Growing Into a VPE - Patterns & Anti-Patterns ft. Cathy Polinsky, Jerry Krikheli, Richard Wong, Erica Lockheimer & Claire Lew #25

A dynamic conversation between 4 current and past VPs of Engineering who cover tons of patterns and anti-patterns about being a VPE! You'll hear how leadership is different in large vs. small companies, mental models to determine your greatest leverage, why you DON’T need to act like an owner, how to put trust into practice when you’re transitioning into a new role, and about the imperfect path to become a VPE.

SPEAKERS:

CATHY POLINKSY CTO @ Stitch Fix

JERRY KRIKHELI VP of Engineering @ Houzz

RICHARD WONG SVP of Engineering @ Coursera

ERICA LOCKHEIMER VP of Engineering @ Linkedin Learning

And CLAIRE LEW CEO @ Know Your Team

SHOWNOTES

• What Cathy means by “the best leaders spot patterns, understand problems, then build systems to solve them” (3:55)
• Jerry’s view on how the practice of leadership is different at large companies vs. small companies (7:30)
• Erica’s perspective on how the transition to VPE is different than other eng leadership roles and how to put trust into practice (12:27)
• Why Richard resonates with “act like an owner” and what it actually looks like in practice as VPE (16:40)
• Cathy’s top 3 priorities as VPE that determine how she spends her time and how to refocus your team (23:50)
• Richard's mental model to determine where he has the most leverage for impact and why being technical isn't always about writing code (26:16)
• Jerry's 3 key hiring traits and how to create an environment where you're the first to know when something's wrong (30:10)
• The imperfect path to become a VPE and Erica’s advice for engineering leaders with an “unconventional” background (34:01)
• The common struggle to balance being a problem solver and being the bottleneck as a VPE (39:11)
• How they cope with and manage stress (42:55)
• Takeaways (45:00)

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