ScalerPod #03 - Writing and Public Speaking for Software Engineers ft. Jacob Singh (ex-CTO Grofers and former CTO-in-res. at Sequoia)

Jacob is a seasoned tech leader in the startup world, having been CTO of  Grofers (now Blinkit) and has also spent a stint at Sequoia as  CTO-in-residence.  He now works with CTOs, CPOs and their teams to be a sounding board for  their ideas, and help grow the cultures and systems they dream of.

Contents: 

00:00 Teaser

01:42 Introduction 

02:05 Life in a day of a CTO

05:00 Peacetime vs Wartime CTO 

06:50 Challenges for a CTO at different startup stages 

10:00 Tech vs Business

14:30 What motivates engineers?

19:00 How EMs can keep their teams engaged ?

24:30 Why Engineers should focus on writing?

30:00 Importance of conferences, blogs and open source participation

35:00 Developing the art of communication and documentation

38:30 Personal Branding for Software Engineers 

43:00 Open Source contributions and hiring via open source

45:00 Role of Public Speaking in Jacob's career 

49:00 Importance of Developer Advocacy 

52:00 Engineers can smell bullshit

54:30 How can one move into Developer Relations?

58:30 How is the 2022 downturn/recession playing out? 

1:00:30 Things that will still grow despite the downturn 

1:03:00 Advice to budding tech entrepreneurs

1:06:00 Emergence of Vertical SaaS

1:08:00 ML/AI and generative tool applications

1:10:00 Pains of Mobile Developer experience 

1:13:00 What's next for Jacob in life? 

1:14:25 Jacob's passion for early child education