Geeks Who Lead Podcast
Hear the inside stories of the "geeks who lead at scale" - Directors, VPs and CTOs running software engineering orgs at larger companies with 100+ engineers, and interviews with domain experts who can help those leaders to manage their engineering orgs more effectively.
I'm your host - Peter Bell, I've been helping senior engineering leaders to connect with and learn from their peers since 2010!
This podcast is designed for engineering leaders who want to learn the latest good practices from their peers who are way too busy operating to write an article or publish a book!
Running a software engineering org at scale is hard! You need to manage stakeholder expectations, attract and retain top talent, align and structure your org effectively and keep up with the latest processes and tooling. And that's before we even try to make sense of the potential impact of LLMs and GenAI on managing technical teams.
Our podcast and weekly newsletter provide you with access to hard-won wisdom from top engineering leaders and relevant domain experts. Learn more at https://geekswholead.com/
Geeks Who Lead Podcast
Remote Programming During a Pandemic with Kaj van de Loo
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When COVID-19 hit, UserTesting was already at a unique advantage: the team was already mostly working remotely. However, as the stay at home orders have increased, UserTesting’s CTO Kaj van de Loo has seen some unforeseen issues pop up.
This week on CTO Connection, we’re discussing how the pandemic has not only changed the structure of work, but also the expectations people have of working in an office. Kaj discusses why everything (no matter how small) must be documented, why managers need to proactively talk to employees to see if there are any mental health issues coming up with the changed working environments, and the considerations that will need to be made to safely reopen.
- [01:26] - Kaj's management journey
- [03:23] - Increased specialization
- [04:56] - Programming in a pandemic
- [08:18] - Dealing with different time zones
- [12:35] - Introvert empowerment
- [15:59] - Flexibility for individuals
- [21:30] - Managing remote and distributed teams
- [25:34] - Improved metrics
- [28:39] - Online social activities
- [32:17] - Back into the office
Special thanks to our global partner – Amazon Web Services(AWS). AWS offers a broad set of global cloud-based products to equip technology leaders to build better and more powerful solutions, reach out to aws-cto-program@amazon.com if you’re interested to learn more about their offerings.
CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!
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