Are you tired of cargo cult engineering leadership?In this episode, David Guttman, author of “The Superstruct Manifesto”, shares his intriguing manifesto on building and leading high-performing engineering teams. We explore:- Why daily standups are overrated and what to do instead- How to avoid the trap of the "10x e... more
Is your ML project stuck in POC hell and failing to deliver real value?In this episode, I sit down with David Tan and Dave Colls, co-authors of the book “Effective Machine Learning Teams” to discuss the complexities of building and deploying ML models, building and managing effective ML teams, and ensuring successful... more
“Looking at the development pace of this area, it’s just a question of when generative AI will take over larger parts of software engineering. It’s a leadership responsibility to ensure your organization is ready for AI and you are taking the right path.”AI is changing EVERYTHING – including the way we build software... more
“Evolutionary architecture became a necessity, not because anybody wanted it to be, but because you didn’t have a choice. You have to be able to change your systems to keep up with changing business and consumer expectations, let alone regulatory frameworks.”In this episode, I have an insightful conversation with Rebe... more
“Leadership is where you have, not necessarily a large organization, but increasing scope and increasing impact, while bringing lots of people along with you.”In this milestone episode of the podcast, James Stanier returns for the third time to discuss his latest book, “Become a Great Engineering Leader.” We explore t... more
“As an engineer, you don’t have to drop your technical skills, but you need to communicate like an executive. The more you communicate this way, you will have more opportunities and more impact on your job.”Pramoda Vyasarao is an engineering leader turned coach with two decades of experience at Oracle and Meta, and th... more
“Now more than ever, engineering leaders are being asked to be more transparent with how their work is getting done. Every single thing that an engineering team works on needs to benefit the business.”Laura Tacho is the CTO of DX and a leading voice in the world of developer experience and productivity. In this episod... more
“Input, Output, Outcome, and Impact. It’s an escalating way of where to spend my time as an engineering leader, and more importantly, where my engineering team is spending their time on.”Balki Kodarapu is the VP of Engineering at Lōvu Health and a seasoned engineering leader with a wealth of experience from startups t... more
“The OOOps methodology from the science of happy accidents are optionality, opportunism, and optimization.”Stephen Fishman and Matt McLarty are the authors of “Unbundling the Enterprise: APIs, Optionality, and the Science of Happy Accidents”, a book from IT Revolution. In this episode, we discuss the transformative po... more
“Legacy code is a code without tests. If you have code, and it has lots of tests, it’s relatively easy to change. But if you don’t have the tests, you’re really in serious trouble.”Do you dread working with legacy code?Michael Feathers, renowned software expert and author of the classic “Working Effectively with Lega... more
“Product marketing’s purpose is to drive product adoption by shaping market perception through strategic marketing activities that align with business goals.”Are you making the mistake of focusing too much on product and not enough on the market? In this episode, Martina Lauchengo, a partner at Costanoa Ventures and t... more
“We should always learn intentionally. And the best learning is by doing. Extra time used to practice something is always worth it."Dr. Milan Milanović is a seasoned CTO and the author of the popular “Tech World with Milan” newsletter. In this episode, Milan shares his insights on what it takes to become a great softw... more
“The four common obstacles that are stopping engineers in progressing in their journey are the imposter syndrome, burnout, trouble dealing with other people, and self marketing struggles."Dagna Bieda is an engineer turned coach and the author of “Brain Refactor”. In this episode, Dagna discusses the common obstacles t... more
“One key highlight of the report is that there’s a massive disconnect between engineering leaders and engineers about developer experience."Andrew Boyagi is a DevOps Evangelist at Atlassian. In this episode, Andrew shares the key findings of the State of Developer Experience Report 2024, including the disconnect betwe... more
“The three core expectations of a Staff+ engineer are having a high blast radius impact, able to do multi-scale planning & influence, and having high ownership & autonomy level.”What does it take to become a Staff+ engineer? Thiago Ghisi, an experienced engineering leader and a Director of Engineering at Nubank, revea... more
“A lot of problems that we are facing in code review are due to the interface. We are not actually giving feedback to a person, but we are just filling in text boxes and looking at code."Dr. Michaela Greiler is a code review advocate and runs the “Awesome Code Reviews” workshops. In this episode, we discuss the import... more
“Coupling is an inherent part of system design, not something that is necessarily good or evil. How we design coupling can take our system either towards complexity or towards modularity."Vladik Khononov returns to the podcast to discuss his latest book “Balancing Coupling in Software Design”. In this episode, Vlad re... more
“Just because the network is unreliable doesn’t mean a monolith is reliable either. It’s a fallacy to assume that you can build an error free system. You deal with it by accepting that the system overall has a baseline error rate, and that’s a business requirements issue."Richard Rodger is the author of “The Tao of Mi... more
“Where the CTOs usually struggle is holding people accountable. The other things are leadership, strategy, vision, and being an executive. Most of the CTOs are swamped with work from their day-to-day job."Stephan Schmidt is a CTO coach and the author of “Amazing CTO”. In this episode, we delve into the multifaceted wo... more
“The three change dimensions of the product operating model are changing how you build, changing how you solve problems, and changing how you decide which problems to solve."Chris Jones, Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) and co-author of “TRANSFORMED: Moving to the Product Operating Model,” joins me to di... more
“Contract testing is a form of testing where you are verifying two systems have the same shared understanding about the expectations."Lewis Prescott is the coauthor of “Contract Testing in Action”. In this episode, join us to demystify contract testing and its critical role in modern software development. Discover how... more
“Strong teams embrace conflict. They use it as a tool, and they have their great way of handling disagreements."Hari Haralambiev is co-founder of SoftSkillsPills.com and author of the leadership newsletter “A Leader’s Tale”. In this episode, we discuss essential elements of team leadership and dynamics. Hari begins by... more
“We have 10 different aspects of quality, and testing is just a subset of activities in the overall quality culture. You need to have a good testing practice, but it’s just a tiny part of quality culture."Janet Gregory and Selena Delesie are the co-authors of “Assessing Agile Quality Practices Using QPAM”. In this epi... more
“Engineers make this mistake of thinking that if they just do the work, they’re going to be rewarded. But it’s just not how it happens. Be heads down, add the value, do great work, but don’t forget to make the noise."Louie Bacaj is a software engineer and engineering leader who turned entrepreneur. In this episode, Lo... more
“Learn the difference between activities and impact. Sometimes we spend our career trying to get really great at activities. Always ask yourself, what is the impact of the work I’m doing?”From Google Distinguished Engineer to early retirement, Kelsey Hightower has a career journey filled with lessons for tech professi... more