We cover making intentional career shifts and leadership challenges navigating multi-product expansion with Kris Rasmussen, CTO @ Figma. He shares his experience transitioning from contractor work with Figma to a full-time role & the benefits of joining an eng org during its early stages. We also address Figma’s transition from a one-product company to a two-product company, Kris’s process for determining the eng org’s core areas of focus, challenges faced when becoming a multi-product org, frameworks for determining solutions to challenging projects, and lessons learned around releasing products with heavy collaboration.ABOUT KRIS RASMUSSENKris Rasmussen is the Chief Technology Officer at Figma, where he leads the engineering, security, and data science teams. Prior to joining Figma in 2017, Kris served as engineering lead and a technical advisor at Asana, where he co-authored many aspects of the framework and infrastructure that powers the company's real-time collaborative features. Before Asana, Kris co-founded RivalSoft Inc., a web-based application that gives companies an internal hub for market information and served as Chief Architect at Aptana."One of the things that's helped me is just really kind of focusing on the outcome that I'm trying to create and trying to think about the most effective way to do that. All of us want to feel respected. We want to feel valued. We want to feel heard, but at the end of the day, we also want to create something that's greater than ourselves. We want to work on something that kind of outlives us and if you really want to do that, it doesn't really matter whose idea it was or who said what. All that really matters is that you come to the right solution as a group.”- Kris Rasmussen   Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at hello@sfelc.comSHOW NOTES:Kris’s backstory with Figma & transitioning from contractor to CTO (1:02)What factors validated Kris’s decision to join Figma full-time (4:50)Leveraging the benefits of joining an eng org during its early stages (7:27)Figma’s recent milestone shifts & how Kris’s responsibilities changed in response (9:09)Transitioning from a one-product company to a two-product company (12:15)Kris’s process for identifying the most important problems (13:57)Strategies for determining core areas of focus (17:09)Knowing when to shift to become multi-product (19:12)How processes / org structure shifted in response to Figma’s second product (21:59)Defining Figma’s vertical product-related org structures (23:22)Challenges faced when getting to the multi-product moment (24:44)Frameworks for determining when an idea is validated enough to staff it (29:57)Kris’s process for determining a solution to a challenging R&D project (31:52)Lessons learned around releasing highly collaborative products (36:06)Strategies for letting go of your ego (39:46)Rapid fire questions (40:47)LINKS AND RESOURCESOn Writing Well - On Writing Well, which grew out of a course that William Zinsser taught at Yale, has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity, and for the warmth of its style. It is a book for anybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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/

Albert Strasheim, CTO & SVP of Engineering @ Rippling, joins us to share the riveting story of how Rippling’s leadership navigated the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. He reveals what was at stake for his company & the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake for customers & their employees, how Rippling’s core values influenced their critical decision-making, tips for communicating with clarity both internally & externally, and tactics that allowed the team to respond with precision during crisis. Additionally, Albert shares the pre-crisis strategies, habits & systems he is most thankful for that helped Rippling leadership respond successfully throughout this critical period.ABOUT ALBERT STRASHEIMAlbert Strasheim is Rippling's CTO and SVP, Engineering. Albert leads the global engineering team as it continues to expand the capabilities of Rippling’s products and the platform itself. Prior to Rippling, Albert served as VP of Engineering at Segment, where he spent more than five years building and leading the infrastructure and product teams responsible for creating Segment’s market-leading Customer Data Platform product. He was born and raised in South Africa and earned a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Engineering from Stellenbosch University. Albert lives in the Bay Area and is an avid skier and surfer."I think we had about $130 million on the way to employees of our clients. This was more than 50,000 people. They are not like rich Silicon Valley tech workers. It's everyday Americans making less than $55,000 a year. Some of them are living paycheck to paycheck and so missing a paycheck can have devastating consequences. We had to move really quickly to make sure these folks got paid. Basically, no matter what happened with SVB, those were the stakes. It's like people that critically needed money just wouldn't get it otherwise.”- Albert Strasheim   Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at hello@sfelc.comSHOW NOTES:How Albert’s team @ Rippling responded to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse (2:56)Rippling’s SVB story & how payroll was impacted by its collapse (6:24)Identifying who was needed to coordinate Rippling’s response / decision making (9:49)Albert discusses the millions of dollars of payroll at stake on Thursday (11:47)How the SVB issue progressed into Thursday / Friday (13:07)Communicating with customers during crisis & how Rippling ultimately made the payments (15:47)Tactics that allow eng teams to respond with precision during crisis (19:57)How leadership determined the right step in the right order to achieve the intended outcome (21:56)Communicating context on how to think about a problem (23:21)What the weekend looked like & the half a billion dollars of payroll at stake (24:39)Internal communication systems that lead to Rippling’s success (26:34)Tips for communicating with absolute clarity (28:40)Albert’s SVB story: picking back up on Sunday going into the week (31:24)Implementing an external communication strategy (33:07)Pre-crisis habits & leadership systems that played a significant role in successfully navigating this issue (35:12)Reflecting on the impact of this effort externally & internally one week out (38:17)Rapid fire questions (40:27)LINKS AND RESOURCESScaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building - Scaling People is a practical and empathetic guide to company building and scaling the most important resource a company has: its people. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience as a Google and Stripe executive, Claire Hughes Johnson offers actionable insights and tactical guidance on everything from crafting foundational documents to hiring and team development to feedback and performance mechanisms.An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management - Will Larson’s explores the specific challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to developing succession planning—and provides a guide to solving complex managerial problems.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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/

Shailesh Kumar, Sr. Vice President of Engineering @ ClickUp, joins us to share his insights on scaling eng orgs efficiently & cost-effectively. He reveals his strategies for gaining customer insights, identifying areas to invest in, navigating cloud cost efficiency, and optimizing your software & performing a software audit. Additionally, we cover approaches to balancing headcount & team efficiency, creating clarity around a problem, increasing the net output of your eng org, identifying where / when to add headcount, and making your EPD flywheel run smoothly.ABOUT SHAILESH KUMARShailesh Kumar is the Sr. Vice President of Engineering at ClickUp, leading the Engineering, Security, and IT operations for the company. He has more than 18 years of experience in building large-scale organizations and cloud platforms for high-growth enterprise companies, including his role as VP of Engineering at Mulesoft (and Salesforce post-acquisition) and Head of Data Platform and Server teams at Tableau."You have to force yourself in having a discipline of asking the hard questions about all those ideas. What's the impact? What's the revenue goals? What's the target market? How much time are we talking about? The ideas are plenty. There are a lot of great ideas. You have to figure out which great idea is gonna turn into the highest revenue and that's a very hard exercise. I've seen many leaders know that they have to do that, but not do that very diligently and in a very disciplined way.”- Shailesh Kumar   Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at hello@sfelc.comSHOW NOTES:Shailesh’s paradigm shift regarding scaling / eng org efficiency @ ClickUp (2:32)How Shailesh is navigating ClickUp through the current cost-sensitive market (4:46)Cost-effective areas that eng leaders should consider (6:55)Shailesh’s recent insights on how to better serve customers (8:43)Strategies for identifying areas to invest in & navigating difficult conversations with customers (10:02)Questions to assess challenging areas (16:44)Optimize your software & perform a software audit (18:49)Tips on building teams to optimize engineering efficiency (20:07)How to balance headcount and team efficiency (22:37)Shailesh’s approach to challenges around team efficiency (24:22)Frameworks for creating clarity of a problem / vision & refocusing a team (25:59)What makes an EDP flywheel run smoothly (27:39)Tactics to help increase the net output of your eng org (28:48)Strategies for hiring without losing efficiency & identifying where to add them (30:36)Frameworks Shailesh uses before adding a new function to the eng org (33:32)The story behind building out the TPM function (35:18)Rapid fire questions (38:24)LINKS AND RESOURCESAmp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity - Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman is one of the tech world’s most accomplished executives in enterprise growth, having led Snowflake to the largest software IPO ever after leading ServiceNow and Data Domain to exponential growth and the public market before that. In Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity, he shares his leadership approach for the first time.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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/

Kenny Shin, CTO @ Fundrise, joins us to discuss Fundrise’s journey, specialization dilemmas as an early-stage org, why specializing eng functions can help overcome plateaus in the business, plus other insights on operating in highly regulated environments like FinTech. He also reveals another dimension of the product design process – legal / regulators – and shares how regulatory environments impact the eng team’s developmental process. Plus Kenny dishes on Fundrise’s Innovation Fund, its impact on the engineering org, and how they’re re-applying tech in new sectors.ABOUT KENNY SHINKenneth J. Shin (@kennyshin7) is Chief Technical Officer of Fundrise, America’s largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager. He has served in this role since the company’s inception in March 2012.Fundrise’s mission is to use technology to build a better financial system for the individual investor, one that is simpler, lower cost, more reliable and transparent. They build software that enables the company to develop and manage investments uniquely well-positioned to grow and preserve their clients’ capital in any economic environment.Since launching America’s first online real estate investment platform in 2012, Fundrise has now become the largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager with more than 1.6 million active users, more than $3.3 billion worth of equity under management, and $7 billion worth of real estate transacted. From private credit to real estate private equity to growth-stage venture capital, Fundrise offers investors exposure to some of the most prized asset classes in the world.Prior to Fundrise, Kenny has consulted for Fortune 500 clients in financial services and technology, including Fannie Mae, Oracle, Lockheed Martin and Computer Science Corporation. Kenny has also consulted for government clients including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Defense and NATO. Kenny earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania."The entire industry generally has to try to abstract all of that complexity and regulation away from the end user and the companies that do that the best, that's one of their main value propositions.I think it's key to our operations because the opposite of it is you leave that complexity to a few subject matter experts in the organization and they become the bottleneck for everything.”- Kenny Shin    Check out  QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elc Looking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at hello@sfelc.com SHOW NOTES:Kenny’s journey co-founding Fundrise (2:37)What Kenny’s early risk assessment looked like (4:58)Advice for young eng talent considering taking a riskier role (8:12)Fundrise’s evolution & key inflection points (9:45)How Fundrise tackled uncertainty during the pandemic’s early days (11:52)Addressing specialization dilemmas as an early-stage org (14:45)Why specializing eng functions helped Fundrise overcome its plateau (16:08)Kenny’s approach to identifying new opportunities around specialization (19:53)Challenges of operating in a constrained space, like Fintech (23:38)Why constrained industries require orgs to abstract away more complexities (25:03)How regulatory environments impact the eng team’s developmental process (26:46)Incorporating legal / regulators into your product design process (29:17)The Innovation Fund & its role within Fundrise’s overall strategy (31:52)Unexpected ways the Innovation Fund is impacting the engineering function (34:04)Rapid fire questions (36:47)LINKS AND RESOURCESCrying in H Mart - In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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/

As eng leaders, we’re often strapped for resources – so learning how to advocate for more support is vital. Megan Kacholia, VP of Engineering @ Google, reveals her best strategies when it comes to asking for more resources, removing linchpins / critical points of failure from your eng team, encouraging others to accept changes that will benefit them, knowing when to say “yes” vs. “no” to new responsibilities (and the trade-offs that come with that decision), and navigating challenging situations as a manager.ABOUT MEGAN KACHOLIAMegan Kacholia is a Vice President of Engineering within Google's Core organization.  She is a leader in the Cross-Google Engineering (xGE) effort, which is responsible for company-wide technical coordination. Her passion is building effective teams and addressing barriers to help Googlers do their best work.Previously, Megan was and VP in Google’s Research organization, where her team’s work spanned machine learning in research as well as production, including products such as TensorFlow, and prior to that she had a long tenure in Google’s Ads organization, where she ran the serving system for Google’s DisplayAds business.  Megan has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from UIUC."At the end of the day, we had to be able to explain it to the team. Right? And I can't go and tell the team and be like, 'Well, the opex costs are too high because you know of this reason with the headcount and this and that and I know so and so told you they love you, but really it didn't mean this thing.'In some ways, those details don't matter, right? What matters is these people are worried that their project's getting shut down. So when it came time to communicate that we actually were gonna shut it down. We have to do an official shutdown because we have to announce it externally. So that means we have to make sure people only have so many weeks to find a new project and all of these things. So the main thing I emphasize when I talked to them wasn't about like, 'Oh, I did all of this work to try and save your project, and I couldn't.' That was irrelevant. It couldn't be saved.The most important thing was about what's the impact for the people? Well, I've already lined up options and positions for every single one.”- Megan Kacholia  Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams.Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcJoin us for one of our in-person community events!That's right! We're hosting in-person community events in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Chicago! Break out of your comfort zone and join us in a casual environment to connect, problem-solve, and support each other in our engineering leadership journeys.Don't see your city on the list? No problem!Reach out to Tim at Tim@sfelc.com and let's bring ELC to you - and make it happen!TO GET INVOLVED, EMAIL OUR HEAD OF COMMUNITY TIM AT TIM@SFELC.COMSHOW NOTES:How Megan advocated for more resources / support at Google (3:07)Convincing direct reports to accept changes & understand benefits (6:07)Insights on how to drive change within your eng team (10:20)Balancing accuracy & simplicity when communicating with your team (12:29)Frameworks for saying “yes” vs. “no” to new responsibilities (16:41)What to do when the decision to say “yes” or “no” isn’t clear (19:46)Having the confidence to say “no” (20:53)Find ways to give your team control within the given situation (24:38)The hardest situations to say “no” to as an eng leader (25:54)Megan’s approach to managing people with more experience than you (28:57)How to navigate managing someone you have a pre-existing peer relationship with (31:09)Knowing when to help vs. fix as a manager (35:14)Tips for removing “linchpins” / critical points of failure from your eng team (37:34)Rapid fire questions (41:12)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Emperor of All Maladies - Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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/

Bhavini Soneji, VP of Product Engineering @ Cruise, shares her leadership journey & how she gained cross-functional experience working at both large & small organizations. We cover how to gain product experience alongside engineering, deciding which elements of your org to mature/invest in, why you should examine the role of fear in your decision-making, and strategies for asking for more experience & opportunities to gain confidence.ABOUT BHAVINI SONEJIBhavini loves using human-centered design with streamlined automation to create experiences that improve people’s lives. Previously, she has led teams through different growth stages at Microsoft, Snapchat, Headspace, and Heal. Additionally, she enjoys giving back to the community, advising C-level executives, mentoring at Techstars, First Round, and has also founded a group of Women Technology Executives in Los Angeles to support and foster this group while playing an active role in the LA CTO Forum. When she’s not working, she loves the outdoors and enjoys boogie boarding with her husband and twins."Just knowing kind of the imposter syndrome that is holding you back. For me, it is like I'm always having a very high bar so am I hitting myself more and how do I be kind to myself? How do I support myself better? So I think that's one thing first, looking back and saying, 'No. I've done this, this, this. So my fears are not true, otherwise, I wouldn't be here.'”- Bhavini Soneji   Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams.Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcJoin us for one of our in-person community events!That's right! We're hosting in-person community events in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Chicago! Break out of your comfort zone and join us in a casual environment to connect, problem-solve, and support each other in our engineering leadership journeys.Don't see your city on the list? No problem!Reach out to Tim at Tim@sfelc.com and let's bring ELC to you - and make it happen!TO GET INVOLVED EMAIL OUR HEAD OF COMMUNITY TIM ATTIM@SFELC.COMSHOW NOTES:Bhavini’s leadership journey & gaining cross-functional experience (2:47)How Bhavini tactically transitioned from each role into the next (7:24)Watch for fears & biases throughout your decision-making (11:53)Frameworks for identifying fears that are holding you back (13:41)Examples of how cross-functional leadership differs at large vs. small orgs (16:32)Conversation tips for getting stakeholders back on track (20:08)Determining which elements of an org to mature/invest in (21:32)Questions to consider when investing in technology or processes (24:03)What to invest in when an organization’s scale starts picking up (26:06)Why investing in the people element can be trickier than processes or tooling (29:26)Strategies for asking for new experiences (32:03)Bhavini’s favorite question for identifying/clarifying what you want next (34:22)Rapid fire questions (35:52)LINKS AND RESOURCESPrisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall - an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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 differences between building a platform versus a product with Oksana Kubushyna, Head of Operations, Entertainment @ Riot Games! She shares about her leadership journey building the Riot Platform Group and transitioning from a technical lead to management role, tips for empowering your team, how to utilize cross-discipline thinking, the importance of internal measurement metrics, and how Oksana strategically utilizes OODA loops in her leadership style.ABOUT OKSANA KUBUSHYNAAs VP of Entertainment Operations, Oksana Kubushyna oversees operations of Riot’s Entertainment division with a goal to imagine and develop bespoke IP experiences and products - animation, film, interactive narratives, music, consumer products and beyond - that deepen players’ and fans’ connections to the universe Riot has created in League of Legends.After joining Riot in 2014, she quickly rose through the ranks, holding positions including Head of Infrastructure, Development Director for League of Legends, founder and Head of Riot Platform Group, and VP of Game Studios Operations, helping build the foundation for, launch and operate Riot’s new games globally.After a few years working on establishing Riot Games' Entertainment division and releasing the award-winning Arcane animated TV series, Oksana has shifted her focus back to Riot's Game Studios where she recently took on managing Riot's Production, QA, and Creative departments.She has also been a leader of Diversity and Inclusion efforts within Riot. Her passion for the advancement of women in games and tech reaches beyond Riot, and she has been honored by groups such as Girls Inc. and Wonder Women Tech."So for one decision of a CEO, the entire company can take months and months of work on observing, orienting, and deciding before that decision is settled throughout the organization. Now, imagine if CEO the very next day comes in and makes another decision of the same scope, and another one, because for CEO that decisions already done. He can move on or she can move on, but the team is still like wrangling. So it's very important for you as a leader to understand the speed at which your company or your team can process your decisions and act and settle in them before you make the next one.- Oksana Kubushyna   Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams.Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcSHOW NOTES:Oksana’s experience building & leading the Riot Platform Group (2:15)Lessons learned while transitioning from product to platform (4:23)How to utilize cross-discipline thinking when building out something new (7:30)Strategies for transitioning from single- to multiple-discipline thinking (11:14)The benefits of empowering the team around you (13:37)Differences between building a product vs. building a platform (17:08)Tactics for balancing building ahead of stakeholders with maintaining vision (20:32)Internal measurement metrics that are key to Oksana’s team (23:03)How Oksana utilizes OODA loops within her leadership style (25:55)Tips for reducing the pain of the decision-making process (29:27)What drawing a picture of decisions looks like (33:25)Rapid fire questions (36:04)This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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/

Shadi Rostami, SVP of Engineering @ Amplitude, joins us to discuss key insights and strategies to increase your engineering orgs capacity to win in an economic downturn. We cover cultivating a founder’s mindset and increasing product ownership in engineering. Plus prioritization strategies, determining where to invest resources, and shifting your team’s perspective from skepticism to optimism.ABOUT SHADI ROSTAMIShadi Rostami is SVP of engineering at Amplitude. She is a passionate, seasoned technology leader and architect experienced in building and managing highly proficient engineering teams. Prior to Amplitude, she was VP of Engineering at Palo Alto Networks. She has innovated and delivered several product lines and services specializing in distributed systems, cloud computing, big data, machine learning, and security. She has a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of British Columbia and a B.Sc. from Sharif University of Technology. Shadi has published several peer-reviewed conference articles and journals as well as several patents."Many, many years ago, I went to my VP and I asked him, ‘Rajiv, I don't know, shall I do A or B?’ And he told me, ‘if it was your own money and your own company, which decision you would've made?’ I said, ‘I'll do A,’ he says, ‘then you know the answer. You don't need to come and ask me. Right? Put your founder hat on and tell me what decision we should be making.’ Shall we do A or shall we do B? That is the ultimate sense of ownership.”- Shadi Rostami  Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams.Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcJoin us for one of our in-person community events!That's right! We're hosting in-person community events in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Chicago! Break out of your comfort zone and join us in a casual environment to connect, problem-solve, and support each other in our engineering leadership journeys.Don't see your city on the list? No problem! Reach out to Tim at Tim@sfelc.com and let's bring ELC to you - and make it happen!To get involved email our Head of Community Tim at Tim@sfelc.comSHOW NOTES:Examples of how engineering increases an org’s capacity for winning (1:54)Strategies to drive product-led growth (4:58)Why product-led prioritization is key during an economic downturn (6:56)Balancing quantitative vs. qualitative data when determining where to invest resources in (9:12)Set the same goal for your eng team & the product (12:44)The importance of weekly learning users & other valuable metrics (15:58)How a founder mindset fosters a product ownership mentality in engineers (18:47)Practices to help cultivate a founder mentality (23:10)Shadi’s advice for better translation between the business & engineering (27:16)Tactics for reframing a conversation from skepticism to perpetual optimism (29:43)Owning the product experience within the restraints of an economic downturn (33:29)Signals to watch for that it’s time to pivot (36:17)How to increase opportunities for your team to find luck (41:46)Rapid fire questions (43:41)LINKS AND RESOURCESFresh Air - Fresh Air from WHYY, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Hosted by Terry Gross, the show features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.All Things Considered - NPR’s flagship evening newsmagazine, delivering in-depth reporting that transforms the way listeners understand current events and view the world.All-In - Industry veterans, degenerate gamblers & besties Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks & David Friedberg cover all things economic, tech, political, social & poker. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah 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 cover resilience engineering & learning from incidents with John Allspaw, former CTO @ Etsy and current Founder & Principal @ Adaptive Capacity Labs! Co-hosted by Kenji Kiuchi (Head of Quality and Performance @ Postman) this episode also addresses common unintuitive perspectives within resilience engineering, strategies for effective incident response / problem solving, how to identify current sources of resilience, and practical tips for implementing these resiliency tactics in your organization today.ABOUT JOHN ALLSPAWJohn Allspaw (@allspaw) has worked in software systems engineering and operations for over twenty years in many different environments. John’s publications include the books The Art of Capacity Planning (2009) and Web Operations (2010) as well as the forward to “The DevOps Handbook.”  His 2009 Velocity talk with Paul Hammond, “10+ Deploys Per Day: Dev and Ops Cooperation” helped start the DevOps movement. John served as CTO at Etsy, and holds an MSc in Human Factors and Systems Safety from Lund University."The competitive advantage is not for a leader to say, ‘Why did it take so long to restore this issue or resolve this outage?’ A competitive advantage is, ‘Oh my God, that is amazing. Tell me what made this hard and what are any of the things that made it difficult to resolve? Is there anything I can do to help get out of the way for people to do the work?’"- John Allspaw   ABOUT KENJI KIUCHIKenji Kiuchi (@dr_kiuchi) is Head of Quality and Performance at Postman, an API platform whose mission is to maximize everyone's creativity through the power of connected software. There he leads a global team with a focus on maximizing user delight and innovating the practice of testing. Before coming to Postman, he spent several years ‘Helping people get Jobs” at Indeed. There, he worked on scaling teams and practice to optimize engineering delivery as well as leading Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging initiatives as an Associate Site Director. Prior to Indeed, Kenji spent several years as an Engineering Manager at Twitter where he led Quality efforts across monetization, growth, infra and the delivery of live video. When Kenji isn’t driving engineering excellence, he’s driving his motorcycle, spending quality time with his 3 daughters, and mentoring leaders across the globe.Check out our friends and sponsor, JellyfishTo learn more about Jellyfish and how they can help you increase engineering satisfaction and create happier, higher-performing engineering teams...Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elcSHOW NOTES:John’s perspective on production (4:27)What drove John toward resilience engineering (6:22)How complex systems relate to resilience engineering (9:23)Differences between robustness and resilience (13:13)The role of productive adaptation in resilience engineering (17:26)Identify sources of resilience already present in your organization (22:52)Examples of unintuitive perspectives involving incident analysis (27:15)How to make room for unintuitive perspectives (31:41)Practical tips for implementing resiliency tactics & understanding incidents (36:12)Rapid fire questions (39:51)LINKS AND RESOURCESLearning From Incidents Conference 2023 - This is a forum for sharing stories of incidents, incident handling, and the learnings from software engineers who handle large-scale distributed software systems.Hindsight and Sacrifice Decisions Blog Post on Adaptive Capacity Labs reaction to the NYSE halting trading to resolve an issueUsing Language by Herbert H. Clark - Herbert Clark argues that language use is more than the sum of a speaker speaking and a listener listening. It is the joint action that emerges when speakers and listeners, writers and readers perform their individual actions in coordination, as ensembles. In contrast to work within the cognitive sciences, which has seen language use as an individual process, and to work within the social sciences, which has seen it as a social process, the author argues strongly that language use embodies both individual and social processes.Papers We Love TalkVisual Momentum

Ryan Graciano, Co-Founder & CTO @ Credit Karma, shares with us what it’s like to start a company during an economic downturn, how his leadership style had to evolve alongside Credit Karma’s growth, advice for running lean operations, bridging the gap between engineering & business, how to scale the business as the company matures, and identifying & correcting team/org dysfunctions. In addition, Ryan shares some of his favorite successful & failed leadership experiments that helped evolve his leadership style!ABOUT RYAN GRACIANOAs a co-founder of Credit Karma and Chief Technical Officer, Ryan Graciano (@rmgraci) has grown the company’s engineering department from a one-man band into a team of hundreds, developing a technical framework to support the company’s rapid growth. His expertise and innovation has helped bring new levels of usability and sophistication to financial services technologies.Today, Ryan runs an ever-expanding group of engineers tasked with building out new products at pace while stressing a culture of agility and experimentation, even as Credit Karma reaches new levels of scale. As a leader, he serves as a constructive agitator, looking to break down traditional workplace hierarchies and empowering each member of his department with real influence over the future of the product.Ryan has a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and spent five years at IBM before joining Credit Karma."When I was earlier in my career, I really thought that the CTO's job was to know the most about the technology. Really, the CTO's job is to hire the people that know the most about the technology and then translate it to the business people who don't speak it at all.”- Ryan Graciano   Looking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at sponsor@sfelc.comInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:What the early days at Credit Karma looked like (2:31)Eng leadership lessons learned from the early-stage days (4:03)Ryan’s advice on running lean & determining what matters most (5:42)The inflection point when Credit Karma’s priorities shifted (8:31)Strategies for bridging the gap between engineering & business (12:44)What was most helpful for designing a monetization engine early on (15:07)How Ryan’s leadership style evolved as Credit Karma expanded (16:37)Frameworks for identifying areas of improvement as an eng leader (18:32)Who do you hire first to scale yourself and your eng org? And other scaling principles (20:13)How to identify deficiencies in your system (22:00)An example of how detecting a dysfunction lead to systematic transformation (26:00)Tips for hosting conversations that lead to buy in / alignment (28:29)Ryan’s favorite failed leadership experiments (30:18)Why it’s important for leadership teams to measure & respond (35:50)Matching the vision for the organization to what you want to see in a product (37:04)When adjustments have to be made to the org’s vision (42:18)Rapid fire questions (43:40)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Genome Odyssey - In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of medicine and genetics, brings the breakthroughs of precision medicine to vivid life through the real diagnostic journeys of his patients and the tireless efforts of his fellow doctors and scientists as they hunt to prevent, predict, and beat disease.