Shows
Refactoring PodcastRefactoring at Scale Done Right 🏗️ — with Maude LemaireToday's guest is Maude Lemaire, who is a principal engineer at GitHub and author of the book, "Refactoring at Scale."With Maude, we talked about her journey in tech, from Rent the Runway to joining Slack and leading its performance engineering team to joining GitHub as a principal engineer. And then we discussed what it means to do refactoring at scale, how to do it right, how to bring people on board, and what are the biggest mistakes you should avoid.00:01:06 Introduction00:02:05 Maude's journey in tech00:08:23 Sponsor00:09:34 Rent a Runway00:12:56 Joining Slack00:15:54 Approaching GitHub00:22:04 Changing company00:26:00 Onboarding in a...2025-07-111h 05
Refactoring PodcastRefactoring at Scale Done Right 🏗️ — with Maude LemaireToday's guest is Maude Lemaire, who is a principal engineer at GitHub and author of the book, "Refactoring at Scale."With Maude, we talked about her journey in tech, from Rent the Runway to joining Slack and leading its performance engineering team to joining GitHub as a principal engineer. And then we discussed what it means to do refactoring at scale, how to do it right, how to bring people on board, and what are the biggest mistakes you should avoid.00:01:06 Introduction00:02:05 Maude's journey in tech00:08:23 Sponsor00:09:34 Rent a Runway00:12:56 Joining Slack00:15:54 Approaching GitHub00:22:04 Changing company00:26:00 Onboarding in a big...2025-07-111h 05
Engineering UnblockedGrowing engineering headcount in the world of AI with Allan Leinwand, CTO of WebflowIn this episode of Engineering Unblocked, Rebecca sits down with Allan Leinwand, Chief Technology Officer at Webflow and serial engineering leader who has scaled teams at Slack, ServiceNow, and Shopify. Allan shares his unique perspective on what it takes to be a successful “scaling CTO” — the type of leader who comes in at inflection points to help companies hockey-stick their growth.Allan also offers insights on navigating the AI revolution in engineering — from how it’s changing the hiring process and accelerating junior developer growth, to using it for everything from code completion to writing performance reviews. With his b...2025-06-3045 min
Refactoring PodcastBuilding AI-Powered Podcast Learning 🎧 — with Kevin SmithToday's guest is Kevin Smith, who is co-founder of Snipd, one of the world's most popular podcast apps.With Kevin, we talked about his journey in tech, starting from quantitative finance and then running an AI team in a high-growth startup up to actually founding one with Snipd. Then we segued into talking about Snipd itself and what are the technical challenges of working with AI models all the time. And finally, we discussed the future of learning, what are Kevin's favorite podcasts, what makes them good, and how AI enables personalized learning at scale.01:26 Introduction01:45 Kevin's journey in...2025-06-2750 min
Refactoring PodcastBuilding AI-Powered Podcast Learning 🎧 — with Kevin SmithToday's guest is Kevin Smith, who is co-founder of Snipd, one of the world's most popular podcast apps.With Kevin, we talked about his journey in tech, starting from quantitative finance and then running an AI team in a high-growth startup up to actually founding one with Snipd. Then we segued into talking about Snipd itself and what are the technical challenges of working with AI models all the time. And finally, we discussed the future of learning, what are Kevin's favorite podcasts, what makes them good, and how AI enables personalized learning at scale.01:26 Introduction01:45 Kevin's journey in tech04:18...2025-06-2750 min
Engineering UnblockedNavigating developer productivity at Netflix with Kathryn KoehlerIn this episode of Engineering Unblocked, Rebecca sits down with Kathryn Koehler, Director of Developer Productivity at Netflix, to explore the unique challenges of scaling engineering at a 20-year-old company.The conversation dives deep into the complexities of building versus buying solutions, managing migrations across a multi-repo environment, and maintaining Netflix’s culture of freedom and responsibility, while providing the standardization that enables productivity at scale. Kathryn offers practical insights on everything from measuring productivity (hint: it’s not about lines of code) to navigating the current AI hype cycle with a level head.2025-06-2442 min
Refactoring PodcastThe Future of Dev Tools 🔧 — with Dennis PilarinosToday's guest is Dennis Pilarinos, who is founder and CEO of Unblocked. With Dennis, we talked about his journey in tech, which is just incredible, starting from director roles at Microsoft and Amazon, then founding BuddyBuild and later selling it to Apple, and eventually to these days where he founded Unblocked. And later we talked about Unblocked itself, which is one of the few developer AI tools that is specifically not about coding.So we talked about what problem it solves and the hardest tech challenges that the team has to work with.And finally, we discussed the future...2025-06-1340 min
Refactoring PodcastThe Future of Dev Tools 🔧 — with Dennis PilarinosToday's guest is Dennis Pilarinos, who is founder and CEO of Unblocked. With Dennis, we talked about his journey in tech, which is just incredible, starting from director roles at Microsoft and Amazon, then founding BuddyBuild and later selling it to Apple, and eventually to these days where he founded Unblocked. And later we talked about Unblocked itself, which is one of the few developer AI tools that is specifically not about coding.So we talked about what problem it solves and the hardest tech challenges that the team has to work with.And finally, we discussed the future of...2025-06-1340 min
Engineering UnblockedPreserving culture and delivery speed through growth with Julianna Lamb from StytchIn this episode of Engineering Unblocked, Rebecca sits down with Julianna Lamb, co-founder and CTO of Stytch, to explore the challenges of building and scaling engineering culture at a fast-growing startup.Julianna shares her journey from Plaid to founding an authentication and fraud prevention platform, and dives deep into the cultural decisions that shaped Stytch's 30-person engineering team. From establishing quality practices and developer experience from day one to navigating the balance between speed and reliability, Julianna offers practical insights on maintaining culture through growth. They also discuss how AI is reshaping engineering interviews and the evolving...2025-06-1142 min
Engineering UnblockedDeveloper productivity drivers and detractors with Max Kanat-Alexander from Capital OneIn this episode, Rebecca sits down with Max Kanat-Alexander, Executive Distinguished Engineer for Developer Experience at Capital One, to explore the nuances of developer productivity and experience. The conversation dives deep into what actually drives — and what kills — productivity in engineering organizations. Max shares hard-won insights about why most developer experience initiatives fail (hint: it’s about not understanding your users), the critical difference between being productive as individuals versus as teams and organizations, and why treating engineers as “ticket takers” destroys software quality.Find the transcript at: https://www.swarmia.com/podcas...2025-06-0449 min
The Pragmatic EngineerStacked diffs and tooling at Meta with Tomas ReimersSupported by Our Partners• Swarmia — The engineering intelligence platform for modern software organizations.• Sentry — Error and performance monitoring for developers.—Why did Meta build its own internal developer tooling instead of using industry-standard solutions like GitHub? Tomas Reimers, former Meta engineer and co-founder of Graphite, joins the show to talk about Meta's custom developer tools – many of which were years ahead of the industry.From Phababricator to Sandcastle and Butterflybot, Tomas shares examples of Meta’s internal tools that transformed developer productivity at the tech giant. Why did working with stacked d...2025-04-021h 13
mbanerjeepalmer+listennotes 's Listen LaterAI Engineering with Chip Huyen Podcast: The Pragmatic Engineer (LS 41 · TOP 1.5% what is this?)Episode: AI Engineering with Chip HuyenPub date: 2025-02-05Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationSupported by Our Partners• Swarmia — The engineering intelligence platform for modern software organizations.• Graphite — The AI developer productivity platform. • Vanta — Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.—On today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Chip Huyen, a computer scientist, author of the freshly published O’Reilly book AI Engineeri...2025-03-201h 14
The Pragmatic EngineerAI Engineering with Chip HuyenSupported by Our Partners• Swarmia — The engineering intelligence platform for modern software organizations.• Graphite — The AI developer productivity platform. • Vanta — Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.—On today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Chip Huyen, a computer scientist, author of the freshly published O’Reilly book AI Engineering, and an expert in applied machine learning. Chip has worked as a researcher at Netflix, was a core developer at NVIDIA (building NeMo, NVIDIA’s GenAI framework), and co-founded Claypot AI. She also taught Machine Learning at Stanford Un...2025-02-051h 14
Engineering UnblockedThe science of developer experience with Kristen Foster-Marks from DepotIn today’s episode, Rebecca chats with Kristen Foster-Marks, Head of Developer Experience at Depot. They discuss questionable “ghost engineer” research, why ethical, rigorous studies matter, and how developer experience makes a difference—even in a tough economy.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/kristen-foster-marks-depot/
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions(0:56) Kristen’s role at Depot(3:44) Defining science in developer experience(8:56) The “ghost engineers” controversy(16:02) Balancing peer review with research(19:17) What Kristen wants from quality research(22:09) Why developer experience matters(25:46) Developer experience in...2025-01-0342 min
Dead CodeWhy and Why Now? (with Rebecca Murphey)In this episode of Dead Code, Jared speaks with Rebecca Murphey, Field CTO at Swarmia, about the critical importance of written communication in engineering organizations. Rebecca shares insights from her experiences at Indeed and Stripe, emphasizing how clear, concise, and audience-focused communication can drive alignment, mitigate risks, and advance careers. She discusses frameworks like SCQA (Situation, Complication, Question, Answer) and practical strategies, including critical reading and trimming unnecessary details, to improve technical communication. The conversation also explores how AI tools like ChatGPT are reshaping written communication, the shifting role of junior engineers in a more constrained industry, and the...2024-12-1729 minDead CodeWhy and Why Now? (with Rebecca Murphey)In this episode of Dead Code, Jared speaks with Rebecca Murphey, Field CTO at Swarmia, about the critical importance of written communication in engineering organizations. Rebecca shares insights from her experiences at Indeed and Stripe, emphasizing how clear, concise, and audience-focused communication can drive alignment, mitigate risks, and advance careers. She discusses frameworks like SCQA (Situation, Complication, Question, Answer) and practical strategies, including critical reading and trimming unnecessary details, to improve technical communication. The conversation also explores how AI tools like ChatGPT are reshaping written communication, the shifting role of junior engineers in a more constrained industry, and the...2024-12-1729 min
Engineering UnblockedThe state of DORA and developer productivity with Nathen Harvey from Google CloudIn today’s episode, Rebecca talks with Nathen Harvey who leads the DORA group at Google Cloud. Nathen shares insights from the 10th annual DORA report, covering topics like the relationship between AI adoption and software stability, the importance of transformational leadership, and the role of quality documentation.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/nathen-harvey-google-cloud/
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions
(0:24) Nathen’s journey to DORA
(3:21) The 10th annual DORA report
(6:20) How DORA collects data on AI
(11:52) Testing hypotheses with qualitative data
(13:49) Communicating technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
(20:04) The importance of transformational leadership
(26:08) Qualifying productivity and valu...2024-12-1646 min
alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders#110 - Developer Efficiency feat. Rebecca Murphey // Field CTO @ Swarmia & Co-Author of BuildAligning engineering with business outcomes, developer productivity and developer experience
Become a more effective team in this CTO podcast featuring Rebecca Murphey, Field CTO of Swarmia and co-author of Build. From her years of experience working in the developer productivity organizations at Stripe and Indeed and now at Swarmia, Rebecca knows this conversation isn’t just about developer metrics and productivity - it’s about the broader picture 🖼️. How do we align🧭 our engineering work with business outcomes💸, developer experience 😀AND developer productivity⚡. And just as important, how do we communicate what we’re doing (and not doing) to other stakeholders?2024-10-2453 min
The Nordic Venture Show#8 - Swarmia - Rethink developer productivitySwarmia is a software platform designed to improve engineering effectiveness in organizations of all sizes.
It helps businesses gain visibility and insights into their engineering processes, allowing them to make informed decisions about investments, improve developer productivity, and enhance the developer experience. Swarmia is built to integrate with existing tools and processes, offers secure data storage, and provides valuable resources like blog articles and podcasts to guide software leaders and engineers.2024-10-1913 min
🧠 _#100 - Intuition over 'Data Driven' feat. Jason Fried // co-founder + CEO @ 37signals Podcast: alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders (LS 27 · TOP 10% what is this?)Episode: #100 - Intuition over 'Data Driven' feat. Jason Fried // co-founder + CEO @ 37signalsPub date: 2024-05-03Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationIntuition over Data-Driven, Hooks over Towel Rails and Profit over Revenue
Trust your intuition, you will gain a lot from this CTO podcast featuring Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals, a company known for having groundbreaking policies and products (Basecamp, HEY, Once, etc.). He is also bootstrapping her...2024-10-1158 min
Engineering UnblockedMastering operational health with Iccha Sethi from VantaIn today’s episode, Rebecca talks with Iccha Sethi, the new VP of Engineering at Vanta. They discuss taking stock of an engineering organization as a new VP, how technical engineering managers need to be, and her work at Github, Atlassian, Invision, and now Vanta around operational health.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/iccha-sethi-vanta
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions
(0:52) About Vanta
(4:55) Engineering and cultural challenges
(10:50) Operational health for platform teams
(15:19) Communicating with non-tech leaders
(18:53) How Vanta handles incidents
(23:36) On strategic remediation and incidents
(29:14) Involving everyone in the conversation
(33:19) Common operational health mistakes
(37:06) About being an...2024-09-0444 min
Engineering UnblockedRising to engineering leadership challenges at Honeycomb with Emily Nakashima from HoneycombEmily Nakashima, VPE at Honeycomb, shares her experience about the hard choices an engineering leader has to make about how to structure — and sometimes restructure — their engineering org.
Emily and Rebecca talk cross-team collaboration, emphasizing eng as an equal partner to other functions, and mistakes that seemed like such a good idea at the time.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/emily-nakashima-honeycomb/
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions
(0:49) Emily’s journey to Honeycomb
(4:45) Observability vs. Monitoring
(7:55) About being VPE at Honeycomb
(10:13) What makes Honeycomb unique
(15:50) About Honeycomb’s structuring strategy
(19:20) Cross-team collaboration
(23:57) Examples of cross-tea...2024-08-0845 min
Refactoring PodcastElements of an Effective Software Organization 🔧 — with Rebecca MurpheyToday's guest is Rebecca Murphey. Rebecca is field CTO at Swarmia, former manager at Stripe and Indeed, and the author of Build: Elements of an Effective Software Organization. With Rebecca, we talked about her journey through Indeed, Stripe and Swarmia and the three pillars of her book, business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience. Here is what we talked about: (00:58) Introduction (02:15) Rebecca's Journey (08:24) Joining Swarmia (15:02) 1st Pillar: Business outcomes (23:08) Team structure & Company architecture (29:18) Keeping the lights on (33:56) 2nd Pillar: Developer productivity (38:44) Using numbers in the right way (43:25) The best way of working (51:07) 3rd Pillar: Developer experience (56:52) The effects of "...2024-06-141h 00
Refactoring PodcastElements of an Effective Software Organization 🔧 — with Rebecca MurpheyToday's guest is Rebecca Murphey.
Rebecca is field CTO at Swarmia, former manager at Stripe and Indeed, and the author of Build: Elements of an Effective Software Organization.
With Rebecca, we talked about her journey through Indeed, Stripe and Swarmia and the three pillars of her book, business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience.
Here is what we talked about:
(00:58) Introduction
(02:15) Rebecca's Journey
(08:24) Joining Swarmia
(15:02) 1st Pillar: Business outcomes
(23:08) Team structure & Company architecture
(29:18) Keeping the lights on
(33:56) 2nd Pillar: Developer productivity
(38:44) Using numbers in the right way
(43:25) The best way of working
(51:07) 3rd Pillar...2024-06-141h 00
Engineering UnblockedWhat makes a Platform Team work with Mason Jones from ZapierMason Jones recently started a new role at Zapier, where he’s bringing his platform leadership experience from Lattice and Credit Karma.
In this episode, Mason shares his thoughts on what makes a platform team work, common tradeoffs in platform development, and the challenges of making your team’s work visible and understandable to the whole organization.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/mason-jones-zapier/
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions
(0:39) Mason’s journey to Zapier
(4:39) How Mason joined the platform team
(8:48) Naming teams
(11:10) The mechanics of reorienting
(15:46) Transitioning from infrastructure to platform
(20:44) Goal-setting using data
...2024-05-2848 min
Engineering UnblockedPulling off a multi-month tech debt paydown project with Alice Bartlett from Financial TimesAlice Bartlett, Tech Director for Customer Products at the Financial Times, shares what it takes to introduce modern technology to a 136-year-old company and how to successfully lead significant efforts to re-architect understandable but unfortunate decisions of the past.
In this episode, Rebecca and Alice dig deep on one of those decisions and how she got the work funded and how she got the work done.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/alice-bartlett-financial-times/
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions
(1:06) Alice’s journey to the FT
(5:17) About the FT’s pink paper
(7:20) The FT’s histor...2024-05-1342 min
alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders#100 - Intuition over 'Data Driven' feat. Jason Fried // co-founder + CEO @ 37signalsIntuition over Data-Driven, Hooks over Towel Rails and Profit over Revenue
Trust your intuition, you will gain a lot from this CTO podcast featuring Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals, a company known for having groundbreaking policies and products (Basecamp, HEY, Once, etc.). He is also bootstrapping hero and author of multiple books (Getting Real, REWORK, REMOTE, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work).
Listen to find out:
Intuitive🔮 over ‘data-driven’ 🔢decision making
Hook 🪝 vs Towel Rail 🎏: The Power of Simple, Versatile Products
CEO-CTO Relationship: How to counteract the negativity brought on by the typical push-p...2024-05-0358 min
Engineering UnblockedThe evolution of data engineering in the age of AI with Colleen Tartow from VAST DataColleen Tartow, Field CTO and Head of Strategy at VAST Data, shares her experience from years in data engineering leadership roles.
In this episode, Rebecca and Colleen talk about how “data” has evolved over the years, how AI is turning everything we know about data upside down, and how a PhD in Astrophysics got her started on this path.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/colleen-tartow-vast/
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions
(0:44) Colleen’s background
(3:01) About VAST’s approach
(7:18) Unique challenges of data engineering
(10:56) Setting reasonable expectations
(13:34) The importance of process
(16:29) The future of data eng...2024-04-3032 min
Engineering UnblockedBuilding scaleups without hero culture with Andrea Corey from HomebaseAndrea Corey is a VP of Engineering for platform engineering at Homebase.
In today’s episode, Rebecca and Andrea talk about Andrea’s experience in working at scaleups, the lessons she’s learned, the pitfalls she’s trained herself to avoid, and some of the biggest problems leaders need to solve as their organization grows.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/andrea-corey-homebase/
Timestamps
(0:00) Introductions
(0:46) Andrea’s background
(4:37) Unlocking potential among teams
(7:02) About Homebase’s team strategy
(11:26) Tips to make ideas a reality
(15:20) How Andrea manages multiple teams
(18:11) Countering hero culture
(21:44) Incident han...2024-04-0838 min
Engineering UnblockedChange: It’s a long game with Liz Hustedt from ActBlueLiz Hustedt is a Senior Engineering Manager at ActBlue, an American political action committee and fundraising platform established serving left-leaning and Democratic nonprofits and politicians.
In today’s episode, Rebecca and Liz talk about how Liz’s early experience as an ICU nurse shaped her leadership skills and style, and about managing change in a way that’s empathetic to where the organization is at the moment.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/liz-hustedt-actblue
Timestamps
(00:00) Introductions
(00:50) Liz’s background
(04:00) About ActBlue and Liz’s experience there
(08:55) Understanding team health
(12:35) Building trust
(15...2024-03-2046 min
Engineering UnblockedCrafting a career at the intersection of tech and people with Scott Bonneau from KaratScott Bonneau is the EVP of Product and Operations at Karat, the end-to-end solution for technical hiring. Before Karat, Scott has worked in various engineering and HR roles at Google and Indeed.
In today’s episode, Rebecca and Scott discuss Scott’s career at the intersection of technology and people, how leaders can win the trust of a team that they’ve inherited, and how the tech industry has changed over the past 30 years.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/scott-bonneau-karat
Timestamps
(00:00) Introductions
(02:18) Scott’s journey to his current role
(07:10) About Ka...2024-03-0640 min
alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders#94 - Melanie Rieback // Co-founder & CEO at Radically Open SecurityCybersecurity for CTOs in 2024
Let’s hack cybersecurity in 2024 with Melanie Rieback, Co-founder & CEO of Radically Open Security, the world’s first not-for-profit cybersecurity consultancy with a focus on PenTesting🔏.
Melanie is on a mission to fix cybersecurity consulting by putting people before profits and empowering internal teams “how to fish” 🎣.
Tune in to hear about the current cybersecurity landscape from the person who not only authored a viral RFID paper (“Is Your Cat Infected with a Computer Virus?”), but also PenTested Tor, Homebrew and Greenpeace.
Listen to find out:
What is the business model💸 behind Post Growth Entrepreneurship (90...2024-02-011h 07
Koodia pinnan alla32. Luotettavat integraatiotLähes kaikissa ohjelmistoprojekteissa tehdään integraatioita eri järjestelmien väleillä esimerkiksi REST APIen, GraphQL:n tai webhookien avulla. Saimme vieraaksemme Oskari Virtaojan Swarmialta keskustelemaan siitä, millä tekniikoilla ja työkaluilla integraatiot voidaan rakentaa luotettavasti.LinkkejäSwarmiaWebhookitGraphQLGoogle Pub/SubRate limitingTraffic shapingGoogle Cloud FunctionsRabbitMQSidekiqIdempotenttiReentrantKirjastot sisään tulevan datan parsimiseen ja validointiinio-tszodSwaggerDomain-driven designOAuthVierasOskari Virtaoja Juontajat Markus Hjort: @mhjortYrjö Kari-Koskinen: @ykarikos ÄänityötTuomas Ahva: @tuomasahvaSeuraa podcastiaKotisivu: https://koodiapinnanalla.fi/Twitter: @KoodiPinnanAllaSähköposti: koodaillaan@koodiapinnanalla.fiAnna palautetta podcastistaYhteistyökumppaniVuono GroupVuonon avoimet työpaikat
2024-01-2850 min
Refactoring PodcastLeading and Human-ing in 2024 — with Lena Reinhard (CircleCI)Lena Reinhardt has dedicated her career to helping technology leaders build successful engineering organizations. Her background includes roles such as VP of Engineering at CircleCI and TravisCI, along with being a co founder and CEO of a SaaS startup. She now works as a leadership coach, management trainer, and organizational developer. Here are a few things we discussed in our chat: Challenges in the tech industry 📉Creating a healthy work environment 🏡How to take care of yourself ❤️ — This episode is brought to you by Swarmia, the engineering effectiveness platform for modern software organizations: https://swarmia.com — Here are the key chapters from...2024-01-261h 04
Refactoring PodcastLeading and Human-ing in 2024 — with Lena Reinhard (CircleCI)Lena Reinhardt has dedicated her career to helping technology leaders build successful engineering organizations.
Her background includes roles such as VP of Engineering at CircleCI and TravisCI, along with being a co founder and CEO of a SaaS startup. She now works as a leadership coach, management trainer, and organizational developer.
Here are a few things we discussed in our chat:
Challenges in the tech industry 📉
Creating a healthy work environment 🏡
How to take care of yourself ❤️
—
This episode is brought to you by Swarmia, the engineering effectiveness platform for modern software org...2024-01-261h 04
Engineering UnblockedIntroducing metrics to an engineering organization with Lena ReinhardLena Reinhard has been a software engineer, a cofounder, and a vice president of engineering, including leadership stints at Travis CI and CircleCI.
These days, she’s an engineering leadership coach and consultant. On today’s episode, Rebecca and Lena talk about those experiences, and how they’ve shaped Lena’s perspective of engineering management and managing with metrics.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/lena-reinhard-introducing-metrics-to-an-engineering-organization
Timestamps
(00:00) Introductions
(00:49) How Lena accidentally got into tech from a finance background
(02:33) Lena’s current role as an engineering leadership coach
(03:00) What drew Lena into devel...2023-12-0837 min
Engineering UnblockedLike a Fitbit for engineering teams with Grant Jenks from LinkedInGrant Jenks is a Senior Staff Software Engineer at LinkedIn.
In this episode of Engineering Unblocked, Rebecca and Grant discuss how LinkedIn approaches the challenges of keeping its software engineers (and others) happy and productive, and how the Engineering Insights organization informs its work and the work of teams across LinkedIn.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/grant-jenks-linkedin-like-a-fitbit-for-engineering-teams
Timestamps
(00:00) Introductions
(01:00) Grant’s current role and his career journey
(03:51) The origins of the productivity organization at LinkedIn
(05:22) From building “tools” to maintaining critical development infrastructure
(06:40) Incorporating commodity tools
(08:06) Choosing which problems to sol...2023-11-0644 min
Modern CTOSupercharge Your Business by Upleveling Conversation with Otto Hilska, Founder & CEO of SwarmiaToday we’re talking to Otto Hilska, Founder & CEO of Swarmia. We discuss what Otto has learned from his years as a serial founder, why our conversations need to be upleveled to see actual business progress, and what the future might look like for developers in light of generative AI tools.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! For more about Swarmia, check out their website here.Have feedback about the show? Let us know here.Produced by ProSeries Media.For booking inquiries, email booki...2023-10-0937 min
Engineering UnblockedReflecting on ladders, acquisitions, and personal trajectory after 8 years at Sentry with Ben VinegarBen Vinegar has spent the last 8 years at Sentry in a variety of roles, from Software Engineer to VP of Engineering.
Today, Rebecca and Ben discuss non-linear careers, engineering career ladders, acquisitions, and more.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/ben-vinegar-sentry-reflecting-on-ladders-acquisitions-and-personal-trajectory
Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction
(01:26) Third-Party JavaScript and Sentry
(02:33) Ben’s journey to VP of Engineering
(03:24) Sentry’s growth
(05:08) The ladder: differentiating engineering levels
(08:45) How Ben became the Co-VP of Engineering
(12:42) A new role focused on innovation
(16:40) Building an emerging tech team
(19:26) Preserving innovation outside the innovation team
(21:37) Lessons from acquisitions
(26:11) Leading Synt...2023-09-2933 min
Engineering UnblockedDesign systems and other internal platforms as products with David Demaree from WebflowDavid Demaree is a Principal Product Manager at Webflow, where he helps lead the designer experience effort.
Before Webflow, David was at Stripe, where he worked on their design system Sail; and at Google, where he worked on Google Fonts and Material Design. In this episode, David and Rebecca discuss the power of platforms to accelerate engineering efforts, and the power of involving a product manager in platforms, even when all of a platform’s users are in-house.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/david-demaree-webflow-design-systems-and-other-internal-platforms-as-products
Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction
(00:39) Talking about LEGOs
(02:20) Da...2023-08-2546 min
Engineering UnblockedSuccess is more than headcount with Alex Plugaru, CTO at GorgiasAlex Plugaru is co-founder and CTO at Gorgias, a platform that helps ecommerce businesses provide top-tier customer support.
In this episode, Alex talks about the challenges of building a business in an unfamiliar realm, learning from low-risk experiments, and how headcount isn’t an indicator of success.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/alex-plugaru-gorgias-success-is-more-than-headcount
Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction
(02:04) Origins of Gorgias
(03:49) Chrome extension as MVP
(06:25) Staying lean when it comes to engineering headcount
(10:01) Deciding on growth during COVID
(14:25) Mistakes made along the way
(18:10) Alex’s role today
(22:58) Skip-level meetings
(24:11) Alex’s approach to dis...2023-08-0932 min
Engineering UnblockedScaling Engineering at Wolt with Niilo Säämänen, CTONiilo is the CTO of Wolt, a subsidiary of DoorDash. In this episode, he talks to Swarmia founder and CEO Otto Hilska about lessons learned while rapidly scaling an engineering organization.
Timestamps
(0:23) Niilo’s background
(03:49) Where to focus first
(06:02) Product management in a 3-way marketplace
(07:36) Principles-driven development
(09:18) Turning “big things” into reality
(12:26) Choosing the right work
(15:18) Staying close to the customer
(17:26) The culture at Wolt
(21:17) A high bar for excellence, driven by data
(24:11) Recruiting and hiring
(32:43) Growth & Growing Pains
(41:30) Ownership and standardization
(47:11) Niilo’s journey
Find the transcript: https://unblocked.fm/episodes/niilo-säämänen-cto-scaling-wolt
Where t...2023-07-1351 min
Engineering UnblockedHypergrowth, B2B vs B2C, and welcoming the rest of the world to AI with Heidi Williams from GrammarlyHeidi is Director of Engineering at Grammarly, leading Grammarly Business, their B2B offering for teams and organizations.
In this episode, she shares stories of hypergrowth, the challenges of working on a product that has both business and consumer users, and transitioning a team from startup mode to long-term stability.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/heidi-williams-grammarly-hypergrowth
Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction
(00:32) Heidi’s journey at Grammarly so far
(01:45) Culture at Grammarly
(05:43) B2C vs B2B
(13:21) Heidi’s short stint in product
(14:33) Cross-functional work between engineering, product, and design
(16:22) Managing relationships with stak...2023-06-0532 min
Engineering UnblockedTransforming delivery time at a pivotal moment with Jack Humphrey from LinkedInJack Humphrey is an Engineering Director at LinkedIn. In this episode, Rebecca and Jack talk about the transformative impact on engineering velocity he had when they worked together at Indeed.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/jack-humphrey-linkedin-transforming-delivery-time
Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction
(00:42) Jack’s current role at LinkedIn
(01:27) The early days of Jack’s 11-year journey at Indeed
(05:09) How Indeed’s developer productivity initiative got its start
(12:04) Setting a goal for the productivity initiative
(17:08) Managing the engineering teams’ concerns with improving productivity
(24:18) Rolling out a productivity project across the entire engineering organization
(32:12) Why Jack wouldn’t change a...2023-06-0536 min
Engineering UnblockedMaking the jump from line manager to director — essentially overnight with Christian Helvin from TithelyChristian Helvin is an Engineering Director at Tithely. In this episode, Rebecca and Christian chat about his career journey, about being part of an acquisition, transitioning from agency work to software development, and his focus on developer happiness.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/christian-helvin-tithely-from-engineering-line-manager-to-director
Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction
(00:42) Christian’s journey at Tithely so far
(01:39) Being a part of an acquisition
(04:22) The difference between running small and large teams
(05:32) Leading a geographically distributed team
(07:00) Running an agency vs. running a product organization
(09:04) Leveling up from a line manager to a director
(10:42) Running productive sk...2023-06-0534 min
Engineering UnblockedGrowing up DevProd: 5 years of improving efficiency at Stripe with Ainsley Escorce-JonesIn this episode, Rebecca chats with Ainsley Escorce-Jones, Tech Lead for the Developer Infrastructure organization at Stripe.
Rebecca and Ainsley talk about the origin stories of the Developer Infrastructure organization and the reasons Stripe invests in that area. Ainsley also shares some of his takeaways from five years focusing on developer productivity at Stripe.
Find the transcript at: https://www.unblocked.fm/episodes/ainsley-escorce-jones-stripe-growing-up-devprod
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(00:54) Ainsley’s journey at Stripe so far
(03:38) Learnings from an internship at Facebook
(07:55) The origin story of the Developer Productivity org at Stripe
(16:31) The right time to st...2023-06-0248 min
Опівночні Балачки№33: Python проект з 0 – корисні інструменти для вашого коду🔞 Тут будуть матюки 🔞
Робочі посилання і коментарі в каналі https://t.me/midnight_chatter
0:00-0:40 Інтро
0:41-6:51 Питання слухачів №1: python і приватні пакети в poetry. І взагалі про приватні реєстри пакетів на CI. І як на гітхабі достукатися до пакету в приватному репозиторії
6:52-8:21 Питання/уточнення слухачів №2: ще є pdm-project/pdm для залежностей
8:22-10:29 Повертаємося до deploy keys і як webfactory/ssh-agent це робить для декількох репозиторієв
10:30-12:57 Питання слухачів №3: “так і що мені юзати?”
12:58-17:43 Після створення проекту, що в першу додавати? make і task. Заздримо npm з їх scripts
17:43-19:52 Менеджимо автоматичні перевірки при спробі закомітити за допомогою pre-commit
19:53-20:56 Коли ваш інструмент не вміє в dev mode, допоможе watchdog
20:57-23:23 Коміти по конвенціям за допомогою commitizen
23:24-30:03 Ваші улюблені інструменти для перевірки/покращення коду від PyCQA: flake8, pycodestyle, pyflakes, autoflake, pep8-naming, isort, black. І новий мегашвидкий ruff. Як цими зв’язками користується Денис і flake8-print – золото
30:04-31:47 Шукаємо стерво код за допомогою vulture. Bandit для сек’юріті перевірок і чому потрібні baseline’и
31:48-32:49 Hadolint для докерфайлів, для shell скриптів – shellcheck, helm lint + helm-docs
32:50-32:55 mypy чим корисна типізація, але чому ж так важко почати?
35:56-38:28 tox і матричні білди
38:29-39:09 Pylance, що ґрунтується на pyright
39:10-39:49 Editorconfig для фіксації вигравшої сторони в суперечці “таби чи пробіли”
39:49-40:40 Запускаємо проект в контейнері, щоб команді було простіше
40:41-42:03 Інтегруємо платформи де ви правите код чи раните тести з таск-трекерами і месенджарами – обов’язково для ВСІХ agile команд. Swarmia
42:03-43:07 Включаємо нагадування “онови залежності”: dependabot, snyk
43:08-45:50 Outro. Закиньте грошей ПЖ
Долучайтесь до наших соцмереж:
https://t.me/midnight_chatter
Twitter @O_Balachky
TikTok @o_balachky
Музика: https://www.stream2023-03-2345 min
Made with Grit56 : A few of our favorite (software) thingsBeer vs. Wine vs. Mixed Drinks, all good.Camo and OSX iPhone WebCam App, don’t get a fancy webcam, just use your iPhoneTypeDream.com website builderThnks.com gifting for businessClaap.io video clip / screen sharing and feedback appTLDV.ioRecast.studioMuseapp.com - open canvas, white board type idea building, planning, collaboration platformFelt.com - MAPS!Swarmia.com - Engineering organization appVideoask.com - video clip delivery, vid e-mail appSwitchboard.app - remote collab tool
2022-12-1358 min
#TalentBuzzHow Swarmia is building a world-class tech team?How to build a world-class tech team?
In this week's #TalentBuzz, I talk with Otto Hilska from Swarmia. We discuss how Swarmia has built a world-class tech team.
Here are the things we will cover in detail:
🚀Otto’s secret sauce to hiring
🚀Breaking the rules of recruiting
🚀Swarmia’s first hires. Where did they start?
🚀Utilizing networks in hiring
🚀How to decide what kind of tech people you should hire next?
🚀How to test tech people during the recruitment process?
🚀Validating talent vs. sel...2022-10-0335 min
Illegal ArgumentEpisode 174: plz.review Reddit Post: Improving on the GitHub code review comment experience : programming Blog Post: Bit Complete Blog: Improving on the GitHub code review comment experience | Bit Complete Inc. YouTube Introduction Video: Introduction to plz.review - YouTube Website: plz.review Guests: Dylan Trotter, Matt Schweitz It's been a while since recording, and as it happens, just before organizing the next episode, full of “discussion” on the recent Java 18, and forth-coming Java 19 release, I came across an r/programming post from Dylan Trotter from Bit Complete about their new stacked code review tool for Github. After reading the...2022-07-1951 min
Market Mentors72. Series 2 | Ep 35 Making a Success of Being a B2B Tech Start-up's First Marketer, with Pinja Dodik, Marketing Manager at SwarmiaThe very first marketing role in a high-growth start-up is an extremely important one. As that person comes into the business to raise brand awareness, generate demand, build a sales pipeline, and drive revenue growth, it’s obvious to see why. Of course, with modern B2B marketing involving so many different aspects, having just one person responsible for juggling everything – while consistently hitting their targets – is no mean feat. In this episode, Pinja Dodik talks to Matt Dodgson about her experience as the first marketing hire for Swarmia. Not only did she successfully adapt to worki...2022-07-1930 min
The Growth Hub PodcastPinja Virtanen - Marketing Manager at Swarmia - Being the First Marketer in a Fast-Growing CompanyIn this episode, Reeta and Seija sat down with Pinja Virtanen, Marketing Manager at Swarmia; a fast-growing company founded just 3 years ago. In the past 6 months alone, Swarmia doubled its customer count and MRR.
What makes Pinja’s journey particularly interesting is her eclectic experience. Before Swarmia, Pinja worked as a Content Marketing Strategist at Advance B2B, and she was also in charge of Demand Gen later at Supermetrics. With both in-house and agency experiences, she became the first marketing hire at Swarmia.
We invited her to hear her thoughts on what it's like to start as the first ma...2022-04-2845 min
Frontend GreatnessAutomated Visual Testing With Kimmo BrunfeldtKimmo Brunfeldt a software developer and an entrepreneur joins Ari Koponen on the Frontend Greatness podcast to talk about "Automated Visual Testing."
In this episode:
- Common challenges with visual testing
- Tools for visual testing
- Discussion on if visual testing worth all the trouble
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Episode Notes
Social
- Kimmo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kimmobrunfeldt
- Ari on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apkoponen
Show Notes
- Swarmia: https://www.swarmia.com/
- PhantomJS: https://phantomjs.org/
- CasperJS: https...2021-08-3047 min
Design Radio • UX podcastEp4: Conversation with Roman Musatkin- Product designer and advocate for cross-cultural collaboration.Roman Musatkin is a Product designer and advocate for cross-cultural collaboration between European Union, Russia and Iran.
He currently lives in Helsinki, Finland and works as a design lead in Swarmia, In the past he has designed experiences in Adtech, Edtech, Healthcare, and e-commerce. Roman visited over 200 cities in 65 countries and more active in advocating for creative people from less popular cultures. He has a lot of stories to share about his travel to Iran and how it has motivated him to learn the Persian language and more!
About design radio:
We interview v...2020-10-2712 min