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Geeks Who Lead Podcast — Software How-To
Geeks Who Lead Podcast

Hear the inside stories of the “geeks who lead at scale” – Directors, VPs and CTOs running software engineering orgs at larger companies with 100+ engineers, and interviews with domain experts who can help those leaders to manage their engineering orgs more effectively.

I’m your host – Peter Bell, I’ve been helping senior engineering leaders to connect with and learn from their peers since 2010!

This podcast is designed for engineering leaders who want to learn the latest good practices from their peers who are way too busy operating to write an article or publish a book!

Running a software engineering org at scale is hard! You need to manage stakeholder expectations, attract and retain top talent, align and structure your org effectively and keep up with the latest processes and tooling. And that’s before we even try to make sense of the potential impact of LLMs and GenAI on managing technical teams.

Our podcast and weekly newsletter provide you with access to hard-won wisdom from top engineering leaders and relevant domain experts. Learn more at https://geekswholead.com/

Copyright: © 2020 CTO Connection, LLC

Latest Episodes:

10 Mantras for Productive Meetings with Douglas Ferguson Apr 23, 2020

Show notes

Now that everyone is working remotely, people are starting to realize how much they took meetings for granted. Our guest this week on CTO Connection is Douglas Ferguson, President of Voltage Control. Voltage Control’s mission is to rid the world of horrible meetings. So how do you transform ineffectual meetings to something of greater value?

Douglas talked to Peter about his 10 mantras for meetings that work. Some include ideas like ‘no purpose, no meeting’ and ‘embrace the child’s mind’. Tune in to learn how to make meetings work for your team.

[01:34] - Ridding the world of horrible meetings
[04:29] - Durable decisions
[08:59] - The 10 meeting mantras
- [09:09] - No purpose, no meeting
- [10:18] - Disagree and commit
- [17:58] - Bring your best self
- [23:08] - Do the work in the meeting
- [26:59] - Foster emotional safety
- [28:09] - Capture room intelligence
- [30:32] - Embrace the child's mind
- [35:45] - Respect everyone's time
- [36:46] - Decide what not to do
- [38:08] - Debrief for durability
[39:42] - Meeting about meetings

Special thanks to our global partner – Amazon Web Services(AWS). AWS offers a broad set of global cloud-based products to equip technology leaders to build better and more powerful solutions, reach out to aws-cto-program@amazon.com if you’re interested to learn more about their offerings.

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating, or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Moving to a Cloud Native Architecture with Tolga Tarhan Apr 16, 2020

Show notes

Tolga Tarhan got his start single-handedly running all the technology in his high school. Fast forward to today in which his experience during the dot com bust and incremental steps at various development firms have led him to the belief that the cloud is the ultimate goal of any organization.

On today’s episode of CTO Connection, Tolga shares wisdom and advice on how to find the right mechanisms for your business so you can gradually shift to a cloud native architecture. For Tolga, the key is not “lift and shift,” but making a gradual shift that will enable your company to innovate quickly.

[01:26] - How Tolga became a technologist and engineering leader
[04:01] - Specializing in AWS at Rackspace
[05:55] - Getting started adopting the cloud
[09:39] - Dealing with problems of scale
[11:11] - Bringing professional software development to the serverless world
[13:28] - Experimenting with Serverless Framework
[20:45] - What are microservices?
[22:41] - When to consider more than one service
[26:58] - Talking to clients about resilience
[28:34] - Observability requirements
[29:40] - Becoming cloud native

Special thanks to our global partner – Amazon Web Services(AWS). AWS offers a broad set of global cloud-based products to equip technology leaders to build better and more powerful solutions, reach out to aws-cto-program@amazon.com if you’re interested to learn more about their offerings.

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Chaos Engineering with Kolton Andrus Apr 09, 2020

Show notes

There are few jobs where you’re encouraged to break things, but Kolton Andrus has made a career out of “failure as a service.” Kolton is the CEO and Co-founder of Gremlin, a platform that seeks to help companies avoid outages and build more resilient systems.

On today’s episode of CTO Connection, Kolton explains the concept of chaos engineering and why it’s so important, particularly to large scale operations. Take a listen and get ideas on how you can prevent outages.

[01:26] - Kolton's backstory
[03:21] - Managing a team at Amazon
[05:10] - Moving to a technical role at Netflix
[07:51] - Founding Gremlin
[10:36] - Formative experiences with chaos engineering
[15:39] - Graceful degradation
[19:33] - Next-level testing
[22:26] - Challenges with microservices
[26:05] - Efficiency & resilience
[31:18] - Preventing outages

Special thanks to our global partner – Amazon Web Services(AWS). AWS offers a broad set of global cloud-based products to equip technology leaders to build better and more powerful solutions, reach out to aws-cto-program@amazon.com if you’re interested to learn more about their offerings.

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

How to Interview Candidates Remotely with Shannon Hogue Apr 02, 2020

Show notes

Over the last few weeks, many companies have switched to remote work. But for companies that are hiring and candidates that are looking for new opportunities, what are the best practices for remote interviews? Joining Peter today on CTO Connection is Shannon Hogue, Global Head of Solutions Engineering at Karat.

Karat has perfected the art of Interview Engineering and Shannon has some helpful advice on the three aspects that comprise a successful remote interview: defined competencies, reviews of interviewers, and consistently measuring performance. Whether you’re a hiring company or a candidate, this episode will get you prepped for your next remote interview.

[01:27] - How to interview effectively without the office
[03:03] - Defining competencies
[06:55] - Measuring performance consistently
[08:53] - Coding challenges
[10:43] - Unbalanced questions
[12:25] - Reviewing and training interviewers
[16:30] - Consistently measuring performance
[18:15] - Replacing the whiteboard
[19:08] - Video conferencing
[20:47] - Systems for cheating detection
[22:18] - Traits of good interview engineers
[24:05] - Testing for interpersonal skills
[25:02] - Best practices for remote job candidates

If you’re looking for more remote interviewing resources, be sure to check out this guide from Karat -- Going virtual: How to interview and hire in a remote world or visit their website www.karat.com.

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Building and Managing Fully Remote Teams with David Blair Mar 26, 2020

Show notes

Before Covid-19, many companies had work from home policies in place, but the vast majority still expected employees to mostly work in an office. Now that everyone is being forced to work from home, many companies and managers are scrambling to figure out how to make it work.

David Blair, CTO of Andela, has years of experience managing distributed teams. Today he offers his best tips and advice on best practices for fully remote teams and also shares ideas to help keep boost employee morale.

[00:20] - How David became a product guy
[03:47] - Finding talent in new places
[09:38] - The relationship between product and technology at Andela
[11:49] - Building trust with non-technical stakeholders
[16:14] - How, when, and in what form to communicate
[22:10] - Keeping social bonds in remote-first teams
[24:55] - Adjusting to working at home
[26:42] - Sustaining a remote team

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Making Better Decisions with Denise Iglesias Mar 19, 2020

Show notes

When you join a team in a management role, you may find yourself grappling with bad decisions made by your predecessors. Today on CTO Connection, Denise Iglesias, Senior Director Software Engineering at Comcast, spoke to Peter about how she has dealt with poor decisions and her recommendations for transitioning records.

Denise discusses why she strives to create a one-page template that explains the history of a team’s decision making. She also shares her experience restructuring the Austin office of Comcast to fit within the larger organization in a way that made sense for her team.

[00:22] - How Denise found her love for programming
[02:02] - Engineering leadership at National Instruments
[04:25] - Making an impact at Icontrol Networks
[07:14] - Acquisition by Comcast
[08:55] - Xfinity Home automation lift and shift
[12:17] - Why good people make bad decisions
[14:15] - Operating from insufficient data
[15:18] - Platform consolidation
[21:14] - Formally recording decisions
[26:03] - The art of zeroing in on relevant data
[28:45] - Be open-minded

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Creating a Successful Labs Program with RC Johnson Mar 12, 2020

Show notes

Incubator or labs programs tend to come with various issues. How do you navigate failure? How do you source engineers? RC Johnson has helped create an innovative incubator program at Indeed. This week on CTO Connection, RC is discussing the challenges and lessons he’s learned in creating a successful labs program.

RC talks about why he decided to model the program on the venture capital world and how a cross-functional team has fostered innovation. Listen in for RC’s tips on how to best run an incubator.

[00:20] - Learning to program on the TRS-80
[01:38] - Army wargames
[02:53] - RC's entry into professional software development
[05:53] - Transitioning to management at Bazaarvoice
[08:51] - Starting from scratch in New York
[10:38] - Managing managers at WP Engine and Lawnstarter
[12:23] - Making an impact with the labs team at Indeed
[14:20] - Measured bets in the incubator program
[17:09] - Tackling deep tech problems
[23:37] - Legal support at enterprise scale
[28:22] - Testing engineers for flexibility and resilience
[32:21] - Decoupling failure from failure

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Giving Effective Feedback with Chelsea Troy Mar 05, 2020

Show notes

Feedback is an integral part of work performance across all industries. Effective feedback can help an employee improve at a job or skill. But at the end of the day, feedback is universally dicey. Emotions can run high and people can take feedback too hard. Chelsea Troy, an engineering consultant at RigorWorks, has given talks on her guidelines for effective feedback. Today, she joins Peter to offer a rundown of her process.

Chelsea explains how feedback can go awry, what the best methods are for giving feedback, and offers tips on how to handle negative feedback directed at you. This episode has practical advice no matter your industry.

[00:26] - What does Chelsea do as an engineering consultant?
[02:30] - Foundation practices when going into a new org
[05:07] - Facilitating getting help
[07:01] - Where documentation should live
[13:07] - Giving and receiving feedback
[18:28] - Why bother with feedback?
[19:34] - Mitigating the risk
[23:46] - Soliciting feedback
[32:22] - When feedback feels bad

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

How to Build an Inclusive Culture with James Turnbull Feb 27, 2020

Show notes

Many companies see the benefits of diversity and inclusion but don’t know that their own policies and culture are often the reason that women and people of color don’t come on board. James Turnbull, VP of Engineering at Glitch, is passionate about this issue and offers advice on how he advises companies to bring on more diverse talent.

James also talks to Peter about how he approaches growing individual contributors to team lead positions and why he would never stay at the same company for ten years.

[00:20] - Moving up the hierarchy in early-stage startups
[02:41] - Leading cross-functional teams at Puppet Labs
[04:47] - Growing the engineering team at Kickstarter
[11:50] - Getting people to think about their work differently
[13:30] - Stepping out of the comfort zone
[15:27] - Attracting the best engineers
[18:46] - Building a pipeline of diverse talent with an inclusive culture
[22:43] - Communicating with teams as they start to scale
[25:17] - Developer advocacy, education, and hiring
[29:19] - Do more listening than talking

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Creating Inclusive Workplaces with Joann Anderson Feb 20, 2020

Show notes

Joann Anderson, VP of Engineering at Scoop Technologies, had a unique childhood in that her mother was a programmer so it never seemed abnormal to Joann that she was a woman in a male-dominated industry. Because many women, particularly mothers, haven’t had that experience, Joann has made it a mission to be a model for others.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Joann spoke to Peter about her creative approach to finding the best people for her QA teams, why inclusivity is so integral to workplace culture, and her advice for finding a mentor that you click with. Check out the episode for Joann’s tips for a welcoming, collaborative work environment.

[00:24] - Where Joann started in computer science
[01:24] - Crossing over from QA to engineering management
[03:11] - Optimizing hiring to identify good QA traits
[05:39] - Transitioning to Director of Application Engineering at Slack
[06:43] - Modernizing carpools at Scoop Technologies
[08:26] - Tactics for ensuring inclusivity throughout an organization
[17:23] - Mentorship fundamentals
[26:14] - Don't be afraid to ask questions

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to CTO Connection in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

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