Dev Interrupted

Why You Need to Take Risks as an Engineering Leader | GitHub’s VPE Neha Batra

Apr 30, 2024

Neha Batra, VP of Engineering at GitHub, discusses the importance of taking risks in leadership, establishing communication pathways, and conducting AMAs with your team. She also shares insights on building trust, accountability, and gathering signals from team members. Neha highlights the pitfalls leaders should avoid and the value of curiosity in navigating experiences like dating.

43:32

Episode guests

Neha Batra

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Highlights

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Establishing effective communication paths is crucial for enhancing engineering performance.

Developing a framework involves creating consistent conversation patterns to drive team alignment more effectively.

Accruing social capital is akin to managing a risk budget, enabling individuals to take calculated risks for growth.

Deep dives

Building a Metrics Program for Engineering Performance Improvement

Building a metrics program that enhances engineering performance involves establishing effective communication paths, forward planning, and driving accountability in teams. By identifying consistent conversation patterns and streamlining translation processes between team members and leadership, ownership of the process can lead to increased transparency, easier communication, and improved team performance.

Risks and Social Capital in Making Changes

01:30

Challenges of Being a Manager

00:21

Introduction

4min

Optimizing Information Cycles with Frameworks

3min

Navigating Risks in Leadership and Building Social Capital

19min

Strategies for Gathering Signals and Building Trust within the Team

2min

Navigating Leadership Challenges in Engineering

9min

Exploration through Experimentation in Dating

2min

Exploring Strategy and Curiosity

4min

This week, I sat down with Neha Batra, VP of Engineering for Core Productivity at GitHub. Our conversation is about the value of taking calculated risks in engineering leadership, using a “risk budget," and how you can leverage your social capital to take risks that help your career.

Neha also shares her insights on senior engineering leaders' challenges when aligning business needs with talent and product execution. She discusses her framework for strengthening company alignment and engineering efficiency using established communication paths.

Episode Highlights:
00:26 Frameworks that strengthen company alignment
03:11 How should you channel frustration into creation?
05:58 Conceptualizing your risk budget
12:53 Strategies for building communication pathways
16:04 Conducting AMA's with your team
21:47 How do you get team members to take accountability?
25:27 How do you gather signals from your team?
29:13 Mistakes leaders make you can learn from
36:32 Building curiosity into mundane experiences like dating

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Dev Interrupted

Why You Need to Take Risks as an Engineering Leader | GitHub’s VPE Neha Batra

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Building a Metrics Program for Engineering Performance Improvement

Developing a Framework for Enhancing Company Alignment

Balancing Risk Budget in Decision-Making

Transformation Through Communication Pathways and Accountability

Navigating Leadership Challenges and Strategic Growth

Risks and Social Capital in Making Changes

Challenges of Being a Manager

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts