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In Depth

How to supercharge your engineering org | Kellan Elliott-McCrea (Adobe, Dropbox)

Aug 17, 2023

01:13:27

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Guest Kellan Elliott-McCrea, Head of Engineering at Adobe, previously VPE at Dropbox and CTO at Etsy, discusses the changes in software engineering, the future of AI, achieving alignment, enabling engineering productivity, culture lessons from Adobe, Dropbox, and Flickr, tips for better management, and rituals for building business literacy throughout an organization.

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Quick takeaways

Building successful engineering teams requires clear goals, good communication, trust, and a customer-focused approach.

The size of engineering teams can impact their effectiveness, with smaller teams promoting clarity and agility.

Setting clear goals and ensuring alignment across the organization is crucial for improving team performance and coordination.

Deep dives

The Importance of System and Clarity in Engineering Teams

Building successful engineering teams requires a focus on the overall system and creating clarity within the team. This includes having clear goals, good communication, trust, and a customer-focused approach. Engineering teams should aim for independent delivery, low escalations, and strong relationships with other teams. It is important to understand that each organization has its own unique system and culture, and leadership practices should be adapted accordingly. A collaborative and curious approach, asking questions and being open to different perspectives, can help improve coordination and create a high-performance environment.

1.

Introduction

4min

2.

The Underpinnings of Running an Excellent Engineering Organization

13min

3.

Exploring Equity and Culture in Technology Companies

2min

4.

Challenges of Communication and Clarity in Organizations

11min

5.

The Importance of Shared Values in Improving Coordination within Teams

22min

6.

Approaching Disagreements and the Role of Detachment in Leadership

2min

7.

The Changing Role of Managers and Creating Conditions for Success

16min

8.

Influences on Engineering Management

4min

Kellan Elliott-McCrea is a Head of Engineering at Adobe, overseeing Frame.io, a newly acquired video review and collaboration platform. He is known for his experience and expertise as an engineering leader. He was previously a VPE at Dropbox, and CTO at Etsy where he built and led a team of 300 people, from tech and platform reboot through to IPO. Kellan also built and scaled teams at Flickr, and has a coaching and advising practice for companies looking to supercharge their engineering teams.

In today's episode, we discuss:

How software engineering has changed in the last 10-15 years
The future of software engineering, and the impact of AI
The importance of alignment and tactics for achieving it
How to think about and enable engineering productivity
Lessons on culture from Adobe, Dropbox, and Flickr
Concrete tips for being a better manager
Rituals for building business literacy throughout an org

Referenced:

Adobe: https://www.adobe.com

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/

Frame: https://www.frame.io/

How Complex Systems Fail, by Richard I. Cook, MD: https://how.complexsystems.fail/

How Etsy Grew their Number of Female Engineers by Almost 500% in One Year https://review.firstround.com/How-Etsy-Grew-their-Number-of-Female-Engineers-by-500-in-One-Year

Where to find Kellan Elliott-McCrea:

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/kellan

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellanem

Website: https://kellanem.com/

Personal blog: https://laughingmeme.org/

Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

Timestamps:

[00:02:58] Engineering orgs now vs 15 years ago

[00:05:57] Why engineering teams are bigger despite better tools

[00:10:45] How to think about engineering productivity

[00:15:50] Questioning common compensation models

[00:19:39] Slow teams are misaligned teams

[00:23:56] How to achieve alignment in engineering teams

[00:29:12] How to co-ordinate better across teams

[00:35:23] Why so few companies successfully go multi-product

[00:38:02] Which elements of successful orgs replicate?

[00:41:53] How to approach a new org system at a new company

[00:45:48] The value of information sharing and coaching

[00:48:55] Best practices for communicating with and across teams

[00:51:05] How to approach disagreements

[00:54:27] What high-quality engineering management looks like

[00:58:37] How to increase organizational capacity

[00:63:20] Tactics and rituals for enabling effective teams

[00:66:05] How to build business literacy

[00:68:30] Kellan's biggest inspirations

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