Frontier Podcast by Gun.io

"Manager Voltron" Lara Hogan knows some things about high performing engineering teams. Following roles as Engineering Director at Etsy and VPE at Kickstarter, she founded Wherewithall to run workshops, trainings, and coaching on delivering great feedback, setting clear expectations, and balancing mentoring, coaching, and sponsoring -- all critical skills for anyone rising through the engineering ranksIn this episode I talk with Lara about the suprisingly human emotions that crop up during management practice, and how to know if you really want that promotion from developer to manager. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Innovative shopping experiences drive e-commerce revenues by turning shoppers into buyers. In this episode I talk with Andrew Guldman, VP of Product Engineering and R&D at Fluid. Andrew and his team have innovated the Fluid Configure product all the way from Flash and Flex to React and Node. Their metadata and decision engine tackles the most complex of product configurators for the likes of Oakley, Fender, and Louis Vuitton. Andrew walks me through the importance of T-shaped skills and avoiding the hero pattern while growing an international team. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CTO of Labdoor, Helton Souza, has stories to tell. Stories about moving to America to learn English, about selling pigs (yes, pigs) online, about pitching for Startup America, and ending up in Silicon Valley. He's also got insights about taking scientific lab data and making it consumer-readable, about saving 46% on infrastructure costs with smart cloud moves, and about countless hours around a kitchen table coding like mad men in an Airbnb in Milan. At the end of this episode I could see the movie reel in my head. I think you will, too, as we discuss love of project, freedom of technology choice, and the human behavioral hacking required to motivate a team. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You might not recognize the name Kevin Nether, but chances are you've watched at least one video by Kevin The Tech Ninja. If you haven't, fire up your YouTube app.A self-described "guy who's just always loved technology," Kevin's videos have won acclaim and following for his creative, down-to-earth unboxings, product reviews, and the occasional rant. In this episode I talk to Kevin about being a creator, letting go in order to scale yourself, and the hard work of creating content you can be proud of in any discipline. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Feinman is the CEO of Viral Ideas Marketing. We met him in his role as one of the Community Managers of Online Geniuses, a huge internet marketing community known for their industry leader AMAs.In this episode David and I compare notes about customer experience and UX as leads become trials and users become evangelists. Marketing, technology, and product SMEs speak different languages, but what we do is all part of the same continuum.Emotionally engaging channels like video drive the first visits and uses. That's where product UX picks up to anchor adoption and retention. A comprehensive view of the customer experience from start to finish is critical for B2C and B2B software companies alike. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boston Code Viking, Steff Kelsey started as engineer #3 at Notarize. This episode was recorded while he was their VP of Engineering, leading a team of 40. He's now the VPE of Appcues. Scaling an engineering org is challenging enough on it's own, but what about doing that in a totally new market segment?That's what Notarize did as it moved the Notary Public process to a video-driven SaaS interaction; nobody even new that was a thing until they did it.Steff and I talk tooling, automation, ownership, and more with a special dive into building a culture where learning and problem ownership is a managerial right of passage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A veteran of Microsoft, Groupon, and now Mode Analytics, Engineering Leader, Ushashi Chakraborty has gotten used to hearing the most abnormal feedback: "I love coming to your meetings!" She realized after some reflection that her extensive improv experience through Chicago's famed Second City Conservatory, had instilled in her skills and habits that were just as useful for running engineering meetings as they were on stage. In this episode she recaps a presentation she made at the 2018 NY Nasdaq CTO Summit, entitled "Running Engineering Meetings Using Improv Skills." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Practitioners turned tech founders give us a unique view into the customer discovery process because they usually start their companies in order to solve a problem they've experienced themselves. Such is the case for attorney turned startup founder Alex Nordholm, CEO of DealWIP, a legal tech startup whose product is a SaaS due diligence project management and workflow tool for corporate attorneys, investment bankers, accountants, and other transaction advisors. In this episode I speak with Alex about how he and his team fully integrate engineering into the product development cycle, bringing in engineers early, sharing the "Why" behind feature requests, and not surprisingly getting much better product market fit as a result. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Google Staff Developer Advocate Kelsey Hightower is tech community famous for his down-to-earth and refreshingly funny keynotes. In this episode we talk about putting people first and tools second on the path to engaging and authentic engineering practice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sina Golshany is the Director of Technology at Fabricated Extrusion Company. He previously spent 8 years at Boeing in various aerospace engineering roles.Sina established and manages the computational engineering function responsible for supporting the custom extrusion business and product design needs of customers in various industries including, heavy machinery, aerospace, automotive, medical devices and more.Over the course of his career, he's developed a unique framework for innovation. In this episode I invited him to share the four pillars of his system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.