peter bell

We’re going to take a breath on the CTO Connection podcast for the next 3-4 weeks. When we first started the podcast, it was a “startup CTO podcast”. We’ve really enjoyed sharing the wisdom and experience of our guests on building and managing engineering teams at startups. However, we’ve seen over time that the challenges of running (say) a 5-20 person engineering team are very different from those involved when running a 200+ person org. And as many of our original startup CTOs have scaled their orgs to 200 people and beyond, we’ve decided to follow them.
Because of that, we’re going to refocus the podcast, the content, the summits, and the community on “geeks who lead at scale” - senior engineering leaders in larger companies with 200+ full-time employees in product/engineering. In that way, we’ll be able to provide information that is more consistently tuned to one of the most challenging tasks out there - leading engineering orgs at scale.
At the same time as we make the community more exclusive, we’re also going to make it more inclusive. Whether you’re running data, security, IT, or software development, there are many similarities when you’re working within a company of around 500 - 10,000 employees. I’ve been involved with a number of “CTO” clubs across the US and in each case, I’ve seen the benefits of having a range of roles (from CIO and CISO to CDO and CTO - as well as directors and VPs of Software, Platform, Data/Analytics, and Security), as many of the challenges are the same, and it means the community has deeper expertise in a number of key topics if a CDO wants to learn more about engineering best practices for their data team or a CTO needs a hot take on an AppSec challenge they’re facing.
I am disappointed that - given our limited resources - we won’t be able to continue the focus on content specifically tailored to startup CTOs, but I look forward to refining our focus so we can scale our ability to share experiences and insights from and between geeks who lead at scale.

We’re obviously just not doing it for Griff as he wants to spice things up and play with others. Boatloads going on in the harbour so it is time to Restump Podcast all the news in purple shoes. 

Apparently, if you listen to the revenue generating click bait media, every Freo player and his dog, or in Rory’s and Acres’ case their emotional support animals, wants out. It’s an ‘exodus’ they tell us!  

Griffin Logue, Rory Lobb, Blake Acres, Darcy Tucker and Liam Henry are all, let’s say, restless.

Which of those players in their positions would we not be looking to improve on anyway? They are not vehicles to the promised land and given a few of them having had career best years, they probably couldn’t take us any further than we ventured this year. We dig a little deeper and dissect each player’s reasoning and their trade prospects.

Speaking of vehicles, arguably the greater loss may be that of Josh Carr. He ping ponged between Port Adelaide and Fremantle his entire playing days and now looks set to continue throughout his coaching career. He may be in teal a while though as he does look their future head coach when the Ken Hinkley bell rings.

Deliberately speaking of segway Bells, another of the non-playing brigade appears likely to set sail from the port in the form of General Manager of Football Operations, Peter Bell. Like Josh Carr, is Belly ping ponging yet again back to his former club to take on the CEO role? If so which cap will he wearing in the Griffin Logue tussle? 

Sadly, he couldn’t take home Charlie but it was a big result for Andy Brayshaw last night. 20 votes prior to the bye but then just 5 on the run home. Opposing teams rightfully had to up their defensive work into the future captain.

Will Brodie took home an appropriate workmanlike 11 votes to finish second for Freo while the umps got a bit bedazzled with a few goals of Rory’s and gifted him 7 to round out the top three.

What has happened to former Freo great Paul HaSENby? Another seemingly outlandish suggestion from him that Josh Schache could suit us in a trade with the Bulldogs for Rory Lobb! Is Hase on a clicks and listens performance based contract? Does he have quotas to fill?

Believe it or not the usual fence sitting and controversy avoiding Jojo takes a shot the AFL and its hypocrisy over the gambling influence and saturation of last night’s Brownlow count. However, I’m not sure Jojo didn’t take the $6 about Andy and is just dark he didn’t get up.

There’s no shortage of Docker dot points to discuss so let’s put on the purple peepers, peruse what’s prominent at the port and fill up on our fair share of Freo fanfare.  

Don’t worry… Nathan, Nat & Shaun aren’t in trouble with the police, but Blue Heelers (what a classic show!) actor William McInnes did call through for a chat. He’s been busy this year writing a book!

With just over a month to go before Christmas Day, the Chrissy Crazies are out in full force to paint the town with festive cheer! We hear from some of the most hardcore Christmas fans going around!

Shaun’s good mate (and GM of footy at the Freo Dockers) Peter Bell called through to talk the guys through a tough trade period, and also recalls the time Shaun completely stitched him up while they were doing their own version of SAS Australia selection training.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

According to Raghavendra Prabhu, CTO of Thumbtack, making the transition from programmer to manager isn’t too much of a stretch since you already understand the issues and stakes of your project. When you take it a step further and begin managing other managers, you’re getting further from the work and making a more indirect impact.

On today’s episode of CTO Connection, Raghavendra discusses what it’s like making the transition to higher levels of leadership and how to balance his desire for control with the need for delegation. Tune in for insights on how to successfully climb the leadership ladder.

• [00:20] - How Raghavendra started his career at Microsoft
• [02:09] - Why search is compelling
• [03:23] - The culture shift moving to Google
• [05:29] - Moving from Google to Twitter
• [08:40] - Scaling teams at Pinterest
• [13:22] - Hiring managers as engineers
• [16:56] - Transitioning from manager to director
• [20:52] - Implementing the mentorship program
• [23:28] - Anticipating and planning
• [26:17] - Fixing the hiring process
• [29:06] - What kind of CTO is Raghavendra?

Raghavendra Prabhu (RVP) is the CTO of Thumbtack and was previously the head of infrastructure at Pinterest and a senior software engineer at Twitter, Google, and Microsoft. Thumbtack is an online services marketplace enabling hundreds of thousands of local professionals from plumbers to DJs to build sustainable businesses by connecting them to millions of customers nationwide.

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.

Ryan Graciano got his start working for a small company that was acquired by IBM. Having been on the employee side of a large merger, Ryan has been able to take what he learned to his role as CTO at Credit Karma. On today’s episode of CTO Connection, Ryan talks to Peter about his distaste for terms like microservices and technical debt as well as how to craft an environment that values both craft and customer.

Listen in as Ryan discusses managing large teams of engineers while stressing a culture of agility and experimentation.

• [00:21] - How Ryan started his career in software development
• [01:40] - Transitioning to Credit Karma
• [02:50] - Building an engineering team
• [05:26] - Staying connected to the code
• [06:36] - Recruiting talent
• [11:13] - Moving from IC to manager
• [15:19] - Drawing the line at microservices
• [17:32] - Technical debt
• [22:31] - Communicating with business stakeholders
• [24:19] - Company, customer, craft
• [27:18] - What to look for in a great engineer
• [29:37] - What to look for in upper management

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.

Tech organizations with more than 100 employees have a unique set of challenges. When you’re in the business of innovation, it can be hard to say no to exciting new opportunities. In this week’s episode of CTO Connection, David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple stopped by to discuss why companies need to stick to their core competencies.

Tune in as Peter and David talk about the challenges of blockchain, managing the expectations of so many different stakeholders, and why hiring people who are strong in areas where the company has been weak has paid off for Ripple. Listen in!

• [00:20] - How David became a CTO
• [02:14] - Changing international payments
• [02:47] - Banking integration
• [03:57] - Scaling the organization
• [05:54] - Roles and responsibilities at Ripple
• [11:46] - Integration engineering vs. product
• [17:20] - Hiring for the integration engineering world
• [18:34] - Surprises and challenges in a CTO role
• [21:02] - Balancing management
• [24:04] - Attracting and retaining talent

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.

Whether it’s private communications or a product that handles sensitive information, every company needs to foster a culture of security. Our guest this week, Nick Streaker, is the CTO of ID Agent, a Kaseya company, and was an intelligence officer in the military. Nick talks to Peter about how to make security a part of your company’s overall strategic plan from hiring to product launch.

Tune in to learn why it’s hard to find cybersecurity professionals, what Nick considers the bare minimum security features, and why he turns to bootcamps to find new hires. 

• [00:46] - Nick's path to becoming a CTO
• [03:39] - Recruiting for cyber skills
• [08:31] - Insight from outside the models
• [10:46] - Diversity of opinion
• [11:54] - Creating an innovative culture
• [13:58] - Empowering end-users with ID Agent
• [14:38] - When to build a culture of security
• [20:14] - Baseline security requirements
• [22:25] - Two-factor authentication
• [26:03] - Cybersecurity trends
• [32:01] - Filling the security role
• [36:00] - Relating the need for security

This episode is sponsored by Clubhouse.io. Clubhouse lets you manage software projects with the perfect balance of simplicity and structure, so you and your team can be happier, less stressed, and hyper-focused on building products that customers love. It’s free for up to 10 users, plus you can get two free months on any paid plan at https://clubhouse.io/CTO.

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.

Mike Reust never pictured himself in management. But after several years at Betterment, the opportunity presented itself. Mike joins us this week on CTO Connection to discuss what it’s like to transition from engineering to a management role.

Listen in as Mike and Peter talk about the growing pains of transitioning roles as well as advice for those thinking of going into management. 

 

• [00:54] - Making moves at Betterment
• [02:15] - Inflection point in accountability
• [04:11] - The next dramatic change
• [06:02] - Emotional weight
• [08:26] - Boss duality
• [08:57] - Change in responsibility
• [10:11] - Betterment Everyday
• [11:35] - Taking on a dual role
• [14:14] - Pushback
• [17:16] - Opportunity for impact
• [19:16] - Surprises about management
• [22:56] - Stepping back
• [25:13] - CTO vs. General Manager
• [27:03] - A greater level of empathy
  
   

This episode is sponsored by Clubhouse.io. Clubhouse lets you manage software projects with the perfect balance of simplicity and structure, so you and your team can be happier, less stressed, and hyper-focused on building products that customers love. It’s free for up to 10 users, plus you can get two free months on any paid plan at https://clubhouse.io/CTO.

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.

The customer service reps at Holiday Extras spend their days talking to customers on the phone. Andy Britcliffe, CTO of Holiday Extras, had a wild thought: what if we had an engineering apprenticeship program that enabled these reps to learn the other side of the business?

On this week’s episode of CTO Connection, Andy talks to Peter about the success of the internship and apprenticeship programs at Holiday Extras. He discusses why education programs for employees lead to better retention and higher engagement. Listen in for Andy’s tips on how to start a program like this at your company.

• [00:46] - Holiday Extras
• [01:44] - Learning to be a tech leader
• [03:38] - Apprenticeship scheme
• [08:24] - Preparation and infrastructure
• [09:24] - Sandwich year
• [10:48] - Matrix management structure
• [11:57] - Dev coaches
• [15:28] - Foundations teams
• [19:53] - Team rotation
• [22:19] - Pod composition
• [23:17] - Optional participation
• [25:08] - Distributed nearshoring teams

This episode is sponsored by Clubhouse.io. Clubhouse lets you manage software projects with the perfect balance of simplicity and structure, so you and your team can be happier, less stressed, and hyper-focused on building products that customers love. It’s free for up to 10 users, plus you can get two free months on any paid plan at https://clubhouse.io/CTO.

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.

When James Kenigsberg immigrated to America, he quickly found that technology could make learning easier and more fun. This desire to create educational tools led him to help found 2U, a company that partners with universities to deliver online learning programs that are university quality.

James sat down with Peter ahead of his talk at the New York CTO Summit to discuss the future of education technology, why he loves software that helps with focus, and explains why future maintenance needs should be on your mind when you’re working on transformative projects. Tune in!

• [01:23] - Falling in love with education technology
• [04:35] - From coding to management
• [05:44] - Promotion at The Princeton Review
• [07:53] - Start, stop, continue
• [09:54] - Founding 2U
• [18:14] - Run, grow, and transform
• [24:03] - Measuring tasks differently
• [25:40] - Managing transformative projects

James Kenigsberg is the founding chief technology officer (CTO) at 2U, Inc., a global leader in education technology that partners with great universities to build, deliver, and support world-class online graduate programs and certificates at scale. As founding CTO, Kenigsberg directs 2U’s technology functions and efforts to build an academic product that delivers positive student outcomes, an efficient client relationship management system, and a secure, resilient, and configurable architecture.

This episode is sponsored by Clubhouse.io. Clubhouse lets you manage software projects with the perfect balance of simplicity and structure, so you and your team can be happier, less stressed, and hyper-focused on building products that customers love. It’s free for up to 10 users, plus you can get two free months on any paid plan at https://clubhouse.io/CTO.

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.

Technical due diligence is the process of studying a technology product and evaluating its value and feasibility. You’d think that such an important process would be part of the business plan from the outset, but most companies only undergo the process when they begin VC fundraising. Jason Mongue, founder of The Clover Group, is here to talk about the process and why it should start early. 

• [00:11] - Velocity by Code Climate
• [01:03] - Technical due diligence
• [02:31] - Starting the process
• [05:08] - Dress rehearsal
• [09:18] - Ask questions
• [11:18] - Security awareness
• [15:02] - Disaster recovery plan
• [17:32] - How to think about scaling
• [20:31] - Health check for technology organizations
• [22:07] - Velocity by Code Climate

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.

As products and companies develop more name-brand recognition, expansion is inevitable. Prashant Pandey has experience working at companies large and small and in his current role as Head of Engineering at Asana, he knows what it’s like to navigate the growing pains of managing expanded teams.

On today’s episode, Prashant talks to Peter about what to take into consideration when judging a team member’s contribution, why failure is the single best learning tool, and how to manage expanding teams across time zones. Tune in for Prashant’s thoughts.
 

• [00:11] - Velocity by Code Climate
• [00:49] - Internship at Loudcloud
• [03:25] - Research at IBM
• [05:11] - Managing teams at Vdopia
• [06:53] - Learning through failure
• [09:27] - Getting up to speed with Amazon's best practices
• [10:54] - Viewing metrics
• [13:47] - Measuring impact
• [16:21] - Joining Asana
• [19:51] - Bifurcation challenges
• [24:28] - Remote vs distributed teams
• [26:28] - Collaboration tools
• [28:13] - Managing a successful rewrite
• [36:32] - Velocity by Code Climate
  
   

Velocity by Code Climate is an engineering analytics tool that takes commit and Git insights and turns it into actionable metrics and dashboards for engineering leaders. Use concrete data to help you answer questions like:
- How fast are we moving?- Did a recent change in our process have a positive or negative impact on efficiency?- Who are my top-performing teams and why?
Sign up at https://codeclimate.com/ctoconnection/ and mention CTO connection to get a free month of the product.
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 Conneciton 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.

On CTO Connection, we mostly focus on the engineering side of tech, but today, we’re taking a break to look at product. Our guest Adam Nash, Vice President of Product and Growth at Dropbox, discusses the importance of defining the role of product in a tech company and why he believes delighting customers is just as crucial as making decisions based on metrics.
Tune in to learn why Adam believes so strongly in the concept of delight and how he balances metrics with listening to customer requests when crafting product strategy.

• [01:06] - Transitioning to product management
• [04:20] - Strategy, prioritization, & execution
• [06:50] - Articulating strategy
• [09:53] - Driving product teams
• [13:51] - Making prioritization easier
• [17:18] - The three bucket system
• [17:44] - Metrics movers
• [18:37] - Customer requests
• [22:25] - Delight features
• [27:37] - Making delight part of team practice

This episode of the CTO Connection Podcast was sponsored by Velocity by Code Climate. Velocity by Code Climate is an engineering analytics tool that takes commit and Git insights and turns it into actionable metrics and dashboards for engineering leaders. In a few weeks, they're releasing Velocity 3.0 with Jira, which will combine Git and PR data with Issue data for the first time to give engineering executives a complete understanding of how their team works. You can now see the status of every initiative, without manual reporting, and know exactly which engineering projects get off track and why. You can request early access by going to https://codeclimate.com/ctoconnection/.

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.
 

According to Hector Aguilar, President of Technology at Okta, if you get too far away from technology, you can’t be an effective leader of technology. But when your day-to-day job is focused more on managing individuals, it can be hard to find the time to code.

On today’s episode, Hector and Peter discuss how making coding mandatory for all managers can help instill company values and culture. Hector also shares how he prioritizes personal projects and learning to ensure he stays on top of the technology at work.

• [00:53] - Hector's origin story
• [02:42] - Stay close to the technology
• [04:02] - The challenge of keeping up
• [06:52] - Prioritizing what to learn and how
• [09:09] - The importance of credibility
• [09:49] - Interview code testing
• [16:38] - Measuring managers
• [19:23] - Clear expectations
• [21:41] - What does Okta do?
• [23:27] - Scaling an organization
• [25:52] - Keeping the quality bar high
• [27:49] - Culture of commitment
• [29:46] - Automate yourself and become a power mobile user

This episode of the CTO Connection Podcast was sponsored by Velocity by Code Climate. Velocity by Code Climate is an engineering analytics tool that takes commit and Git insights and turns it into actionable metrics and dashboards for engineering leaders. In a few weeks, they're releasing Velocity 3.0 with Jira, which will combine Git and PR data with Issue data for the first time to give engineering executives a complete understanding of how their team works. You can now see the status of every initiative, without manual reporting, and know exactly which engineering projects get off track and why. You can request early access by going to https://codeclimate.com/ctoconnection/

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.

When Adam Miller joined the Roblox team as the Vice President of Engineering, he assumed everything would just get saved to the cloud. Instead, he found that the Roblox platform’s unique infrastructure needs would necessitate more in-house development and management in order to effectively scale.

In today’s episode, Peter and Adam discuss the challenges of managing hundreds of employees drawing from the same code, scaling infrastructure, and the limitations of cloud storage for the platform model.

• [00:53] - Adam Miller, Vice President of Engineering, Technology at Roblox
• [01:03] - Making an impact in engineering through leadership
• [02:31] - The path to product/market fit
• [04:45] - Enabling a new type of human co-experience with Roblox
• [06:21] - Architecture of the metaverse
• [10:13] - Building a scaling infrastructure
• [14:08] - Exposing persistent data
• [17:20] - Assumptions about the cloud
• [19:08] - Switching to microservices
• [23:46] - Flexibility with smaller teams

This episode of the CTO Connection Podcast was sponsored by Velocity by Code Climate. Velocity by Code Climate is an engineering analytics tool that takes commit and Git insights and turns it into actionable metrics and dashboards for engineering leaders. In a few weeks, they're releasing Velocity 3.0 with Jira, which will combine Git and PR data with Issue data for the first time to give engineering executives a complete understanding of how their team works. You can now see the status of every initiative, without manual reporting, and know exactly which engineering projects get off track and why. You can request early access by going to https://codeclimate.com/ctoconnection/

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.

Scott Parker has seen a lot over his 15 year career having transitioned from engineer to manager to executive. In this episode of the CTO Connection podcast, Peter and Scott discuss Scott’s approach to people management, differences in building teams at small companies vs. large companies as well as how to demonstrate the value of personal growth to engineers.

Note: Since the recording of this interview, Scott has moved from VP Engineering at Signal to Director of Engineering at Root Insurance.

• [00:24] - Using the perspective of investment portfolio management as a lens to view managing people within an organization at scale
• [02:09] - Extending the analogy: managing the portfolio of people on your team
• [04:08] - Understanding what each person wants out of their career in order to create balanced teams
• [07:00] - The winding path from engineering to leadership
• [09:19] - Scott’s experience moving into managing "teams of teams"
• [11:15] - The need for an engineering-specific focus within manager training
• [13:02] - Diving deeper into the new manager onboarding structure
• [14:06] - Scott’s focus as the VP of Engineering at Signal
• [15:04] - Creating an environment where engineers are excited about personal growth opportunities

You can find Scott on Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging about culture, on-boarding and management over at his own blog.

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.

This week Peter invites long-time technology leader and CTO Summit speaker Stacy Gorelik to the podcast. Stacy is currently the Director of Engineering at Flatiron Health, a health-tech company committed to fighting cancer.

Peter and Stacy discuss her career from individual contributor to engineering management to director, what she looks for when hiring and her recent experiences speaking at the CTO Summit in New York.

• [00:21] - Stacy’s background
• [01:12] - Transitioning from individual contributor to management.
• [02:56] - The appeal of an engineering management role
• [04:59] - Responsibilities of an engineering manager vs. director
• [06:41] - Ideal qualities in a leader
• [09:10] - Reflections on growing a platform engineering team
• [11:26] - It always comes back to the people
• [13:03] - What Stacy looks for in an engineer
• [15:15] - Learning and developing in the engineering world
• [20:09] - What it’s like to speak at and attend a CTO summit

You can find out more about Stacey on LinkedIn, Twitter and at her blog on Medium.

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.

In this episode of CTO Connection, host Peter Bell sits down with Johnny Austin, Engineering Director of Navigation at Mapbox, to discuss the best and most challenging aspects of engineering leadership, practical tips for creating a solid onboarding program and ways to maintain a sense of connection within a distributed team.

[00:30] - The road to engineering leadership at Mapbox
[03:00] - It’s all about the people
[03:46] - What does great potential look like?[06:32] - The Myth of the 10x Engineer, Johnny’s May 2019 CTO Summit Talk*
[07:44] -  The first 90 days: communication dynamics when building a team
[11:11] - How Mapbox attracts talent
[12:29] - In the weeds of the recruiting process
[19:36] - Thinking about team member growth beyond just tech skills
[21:58] - Maintaining culture and connection with distributed teams
[24:59] - The thing that keeps Johnny up at night
[25:57] - Setting your team up for failure (it’s not what you think)
*This episode was recorded prior to the Summit 

Prior to running engineering for Mapbox's core navigation capabilities, Johnny Austin held engineering leadership roles at Capital One and ISL and is a strong advocate for engineering operational excellence. Johnny is also an international public speaker - speaking on topics such as engineering leadership, system design, and the JavaScript programming language.

He believes, strongly, that technical excellence, inclusion, empathy, and customer obsession are the keys to driving a successful engineering organization. 

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.

This week, Peter Bell is joined by SVP of Engineering at Upwork, Han Yuan. Han and Peter dive into what it’s like to run an engineering team that spans countries, building a good engineering culture for a remote team and how he brings on new engineers to the team.

[00:21] - Differences in thinking about distributed teams across multiple companies[02:59] - Communication best practices across time zones & countries[05:22] - Interviewing for long term fit[08:15] - Development environment workflow with an evolving team[09:46] - Code quality & remote collaboration[11:58] - Providing new opportunities for engineers while retaining knowledge[13:42] - Autonomy, consistency and self-organization across teams and services[21:13] - Balancing support and product development teams[24:39] - Onboarding new engineers[28:24] - Building social and cultural cohesion [31:05] - Fostering a sense of connection and community within a big company with a remote team
Han Yuan is currently the Sr. VP of Engineering at Upwork. Prior to Upwork, he’s held Sr. leadership roles at eBay and Netflix. You can find more information about Han Yuan at LinkedIn.

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.

In this episode of CTO Connection, host Peter Bell sits down with Rebecca Parsons, CTO of Thoughtworks, to discuss managing a large, truly global engineering team, the implications for current advancements in architecture and the importance of supporting diversity and inclusion. 

• [00:28] Path to CTO
• [01:58] Leading a 1200-person engineering team
• [04:08] Deciding on team size and structure
• [05:22] Managing geographically distributed teams; hiring locally
• [07:49] Career development for individual contributors and managers
• [11:00] Keeping up with new technologies
• [12:19] ThoughtWorks University
• [15:43] Looking forward to the next 3-5 years
• [18:58] Advancements in how we think about architecture
• [25:29] What makes a great engineer
• [26:42] Attracting talent
• [29:17] Bias in AI and the science of diversity
  
   

You can hear more at The 2019 San Francisco CTO Summit, coming up May 21, 2019, where Rebecca will be presenting her talk on Bias in AI and the Science of Diversity. You can also find Rebecca on LinkedIn or Twitter and her latest book, Building Evolutionary Architectures, is out now.
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.