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
Scaling Leadership in a Growing Tech Organization with Nick Caldwell, Chief Product Officer @ Looker
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In this episode of CTO Connection, host Peter Bell sits down with Nick Caldwell, Chief Product Officer of Looker, to discuss the challenges of scaling leadership in a growing tech organization.
Nick shares his experience moving from a 15-year career at Microsoft into the world of Bay area startups, his approach for finding and developing tech leaders, and some of the hard lessons he learned early in his management career.
- [00:53] Fundamental challenge of scaling leadership in pace with the business
- [01:33] Nick’s career journey from Microsoft to Reddit to Looker
- [04:00] Thinking about career progression and training in a growing business
- [06:26] Balancing priorities of product delivery and people management
- [09:34] What resources to provide managers for their career development
- [11:09] The MBA experience as a ‘forcing function’ for exiting your comfort zone
- [13:06] Is this an engineering manager or is it a replicant?
- [15:13] Different traits desired from an engineering manager versus director
- [17:07] Cringeworthy lessons from early days in management
- [21:25] View of opportunities in the Bay area and tapping talent across the country
- [23:51] What Nick gets out of attending the CTO Summits
You can hear more at The 2019 Chicago CTO Summit, coming up May 1, 2019, where Nick Caldwell will be presenting his talk - Ignite the Fire: How Managers Can Spark New Leaders.
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