Ellen König, Head of Engineering at Alcemy, shares her practical insights on engineering leadership, remote team management, and building sustainable tech companies. Here's what you'll learn from this episode:
1/ 📚 Most tech leadership books are actually marketing in disguise. Ellen reveals why books from consulting companies give you just enough information to understand concepts but not enough to actually apply them—and what works instead for developing real leadership skills.
2/ 🏠 Remote work isn't going anywhere, but it requires intentional management. Learn Ellen's approach to leading a 10-person engineering team distributed across Germany, including quarterly in-person weeks and why engineers actually thrive with remote focus time.
3/ 💰 The zero interest rate era is over, and engineering leadership has fundamentally changed. Discover how to scale your product without scaling your team, why "throwing people at problems" no longer works, and what this means for startup growth strategies.
4/ 🔧 Performance management in Germany requires patience and process. Ellen shares her 6-month approach to handling underperformance, why transparent feedback prevents most issues, and how to navigate strict European labor laws while maintaining team quality.
5/ 🤖 AI tools are changing development workflows, not replacing developers. Learn how Ellen's team uses Copilot effectively, why take-home coding assignments are getting harder to evaluate, and what the current brutal job market means for career transitions.
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