The Engineering Leadership Podcast

This ELC Hiring Summit special feature explores tactics & strategies to help you build powerful relationships & professional network! We cover the impact of vulnerability, why you should focus on “giving” first, how to break down power dynamics, prepare for important introductions & more with Dan Portillo (Managing Partner & Founder @ Sweat Equity Ventures) & Jim Cook (CFO @ Orbital Insight). DAN PORTILLODan is a former Talent Partner @ Greylock. Previously, he was VP of Success & Engagement at Rypple, and VP of Organizational Development at Mozilla, creators of Firefox. Earlier in his career Dan spent a decade building out successful early-stage, venture-backed consumer and enterprise companies. Dan also served as a Council member for Code2040.org, a non-profit creating opportunities for underrepresented minorities in tech. JIM COOK, CFO @ ORBITAL INSIGHTJim Cook is the CFO at Orbital Insight and he has scaled some of Silicon Valley's most iconic brands. Companies like Intuit, Netflix, Mozilla...He was one of the first finance hires at Intuit. He was one of the original six founding members at Netflix. He also launched the Bench Board Executive Network, which is a leadership network and knowledge-sharing network for operational executives. SHOW NOTESEarly career lessons on people, relationships, & “giving” (2:24)Vulnerability & the impact of lowering your guard (8:37)Building authentic relationships & trust long-term (12:55)Breaking down power dynamics & building up “relationship credits” (14:49)Learning from mistakes, burning bridges & removing your ego (19:38)Tactics for effective relationship building & networking (24:27)How to prepare for an important introduction (28:24)How to balance your priorities & invest time to help others (29:21)RESOURCES/LINKS(book) "Give and Take" by Adam Grant - https://www.adamgrant.net/book/give-and-take/(article) 'How to Work with Me' - Reid Hoffman - https://coda.io/@reidhoffman/meet-reid BROUGHT TO YOU BY...Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This ELC Hiring Summit special feature dives into compensation! We cover where you should start with your comp strategy, how to create consistency/transparency in your program, competing on comp/equity at the early stages, how to consider geography, and when you should bring in external support with Thanh Nguyen (Founder & CEO @ OpenComp) and Cyrus F. (GM/SVP @ Hatched Labs). THANH NGUYEN, FOUNDER & CEO @ OPENCOMPThanh has spent the greater part of his decades-long career partnering with founders and investors on compensation and HR strategies. He is a leading expert in his field and has helped thousands of tech companies, including Airbnb, Figma, LiveNation, Lyft, Uber and many others. As founder and CEO of OpenComp, Thanh brings to market a solution that combines his experience with powerful data and technology to help companies get compensation right and pay employees fairly. Before joining Connery Consulting, Thanh led Rewards at Salesforce.com where he remained for 9 years, spanning domestic and international HR and Talent leadership roles. CYRUS F, GM/SVP @ HATCHED LABSCyrus claims to have dabbled in the software development space since the first bubble. He's the GM/SVP at Hatched Labs - a globally distributed group of crafters. He recently achieved the distinction of Assistant Cofounder to the Adventure Council®.He doesn't have any venture capital, he owns no equity and he's not on social media. He looks up to his three and three-quarters-year-old daughter who's already acquired four unicorns." SHOWNOTESWhere to start with your compensation strategy (1:30)Consistency in compensation (5:00)Transparency in compensation (7:13)How to think about DE&I proactively in your compensation strategy (8:57)How to compete on comp & equity in an early stage company (11:34)How to consider geography with your hiring/compensation strategy (16:53)When to bring in external support for compensation & hiring (20:13)Once you’ve established a compensation strategy, now what? (22:15)How to minimize differences in expectations on compensation for a role (24:07)How should you decide to globalize or localize compensation? (26:28) BROUGHT TO YOU BY...Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What IS engineering branding? What are the most effective things you can do to immediately improve your engineering brand & attract top talent? This special feature from the ELC Hiring Summit covers all things engineering branding & attracting top talent with Cosmin Nicolaescu (CTO @ Brex) Kris Rasmussen (VPE @ Figma) Brad Henrickson (Leadership Coach / former CTO @ Scoop Technologies) & Sam Wholley (Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners). SHOWNOTESWhat are the most important things you can do to attract top talent? (1:52)How have you changed how you attract top talent post-pandemic? (4:44)Tactical tips to overcome the gap between virtual and onsite employee experiences (8:00)What IS engineering branding? (9:10)Easy, immediate actions to improve your engineering brand (15:18)How do you retain & engage engineers in the company long term? (20:09)Controversial, but effective approaches to branding & attracting talent (23:33) Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This ELC Hiring Summit special feature covers building a diverse hiring pipeline! You’ll hear how to approach DE&I holistically & what success looks like beyond the metrics. Plus how to balance headcount demand with DE&I goals, hold execs/managers accountable & ideas for effective DEI programs & partnerships with Ragini Holloway (SVP People @ Affirm) and Gabe Westmaas (VPE @ Checkr). RAGINI HOLLOWAY, SVP PEOPLE @ AFFIRMRagini is currently Senior Vice President of People at Affirm and is an advisor for PeopleTech Partners and tech startups, including Shift.org and Pinkaloo Technologies. Ragini helps high-growth startups scale recruitment and People processes, often from scratch. She took Credit Karma from 40 to just over 500, and has similar ambitious hiring goals now, already taking Affirm from 100 to nearly 1,000. Ragini advocates for collaborative hiring practices and facilitates organic and authentic work cultures where people come together and discover common goals. Ragini is heavily focused in building diverse teams and designing employee engagement programs that drive ongoing workplace satisfaction and high retention rates. GABE WESTMAAS, VPE @ CHECKRGabe is VP of Engineering at Checkr, building a fairer future through a better understanding of the past. The team is bringing automation, consistency, and fairness to the manual processes behind background checks. Gabe has led several teams through high growth periods, most recently at Airbnb, and prior to that in the crowdfunding space at Tilt, and the Cloud Servers team at Rackspace. SHOWNOTESHow to think about diversity, equity & inclusion holistically (1:37)Why authenticity matters & how it impacts your hiring process and funnel (4:48)Balancing headcount demands & hiring diverse teams (8:53)How to hold executives & hiring managers accountable for DEI goals (14:53)What a successful DE&I program looks like (beyond the metrics) (20:12)Aligning hiring managers & hiring processes with DE&I goals (22:57)Effective programs & partnerships to create hiring opportunities for URGs (25:51) Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This special feature from the ELC Hiring Summit covers optimizing and scaling your hiring process! You’ll learn signs that indicate it’s time to optimize/scale, tactics to create a consistent hiring bar, key metrics to measure efficiency, feedback loops & more with Catherine Miller (VPE @ Flatiron Health) Vinithra Varadharajan (Head of Platform Eng @ Airtable) & Keng He (Sr. Director of Eng @ LiveRamp). SHOWNOTESThe current size and scale of Cat/Vinithra’s engineering teams + their current hiring process (1:55)Early signs indicating it’s time to optimize or scale your current hiring process (3:34)Tactics to ensure you have a consistent hiring bar (5:28)Why engineering rubrics are essential to your hiring process (7:48)How to encourage engineers to become interviewers (when resistant to interviewing candidates) (9:41)Interview panel structures (17:13)Key metrics to measure efficiency in your hiring process (21:24)How many recruiters, sourcers or coordinators do you need? (22:33)How has remote work changed your hiring process? (24:11)Who owns the top of the funnel in your hiring process? (25:48)What are the feedback loops you have in your hiring process? (27:17)How do you mitigate concerns candidates have about their potential managers in your hiring process? (28:30) Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This special feature from the ELC Hiring Summit covers everything sourcing engineering candidates! You’ll hear the latest sourcing trends, most effective sourcing tactics, how to get candidates attention, increase response rates to your outreach, & source senior engineers with Kah Seng Tay (GM & Eng @ Airtable) Shauna Geraghty (SVP, Head People & Ops @ Talkdesk) & Mike Pinkowsky (Head of Eng @ Gem) KAH SENG TAY - GM & Engineering @ AirtableSHAUNA GERAGHTY - SVP, Head People & Operations @ TalkdeskMIKE PINKOWISH - Head of Engineering @ Gem SHOWNOTESSourcing Trends (2:26)Shauna, Kah Seng & Mike’s most effective sourcing tactics (5:37)How to change your outreach to get attention and increase response rates (10:11)Where are you sourcing candidates from? (17:59)Strategies to source senior engineers (22:29) Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This special feature from the ELC Hiring Summit explores the current state of hiring and how the rise of remote work will affect sourcing engineering candidates, the interview process, and compensation with Bret Reckard (Talent Partner @ Sequoia), Maia Josebachvili (former Head of People @ Stripe), and Erica Lockheimer (VPE @ LinkedIn)BRET RECKARD - Talent Partner @ Sequoia CapitalMAIA JOSEBACHVILI - Head of M&A and Investing (interim), former Head of People @ StripeERICA LOCKHEIMER - VP of Engineering, LinkedIn Talent Solutions, LinkedIn Learning & Glint @ LinkedInSHOWNOTESIntroduction to Maia, Bret & Erica’s & their experience with the hiring ecosystem (1:08)The current state of hiring for engineering leaders in 2021 (2:58)Sourcing Trends (8:10)How platforms like LinkedIn are evolving with sourcing trends (17:05)Interviewing tactics (21:26)How the priorities of job seekers are changing (27:42)How to uncover values & priorities during the interview process (29:57)Compensation predictions (34:30)Final Advice on hiring in 2021 (39:55) Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Melissa Binde, VP Engineering, Cloud @ Splunk, shares lessons from her time building Amazon Apollo. You’ll hear the origin story of Amazon Apollo, how to define the right problem, identify the right solution, and what makes technology endure 20+ years. Plus how to improve your engineering storytelling and pitch the right product features to the right stakeholders!"We were heavily influenced by an early project manager I worked with who called it, the 'JEDI principle' - You make just enough decisions to implement! And so anytime we hit something. We would actually stop, if we were arguing, we'd stop and go, 'Well, wait, hang on. Do we actually have to decide this now? Or can we kick this down the road?' And so that helped us avoid getting too tied up in philosophical arguments." ABOUT MELISSA BINDEMelissa Binde previously served as Splunk’s VP of Platform and Observability. Prior to joining the company, Melissa led Google’s GCP Site Reliability organization for almost five years, supporting GCP’s growth from 250M revenue in 2015 to almost 9B in 2019. Before that she led engineering teams at Nordstrom, helping them transition to online and cloud, a cloud startup providing business continuity as a service to SMBs, and several other startups. Ms. Binde began her career as one of Amazon’s first 1000 employees, spending almost ten years there developing tools and technologies that are still part of the company’s core AWS stack. Ms. Binde holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College. LINKSCheck out Melissa's hand-made pens: https://motleywoods.com/ SHOWNOTESThe origin story behind Amazon Apollo (2:44)Pitching the right features to the right audience (10:48)Solving the right problem vs. what you were asked & the value of owning outdated projects (12:15)Selling, pitching and building buy-in for new projects (16:21)How do you know the problem defined isn't the problem you should solve? (20:56)How to determine if you need a technical, process or organizational solution (27:35)Building enduring tools & technology (30:23)How to become a better storyteller (32:44)Other examples of determining the right type of solution (36:08)Lessons on project naming (38:44)Rapid Fire Questions (40:10)Takeaways (44:50)---Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody.To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELCLooking for other ways to get involved with ELC? Check out all of our upcoming events, peer groups, and other programs at sfelc.com! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sarah Clatterbuck, Sr. Director of Engineering, YouTube & Google Zurich Site Lead @ Google, shares the story of her transition as a site lead during the covid-19 pandemic. We cover her past experiences that helped prepare her for the role, what it was like bootstrapping a new team during a pandemic, re-introducing teams to in-person work, AND the story behind her 18-day staycation & its impact on team burnout."You can't worry about pleasing everyone because there are many thousands of people that I'm trying to represent. But you can try to think about what kind of decisions optimize for the most good." ABOUT SARAH CLATTERBUCKSarah joined Google in 2018. She is leading engineering teams working on the Creator Economy at YouTube. Prior to joining Google, she was a Sr. Director of Engineering at Linkedin focused on Application Infrastructure. Prior to joining Google, she was a Sr. Director of Engineering at Linkedin focused on Application Infrastructure.She previously held roles at Yahoo! and Apple while progressing in leadership ranks. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of San Francisco and her graduate degree from San Jose State University. She is passionate about getting girls interested in technology and from 2013 until 2018, she served on the board of Girl Scouts of Northern California, leading the board STEM task group. SHOWNOTESWhat is a site lead and the reporting structure? (2:28)Why Sarah became a site lead for Google Zurich and what the transition was like (6:57)How is the tech industry, community & culture in Zurich different from Silicon Valley? (10:52)Sarah’s past experiences that helped prepare her to be a site lead (13:16)Possible career paths & surprise lessons after becoming a site lead (19:00)Bootstrapping a new team during the COVID-19 pandemic (22:15)Integrating remote hires to in-person office culture (25:19)How to help your team feel included (27:07)About Sarah’s YouTube Channel (29:41)Sarah's 18-day staycation & combating burnout in your team (31:34)Rapid Fire Questions (35:20)Takeaways (41:32) ---Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody.To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELCLooking for other ways to get involved with ELC? Check out all of our upcoming events, peer groups, and other programs at sfelc.com! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Asif Makhani, CTO @ Handshake shares about making non-incremental career transitions, unique opportunities at startups, and exercising influence at mid-stage companies. Plus Asif shares questions to help you gain clarity before your next transitions AND how to attract & retain senior engineers at smaller companies."When you have the ability to take a step back, you begin to think a little bit more philosophically about your journey. And it's not just incremental thinking. When it's incremental thinking it's about, 'what's next in my career.'But when you are able to take a step back, it's about... 'What impact do you want to leave behind? When I look back 10 years from now, will I be happy? Will I feel a sense of fulfillment?'I think that line of questioning really gives you the courage to be able to break away from an incremental way of looking at next steps." ABOUT ASIF MAKHANIAsif has over 20 years of engineering experience with a focus on search engines and edtech. He is currently the CTO of Handshake, the largest career platform for college students and recent graduates. Most recently, Asif was the head of Google Image Search and prior to that, he was the Sr. Director of Engineering for Learning Solutions at LinkedIn, leading the Lynda.com online learning technology organization and launching LinkedIn Learning.Asif was the founding member and engineer of A9.com (a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com), creator and GM of Amazon CloudSearch, and the Head of Search at LinkedIn. Asif is passionate about scaling high performance organizations, developing leaders and coaching early talent SHOW NOTESWhat Asif learned from starting A9.com at Amazon (2:45)The unique opportunity of early stage companies & lessons from Amazon Cloud Search (6:26)How do you exercise influence at a mid-stage startup? (9:02)Successful transitions, why it’s essential to capture your early perspectives, & Asif’s favorite relationship building question (13:25)Asif’s lessons from taking time off & how that gave him clarity with his next career transition (17:56)Why Asif made the transition to Handshake (22:47)Questions you should ask to help you gain clarity before your next transition (25:39)How to attract and retain senior engineers at a smaller company (30:03)Rapid Fire Questions (39:49)Takeaways (43:29) ---Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody.To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELCLooking for other ways to get involved with ELC? Check out all of our upcoming events, peer groups, and other programs at sfelc.com! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.