The Pod Presents: Primarily Context-Based

Latest Episodes:

Ep 28 - How engineering leaders navigate trade-offs feat. Lee Provoost (CTO at Flagstone) Jan 14, 2026

Show notes

The first episode in a new spin-off series: The Pod Presents...The Gory Details.

Hywel Carver is joined by CTO of Flagstone, Lee Provoost to discuss 'The Tensions We Lead Through: How engineering leaders navigate trade-offs'.

Ep 27 - Should You Hire The Best Person For The Job? feat. Zoe Cunningham (Director at Softwire) Aug 21, 2023

Show notes

Zoe Cunningham is one of the first members of the Softwire team, joining as a developer and working her way up to Managing Director level. She was Hywel's first manager (!) and has lots of opinions on tech hiring! Zoe also has a career as an actor, has published three books, recently won an award for her portfolio career.
In this episode, Hywel and Zoe discuss what 'best' and 'for the job' really mean in the tech landscape, how they're often interpreted alongside the benefits and pitfalls of different hiring practices.

Ep - 26 - Should I be using the SPACE framework? feat. Abi Noda (CEO and Co-Founder at DX) Jun 20, 2023

Show notes

Hywel is joined by Abi Noda - a programmer, researcher, and entrepreneur focused on helping leaders measure and improve developer productivity. Abi is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of DX, a platform that helps organisations improve the productivity of their developers.

In addition to DX, Abi runs the Engineering Enablement newsletter and podcast which cover the latest research and perspectives on developer productivity. Prior to DX, Abi held CTO roles at several companies and was the founder and CEO of Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub in 2019.

In this episode, Abi talks about the shortcomings of DORA and SPACE. Abi has worked very closely with two lead authors of those frameworks - Dr Nicole Forsegren and Dr Margaret Ann-Storey - and recently published a new research paper alongside those authors, which focuses on the developer experience. Access the paper here.

Ep - 25 - Does every company / your startup need a career ladder for engineers? feat. Marco Risi (Head of Engineering at Skiller Whale) Apr 12, 2023

Show notes

We’re delighted to have our very own Head of Engineering Marco Risi on this week’s episode of The Pod. Marco is the ex-CTO of Everli, the European marketplace for online grocery shopping that started in Italy. He built the engineering ladder at Everli and scaled the team from 1 - 70, after joining as the first full stack developer.

Career ladders allow leaders to communicate across a business what a role looks like, and what good looks like in that role. Marco and Hywel consider when you might need to implement an engineering career ladder, technical vs management paths, abilities and responsibilities and how to quantify technical and non-technical skills.

Ep - 24 - How do I prepare my tech org for IPO? feat. Jonathan Lister Parsons (CTO at PensionBee) Mar 16, 2023

Show notes

Jonathan Lister Parsons co-founded PensionBee with Romi Savova in 2014 and has since held the role of CTO. He champions a tech-forward culture within the business, aiming to raise the level of technology literacy among employees. Prior to co-founding PensionBee, Jonathan founded a digital consultancy, Penrose, and worked at British Telecom. Jonathan also holds an MSci in Experimental and Theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge.

This week we’re releasing an episode that was recorded with Jonathan last year, just after Pension Bee IPO’d. Tune in to hear how you aim for and think about IPO, and how you can structure your organisation to be ready for it. Hywel and Jonathan cover early decision points, building up credibility and consumer trust, investing time in growing a strong board and technology due diligence.

Ep - 23 - What’s the difference between strategy and tactics? feat. Lena Reinhard (Leadership and Executive Coach) Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

Hywel is joined by leadership and executive coach, Lena Reinhard. Lena has dedicated her career to building successful, high-performing, globally distributed engineering organisations, and helping teams thrive in times of high change. She now offers transformational leadership coaching and consulting for leaders. Previously, Lena has served as VP Engineering with CircleCI and Travis CI, been a CEO and co-founded a startup, and through her cross-functional background and experience, she brings a unique perspective on systems of technology, business, and people.

In this episode Hywel and Lena take a deep dive into the distinctions between strategy and tactics and encourage leaders to define the peak they’re aiming for. We cover dopamine triggering activities and when to complete them, the mental capacity for + essentiality of strategic work and as ever, context.

Find Lena’s writing on leadership and more about her work at lenareinhard.com. And follow these links directly to see the articles discussed on today’s show:

https://www.lenareinhard.com/articles/what-is-strategic-leadership-and-why-does-it-matter

https://www.lenareinhard.com/articles/how-to-lead-strategically-every-day

Ep - 22 - How to spend your time as a leader feat. Mathias Meyer (Executive CTO Coach and Founding Partner at The Intentional Organisation) Feb 02, 2023

Show notes

This week our host Hywel Carver is joined by Mathias Meyer, an executive coach for CTOs and VP Engs and a founding partner at The Intentional Organization, he is also the co-author of a forthcoming book of the same title.

Mathias supports engineering executives and founders in their personal and professional growth as they scale their business and teams. While starting his career as an engineer, he founded Travis CI, which empowers people to build and ship great software. Mathias then found his calling in management, leadership, as a CEO and CTO, and now as a coach.

In this episode, Hywel and Mathias cover the issue of time management as a leader, how to make work in progress visible, and the pain of inefficient meetings.

Ep - 21 - How do you approach restructuring? feat. Josh Goldberg (Author and Open Source Developer) Jan 13, 2023

Show notes

Hywel is joined by Josh Goldberg who is the author of Learning TypeScript, and a full-time open-source maintainer of projects in the Typescript ecosystem.
Throughout this discussion, which delves into a perpetual question faced by tech leaders, Hywel and Josh discuss the difference between a re-factor and a restructure, while considering the pains and gains of each.

What are your alternatives to restructuring and how do you avoid stopping the world? Find out now.
If you're interested in finding out more about and supporting Josh's work, see the links below:

learningtypescript.com: to learn more about Learning TypeScript
typescript-eslint.io: homepage for typescript-eslint, the tooling that enables running ESLint and Prettier on TypeScript code and provides many static analysis rules to improve TypeScript codebases.
joshuakgoldberg.com: Josh's personal homepage, with links to his blog, social media sites, and conference talk resources.
github.com/sponsors/JoshuaKGoldberg: how to sponsor Josh to work on open source projects improving the TypeScript experience for everyone.

Ep - 20 - What’s wrong with the software engineering industry? feat. Nick Rogers (VP of Engineering at Wagestream) Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

This week Hywel is joined by the brilliant Nick Rogers, VP of Engineering at Wagestream, for a fast-paced debate-style episode! Hywel plays devils advocate and challenges Nick on his ideas about what’s wrong with the software engineering industry, in order for the two leaders to really tease out the answers to common and pertinent industry questions. Nick and Hywel talk software engineering as a team sport, the rarity of startups turning a profit, having a healthy skepticism towards hype and a lot more.

Ep - 19 - How can, and how should, technology influence business decisions? feat. Sally Lait (VP of Engineering at Farewill) Dec 06, 2022

Show notes

Our guest this week is Sally Lait, a highly experienced tech leader who is currently working as the VP of Engineering at Farewill. Sally has previously led engineering teams and served as the web disciple lead at Monzo, been the Head of Technology at a global digital agency and has founded her own digital transformation consultancy.

In this episode, Hywel and Sally take a Skiller Whale-approved ‘deep dive’ into one of the most critical questions facing tech leaders today.

Tune in to find out what you can do to integrate your team, hear about the risk management considerations you might need to consider and listen to some great stories from Sally on her work with the F1 Manor Racing team.

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