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
How to Build an Inclusive Culture with James Turnbull
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Many companies see the benefits of diversity and inclusion but don’t know that their own policies and culture are often the reason that women and people of color don’t come on board. James Turnbull, VP of Engineering at Glitch, is passionate about this issue and offers advice on how he advises companies to bring on more diverse talent.
James also talks to Peter about how he approaches growing individual contributors to team lead positions and why he would never stay at the same company for ten years.
- [00:20] - Moving up the hierarchy in early-stage startups
- [02:41] - Leading cross-functional teams at Puppet Labs
- [04:47] - Growing the engineering team at Kickstarter
- [11:50] - Getting people to think about their work differently
- [13:30] - Stepping out of the comfort zone
- [15:27] - Attracting the best engineers
- [18:46] - Building a pipeline of diverse talent with an inclusive culture
- [22:43] - Communicating with teams as they start to scale
- [25:17] - Developer advocacy, education, and hiring
- [29:19] - Do more listening than talking
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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