The Tech Trek

Top takeaways: Challenges around scaling data engineering teams Pros and cons of keeping job descriptions vague Waiting to make the “right” hire? Focusing on retention and career progression Meet: Liran Eisenberg is a forward-thinking Data Architect with 20 years of technical management experience guiding the development and design of enterprise database platforms for global organizations. Working both as a consultant and employee, oversee implementation of data architecture projects and platform solutions within highly regulated high-tech, financial, military, and health care sectors ranging from startups to large corporate enterprises. If you have any questions for Liran, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liraneisenberg/ I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you’ll learn: What to think about when you are looking to scale your engineering team Healthy tech debt to support fast growth 3 categories of tech debt Team design and growth ladders Meet:   Anil Beniwal is the Head of Engineering at Arcadia, an organization with the goal of accelerating the world's adoption of renewable energy. He was previously VP of Engineering at Betterment, an automated money management solution, and had spent the majority of his career in fintech. Anil cares a great deal about providing a safe and productive environment for engineers to do their best work and to drive the business forward. If you have any questions for Anil, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abeniwal/ I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you’ll learn: 1-way vs 2-way doors Making a transition from a FAANG to a startup A good process should solve an acute problem Meet:   Anthony Girolamo leads the product and engineering organization at FLEXE. His teams are responsible for the development of the FLEXE Technology Platform and the capabilities that set FLEXE apart. Prior to joining FLEXE, Anthony spent 9 years at Amazon as a senior technical leader of Amazon Fulfillment Technologies and Supply Chain Optimization Technologies. He also held senior software engineering positions at Microsoft and received both his BSE and MSE in Computer Science at the University of Michigan. If you have any questions for Anthony, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-girolamo-b3b21b2/ I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you’ll learn: Very important to define stretch goals Leveraging eNPS - employee net promoter score Using employee net promoter score within your agile process Constantly tweaking and improving the methodology Getting to Teal! (Laloux Cultural Model) Meet:   Nate Loomis is a Director of Cloud Engineering at Ally Financial and Product Manager of the Cloud Patterns (Patterneers) squad.  At Ally, his squad is focused on patterns of automation that implement public cloud services and enhance the capabilities available to development teams from their workspace or the command line.  He has been a developer, architect, and various levels of manager throughout his career, always searching for new challenges.  His friends say he is now a #developer (commented out) but he still loves to tinker with new languages and tools.  He loves to hear from others and hopes you find this episode useful. What is Servant Leadership?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKk0AaaFqtU Simon Sinek on Inspiration: https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action Laloux Cultural Model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Jc5aAJu9g If you have any questions for Nate, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nloomis/ I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

Top 3 takeaways: The looming retention problem - returning to the office Balancing team distribution via fewer time zones Adjusting salary bands to account for location and experience Meet: Mike Brittain is the VP of Engineering at Transfix, where he leads technology initiatives to build a simpler, smarter, and more sustainable freight ecosystem. His career in Internet software dates back to the late ‘90s and includes over 15 years in team leadership and executive roles. Mike played a significant role in building the team and shaping culture at Etsy over a 7-year period spanning pre and post-IPO phases. He lives with his wife and four kids in the Greater New York area. If you have any questions for Mike, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebrittain I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you’ll learn: Decisions as a bridge between ideation and execution RACI decision-making Decisions can’t be made absent of context; Provide as much context as possible Meet: Dan Simon is currently the VP of Engineering at Qventus, a health care operations company.  In his capacity there he manages all aspects of engineering execution and operations, from application development to data science.  Prior to Qventus Dan held leadership roles in several startups across 8 different industries, including real estate software, security, social gaming, live event ticketing, and video platform.  He holds a bachelor’s in computer science and a bachelor’s in applied math from UC Davis. If you have any questions for Dan, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simondan/ I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you’ll learn: - Adjusting to the differences in structure between private industry and the military - Valuing the importance of resource allocation - Dealing with the difference between training and education - When taking your first post-military role try to understand the importance of geography, industry, and function - Transitioning your network from the military to the private industry - Leveraging your “one last move” - Discovering the hidden talent in the military Meet: Chris Ieva is a retired Marine Corps Infantry Officer who now heads up Data Science for Anheuser-Busch. If you have any questions for Chris, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisieva I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you’ll learn: How to grow an agile data and analytics team Solving data discovery challenges to speed up productivity Agility vs velocity Providing data capabilities to more users Meet: Romit Jadhwani is the Head of Growth Analytics, Data Science, and Business Intelligence at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, he led the Ads Business Intelligence team at Google. Romit is passionate about helping companies grow and scale and is always looking for ideas and techniques to drive innovation and agility with analytics and data. He loves solving problems, whether it is helping a $1B+ company continue with its hyper-growth trajectory or teaching his young kids why it is important to eat all their vegetables. If you have any questions for Romit, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romitjadhwani/ I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you’ll learn: Challenges in getting deep expertise in many areas Moving from a project focus to deeper subject matter expertise Moving towards intent-based leadership To learn more about Intent-Based Leadership - https://davidmarquet.com/ Meet: Brian Berger has served in a variety of Engineering and Operations leadership positions in IaaS and SaaS companies for 20+ years.  He works with organizations to improve delivery velocity and increase service reliability within and between Software Development and Operations organizations. He currently serves as Ping Identity’s Senior Director of Infrastructure Operations.  His teams are accountable for infrastructure services, reliability, and delivery pipelines for Ping’s Global SaaS Identity Management solutions serving over 60% of the Fortune 100. Prior to joining Ping Brian was Sr. Director of Engineering at Wellsky where he led  Software Development, Quality Assurance, and SRE programs for their Home Health, Hospice, and Private Duty Agency management SaaS offerings. If you have any questions for Brian, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianberger/ I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.

What you can take away from this episode: Connecting consumer experiences to the product Using alternative data-rich sources of information to increase understanding Considering indirect factors in consumer behavior Future technologies to capture additional consumer data points Meet: Chris Ieva is a retired Marine Corps Infantry Officer who now heads up Data Science for Anheuser-Busch. If you have any questions for Chris, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisieva I hope you enjoyed the episode, the best place to connect with me is on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand). Please send me a message if you would like me to cover certain topics with future guests.