Decisive Moments for Engineering Leaders: Recent Episodes
Plato
If you're interested in becoming a better engineering manager, this is the podcast for you. You'll gain both inspiration and tactical advice from hearing how the world's best engineering leaders navigated their toughest days. "Decisive Moments" is an engineering leadership & management podcast by Plato, a mentorship platform that connects managers to a community of experienced engineering leaders (visit us at platohq.com). Each episode is hosted by Plato Mentor and Forbes Technology Council member, David Isaac Murray. If you feedback on how we can improve our podcast or have questions, please email mustafa@platohq.com.
Hear an insightful Engineering Q&A with Antonio Silveira, CTO at Nextdoor, titled "Velocity at NextDoor: Team composition, coding, decision making, and anomaly detection." Silveira will unpack the importance of team unity and effective management and how these factors shape overall company success.
Explore how Nextdoor is leveraging automation, tooling, and generative AI to drive high-velocity product innovation and decentralize decision-making. Hear about the influence of business on engineering culture and how they foster an environment conducive to engineering velocity. Don't miss this chance to gain a firsthand look into the innovation strategies at one of the Bay Area's top tech companies.
These talks are organized by Plato (www.platohq.com).
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Hear a riveting Q&A with Jeremy Rishel, CTO at SoFi, as he delves into "Operational Excellence in a High Trust, High Regulation Environment." Gain insights from Jeremy's diverse background—ranging from a Marine officer to tech leadership roles at Twitter and Splunk—as he shares his strategies for driving excellence at SoFi. Hear first-hand accounts of critical incidents that shaped operational strategies and cemented the importance of reliability.
This session is a treasure trove for anyone intrigued by the intersection of technology, finance, and regulation.
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Hear Japjit Tulsi, CTO at Matterport, in an Engineering Q&A titled "Navigating the AI Shift: Essential Adaptations for Modern Engineers."
This discussion explores the transformative power of Generative AI and its impact on technology. Discover how AI is changing expectations and why tech teams should embrace it.
Japjit, known for his hands-on expertise and deep understanding of use cases, shares insights on AI's positive disruption in engineering and its role in filtering specialized information.
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Hear Shadi Rostami, Senior/Executive VP of Engineering at Amplitude, in an Engineering Q&A session focused on Outcome-Driven Efficiency and its impact on business success.
Discover how to set metrics and goals for all teams and how engineers can be crucial in achieving this. Learn how customer-centricity and incentivizing a few bigger customers can impact business success.
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As the former CTO of GitLab and a board member of the Linux Foundation, Eric has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing software engineers today.
In this Engineering Q&A, Eric shares his insights on how to think creatively and "outside the box" to solve common engineering problems in unconventional ways.
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In today's fast-paced and competitive world, engineering teams face immense pressure to deliver high-quality products rapidly. To meet these demands, it's crucial to establish effective rituals and practices that help teams perform at their best.
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Are you looking for ways to build a successful and long-lasting career in the tech industry? Are you uncertain about making a career change in today's uncertain economic climate?
Tamar will share her experience of growing alongside Box and the secrets to her success in staying loyal to the company. She also discusses why cultivating a long-term career vision is more important than ever, especially during times of job insecurity.
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After more than ten years at Amazon Web Services and close to four years at Datadog, Ian Nowland, SVP of Core Engineering at Datadog, knows what it takes to establish a platform product, from nascent to established.
His secret? Think Big But Not Too Big.
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Discover how Notion, the all-in-one workspace, leverages collaboration between engineering, product, and design teams to drive innovation and achieve optimal efficiency.
Gain insights on improving collaboration in your organization and hear the story of Michael Manapat, a founding engineer in a rapidly scaling organization.
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Learn about the standard industry practices that Figma avoids to ensure the quality of its products and gain insights into how the company approaches quality assurance with Kris Rasmussen, CTO at Figma.
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With over 15 years of experience at Google and now being Chief Development Officer at Okta, Sagnik is a seasoned expert in his field.
In light of recent layoffs and budget cuts in the industry, ensuring your engineering team is operating at its full potential is more important than ever.
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"Navigating and Building Through Uncertainty," with Robinhood's SVP of Engineering
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Why every leader needs a management philosophy feat. Optimizely's CTO, Lawrence Bruhmuller. Thanks to our partner Lohika for co-hosting this podcast episode!
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"Building high-performing, purpose-driven teams" with Collective Health's VP of Engineering, Stacie Lang-Frederick (co-hosted with Lohika)
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"Goal setting for engineering teams" with Asana's Head of Engineering, Prashant Pandey
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This episodes features engineering leaders from Brex, Upwork, & Flatiron Health! They'll share advice on building a strong hiring strategy while managing other priorities during these challenging times (co-hosted with Karat)
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Get tips on how to scale your engineering teams impact in this Q&A chat with PagerDuty's VP of Engineering, Gautam Prabhu. Thanks to our friends at Lohika for hosting this with us!
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Managing High & Low Performers featuring Salesforce's VP of Engineering, Chris Haag
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This episodes featured Slack's former Chief Architect (Keith Adams) on The Technical Path to Leadership.
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"Managing in a Remote World" with Zapier's VP of Engineering, Doug Gaff
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Managing in a Remote World with leaders from Slack, GitHub, and Twilio
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In this episode, we're joined by several members of GitLab's engineering, product, & design team to better understand how the world's largest remote-first team collaborates.
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This podcast episode features a webinar we hosted recently called "Managing in a Remote World" with Stitch Fix's VP of Engineering, Pooja Brown!
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In this episode, we're airing the recording of an Ask-Me-Anything chat that Dana Lawson, GitHub's VP of Engineering, had with our community where she shares tips on managing remote teams!
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This episode highlights an Ask-Me-Anything featuring InVision's Director of Engineering (Ryan Scheuremann) and Karat's Head of Solutions Engineering (Shannon Hogue) about managing remote teams.
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We hosted an Ask-Me-Anything webinar on managing remote teams with VP of Engineering, Christian McCarrick, and we turned that into a podcast epsiode.
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In this episode, InVision's SVP of Engineering (Asanka Jayasuriya) shares his thoughts on how to navigate the coronavirus crisis and offers advice to managers who are leading a remote team for the first time.
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In this episode, Carta's VP of Engineering and Plato Mentor (Ron Pragides) shares his thoughts on the current COVID-19 crisis and offers advice to engineering managers.
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In this episode — DocuSign's VP of Engineering (Loïc Houssier) chats about the lessons he learned as a leader while his company underwent a re-organization.
- 1:53 - Reorgs not driven by growth
- 2:43 - Accepting change as a manager
- 3:50 - Product company moving towards portfolio company
- 5:30 - How to organize your company to manage innovation
- 9:04 - How a new idea or project becomes a revenue stream
- 12:09 - The mindset of incremental innovation
- 14:14 - Affects of a GM approach
- 16:43 - Learning from every manager
- 17:24 - Biases aside
- 18:45 - Changing the definition of “done”
- 19:51 - Thinking about the business value
- 22:05 - Managing expectations
- 26:43 - Difference in friction zones
- 29:30 - Empowered or not?
- 31:46: Emotional vs rational
- 33:58 - Providing space and then moving on
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In this episode, the VP of Engineering at DocuSign (Loïc Houssier) shares what he learned from his early days to his role a a senior leader at a well-known B2B company. Episode highlights:
- 1:15 - Being empathetic to reactions of the Coronavirus
- 3:43 - First managerial mistake
- 8:20 - What he learned during a break from the software industry
- 10:44 - Being humble in a new workplace
- 14:36 - How his youth sparked his curiosity
- 17:14 - Building new relationships, especially outside the Engineering department
- 18:42 - What DocuSign’s CEO taught Loic
- 19:42 - Why he returned to engineering management
- 22:20 - What makes operational excellence important to eng managers
- 24:45 - CTO versus VP of Engineering
- 26:42 - Being an eng leader during an acquisition
- 31:20 - Going from a unknown company to working at a known brand
- 32:30 - Variations in workplace practices: US and France
- 36:40 - Approaching situations based on cultural knowledge
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In this episode, senior engineering leaders from Brex, Twilio, and GitHub shares best practices around managing distributed teams.
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This episode, Expensify's CEO shares a variety of perspectives and stories — from what makes his company different to losing an engineering team to building an organization of generalists to what it's like being a CEO.
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In this episode, Expensify's CEO and Founder (David Barrett) shares several stories on how we went from engineering to entrepreneur. Plus, he shares what makes Expensify unique and what compelled him to start the company.
Show Notes for David Barrett
- 1:25 — David’s early days as an engineer
- 2:30 — What startups should focus on
- 3:37 — “C++ is a great language, but English is even better”
- 5:44 — How to think about your professional goals
- 6:46 — The 1 question that David asks candidates in interviews
- 8:00 — What he looks for in an employee and a team
- 9:00 — What made him go from engineer to entrepreneur
- 10:56 — Why being an engineer has helped him as a CEO
- 12:26 — A story that taught David what makes an effective engineer
- 14:06 — Our podcast host offers a way to develop products better
- 17:38 — David’s approach to new industries/jobs and our host adds thoughts on experts vs beginners
- 18:36 — How Expensify went against standard convention
- 22:15 — David shares a story about what gave him self confidence
- 25:43 — Our host points out how David sounds like an entrepreneur
- 28:16 — What David thinks about leadership books
- 28:43 — How Expensify got started
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Hear from PayPal Credit's former CTO, Pete Woodhouse, on how he navigated running teams around the world.
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In this episode, the former CTO of PayPal Credit (Pete Woodhouse) talks about a situation where one of his engineering managers let a deadline slip, and how Pete had to step in to resolve the situation.
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In this episode, Gusto's CTO and Co-Founder (Eddie Kim) talks about leading engineering teams at Gusto as they scaled from 50 to 100 engineers. He also shares a story that helped him realize what psychological safety really means.
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In this episode, Gusto's CTO and Co-Founder (Eddie Kim) talks about what it was like during the company's first few years. He shares some interesting stories about building the engineering team from 0 to 50 engineers and what lessons he learned along the way!
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In this episode, two engineering leaders who are married discuss the importance of having a strong support system as a leader, featuring Abstract's VP of Eng (Rukmini Reddy) and SurveyMonkey's Sr Director of Eng (Shravan Sogani). The episode starts with a story where one of the parents dropped the ball on a task, and the other parent stepped in, and it was a good lesson on leadership. The episode unfolds to touch on lots of topics including building trust, being vulnerable at the worklplace, and more!
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In this episode, two engineering leaders who are married to each other discuss how having twins has affected their outlook on leading teams. Abstract's VP of Eng (Rukmini Reddy) and SurveyMonkey's Sr Director of Eng (Shravan Sogani) open up about a harrowing childbirth experience, and they share how parenting shapes their role as engineering leaders. They talk about about the importance of bring your whole self to the workplace and how leaders can foster an environment where employees feel comfortable being their real selves.
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Hear how Talkdesk's VP of Eng, Jason Fama, dealt with a situation where he had to help two engineering teams maintain a strong sense of motivation and innovatio. Later in the episode, he offers advice to an engineering manager on keeping the morale high for teams that are integrated into a bigger engineering organization.
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Hear from Talkdesk's VP of Eng, Jason Fama, on how he (and his engineering team from earlier in his career) navigated a patent lawsuit. Jason shares lessons that all eng managers can find useful. Later in the episode, he offers advice to an engineering manager on improving their interview process.
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Hear from Stripe's Head of Foundation Eng and author of An Elegant Puzzle, Will Larson, on how we handled a situation when upper management wasn't happy with an engineer who messed up (when In fact, there were systematic Issue at play). Later in the episode, Will offers advice to an engineering manager on balancing the pressure to fix technical debt with shipping new features.
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Stripe's Head of Foundation Engineering and writer of The Elegant Puzzle (Will Larson) shares what he learned as a manager for a company earlier in his career that wasn't doing so well. After that story, Will gives advice to an engineering leader on how to structure team roles and responsibilities as you scale.
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GitHub's VP of Engineering (Dana Lawson) shares a story from earlier in her career where joined a company as a manager and then found out they got acquired soon after. She discusses how she handled this transitional period and what she learned. After that, she offers live advice to an engineering manager trying to understand how to align on priorities at a startup. Decisive Moments is presented by Plato, a mentorship platform to help engineering managers to become better leaders (https://www.platohq.com/)
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GitHub's VP of Engineering (Dana Lawson) share a story of how she tried to institute a culture of accountability, reliability, and shared ownership — and how it went wrong. She explain how she bounced back as a manager to win her team's trust back. Dana also offer her perspective to an engineering leader (Simon Gong, Director of Eng at Box) on how to encourage your team to hit their stretch goals. Decisive Moments is presented by Plato, a mentorship platform to help engineering managers to become better leaders (https://www.platohq.com/).
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