The Engineering Leadership Podcast

We cover building community & digital transformation with Yvette Pasqua, CTO @ Exos! She shares her leadership journey from MeetUp to Exos and how her experiences shaped her views on the importance of community and effective networking. We also discuss principles for creating authentic meetup experiences, how Yvette navigated her Head of Eng search without a recruiter, the importance of asking others for help, and how Exos navigated the opportunities & challenges through their digital transformation.ABOUT YVETTE PASQUAYvette (@lolarobot) is the CTO of Exos where she leads the product and engineering teams with a focus on continuous improvement, iteration, and using data to launch products that help our members become healthier and achieve their wellness, life, and work goals.Prior to joining Exos, Yvette led Product and Engineering at Haven, a health tech startup, and was the CTO at Meetup. Yvette’s career has included leadership roles at startups and product development firms building products like Grindr and the Olympics video player. She’s on the Board at Chloe Capital, a VC firm that invests in women-led seed-stage companies.Yvette lives in Brooklyn and Rhinebeck, NY with her wife, daughter, and wheaten terrier.“Yeah, of course during the conversation I will bring up, ‘Hey, I'm looking for a head of engineering. do you know anything? Do you have any advice? What have you thought of are the best characteristics for someone in that role?”It's a long-term play, but I think the important thing is to be really upfront with your intention for the chat. And to deliver on that in an authentic way. And to not BS someone and say, ‘Hey, I wanna network!’ And then throw a job in their face and a job description.-Yvette PasquaInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Building technology with community in mind at MeetUp and Exos (2:20) (0:07)How community and in-person experiences inspire Yvette’s career decisions (5:40)What Yvette learned about networking / community building from MeetUp (7:10)Principles for creating meaningful, authentic gatherings (10:54)Why setting boundaries & expectations encourages group psychological safety (12:38)How Yvette successfully navigated her Head of Eng search without a recruiter (14:32)Strategies for targeting potential hires that you haven’t met before (17:40)Ask others for advice (21:31)Tactics for reaching out to people in an authentic way (23:40)Prioritizing time for networking conversations (27:55)Behind the digital transformation at Exos from a primarily coaching model (32:37)How Exos continuously models growth mindset (37:42)When digital transformation reaches a turning point (39:44)Rapid fire questions (42:38)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Pragmatic Engineer by Gergely Orosz (blog/newsletter) - The #1 technology newsletter on Substack. Highly relevant for software engineers and engineering managers, useful for those working in tech. Written by engineering manager and software engineer Gergely Orosz who was previously at Uber, Skype/Microsoft, and at high-growth startups. (follow Gergely on Twitter @GergelyOrosz)Software Lead Weekly by Oren Ellenbogen (newsletter) - A weekly email for busy people who care about people, culture and leadership.Level Up by Patrick Kua (newsletter) - Level Up delivers a curated newsletter for leaders in tech. Ideal for busy people such as Tech Leads, Engineering Managers, VPs of Engineering, CTOs and more.Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky - A weekly advice column about product, growth, and your career.The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker (book) - Priya argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive — and they don't have to be. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. (Patrick’s most gifted book) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, we discuss frameworks & strategies for building a “startup-within-a-startup” with Heidi Williams, Head of Engineering for Grammarly Business @ Grammarly! She shares stories about her leadership style while revealing the benefits of & considerations for creating a startup-within-a-startup, sourcing ideas & hosting knowledge-sharing meetings, identifying adjacencies in your user base, communicating challenges between individuals & teams, developing leading indicators, and more.ABOUT HEIDI WILLIAMSHeidi Williams (@Heidivt73) is Head of Engineering for Grammarly Business, our product offering for professional teams and organizations.At Grammarly, Heidi is inspired by the potential impact the product can have as a platform, with the opportunity to help reduce conflicts and misunderstandings in communication and educate people on how to be more inclusive and equitable.Before coming to Grammarly, Heidi served as VP of Platform Engineering at Box, founded WEST Diversity and Inclusion, and was co-founder and CTO of tEQuitable, a confidential platform addressing issues of bias, discrimination, and harassment in the workplace. Heidi was at Adobe for 17 years and most notably was a founding engineer on Dreamweaver, which democratized web development in the late 1990s.Heidi volunteers as a technical advisor for PaymentWorks and Raise For Good. Her expertise and perspective have been featured in Built In SF and the podcasts Stayin’ alive in Technology, Dev Interrupted, and CTO Connection.As a lifelong soccer player, Heidi’s often on the pitch; she’s also an avid hiker, bicyclist, and kayaker. She once hiked with her husband across England, 192 miles coast to coast (with B&Bs and pub stops along the way).Heidi studied at Brown University, where she earned a BS in computer science. She also attended Stanford University’s Executive Institute.And so now you have this chasm where we'd have these weird conversations around what machine learning features should we build for Grammarly business? And neither side could understand what the other person's context was to come up with an idea.We struggled with that for a little bit until we really just put people in a room and, and it did exactly that. We said, "Here is the user research, five critical communication challenges within a company. You know what technology you have. You know how organizations work. Get together and just talk about, you know, your peanut butter, your chocolate. What can we make here? Let's have a Reese Peanut butter cup...!"-Heidi WilliamsInterested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:Heidi’s favorite “startup-within-a-startup” moments with Grammarly & Grammarly Business (1:56)What you can learn from the “PDF as MVP” approach (4:36)How early conversations impacted the final product & eng team functions (5:40)The benefits of building a startup-within-a-startup (9:21)Considerations when making the decision to become a multi-product company (11:19)Identifying the adjacencies within your current user base (13:24)The difference between discovering a new market & building the next feature (14:32)How to source new ideas & encourage innovation in your eng team (15:31)Frameworks for communicating challenges across different teams / individuals (21:02)Strategies for facilitating knowledge-sharing meetings (24:55)Fostering a culture of healthy, positive idea jams (26:50)Heidi’s advice on the cadence of idea jams for a startup-within-a-startup (28:15)What the execution / maturity pathway process looks like (29:49)Heidi’s hypothesis behind merging a product with the greater business (33:04)How to navigate dependencies when your product is in the incubator phase (35:51)Keys for determining the end game of a product – pathway to success or time to wind down? (40:09)Why it’s important to develop leading indicators to determine your product’s success (42:16)Rapid fire questions (43:40)LINKS AND RESOURCES99% Invisible - 99% Invisible is a sound-rich, narrative podcast hosted by Roman Mars about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.Code Switch - This podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. They explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between.Freakonomics Radio - Discover the hidden side of everything with host Stephen J. Dubner , co-author of the Freakonomics books. Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn’t) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) — from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything, plus the true stories of minimum wage, rent control, and the gender pay gap.Hidden Brain - This podcast explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior and questions that lie at the heart of our complex and changing world. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We cover how to sustain long-term transformational projects with Paul Dix, CTO & Founder @ InfluxData! This high-energy conversation reveals the history behind InfluxDB and its multi-phase, long-term transformation over the past 10 years. Plus we discuss how to know when it’s time to take your company to the next level, identifying the right people for your eng teams, integrating multiple teams into an org re-architecture, and building open-source products/communities!ABOUT PAUL DIXPaul (@PaulDix) is the creator of InfluxDB. He has helped build software for startups, large companies, and organizations like Microsoft, Google, McAfee, Thomson Reuters, and Air Force Space Command. He is the series editor for Addison Wesley’s Data & Analytics book and video series. In 2010 Paul wrote the book Service Oriented Design with Ruby and Rails. In 2009 he started the NYC Machine Learning Meetup. Paul holds a degree in computer science from Columbia University."What I need is a small team of focused people who are on board, who can be focused on getting this done and we'll prove it out as we go.And I think the mistake I made with the 2.0 cloud product was we got way too many of people involved way too quickly, right? I think for the initial phases of project, it's actually advantageous to have a smaller team.- Paul Dix   Interested in joining an ELC Peer Group?ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroupsSHOW NOTES:The history behind InfluxDB & its multi-phase, long-term transformation (1:53)InfluxDB’s first transformational phase featuring time series data (5:48)Phase 2.0 & shifting to a cloud-first delivery model (7:50)Challenges & opportunities faced in the current phase of InfluxDB (9:31)How Paul decided it was time to take the company to the next level (11:38)Making a bet on Rust (14:25)Why making an early announcement helped push Phase 3.0 forward (16:02)Strategies for identifying the right people for your eng team (19:06)How to optimize community insights when tailoring your vision (21:56)Tips for resolving disagreements between eng team members (24:45)Frameworks for executing long-term vision & achieving alignment (26:21)Processes for integrating other teams into an org’s re-architecture (29:55)The impact of Conway’s Law on team structure & open-source software (32:07)Considerations for managing large, open-source projects (36:40)Rapid fire questions (37:56)LINKS AND RESOURCES“The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt - Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world’s civilizations -­ to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives.“The Fate of Rome” by Kyle Harper - How devastating viruses, pandemics, and other natural catastrophes swept through the far-flung Roman Empire and helped to bring down one of the mightiest civilizations of the ancient world Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We cover how to uplevel your eng team with Elaine Zhou, CTO @ Change.org! She shares some of her favorite frameworks and strategies for creating self-sufficient teams, amplifying high-performers, performing self-assessments, and hosting prioritization conversations. Plus Elaine shares the story behind how she got involved with Change.org, navigating different operating constraints in your business model (from non-profit to VC-funded contexts), and what it’s like investing in high-impact areas with no revenue expectation.ABOUT ELAINE ZHOUChange.org CTO Elaine Zhou joined the platform for change in 2020. Prior to Change.org, she was at Vidado as CTO, and has held leadership positions for over a decade at companies including HomeStore, PlanetOut, IAC and more. She’s been a longtime mentor at Upwardly Global. Follow her on Twitter at @softwired."High performance need to be in that fail safe environment so they're willing to explore and to iterate. So really help them to do that, the way that I solve the problem with them is not just that, “You are good, you're good.” Just pump them up. No, it's actually, “Let's look at a problem. I actually agree with your solution and this is why I like your solution.”Help them to gain the confidence and give them that kind of hard opportunity to try that and you know they will build their confidence so much.”- Elaine Zhou   SHOW NOTES:Why Elaine got involved with Change.org (2:24)The importance of understanding the business / non-profit model for eng leaders (6:29)How business, technology, & financial constraints impact business decisions (9:44)Investing in impact with no revenue expectation (14:42)Strategies for creating self-sufficiency within teams & traps eng leaders fall into when leveling up their team (18:06)Questions to ask yourself during self-assessments to determine priorities (22:05)What you should do as an eng leader after transitioning your team to be self-sufficient (28:10)Frameworks for prioritization conversations (29:14)The technical area Elaine is most focused on growing right now (32:23)Strategies for amplifying & supporting your best performers (33:58)Rapid fire questions (38:35)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - Eric Reis’ book outlining his strategy for building a start-up that he developed during his time as a founder and start-up advisor.Measure What Matters - John Doerr’s collection of first-person accounts that demonstrates the focus, growth, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred in many great organizations. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We sat down with Claus Moberg to discuss his career trajectory, from meteorology student and hardware CEO to current VP of Eng @ Roblox! We also cover how to overcome obstacles when scaling leadership, leading teams outside of your technical depth/knowledge, attracting & recruiting top talent, finding “diamonds in the rough,” and how to communicate effectively between business functions & eng teams. Claus also shares his best frameworks for navigating complex conversations and taking measured risks while scaling eng functions.ABOUT CLAUS MOBERGClaus Moberg leads engineering for the Roblox User Group. His teams are responsible for the applications and experiences through which over 58.5 million users explore and experience the Roblox Metaverse every day. Claus has worked at Roblox since the summer of 2016, leading teams across multiple engineering and product disciplines (VR, Consoles, Mobile, Social, Personalization) and geographies (San Mateo, CA and Shenzhen, CN).“The key mistake to avoid is to think that a lack of domain experience is an excuse to not engage at that level of depth, right? It's not.It's actually an obligation to engage at the maximum level of depth that's necessary to solve the problem, but it's an opportunity to engage, avoiding buzz words, and using plain English, and sort of doing it in a way that makes communication more clear as opposed to less clear throughout the organization.”- Claus Moberg   SHOW NOTES:How Claus transitioned from meteorology student to VP of Eng at Roblox (2:17)Utilizing a maximization function for career strategy & decision-making (6:25)Claus’s early days at Roblox (9:03)Looking to the team & product space when facing uncertainties (12:56)Strategies for scaling leadership & building eng teams (14:52)The correlation between an amazing team & an amazing product (17:48)Techniques for building technical depth within eng leadership (19:09)Frameworks for effective communication between eng teams & business functions (21:24)Best practices for navigating complex conversations (25:37)Learn to delegate & let go of responsibilities (26:45)How Roblox recruits/attracts talent outside of typical hiring patterns (29:24)Claus’s advice on identifying competitive advantages in order to attract talent (34:46)Why you should take measured risks while building out eng teams (36:33)How to weigh trade-offs/concessions during the start-up phase (38:57)Lean into asking “stupid” questions & aim to participate in conversations at the deepest level possible (41:33)Rapid fire questions (42:44)LINKS AND RESOURCESSkunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed - Leo Janos and Ben R. Rich’s memoir detailing their nearly two decades of work in Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works program. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We’re taking a quick break from releasing episodes for a few weeks while we wrap up everything for ELC Annual. We’ll be back to regularly releasing episodes November 15th with a couple great guests! Claus Moberg, VP of Engineering @ Roblox joins to discuss his journey scaling his leadership impact & org size 10x in 6 years! Elaine Zhou CTO @ Change.org joins to discuss upleveling your team and helping them become more self-sufficient. Plus we’re launching new episodes of Engineering Founders! Email us at hello@sfelc.comAnd to stay involved, join the community at elc.community! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We sit down with Kit Colbert (SVP and CTO @ VMWare) and discuss his experiences, lessons, and approaches to leading across different orders of magnitude PLUS his approach to high leverage, high ROI communication at different scales. We cover his perspectives on lessening execution risk and creating stability through change, letting go of being a “technologist,” navigating the dilemma between macro and micro granularity in leadership, and building an innovation system.ABOUT KIT COLBERTKit Colbert joined VMware in September 2003 (following an internship in 2002) and currently serves as senior vice president and chief technology officer. He is responsible for ensuring VMware’s long-term technology leadership through research and innovation programs, with the primary goal of positively impacting and shaping the future of VMware, its ecosystem, and its customers. As CTO, Colbert will shape the technical vision for the company, and the transformation to a cloud and subscription-centric R&D organization. His oversight includes advancing research and development efforts, overseeing the VMware Engineering Services team, the Design/UX team and the company’s ESG commitments.Prior to September 2021, Colbert served in multiple roles, including VMware’s Cloud CTO, General Manager of VMware’s Cloud-Native Apps business, CTO for VMware’s End-User Computing Business, and as the lead architect for the VMware vRealize Operations Suite. Colbert joined VMware as the technical lead behind the creation, development and delivery of the vMotion and Storage vMotion features in VMware vSphere."What I try to focus on is, what's the outcome or the benefit that I'm looking for? And, you know, leaving the “how” as much as possible up to them. But I'm also open to being challenged and I find oftentimes that I don't really fully understand the space and the way that they do. And so I'm saying, ‘Here's kinda what we want and here's how I think we should do it.’ But then they'll say, ‘No, that doesn't make sense here. You know, here's how we should be really be thinking about.’ And so that back and forth actually creates a better solution in the end.”- Kit Colbert   Our in-person conference ELC Annual returns 10/27-28!Learn from 60+ of the best engineering leaders in the industry / Critical insights on leadership, career and technology / Plus tons of experiences optimized for deep conversations & meaningful connections - all to help you build your support network!Don't miss out on being part of the biggest celebration of engineering leadership of the year!Grab your ticket HERE: sfelc.com/annual2022SHOW NOTES:Kit's Leadership Leap from 150 to 2300 People (2:05)How guardrails lessen risks and create stability through change (4:24)How to prepare to increase your scope and lead larger teams (8:21)Identifying existential opportunities and getting ahead of foundational industry changes (12:38)Letting go of being a “technologist” & relying on others for technical insight (16:08)How clear communication is one of the highest leverage, highest ROI things you can do as a leader (18:27)Framework to prepare your communication plan at big team moments (21:56)Balancing the dilemma of micro and macro granularity in leadership (26:11)Strategies to guide and influence people to your desired outcomes (28:18)How to operationalize innovation and build an innovation system (33:23)Rapid fire questions (37:53)LINKS AND RESOURCESAtomic Habits - This breakthrough book from James Clear is the most comprehensive guide on how to change your habits and get 1% better every day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We cover reinventing your role and refocusing your eng team in the face of the unknown with Maher Saba, Head of Remote Presence and Engineering @ Meta! He discusses his leadership history from IBM to Microsoft to Meta and how he took on IC roles to gain credibility as an eng leader. We also cover how to productively channel & embrace emotions to drive improvement, frameworks for motivating eng orgs, how to incorporate personal feedback into your product, how the pandemic offered opportunities to pivot into the unknown, refocusing eng teams after challenges/periods of uncertainty, and more!ABOUT MAHER SABAMaher Saba is the Head of Remote Presence and Engineering at Meta and is responsible for creating rich social, real-time video and audio experiences that connect people while they’re physically apart. Saba has held numerous Engineering leadership roles at Meta, and during his time at the company he launched Video on Newsfeed, Facebook Live, Facebook Watch, Messenger Rooms and Live Audio Rooms. Before Meta, Saba worked at IBM and Microsoft as a developer and software engineering lead, eventually becoming a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft. Saba has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.“He goes, ‘Have you ever written an endpoint?’ I said, ‘I'm actually curious to know what an endpoint is.’ And he goes, ‘Have you written anything in Ruby?’ I'm like, ‘No, I've never seen the language before.’ He goes, ‘How about Go Language?’ I'm like, Rob Pike just came up with Go Language. Nobody knows it.’ And he's like, ‘So, you know nothing.’ I'm like, ‘I know nothing. I just wanna be in a place where either I sink or swim and the best way for me to know this is to jump with both feet into the deep end.’”- Maher Saba   Our in-person conference ELC Annual returns 10/27-28!Learn from 60+ of the best engineering leaders in the industry / Critical insights on leadership, career and technology / Plus tons of experiences optimized for deep conversations & meaningful connections - all to help you build your support network!Don't miss out on being part of the biggest celebration of engineering leadership of the year!Grab your ticket HERE: sfelc.com/annual2022SHOW NOTES:Maher Saba’s transition from Microsoft to Meta (01:54)Why Maher restarted as an IC to gain credibility before moving back into eng management (7:08)Embrace emotions in order to gain focus & drive improvement (12:14)How Maher refocused his work at the start of the pandemic & what it’s like jumping into the unknown (16:48)Frameworks for motivating eng teams to focus on execution (22:28)Maher’s favorite experiences from his team’s show-and-tell sessions (26:59)Incorporating feedback into your product from personal sources – like your mother! (28:29)Post-pandemic challenges & how to address them (31:27)How to refocus eng teams after periods of uncertainty (36:16)Do’s and don'ts for inspiring teams to be part of a turnaround (39:35)Why Maher is excited for the unknowns surrounding the metaverse (42:00)Rapid fire questions (43:51)LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Swerve - Stephen Greenblatt’s book on how the discovery of an Ancient Greek poem changed the course of human thought and shaped the world as we know it today. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We discuss product innovation with Saumya Bhatnagar (CPO & Co-Founder @ involve.ai), who shares her passion for the product trio and how it enriches problem-solving! We cover how to best optimize the product trio, implementing empathy into your communication practices, the importance of the value priority score, frameworks for healthy & energetic discourse between the product trio, and improving the experience of telling users “no” while pursuing potential “yes” opportunities.ABOUT SAUMYA BHATNAGARSaumya Bhatnagar is the CPO and Co-founder of involve.ai, an AI-driven Early warning system that helps companies predict churn and revenue growth opportunities using customer data.Before starting involve.ai, Saumya co-founded a startup right out of high school in New Delhi which focussed on using technology to reduce gender-based abortions in India. She did her undergrad in Computer Science and went on to earn her Masters's in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a focus on Natural Language Processing.She is a Forbes 30 under 30 alum, winner of the Stevie Gold Entrepreneur of the Year award, recognized as the 50 Most Powerful Women in Tech by the National Diversity Council, and is on the list of Top 100 Women in Technology by AI Technology magazine.Saumya is a strong advocate of more representation for women in tech and is the founder of a nonprofit in India for women empowerment.When not working, Saumya enjoys binge-watching Netflix, photography, and traveling."A good relationship is not about how well you work with each other, but how well you fight with each other and how well can you disagree with each other. That's the entire goal of a product trio. They shouldn't agree. They should look at it from different lenses, but then how do you have that argument and come to a consensus is like the hardest part of managing it."- Saumya Bhatnagar   Our in-person conference ELC Annual returns 10/27-28!Learn from 60+ of the best engineering leaders in the industry / Critical insights on leadership, career and technology / Plus tons of experiences optimized for deep conversations & meaningful connections - all to help you build your support network!Don't miss out on being part of the biggest celebration of engineering leadership of the year!Grab your ticket HERE: sfelc.com/annual2022SHOW NOTES:Why it’s valuable to always consider the context of a problem first (2:07)How Saumya became passionate about the product trio (5:47)Optimize the product trio by exercising empathy & good communication (10:39)Why designers & front-end eng should be connected from the start (14:36)The five components of the value priority score framework (16:59)Improving the experience of telling users “no” (20:16)The role of recency bias in prioritization conversations & how to get to “yes” (24:16)Determine a product’s success by measuring what will impact the outcome (26:36)How the product trio gained alignment regarding the trust score feature (30:54)Saumya’s tips for knowing when the product trio is working well (34:20)Frameworks for healthy discourse within your product trio (36:17)Incorporating a bottom-up decision-making process (39:28)Rapid fire questions (42:43)LINKS AND RESOURCESCompetitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors - Michael E. Porter's book that has transformed the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy throughout the world.Dopamine Nation - Dr. Anna Lembke’s book that explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Customer narratives are a transformative tool to help you build successful products! Marco Argenti (CIO @ Goldman Sachs) explains how to develop these narratives as your team’s guiding vision and help eng orgs better understand “the business” side of software. Plus we cover best practices for investing in developer experience, Goldman Sachs’ transition to prioritize external developers, and the signs, signals and trends Marco’s used to navigate his career across tons of different emerging technology fields.ABOUT MARCO ARGENTIMarco Argenti is the Chief Information Officer at Goldman Sachs. He is a member of the Management Committee, the Firmwide Technology Risk Committee, the Client Business Standards Committee, the Enterprise Risk Committee and the Global Inclusion and Diversity Committee. Mr. Argenti joined the firm as a Partner in 2019.Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Mr. Argenti served as Vice President of technology of Amazon Web Services (AWS) since 2013, overseeing all aspects of the product lifecycle of Cloud Services, including strategy, business planning and developer engagement, and leading several AWS technology areas, such as mobile, serverless, Internet of Things, messaging, and augmented and virtual reality. Before that, Mr. Argenti spent several years at Nokia Corporation, where he was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Developer Experience and Marketplace from 2011 to 2013, with responsibility for Nokia’s developer ecosystem and app store across the company’s entire product portfolio.Earlier in his career, Mr. Argenti was a board member and Chief Executive Officer of internet and mobile company Dada S.p.A., as well as a board member, executive vice president of strategy development and chief technology officer of Canadian e-commerce solutions provider Microforum Inc., where he founded Internet Frontier Inc., an internet publisher and e-commerce retailer. He previously founded and sold Dreamware S.r.l., a software development firm, to Microforum Inc.Mr. Argenti serves on the Board of Directors of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, also known as PanCan. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall."Today, the world is so complex that it's almost like an asteroid field and when you navigate an asteroid field, if you don't turn often, you're gonna be having some surprises and so that's why iteration is so important. You need to release sometimes multiple times a day because the world is changing in front of you and there are opportunities and obstacles that come all the time."- Marco Argenti   Our in-person conference ELC Annual returns 10/27-28!Learn from 60+ of the best engineering leaders in the industry / Critical insights on leadership, career and technology / Plus tons of experiences optimized for deep conversations & meaningful connections - all to help you build your support network!Don't miss out on being part of the biggest celebration of engineering leadership of the year!Grab your ticket HERE: sfelc.com/annual2022SHOW NOTES:Marco’s leadership journey – as a CTO, VP of Tech, and beyond (2:39)Questioning biases & observing signals when predicting opportunities (8:41)How Marco used intuition & data when deciding to work with Goldman Sachs (10:10)Why engineers must understand business principles (13:46)Using customer narratives to create a guiding vision for eng teams (17:47)How to help eng orgs better understand the business metrics of software (22:01)Why Goldman Sachs transitioned to prioritizing its developer clients (25:39)Shifting the focus from internal developers to external developers (31:34)How the tech team navigated challenges during this transition (33:34)Rapid fire questions (36:43) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.