversations. James also shares his unique journey to technical leadership & how past management roles – even in non-tech spaces – have helped shape his thoughts on coaching & eng leadership today.

ABOUT JAMES BIRCHLER

James Birchler is an engineering and product development leader, technical advisor, and an accredited Executive Coach from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Executive Coaching Institute.

In his coaching practice, James focuses on self-awareness, integrity, accountability, and fostering a growth mindset that supports continuous learning and high performance.

He focuses his technical advisory practice on common mechanisms and playbooks required at different phases and inflection points of startup growth and scaling: Hiring and interviewing, product development methodologies including Lean Startup and Agile, operational meeting cadence and communication flow, people management, technical leadership, vision/mission development, alignment, and execution.

James implemented the Lean Startup methodologies with Eric Ries at IMVU (literally the first Lean Startup), where his team helped start the DevOps movement by building the infrastructure to ship code to production 50 times a day (which was a lot at the time!) and coining the term “continuous deployment.”

He has more than 20 years of experience leading high-performance teams in growth environments, including startups and scaled organizations, including Amazon. He has delivered great consumer software products and implemented product development and innovation processes based on continuous learning and improvement.

Presently James advises and coaches Series A+ startups in the US and Europe, and leads innovation practices in hyper-growth areas of last mile delivery technology for Amazon. Previously my roles included VP of Engineering & Operations, VP of Engineering, and Founder at several technology startups including IMVU, Caffeine.tv, SmugMug, iCracked, The Arts Coop, and Letters & Science.

You can find James at jamesbirchler.com, LinkedIn, and Substack.

SHOW NOTES:

• Highlights from James’ recent coaching & mentoring workshop (2:41)
• Shared challenges around building trust in eng teams (5:25)
• The differences between coaching vs. mentoring (7:01)
• Building trust in order to best support your team members as a manager (9:38)
• Defining the advising mode of coaching (11:54)
• How supporting differs from advising (14:29)
• The story behind James’ technical leadership journey (16:55)
• Transitioning from a PhD program & environmental planning career into tech (20:19)
• The dilemma of career growth: linear leadership growth vs. exponential company growth (23:53)
• Why organizational challenges are more complicated than technical puzzles (26:49)
• Navigating career growth during company contraction from the employee perspective (28:02)
• Preparing for uncomfortable conversations as a coach / manager (31:50)
• Strategies for actually having those tough conversations (35:36)
• Frameworks for helping others identify what they want (37:58)
• Rapid fire questions (42:44)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Stop 'Coaching' Your Tech Team (And What To Do Instead) - James’ substack post on the four modes of development breaking down the core differences of coaching, advising, mentoring, and supporting roles and explaining how trust is the secret ingredient to all four.
• jamesbirchler.com - James’ website where you can find info about his executive coaching and resources for engineering leaders and founders.
• How to lead with radical candor | Kim Scott - NYT bestselling author, Kim Scott, has cracked the code on giving valuable feedback in a way that builds genuine relationships, drives results, and creates positive workplaces.
• What Are People For? - In the twenty-two essays collected here, Wendell Berry conveys a deep concern for the American economic system and the gluttonous American consumer. Berry talks to the reader as one would talk to a next-door neighbor: never preachy, he comes across as someone offering sound advice. In the end, these essays offer rays of hope in an otherwise bleak forecast of America's future. Berry's program presents convincing steps for America's agricultural and cultural survival.
• New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong - Happiness expert Stephanie Harrison draws upon hundreds of studies to offer a life-changing guide to finding the happiness you have been looking for, all based on a decade of research and brought to life with beautiful artwork.
• Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations - Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance—and what drives it—using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research. Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.
• Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time: Michel Serres with Bruno Latour - Although elected to the prestigious French Academy in 1990, Michel Serres has long been considered a maverick--a provocative thinker whose prolific writings on culture, science and philosophy have often baffled more than they have enlightened. In these five lively interviews with sociologist Bruno Latour, this increasingly important cultural figure sheds light on the ideas that inspire his highly original, challenging, and transdisciplinary essays.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

Natalie Glance, Chief Engineering Officer @ Duolingo joins us for a conversation on unleashing potential in your employees! We discuss practices that have helped Duolingo create a meaningful path for hiring & developing engineers through their onboarding & internship programs. We also cover topics including scaling your eng org, upskilling recent grads / new hires, balancing meaningful work with measurable impact, communicating alignment within your org, formal & informal steps for building eng leadership capabilities, and essential skills for managers of all types.

ABOUT NATALIE GLANCE

Natalie is a lifelong learner and seasoned leader with extensive experience at startups and established companies. She’s currently the Chief Engineering Officer at Duolingo.

At Duolingo, Natalie ensures engineers can help set product direction and strategy. She’s championed a culture of extensive A/B testing, and is excited about the ways generative AI can both build new features and accelerate content creation for these features. She oversees many of the efforts dedicated to scaling Duolingo’s technology to new subjects, like Math and Music.

Natalie is passionate about mentorship and education. She co-founded the Int’l AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), which offers an annual Adamic-Glance Distinguished Young Researcher Award for a promising young independent researcher in the field of computational social science in the early stage of their career.

SHOW NOTES:

• Natalie’s eng leadership background & journey scaling Duolingo (2:41)
• Duolingo’s approach to eng leadership & passion for unleashing potential (5:42)
• Implementing a mentoring program to improve eng development / retention (6:42)
• How the mentoring process changes as an org scales (8:51)
• Duolingo’s onboarding process & tips for building an onboarding program (10:12)
• Ways Duolingo has crafted a successful internship program (12:43)
• Frameworks for intern hosts to collect meaningful projects for interns (15:38)
• Behind the Thrive intern program (HootCamp) for rising juniors (17:44)
• How Duolingo’s guiding principles drive Duolingo University (21:08)
• Strategies for upskilling new grads into strong technical contributors (22:13)
• Best practices for unlocking potential & contributing to people’s growth (25:40)
• Natalie’s approach to balancing meaningful work with measurable impact (26:44)
• Practices for creating alignment within your org (28:30)
• Duolingo’s thought process for role training & growing leaders (30:44)
• Breaking down the formal & informal steps for building leaders within the org (32:41)
• Essential skills for role managers to develop (34:22)
• Addressing challenges faced by managers of managers (36:47)
• Rapid fire questions (38:24)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• The Engineering Executive's Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership - Will Larson shows you ways to obtain your first executive job and quickly ramp up to meet the challenges you may not have encountered in non-executive measuring engineering for both engineers and the CEO, company-scoped headcount planning, communicating successfully across a growing organization, and figuring out what people actually mean when they keep asking for a "technology strategy.”

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In this episode, we explore building an AI-first company and engineering org with Rong Yan (CTO @ HeyGen)! We dive into the potential of HeyGen’s interactive avatars, imagining how they can help engineering leaders scale their impact, foster team alignment, coach effectively, and accelerate decision-making. Rong shares insights on the structure of an AI-first company and optimizing for AI teams with engineering capabilities. Plus what it means to “lead with speed” and balance product quality and velocity in an AI-first company and key leadership principles, like why it’s crucial to invest in your top performers and how to act as a productivity multiplier.

ABOUT RONG YAN

Rong Yan is HeyGen’s Chief Technology Officer. He brings the company's technological mission of making visual storytelling accessible to everyone, to life. Rong has nearly 20 years of engineering leadership experience from companies including IBM, Facebook, Square, Snap, and HubSpot.

Most recently, Rong was the VP of Engineering at Hubspot where he led the Data Intelligence and Automation product line and spearheaded the development of an intelligent CRM platform using data and AI. He was also the Director of Engineering turned Senior Director of Engineering at Snap, where he led a product engineering team of over 250 engineers across six locations, responsible for developing, optimizing, and maintaining core Snapchat features, including Camera, Messaging, Stories, Discover, Memories, and Identity.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Tsinghua University and a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

SHOW NOTES:

• Introducing HeyGen’s interactive avatar & what this means for eng leaders (3:40)
• How a visual layer for AI agents could scale your leadership & build alignment in your teams and orgs (5:58)
• The different levels of communication flow within a company (8:17)
• How interactive avatars can enable interactions and coaching at scale (10:46)
• The possibilities of interactive avatars for personalized coaching, habit building, and behavior change (14:02)
• Insights on building an AI-first company (20:29)
• What the structure of an AI-first company looks like (22:05)
• How leading with speed works within an AI-first company (24:10)
• Navigating the balance between product velocity & quality (27:23)
• The impact of the “leading with speed” paradigm on hiring (30:34)
• The role of an engineering leaders is to be a productivity multiplier (32:40)
• How AI impacts productivity as an eng leader (34:43)
• Where to start when it comes to improving productivity (36:38)
• AI’s role in blurring the lines between IC & management (39:48)
• Spend more time on your top people (42:45)
• Rapid fire questions (44:21)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• HeyGen - With HeyGen, businesses can simply write their script and generate their video. No camera, no budget, no headaches. We've helped over 45,000 companies and millions of people create, localize, and personalize videos at scale.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In this episode, Rajashree Pimpalkhare (VP / Engineering leader for Unified Builder platform and experiences @ Twilio) reflects on her experiences re-defining engineering’s relationship with the business throughout her career. We cover how the role of engineering varies across industries, why it’s paramount for engineering leaders to find their seat at the business table & rethink how engineering can drive the org’s strategic goals. Rajashree shares insights on how to unlock the creative side of product & business leaders, lessons learned from solving various customer problems, frameworks for eng orgs to combat & overcome learned helplessness, communication practices for framing decision-making, and adjusting from a “no, but” to a “yes, and” mindset.

ABOUT RAJASHREE PIMPALKHAREE

Rajashree is the VP / Engineering leader for Unified Builder platform and experiences - the world's most flexible customer engagement platform, that powers customer facing sales and service teams with the context, data, and channel flexibility they need to turn ordinary conversations into opportunities to drive repeat sales.

Previously, Rajashree led product development at Quizlet - the popular student application that helps over 60 million learners worldwide every month study, practice and become an expert in whatever they are learning. Prior to Quizlet, Rajashree led engineering for Intuit’s 3rd party Developer Platform and app store – enabling a thriving ecosystem of thousands of small business applications that connect to Intuit’s QuickBooks Platform. Prior to Intuit, she held several engineering leadership roles at PayPal building innovative global payment products for consumers and merchants. Rajashree started her career at Intel as a design engineer and subsequently worked on industry changing software solutions for semiconductor chip design at Synopsys.

Rajashree is passionate about building purpose-driven teams that exhibit engineering excellence, customer-first thinking and an inclusive culture. She is a strong advocate for women and under-represented minorities in technology; and takes a personal interest in coaching and mentoring talent at all levels to balance the playing field and help them grow in their careers.

Rajashree received a B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland, Baltimore.

SHOW NOTES:

• Why engineering’s role in the business varies across industries (2:21)
• Finding a seat at the business table & elevating the strategic role of engineering (5:32)
• How Rajashree’s experiences shape her approach as an eng leader (8:54)
• Strategies for unlocking product / business leaders’ creativity (11:53)
• Shifting from a “no, that won’t work” to “yes, and here’s how” mindset (14:13)
• Rajashree’s experience in her global services role (16:46)
• Lessons learned on solving problems for different customers (19:52)
• Insights on scaling & productizing (21:17)
• Deconstructing the concept of learned helplessness in eng orgs (23:13)
• Frameworks for helping overcome learned helplessness (26:29)
• Communication practices for eng leaders to frame their decision-making (28:53)
• Improve your ability to ask better questions & improve dialogue bandwidth (32:16)
• Rapid fire questions (35:20)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon - Colin Bryar started at Amazon in 1998; Bill Carr joined in 1999. These two long-serving Amazon executives reveal and codify the principles and practices that drive the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them, much of it in the early aughts—a period of unmatched innovation that brought products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services to life—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was refined, articulated, and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In this episode, Gokul Rajaram illuminates how eng leaders can better impact business outcomes & become key players in business strategy! We also address strategies for better goal setting & decision making, shifting to a customer-centric structure, recommendations for building alignment between cross-functional groups, positive collaboration between product & engineering, and how to achieve greater productivity.

ABOUT GOKUL RAJARAM

Gokul Rajaram is an investor and company helper. He serves on the boards on Coinbase, Pinterest and The Trade Desk. Most recently, he was an executive at DoorDash, a food ordering platform. Prior to DoorDash, he worked at Block as Product Engineering Lead, where he led several product development teams and served on Block’s executive team. Prior to Block, he served as Product Director of Ads at Facebook, where he helped Facebook transition its advertising business to become mobile-first. Earlier in his career, Gokul served as a Product Management Director for Google AdSense, where he helped launch the product and grow it into a substantial portion of Google’s business. Gokul is also on the board of The Trade Desk and Coinbase. Gokul holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he received the President's Gold Medal for being class valedictorian. He also holds an M.B.A. from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, where he received the MCD University Fellowship.

SHOW NOTES:

• Why it’s critical for eng leaders to drive business outcomes (2:04)
• How to shift your leadership to impact organizational changes (4:18)
• Facilitating conversations around setting numerical / time-driven goals (6:56)
• Navigating the shift to a customer-centric structure & approach (9:18)
• Recommendations for building around this customer-oriented model (12:04)
• Decision-making strategies when approaching customer outcomes (13:25)
• Understand the role of confidence in the decision-making process (15:40)
• Challenges faced by eng leaders when making this customer-centric shift (18:06)
• How eng leaders can introduce / reinforce accountability in eng orgs (20:11)
• Bridging the gap between PMs & eng leaders (23:07)
• Challenges / dysfunctions that prevent product & engineering alignment (25:01)
• Establishing trust, open dialogue, and mutual respect from the get-go (26:39)
• Communication frameworks that increase alignment between product & eng (32:39)
• How eng leaders can better approach “move fast & break things” demand (35:37)
• Rapid fire questions (40:19)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Gokul’s website - Contains a collection of Gokul’s writing that covers a wide range of topics related to product development, hiring, strategy, leadership, and more!
• The Mistborn Saga - Brandon Sanderson’s high fantasy saga which chronicles the efforts of a secret group of Allomancers who attempt to overthrow a dystopian empire and establish themselves in a world covered by ash.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

Ryan Fox, CTO @ Super.com, joins us to dissect his leadership transition from Vice President of Engineering to CTO. He shares how he created his own job description and – perhaps most importantly – identified & found buy-in around his “not do” list. We also cover Ryan’s favorite strategies for coaching department heads, why it’s important to focus on strategic thinking as an eng leader, tips for instilling accountability & autonomy, and defining different levels of situational leadership. Patrick and Ryan also dissect Super.com’s MAT leadership approach and how it is incorporated into their engineering functions.

ABOUT RYAN FOX

Ryan Fox is the CTO at Super.com, an all-in-one app that has helped millions of customers save, earn and put over $150 million back in their pockets. Previously, Ryan worked as both a SWE and SRE at Google.

SHOW NOTES:

• Ryan’s background / experience with Super.com (2:04)
• What sparked his transition from VP of Engineering to CTO (3:40)
• How Ryan tackled creating his own job description (5:50)
• Strategies for prioritizing responsibilities & developing a “not to do” list (8:20)
• Process for defining what not to do (9:32)
• Examples of building buy in for a “not to do” responsibility (11:45)
• Insights on prioritizing company wide outcomes vs. departmental outcomes (13:33)
• Transitioning from a department head to coaching other department leaders (15:26)
• Components of a successful coaching conversation about strategic thinking (18:48)
• Frameworks for instilling accountability & autonomy in department heads (21:25)
• Understanding situational leadership & S3 / S4 definitions (23:08)
• Incorporating mission-aligned teams into the engineering organization (25:37)
• Why the MAT leader focuses on business, not people aspects (27:52)
• Elements that contribute to the MAT model’s success (29:32)
• The intersection of MAT & functional leadership (32:04)
• Ryan’s advice to leaders new to the MAT approach (34:20)
• Rapid fire questions (36:29)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• MAT Resource Guide - A guide to understand the Mission-Aligned Team organizational structure, how Super.com rolled out MATs, and how such a structure may be able to help your organization.
• All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - Hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg, the show features insider takes on business, technology, and society and interviews with the world's most influential thinkers.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/