Podcasts · Business · Technology
The Engineering Leadership Podcast
The Engineering Leadership Community (ELC)
284 episodes
We share the most critical perspectives, habits & examples of great software engineering leaders to help evolve leadership in the tech industry.
More about the show
Join our community of software engineering leaders @ www.sfelc.com!
Episodes page 1 of 6
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Developing the modern builder framework and managing the cross-pollination of roles at scale w/ Pratima Arora #274
In this episode, Pratima Arora, Chief Product and Technology Officer @ Smartsheet, dives into what it means to be a modern builder as product, design, and engineering roles converge into today’s post-AI world. She and…
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Best practices for scaling AI adoption across a large org & the trade offs you will have to make w/ Sagnik Nandy #273
In this episode, Sagnik Nandy (CTO & EVP of Engineering @ Docusign) joins Jerry to discuss keys to success when it comes to peer-led AI transformation. Sagnik shares how they approached AI adoption internally @…
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Building your support network, picking the right projects, and why eng leaders make good investors w/ Amit Gupta #272
Amit Gupta, Partner @ SNR Ventures, joins Jerry to discuss his unique eng leadership journey and how that led him to his second career as an investor / coach. We cover some of the lessons learned throughout his time…
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Building software factories and making the transition from a pre-AI to post-AI world as a large company w/ Zohar Einy #271
Zohar Einy, CEO & Co-Founder @ Port, shares best practices for building a software factory, how software factories impact the organizational structure of your org, and scaling strategies. He and Jerry discuss why…
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Utilizing AI to assist in EPD and non-EPD functions & how curiosity can drive organizational change w/ Ali Dasdan #270
Ali Dasdan, CTO @ Dropbox, joins the pod to share insights on the company’s large-scale AI adoption and research as a foundation of successful engineering leadership. First, Ali shares insights on why he continues…
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Implementing scalable and powerful agentic tools across your organization w/ Ozzie Osman #269
In this episode, Jerry discusses key insights on delegating to agentic tools while maintaining high levels of engineering ownership with Ozzie Osman, co-founder @ Monarch. Ozzie shares what it looks to pursue two paths…
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Navigating from individual AI adoption to team-level transformation while scaling w/ Jakub Oleksy #268
Jakub Oleksy, SVP of Software Engineering @ Github, joins the podcast to discuss how Github is addressing some of the biggest challenges facing the industry when it comes to infrastructure scaling, customer capacity,…
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Hiring top-tier talent, leveraging open source models, and staying competitive in the age of AI w/ Benny Chen #267
Benny Chen, Co-Founder @ Fireworks AI, joins the show to discuss his founder journey and share valuable insights on navigating common founder / product dev challenges in today’s agent-first landscape. He and Jerry…
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Applying Agentic AI to the Supply Chain, Building Systems to Withstand Chaos, and Leveraging your Curiosity w/ Pooja Brown #266
In this episode, Pooja Brown (Founder @ Inventry.ai) shares her insights on balancing being a founder & technologist, especially within the mid-market manufacturing industry. We cover why founders need to lead with…
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Hiring top-tier talent, the importance of adopting an evolutionary mindset, and taking critical feedback to solve technical problems w/ Sergiy Nesterenko #265
In this episode, Sergiy Nesterenko (CEO @ Quilter) joins the pod to share how he turned a personal technical challenge into his own company, even before the market caught up. He shares his unique journey from SpaceX to…
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Determining bets, using customer insights to pivot, and gaining developer buy-in & trust w/ Tomas Reimers #264
Tomas Reimers, Co-Founder & CPO @ Graphite, reveals his journey to becoming a founder and some of the major moments from Graphite’s product development story. He dissects frameworks for determining when it’s time to…
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Utilizing AI internally to iterate faster and empower smaller teams to upskill w/ Vivek Raghunathan #263
Vivek Raghunathan, SVP of Engineering @ Snowflake, joins the Engineering Leadership Community Podcast to discuss all things AI – most importantly, how Snowflake is utilizing AI internally to iterate faster with…
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The Product Paradigm Shift: How Livekit Navigated High Stakes Scaling Challenges to Build the Future of Voice-First AI Interfaces w/ Russ d’Sa #262
Russ d’Sa (CEO & Co-founder @ LiveKit) joins the show to deconstruct the "Product Paradigm Shift" toward voice-driven interfaces and agent-centric UX . We dive into LiveKit’s high-stakes scaling lessons: from powering…
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Building an empowered career w/ Jean Hsu & Cate Huston #261
In this episode, Patrick discusses what it means to build an empowered career & explore creative career portfolios with Jean Hsu (VP of Engineering @ Range) and Cate Huston (author of The Engineering Leader and…
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Redefining profit, centering human flourishing, and building an incorruptible mission-driven roadmap w/ Eric Ries #260
In this episode, we’re joined by Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup, to discuss insights from his latest book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric shares what inspired…
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Affirm’s AI-native transformation & how it’s driving operational excellence w/ Geddes Munson #259
In this episode, Geddes Munson (SVP of Engineering @ Affirm) joins us to discuss operational / engineering excellence, scaling, and AI-native transformation! We explore Affirm’s approach to operational and engineering…
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Building reliable and proactive agentic systems at scale: how Shopify’s reflexive AI culture was instrumental in their development of Sidekick w/ Andrew McNamara #258
Andrew McNamara, Director of Applied Machine Learning @ Shopify, joins the ELC podcast to share insights on building agentic platforms at scale, like Sidekick, that must keep reliability for its users at the forefront.…
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How the R&D Org at Twilio Drives Business Strategy and Transformation w/ Inbal Shani #257
Inbal Shani (CPO and Head of R&D @ Twilio) deconstructs the transformation of the R&D org at Twilio! We explore the shift from a GM-led model to a unified platform strategy and “why structure must always follow…
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Scaling TensorFlow, Navigating Startup Pivots, ML Edge Infrastructure and AI Inference Strategy w/ Rajat Monga #256
Rajat Monga, CVP AI Frameworks @ Microsoft, joins the podcast to discuss his leadership and founder journey, from Google Brain / Tensorflow to inference.io and back to Microsoft. He dissects what it means to refound…
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How Enterprises Actually Win with AI: Operationalizing Responsible AI, Engineering Guardrails, Trust Controls, and Systems Thinking at Scale w/ Murali Swaminathan #255
Enterprise customers demand 99.9% availability, regardless of how the underlying software is built. In this episode, Murali Swaminathan (CTO @ Freshworks) discusses how enterprises actually win with AI! We explore the…
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Shifting Eng Leaders to Think Like GMs, Building an AI-Driven Visionary Roadmap & Braze’s Product Health Initiative w/ Jon Hyman #254
Jon Hyman (CTO & Co-Founder @ Braze) returns to the podcast to share how he balances a mature, public-company roadmap with visionary AI innovation! We deconstruct Braze’s quantitative "Product Health" framework - a…
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Leading effectively across company archetypes: product, business and design-led leadership w/ Sebastiano Armeli #253
We discuss what effective leadership looks like across three organizational archetypes: product-led, business-led, and design-led companies with Sebastiano Armeli (Engineering Leadership @ Meta). Drawing from his…
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Changes in engineering management craft, career growth and all hands demos for inspiration and context w/ Lindsey Simon #252
Live from the Vercel recording studio, Lindsey Simon (VP Engineering @ Vercel) joins us to deconstruct the evolution of management craft and career growth strategies! We dissect the practice of live all-hands demos as…
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Career growth for engineering leaders in the AI era: Building your thesis, the “running framework” & developing technical depth w/ Chris Chiu #251
Career progression is rarely a straight line. More often, it only makes sense in hindsight. Chris Chiu (VP of Engineering, Agentforce @ Salesforce) joins us to deconstruct how to navigate these non-linear career paths!…
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How OpenAI’s engineering org is reshaping teams, roles and workflows w/ Sulman Choudhry #250
In this episode, recorded live at the OpenAI studio, Sulman Choudhry (Head of ChatGPT @ OpenAI) pulls back the curtain on how they structure engineering teams! We talk about shifting from silos to fluid mission-driven…
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The innovation engine behind Samsara driving real-world impact: compounding feedback loops, data flywheels and embedding engineers in customer problems w/ Kiren Sekar #249
Kiren Sekar (CPO @ Samsara) joins us to deconstruct the "Innovation Engine" behind Samsara, and how this system drives real-world impact and ROI across their products. We explore Samsara’s decade-long compound product…
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Why founders should invest in coaching, communication & leadership mechanisms before you scale w/ James Birchler #248
Founders often delay leadership coaching until a major crisis hits, leading to significant costs in productivity, team churn, and poor decisions. In this episode, James Birchler (Technical Advisor & Executive…
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Cultivating product thinking, cross-functional leadership & the future of AI agent infrastructure w/ Jaikumar Ganesh #247
In our latest ELC episode, we are addressing some of the biggest challenges facing engineers today: identifying your scaling thesis, putting that thesis into practice, and addressing implementation challenges. Jaikumar…
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Scaling from point solutions to a unified, AI-powered product ecosystem w/ Vineeta Puranik #246
How do you transform a collection of individual tools into a cohesive, AI-powered symphony? Vineeta Puranik (CPTO @ SmartBear) dissects the strategy behind evolving a product vision from point solutions to a unified…
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From localized to systematic speed: How Spotify deploys AI in prototyping, strategy & maintenance w/ Tyson Singer #245
Tyson Singer (Head of Tech & Platforms @ Spotify) joins us to unpack how Spotify is transforming its product development lifecycle across creation, experimentation and maintenance to shift from "localized speed" to…
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Inside ELC’s 1st Hackathon: Deconstructing the operational playbook, implementation lessons & future of the program w/ James Tyack #244
It started with a simple idea from James Tyack: “What if we hosted a hackathon at ELC Annual?” The result was a unique experiment where 14 senior engineering leaders stepped away from strategy to build and ship…
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What is leadership in the AI Era? w/ Bill Coughran & Bret Reckard #243
This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! Bill Coughran (Partner @ Sequoia Capital & former SVP of Engineering @ Google) and Bret Reckard (Talent Partner @ The General Partnership)…
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From Research Lab to Record-Breaking Product: How OpenAI Engineered for Unprecedented Scale w/ Sulman Choudhry, Samir Ahmed & Lawrence Bruhmeller #242
This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! OpenAI evolved from a pure research lab into the fastest-growing product in history, scaling from 100 million to 700 million weekly users in…
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The AI Distribution Shift, Navigating PMF Collapse & Building AI-Native EPD Systems w/ Brian Balfour #241
In this episode, Brian Balfour (Founder & CEO @ Reforge) deconstructs the two core, interconnected challenges leaders face in the AI age: deciding what to build and evolving the Engineering, Product, Design workflow to…
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How Atlassian built Rovo in 6 months: systematizing developer joy, autonomy/ownership, productivity champions & reducing ship time w/ Rajeev Rajan #240
Rajeev Rajan (CTO @ Atlassian) shares the leadership playbook he used to transform Atlassian’s engineering culture, and how that cultural foundation directly powered the build and launch of Rovo (Atlassian’s new AI…
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From developer to builder/system designer, managing AI agents like team members & monday.com’s evolving R&D playbook w/ Daniel Lereya #239
In this episode, Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer @ Monday.com) shares how they are evolving their engineering roles from developers to builders & system designers, where the lines between product,…
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Beyond Replication: Building Non-Human Intelligence Through Physical AI w/ Jaime Lien & Rashi Agrawal #238
This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! The true promise of AI isn’t in replicating human intelligence. It’s in developing entirely new forms of non-human intelligence that perceive and…
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Specs as the new source of truth, synthetic data as the next wave of defensibility, product vision & decision making frameworks w/ Ruslan Belkin #237
Ruslan Belkin (Head of Platform Engineering @ Inflection AI) joins us to deconstruct fundamental shifts in engineering leadership. We explore the future of user interfaces, his “sci-fi” approach to establish & test…
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Brex 3.0: An 18-Month Operational Evolution & the Brex Hacker House “AI Startup within a Startup" experiment w/ James Reggio #236
James Reggio (CTO @ Brex) shares the story of "Brex 3.0", an 18-month journey behind their operational evolution. We explore how they rewound their org from a Series E to a Series C mindset, and replaced siloed OKRs…
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The Impossible Job of Managers, Leadership Co-Pilots, Scaling Great Management & Augmenting Human Relationships w/ Jonathan Raymond #235
In today’s technology landscape, management as a skill is becoming more complex as teams become larger & managers must navigate the balance between relationships and strategic execution. So how can AI tools help…
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A Systems-Level Guide to High-ROI AI Impact w/ Laura Tacho #234
Businesses are spending millions on AI tools hoping to accelerate time-to-market but aren't seeing organizational-level results. Laura Tacho (CTO @ DX) explains why an "individual productivity" mindset fails and how AI…
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Platform Engineering's Shift from Tactical 'How' to Strategic Curator & Natural Language as the New Interface Paradigm w/ Miriam Aguirre #233
What happens to platform engineering when natural language becomes the primary interface to infrastructure? Miriam Aguirre (Co-founder & CEO @ Ingenimax) joins us to explore how AI is fundamentally reshaping platform…
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Grit, the vision bottleneck & building for a future where today’s technical constraints may disappear w/ Chrystal Henke Ball #232
In this episode, we’re addressing one of the biggest challenges current eng leaders are facing – balancing yesterday’s constraints with tomorrow’s potential! Chrystal Henke Ball (VP of Engineering @ Yahoo) shares…
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Leading across technical domains, strategic deep-dives & applying your skills in new industries w/ Simone Kalmakis #231
How do you apply your leadership skills to a new, mission-driven industry and effectively lead teams across multiple technical domains? In this episode, Simone Kalmakis (VPE @ Viam) shares her playbook for successfully…
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How Box Builds AI Agents, Redefines Technical Vision, and Balances Speed with Security w/ Ben Kus #230
"If we were building Box today, what would we do?” Ben Kus (CTO @ Box) deconstructs their playbook for enterprise AI innovation. We cover their journey to reimagine & reorient the company to a new technical vision, how…
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Rewriting the Engineering Leadership Playbook: An ELC Annual 2025 Preview #229
Engineering leadership is undergoing a seismic shift, requiring playbooks to be rewritten, in real-time. In this special episode, hosts Patrick Gallagher and Jerry Li give you an inside look at the ELC Annual 2025…
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The End-to-End Engineer: How WorkOS Collapsed the Talent Stack for High-Velocity Execution, Ownership & Better Product Decisions w/ Michael Grinich
What if your engineering team didn’t just write code, but owned product discovery, wrote the launch messaging, and handled early sales? In this episode, Michael Grinich, CEO and founder of WorkOS, deconstructs their…
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Influencing without authority: What every engineering leader can learn from security w/ Srinath Kuruvadi #227
Influencing without authority is the hidden superpower of security leadership—and a crucial skill every engineering leader must master. In this episode, Srinath Kuruvadi (Head of Cloud Security @ JPMorgan Chase) breaks…
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Vision-first leadership & reimagining product w/ “Shift Out,” Do-It-as-a-Service & Jobs-to-Be-Done w/ John Amaral #226
John Amaral (CTO and co-founder @ Root.io) joins us to discuss the evolving role of engineering leaders and why vision-first leadership & building your “vision” muscle is more critical than ever. We dive into why…
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Quick Summer Break! Join us @ ELC Annual 2025 (Early Bird Tickets End Soon)
We’re pausing the pod this week as we gear up final planning for ELC Annual 2025 - the premier event for engineering leaders. New episodes return next week (on a biweekly schedule!). This is our biggest event of the…
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