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
Balancing Engineering Craft with Customer and Company Needs with Ryan Graciano
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Ryan Graciano got his start working for a small company that was acquired by IBM. Having been on the employee side of a large merger, Ryan has been able to take what he learned to his role as CTO at Credit Karma. On today’s episode of CTO Connection, Ryan talks to Peter about his distaste for terms like microservices and technical debt as well as how to craft an environment that values both craft and customer.
Listen in as Ryan discusses managing large teams of engineers while stressing a culture of agility and experimentation.
- [00:21] - How Ryan started his career in software development
- [01:40] - Transitioning to Credit Karma
- [02:50] - Building an engineering team
- [05:26] - Staying connected to the code
- [06:36] - Recruiting talent
- [11:13] - Moving from IC to manager
- [15:19] - Drawing the line at microservices
- [17:32] - Technical debt
- [22:31] - Communicating with business stakeholders
- [24:19] - Company, customer, craft
- [27:18] - What to look for in a great engineer
- [29:37] - What to look for in upper management
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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