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
Attracting and Developing Engineering Talent with Johnny Austin, Engineering Director @ Mapbox
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In this episode of CTO Connection, host Peter Bell sits down with Johnny Austin, Engineering Director of Navigation at Mapbox, to discuss the best and most challenging aspects of engineering leadership, practical tips for creating a solid onboarding program and ways to maintain a sense of connection within a distributed team.
[00:30] - The road to engineering leadership at Mapbox
[03:00] - It’s all about the people
[03:46] - What does great potential look like?[06:32] - The Myth of the 10x Engineer, Johnny’s May 2019 CTO Summit Talk*
[07:44] - The first 90 days: communication dynamics when building a team
[11:11] - How Mapbox attracts talent
[12:29] - In the weeds of the recruiting process
[19:36] - Thinking about team member growth beyond just tech skills
[21:58] - Maintaining culture and connection with distributed teams
[24:59] - The thing that keeps Johnny up at night
[25:57] - Setting your team up for failure (it’s not what you think)
*This episode was recorded prior to the Summit
Prior to running engineering for Mapbox's core navigation capabilities, Johnny Austin held engineering leadership roles at Capital One and ISL and is a strong advocate for engineering operational excellence. Johnny is also an international public speaker - speaking on topics such as engineering leadership, system design, and the JavaScript programming language.
He believes, strongly, that technical excellence, inclusion, empathy, and customer obsession are the keys to driving a successful engineering organization.
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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Podcast episode production by Dante32.