The Engineering Leadership Podcast

In this episode, we cover compassionate accountability & facing difficulties head-on with Marc Lesser, author of Finding Clarity. He shares what it was like living in a Zen monastery for 10 years and the leadership lessons he learned while working in their kitchen. We also address strategies for conversations around high standards, accountability, agreements, and alignment; models for correcting negative self-talk; closing the gap between seemingly combative standards, such as speed vs. quality; and how to transition from avoiding conflicts to accepting them. Lastly, we close with a three-minute meditation that can help bring much-needed well-being into your workspace.ABOUT MARC LESSERMarc Lesser (@marclesser) is a CEO, executive coach, and Zen teacher. He founded and was CEO of 3 companies, and helped develop a mindfulness program inside of Google's headquarters. Marc was a resident of the San Francisco Zen Center for 10 years, and director of Tassajara, Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen monastery in the western world. He is the author of Finding Clarity."So to me it's really maybe about high standards and aligning around those standards. Avoiding those conversations is the problem and this is where I think the whole realm of emotions and emotional intelligence and self-awareness comes into play. Five emotionally intelligent engineers working together will produce much, much greater outcomes than people who are not really aligned, not really having those real conversations.”- Marc Lesser   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Marc’s experience working / living in a zen monastery for 10 years (3:30)Leadership lessons learned from the monastery’s kitchen (6:09)Exploring accountability & confronting conflict (8:37)Frameworks for conversations around high standards / accountability (10:26)How to incorporate compassionate accountability (13:53)Practices that help teams develop greater alignment (17:04)When leaders practice accountability w/ kindness (19:53)Model for correcting negative self-talk & how it impacts team alignment (21:23)Closing the gap between speed vs. quality, or other combative standards (24:22)Curiosity & flexibility as core values (26:49)Best practices for forming agreements (27:50)How to move from avoiding difficulties / conflicts to accepting them (29:57)Rapid fire questions (32:28)Marc’s three-minute closing meditation (35:27)LINKS AND RESOURCESFinding Clarity - Marc Lesser’s book that shows how, together, compassion and accountability play an absolutely critical role in transforming how we communicate in our work and family relationships.Think Again - Adam Grant, the bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people’s minds, which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life.Peace Is Every Step - In this book Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to make positive use of the very situations in our daily life that usually pressure and antagonise us. The most profound satisfactions, the deepest feelings of joy and completeness lie as close at hand as our next conscious breath and the smile we can form right now.These Truths: A History of the United States - Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history.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/

Ludo Antonov, VP of Engineering @ WhatNot, shares how eng leaders can better operate from their organization’s first principles. He defines the concept & what that looks like for WhatNot through their values of listening to customers, moving uncomfortably fast, and more – plus what happens when optimizing for one principle conflicts with another! We also cover Ludo’s leadership journey, how he navigated the transition from a business model focused on discovery & matching to two-sided marketplaces, and challenges / lessons learned from working within the social, community, & marketplace space.ABOUT LUDO ANTONOVLudo (@ludo_antonov) is the Vice President of Engineering at Whatnot. He has an extensive background in building engineering teams at fast-growing startups including Hulu, Pinterest, and Lyft. He led the Pinterest Growth team as the company was going through hyper-growth up to IPO. Prior to joining Whatnot, he served as an engineering executive at Lyft, overseeing the company’s core rideshare products including the rider, driver, marketplace, and growth organizations."That's one of the important parts is it allows for common language to fall back to whenever these problems actually happen because they tend to be more and more complex and take more and more nuance in order to get right and sometimes, especially like it's very powerful to take it back to first principles and say, 'How would we do this if we have to be ruthlessly prioritizing? Are we moving comfortably fast in thinking of our approach?' And then everyone understands because it's part of our vocabulary and it takes repetition to build that.”- Ludo Antonov   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Ludo provides a status update on recent milestones @ WhatNot (2:40)What operating from first principles looks like within an eng org (4:08)Strategies for going back to your founding leadership principles (6:35)Overcoming product challenges by leading through listening to your customers (8:34)How the eng team pivoted their approach based on that first principle (9:40)Deconstructing “moving uncomfortably fast” & its impact on operating systems (12:13)Incorporating first principles with WhatNot’s international strategy (13:35)When optimizing for one value is in conflict with another (15:32)Frameworks that aid in ruthless prioritization (16:41)Assess impact, likelihood of success & effort during prioritization conversations (19:05)Lessons learned from building Pinterest that Ludo applied to WhatNot (19:57)Ludo’s transition from discovery / matching to a two-sided marketplace (23:40)How Ludo applied two-sided marketplace elements to WhatNot (24:53)Working business model aspects into an engineering context (26:23)Ludo’s favorite seller experiences (28:30)Engineering approaches to & impact on two-sided marketplaces (30:18)Recommendations for eng leaders operating in a new business model (31:57)Rapid fire questions (33:39)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Upside of Stress - Drawing from groundbreaking research, psychologist and award-winning teacher Kelly McGonigal, PhD, offers a surprising new view of stress—one that reveals the upside of stress, and shows us exactly how to capitalize on its benefits.Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey A. Moore’s bible for bringing cutting-edge products to larger markets—now revised and updated with new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing.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/

Sarah Milstein, VPE @ Daily, joins us to discuss the most surprising aspect of remote teams – the opportunity for higher trust teams. She covers counterintuitive perspectives & non-obvious practices that can benefit distributed orgs, including why hard conversations can be easier when done remotely and how remote teams are less political & more productive than co-located teams. Sarah also dives into Daily’s unique salary & promotion process and how eng leaders could implement this method into their teams. Lastly, we cover “swift trust” and Sarah’s recommendations for creating the optimal conditions for it to thrive.ABOUT SARAH MILSTEINSarah (@SarahM) joined Daily as VP of Engineering, bringing 25 years of deep experience developing products, setting strategy, and leading teams at startups. Most recently, Sarah was VP of Engineering at ConvertKit. Prior to that, she was Senior Director of Engineering at Mailchimp. Sarah has extensive experience in media as a producer and author, having programmed, co-hosted, and managed conferences and trade shows, including the Web 2.0 Expo. Sarah holds an M.B.A. from University of California, Berkeley."Swift Trust is an idea from workplace psychology about teams that come together quickly counterintuitively often build higher levels of trust and do it with very little structure, and it turns out that actually the coming together quickly and the less structure are themselves some of the conditions that can help. It turns out that those are the kind of conditions that are often true in software development. Those conditions of it's clear what you're working on, everyone has a role, there's time involved, like some sense of timing. A lot of times those conditions are available to you but maybe not being used.”- Sarah Milstein   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:The most surprising aspect of working remotely: higher trust (3:24)Sarah’s Slack experiment & how it revealed team dynamics (6:15)Additional benefits & accommodations provided by remote work (8:26)Non-obvious communication practices that benefit remote orgs (11:18)Strategies for having hard conversations one-on-one in a remote setting (13:52)Recommendations for facilitating big group conversations remotely (16:34)Why distributed teams are less political & more productive than co-located teams (18:58)Internal practices to reduce politics (21:48)How Daily’s salary & promotion process works (23:40)Frameworks for aligning projects toward peoples’ strengths within a remote team (27:04)Process for implementing a new salary & promotion model (30:28)Defining “swift trust” & creating conditions for it to be present (34:20)Benefits of creating agreements on how you’re going to work as a team (37:04)Rapid fire questions (40:28)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Staff Engineer's Path - For years, companies have rewarded their most effective engineers with management positions. But treating management as the default path for an engineer with leadership ability doesn't serve the industry well--or the engineer. Tanya O’Reilly’s staff engineer's path allows engineers to contribute at a high level as role models, driving big projects, determining technical strategy, and raising everyone's skills.Rethinking levels, promotions and salaries - Sarah’s blog post on Daily’s restructuring of levels, promotions, salaries, and how Daily approaches career compensation.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’re taking this week off for a short summer holiday. Until then, here are a few episodes from the backlog we highly recommend, for a little fun summer listening... Leveraging OODA Loops in Leadership with Oksana Kubushyna #118 - https://elc.community/home/podcasts/building-platforms-vs-products-and-leveraging-ooda-loops-in-leadership-oksana-kubushnya-riotgames Navigating Multiproduct Expansion + other eadership & career insights from Kris Rasmussen #124 - https://elc.community/home/podcasts/navigating-multi-product-expansion-leadership-and-career-insights-kris-rasmussen-figma Alignment is the key to delivering great product & team outcomes w/ Jonathon Hensley #90 - https://elc.community/home/podcasts/alignment-is-the-key-to-delivering-great-products-and-outcomes And a deep cut from the archives… Conscious Career Growth parts 1 & 2 with Wade Chambers!! #20 & #21- https://elc.community/home/podcasts/conscious-career-growth-wade-chambers-part-1 Want to get involved with ELC? Visit elc.community sign up with your email for membership (it’s free) and we’ll include you on the events & programs we have coming up! Join us at our flagship conference for eng leaders, ELC Annual on 8/30-31! sfelc.com/elcannual2023 Thanks for listening to the engineering leadership podcast. We’ll see you next week!

Barbara Nelson, VP of Engineering @ InfluxData, joins us to share her eng leadership philosophies on career adaptation and helping teams adapt to meet both business needs & individual interests / strengths. We cover how her leadership journey has shaped her perspective on adapting to new career opportunities, implementing boundaries within eng teams to foster creativity, approaching problem sets with eng teams, and building a healthy relationship between product & eng orgs. Additionally, Barbara shares strategies for adapting a team based on personality dynamics, meeting developers where they are, and why she’s built her career on building products with purpose.ABOUT BARBARA NELSONBarbara leads the engineering team at InfluxData. She has extensive experience leading globally distributed teams in designing, developing, deploying, and supporting products and services that are delivered on a cloud-based service platform and on a range of client platforms. Prior to InfluxData, Barbara had a variety of engineering and technical leadership roles, including VP of Engineering at iPass, CTO at Cirrent, and Principal Architect at eBay. Barbara has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University College Dublin, Ireland."There was an assumption that we had more shared context than we really had. So the engineers kind of thought, 'Well, it'll be obvious to the operations folks that this thing is deployed correctly or incorrectly.' There was no reason for it to be obvious to the operation folks. What would've made it obvious to the operations folks?”- Barbara Nelson   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Barbara’s favorite leadership dilemma – job efficiency vs. enjoyment (1:57)How Barbara has adapted to various roles throughout her leadership journey (3:42)Lessons learned from diving into the role of Interim VP of Operations (6:19)Formal & informal frameworks for making / communicating adjustments (9:03)Barbara’s perspective on pursuing new opportunities & the “career ladder” (11:33)Advice for those who feel stuck on that ladder (13:25)How Barbara’s experience at General Magic impacted her leadership philosophy (15:07)Why boundaries help foster creativity (17:30)Barbara’s approach to introducing problem sets to eng teams (19:14)Strategies for aligning eng teams to reach an intended output (21:55)Driving a healthy relationship between product & eng teams (23:58)Recommendations for bridging the gap between product & engineering (26:02)Adapt a team based on personality dynamics & what gets them excited (28:49)The power of building a product with purpose (36:31)How AI trends will impact eng team adaptation & alignment (38:12)Rapid fire questions (39:45)LINKS AND RESOURCESBuild: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making - Written for anyone who wants to grow at work—from young grads navigating their first jobs to CEOs deciding whether to sell their company—Tony Fadell’s Build is full of personal stories, practical advice, and fascinating insights into some of the most impactful products and people of the 20th century.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 rapid prototyping & how eng leaders can develop better product instincts with David Crawshaw, CTO & Co-Founder @ Tailscale! He shares his leadership journey from Google to Tailscale and how the early product development days at his startup lead to incorporating rapid prototyping principles within their eng org. We also cover strategies and recommendations for those who are new to rapid prototyping, how to work with design & product teams while quickly iterating, navigating the tension between speed & quality, and how to avoid common pitfalls while implementing the process.ABOUT DAVID CRAWSHAWDavid Crawshaw (@davidcrawshaw) is co-founder and CTO of Tailscale. Previously he was a staff engineer at Google, where he specialized in petabyte-scale logs processing. He implemented TCP/IP networking for Fuchsia, as well as ported the Go language platform to iOS and Android."If you're a pre-seed startup in the Bay Area and you are trying to ship something to your first few customers and you ship with 40-something languages, then you've made a mistake, but it's not necessarily true that a large company has made that mistake. For larger companies with more total requirements, I think the big question is can you construct environments where you can experiment without all of these requirements?”- David Crawshaw   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:David’s background at Google & the transition to founding Tailscale (1:51)Early-day challenges at Tailscale w/ prototyping (4:03)How Tailscale discovered & employed rapid prototyping during its early days (6:41)Paradigm shifts around the product-building process & feedback loop (8:37)Recommendations for those new to rapid prototyping (11:20)Shifting your org’s culture toward accelerated iteration cycles w/ arbitrary limits (13:36)Frameworks for getting to a faster prototype (16:52)How to work w/ design & product throughout rapid prototyping process (19:26)Navigating the tension between doing things quickly vs. working well (21:51)Where large companies try to rapid prototype & things go wrong (26:29)Trains vs. EVs in the Bay area – a metaphor for rapid iteration (28:46)Bringing that metaphor to software development (31:37)David’s perspective on widespread adoption of OpenAI (34:31)Rapid fire questions (39:19)LINKS AND RESOURCESTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - In this exhilarating novel from Gabrielle Zevin, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.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/

Matt Spitz joins our latest podcast to discuss leading beyond domain expertise! As Head of Engineering @ Vanta, Matt shares his experience managing & developing a security program in the early days of Vanta before hiring for a specialized skillset. We also cover strategies on maximizing security at your organization as it grows, developing a company culture that invests in security, identifying when your org is ready to hire a domain expert, and how to effectively communicate with & lead domain experts within your org. In addition, Matt reveals what qualities he believes a security culture expert should possess & how eng leaders (who aren’t domain experts in security) can help set the org’s right technical direction.ABOUT MATT SPITZMatt Spitz is the Head of Engineering at Trust Management Platform provider, Vanta, where he helps companies practice better security. Previously, he co-founded and led Dropbox's NYC office, started a company, and has built and scaled diverse engineering teams solving complex product and infrastructure challenges. He lives in San Francisco and rides his bike to work."The value that I can provide to all these departments is visibility and context. The perfect strategy for support or something like security doesn't exist. It's contextual, right? And the things that we are trying to do as a business, the things that are happening outside of those departments that maybe I have visibility into, that is value that I can provide to those people in shifting their strategy and setting the right strategy that's contextually appropriate.”- Matt Spitz   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Matt’s observations around leading beyond your expertise (2:45)Leadership tactics to employ when transitioning to a role outside your expertise (5:02)Matt's transition from Dropbox to Vanta (7:31)Paradigm shifts when transitioning between large & small orgs (9:01)How to improve in leading teams beyond your skill set (11:01)Recommendations for probing / gathering information from experts (13:19)Matt’s experience leading a successful security program before hiring an expert (15:27)Strategies to maximize the area of security as an individual (18:27)How to lay the foundational elements of an early-stage security program (22:14)Knowing when your org is ready for a domain-specific expert (24:05)Indicators to identify when seeking an expert (25:12)Frameworks for hiring / managing an expert beyond your domain (27:03)Evaluating culture fit in hiring security experts (28:54)Effective communication strategies when working with various domain experts (31:44)Setting the right technical direction when you’re not the expert (34:40)Rapid fire questions (36:22)LINKS AND RESOURCESLost Dogs - Matt’s Pearl Jam cover bandThis 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/

Han Yuan, Founder of Post-PC Labs, joins us to discuss some of the biggest converging trends hitting our industry – the rise of AI along with the tech bubble that’s poised to burst at any time. We cover not only these trends’ impact on eng leaders, but we also cover how technology trends can drive opportunities for eng leaders to become key strategic partners toward their orgs’ business strategy. Han shares advice for how to evaluate business needs, align your attitude / work toward those goals, earn a seat at the leadership table, build credibility, and use that credibility to implement strategic changes.ABOUT HAN YUANHan Yuan is the founder of Post-PC Labs, LLC.  Post-PC Labs is wholly-owned and funded by Han, powered by a global team of freelancers. The group's focus is building cash-flow breakeven projects with product-market fit.  Early investment themes include wellness and corporate productivity.Before Post-PC Labs, Han was SVP of Engineering at Upwork, where he led one of the world's most distributed engineering teams:  350+ engineers in 40 countries around the world.  In this role, Han was responsible for any function that had anything to do with a computer, including Information Security, IT, QA, Application Engineering, Cloud Engineering, Data Science, Infrastructure Engineering, and Program Management.  During his tenure at Upwork, Upwork's revenue doubled, and the company went public in 2018.In a previous life, Han was an influential mobile engineering leader, having incubated world-class teams for eBay and Netflix.  Han's early work in mobile proved that it was possible to sell billions of dollars of goods and entertain hundreds of millions of people globally using just a mobile phone.  Together with his teams, Han helped launch and scale the eBay and Netflix programs from small incubation teams.  At eBay, he was the first engineer on his team. When Apple announced its one billionth download in the app store and celebrated the top 25 apps in the store of all time, eBay and Netflix were both on the list.Han started his career in enterprise software specializing in the finance and human resources domains and was a co-founder of Buddystumbler.com.  Han has a B.S and M.S in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from U.C. Berkeley with a minor degree in Computer Science and a Management of Technology Certificate from the Haas School of Business."That's the language that you need to communicate with your colleagues, your peers. That's what everybody else understands. They're not going to understand, 'Oh, we need to migrate the data center to the cloud.' They're not going to understand that, 'Hey, these are all the technical reasons why a forklift could be very complicated.' You have to put it in terms that the business is going to understand. That is going to be the art, and along the way, I think if you use that framework, it helps your own teams understand why their work is relevant to the business.”- Han Yuan   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Converging industry trends that eng leaders should be aware of (2:45)The impact of these trends on tech leaders (6:54)“Opaque” technology & how it can drive innovation in eng leaders (9:48)Emerging opportunities that may intimidate, such as LLMs (11:34)Han’s litmus test to determine your risk of irrelevance as an eng leader (12:55)Framework for eng leaders to increase their value-add to business / product strategy (15:31)Evaluating the business’s needs & aligning your values toward those goals (18:02)How eng leaders can make strategic impact on the business (19:37)Key questions to help eng leaders identify strategic solutions (22:30)Tips for establishing (or reestablishing) your role as a strategic partner (24:00)How Han built credibility during his time @ Upwork (27:40)Using newfound credibility to implement strategic changes (29:54)Rapid fire questions (32:28)LINKS AND RESOURCESSapiens – A Brief History of Humankind - Sapiens, the book, takes us on a breath-taking ride through our entire human history, from its evolutionary roots to the age of capitalism and genetic engineering, to uncover why we are the way we are. Sapiens focuses on key processes that shaped humankind and the world around it, such as the advent of agriculture, the creation of money, the spread of religion and the rise of the nation-state. Unlike other books of its kind, Sapiens takes a multi-disciplinary approach that bridges the gaps between history, biology, philosophy and economics in a way never done before. Furthermore, taking both the macro and the micro view, Sapiens conveys not only what happened and why, but also how it felt for individuals.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/

Abi Noda, Co-founder & CEO @ DX returns to the show to discuss his latest research on measuring & improving developer productivity, and provides a practical, developer-focused framework to give you clear, actionable insights into what to measure and where to focus in order to improve developer productivity. Abi reveals the inspiration behind his whitepaper / research, elements of their new DevEx framework, and how eng leaders can implement it into their org’s practice in order to increase developer productivity. We also cover the evolution of measuring developer experience (including output metrics, DORA & SPACE frameworks) and the benefits / shortcomings of each approach. In addition, learn not only the importance of having a dedicated DevEx team, but also how to implement these insights if your org isn’t ready to have a dedicated team yet.ABOUT ABI NODAAbi (@abinoda) is the CEO and co-founder of DX, the world's first developer experience management platform. He was previously the CEO and founder of Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub in 2019. At GitHub he led research collaborations with Dr. Nicole Forsgren, McKinsey, and Microsoft Research, which was the impetus for founding DX."Oftentimes, organizations that are larger that get started with these types of measurements in their framework, they're really surprised. They realize that, 'Oh man, there's all these opportunities we didn't even realize and developers are telling us these are the most important things. These aren't the things we're working on and we need to shift our focus.' So, I think there's a huge opportunity to refocus by getting a holistic picture of the developer experience.”- Abi Noda   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:The background behind Abi’s developer productivity research & why it matters (2:50)The evolution of measuring developer productivity (5:50)Moving beyond output metrics to DORA (and how that fell short of solving engineering measurement problems) (7:43)Challenges, drawbacks, and limitations to current measurement approaches (like DORA & SPACE) (11:51)What is the SPACE framework & how it manifests in eng orgs (15:14)Distinction between measuring the notion of productivity vs. focusing on measurements that improve productivity (17:07)Overview of Abi’s new DevEx framework & examples of it in use (19:52)Recommendations for frontline managers, ICs, engineers, etc. to apply the DevEx framework (22:26)How DevEx uncovers blind spots (like requirements quality) (24:21)When engineering orgs should consider separating out productivity (27:44)Strategies for broad-scope leaders to apply the DevEx framework (29:21)Using local teams to address specific DevEx issues (31:30)Why the VP of Eng / org leadership’s values drive developer experience (33:00)Tips for implementing the DevEx framework as a startup vs. mature company (35:06)How Abi is incorporating DevEx strategies into his own company @ DX (37:47)What positive developer experience looks like within an eng team (39:35)The most important step a team w/o a DevEx team can take (41:29)Rapid fire questions (43:17)LINKS AND RESOURCESAbi’s new DevEx whitepaper - “DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity” by Abi Noda, DX, Margaret-Anne Storey, University of Victoria, Nicole Forsgren, Microsoft Research, Michaela Greiler, DXObviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It - Obviously Awesome goes beyond teaching you what positioning is and why you should care. It gives you a step-by-step process that any startup can follow to position their product, service or company. This book will teach you how to find your product’s “secret sauce” and then sell that sauce to those who crave it.Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a "position" in a prospective customer's mind-one that reflects a company's own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.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/

In this episode, we redefine what successful, productive engineering looks like with Tammarrian Rogers. As the former Inclusive Engineering Director @ Snap, Tammarrian shares her perspective on global relational healing and what pulled her away from her traditional eng leadership role to explore this topic further. We cover the importance of incorporating relational healing practices into eng leadership & product development, the importance of the “healing profit,” how technology can help manifest healing opportunities for users, and how to align eng teams on embracing relational healing as a practice. We also cover how individual eng leaders can build awareness around internal self-talk – critical & positive – and explore self-love / reflection practices daily.ABOUT TAMMARRIAN ROGERSTammarrian (@tammarrian) has enjoyed acquiring over 30 years of engineering leadership experience in both hardware and software at General Motors, Apple, Microsoft and Snap.  She has had the opportunity to lead cross-functional teams with a focus on inclusive product engineering, quality assurance, release management and product localization and globalization.  She has also served on community non-profit and for-profit organizations including Ada Developers Academy, NordVPN, Northwest Tech Equity Initiative (NWTEI) and OPTYVA, a social purpose organization with a business sustainability focus.In November 2021, Tammarrian left her position as Snap’s first Inclusive Engineering Director to redirect her energy to developing methodologies that promote and facilitate global relational healing; healing that will lead to a sustainable, healthy planet and future for us humans.  Ultimately, her goal is to systematically embed these successful methodologies into emerging and evolving technologies.As a solo nomad today, Tammarrian is enjoying meeting and connecting with people and land around our world. You’ll likely find her on an urban or nature hike, in some body of water or giving much love to a stranger’s dog."We really have to be aware of what is the impact of the product that we're building on our communities beyond the typical metrics that we use to say that we're being successful. So for example, we talk a lot about success being financial, right? It's a profit. How are we profiting? And that also hinges upon everything from our engagement metrics, the visits, the retention, the click-through rate. Whatever your product is, what is it that you're measuring to say that you're building and retaining a community of people and you're growing your business? We're all familiar with that, and I think what I'm inviting us to do as engineering leaders across our industry is to shift the currency of success and to bring in an entirely different currency.”- Tammarrian Rogers   Join us at ELC Annual 2023!ELC Annual is our flagship conference for engineering leaders. You’ll learn from experts in engineering and leadership, gain mentorship and support from like-minded professionals, expand your perspectives, build relationships across the tech industry, and leave with practical prove strategies.Join us this August 30-31 at the Fort Mason Center in San FranciscoFor tickets, head to https://sfelc.com/annual2023SHOW NOTES:Tammarrian’s transition from eng leadership @ Snap (2:45)Redefining what a productive day means & focusing on global relational healing (5:09)How Tammarrian felt pulled to move away from traditional eng leadership (6:31)Exploring what global relationship healing means (10:03)Strategies for building awareness around critical internal talk (12:16)Frameworks for practicing self-love (13:47)Tammarrian’s strategies for diverting outward distractions & focusing inward (15:32)Using your physical space to impact your perspective & vice versa (18:15)Encouraging eng leaders to consider the “healing profit” (20:19)Technology / products that manifest healing opportunities (23:12)An example of how Snap’s technology helped users feel seen (25:19)Make sure your team is aligned on if healing is a value (28:06)Tammarrian’s approach to dissonance between perceived & actual lived-out values (31:25)Active ways someone can transition from surviving mode to thriving mode (35:32)The No. 1 practice to embody the thriving mindset (38:20)Rapid fire questions (39:49)LINKS AND RESOURCESProfit Without Oppression - Profit Without Oppression unapologetically identifies the systems, institutions, and policies that privilege the few while excluding and harming the many. This book charts an inclusionary strategic path forward that seeks to develop an economic ethos and series of business models that are supremacy, coercion, discrimination, and exploitation free.The Silent Patient - A shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.Humankind: A Hopeful History - International bestseller Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting out to prove that we are hardwired for kindness, geared toward cooperation rather than competition, and more inclined to trust rather than distrust one another.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/