Allison Malloy, Director of Engineering at Shopify, joins the show to chat about her journey from aspiring astronaut to a successful career in software engineering. We talked about her unintentional path to management, the challenges of running a remote team, and her Priority Zero of unifying services across Shopify.
08:40 Transitioning to management: The unintentional leader
14:00 Managing managers and the importance of letting go
17:30 What makes a great technical manager
19:50 Working fully remote from Canada
24:00 Unification of teams and features at Shopify and expanding future capabilities
33:00 Setting the right goals for major projects and launches
Allison's recommendation: The Acquired podcast and The Art of Storytelling by John D. Walsh.
Author of The Manager's Path, Camille Fournier, joins the podcast to talk about her varied career in software engineering, the evolution of management practices in tech, Founder mode vs Manager mode, and her recent interest in platform engineering. 02:00 Doing it for the money vs the passion 07:00 Management in startups vs. big companies 14:45 The qualities of good managers 23:00 The legacy of The Manager's Path 7 years on 31:00 Camille's current focus on platform engineering 39:00 Priority Zero: effectively offboarding as an executive Camille's recommendation: Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner Camille will also be speaking on stage LDX3 London on June 15-16, 2025. Tickets are available now.
Anil Dash, VP of developer experience at Fastly, joins the show to talk about the decline of community in software circles, the value of following your passions as a developer, what he learned working with Joel Spolsky on Stack Overflow and Glitch, and the evolution of developer tools.
6:00 Going from hobbyist to professional developer
11:00 The decline of software communities
18:00 The importance of following your passion as a developer
29:00 Working with Joel Spolsky
47:00 Adapting to a more corporate role and the pitfalls of 'founder mode'
53:00 Anil's Priority Zero: Making Fastly tools more accessible to developers by focusing on the experience
Anil's recommendation: Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz
Melissa DePuydt, Director of Engineering at Medium, joins the show to talk about making the switch from journalism to software engineering, her experiences with imposter syndrome, and a Scrappy vs. Scale framework for adapting your management approach to different contexts.
06:00 Transitioning from journalism to engineering 13:00 Learning to live with imposter syndrome 21:00 The Scrappy vs. Scale framework (Check out Melissa's LeadDev New York talk on the Scrappy/Scale Mindset) 31:20 Establishing stability at Medium
Melissa's recommendation: Horseback riding (yes, horseback riding)
Matt Boyle, an engineering manager at Cloudflare, joins the show to talk about joining the tech giant during the pandemic, how that influences his management style, and the vital importance of regular retrospectives.
06:00 The difference between working at big and small companies
09:00 The terrifying transition from IC to manager
15:00 The vital importance of retrospectives
18:00 Managing distributed teams and the importance of asynchronous work
21:00 Matt's Priority Zero: Ensuring high availability
24:00 The importance of continuous improvement after incidents
Matt's recommendation: Acquired podcast
Dan Blundell, Engineering Director at Gymshark, joins the show to talk about his journey from an aspiring musician to self-taught developer.
He reflects on his experiences in the public sector, including working on the UK's Covid-19 test and trace application, and his transition to the fast-growing retailer Gymshark, where he has learned the importance of understanding business needs, hiring for culture, and the significance of maintaining leadership capacity during periods of rapid change.
00:00 The MySpace years and discovering the spark
09:00 Becoming an accidental manager
12:00 Lessons learned from the public sector
15:00 The fear of joining Gymshark and navigating leadership challenges
21:00 The importance of understanding business needs
24:00 Dan's Priority Zero: Scaling at Gymshark
27:00 Hiring for culture and values
Dan's recommendation: The Engineering Leader by Cate Huston
Director of Engineering at Trainline, Gary Stevens, joins the show to talk about the role of machine learning in the travel booking experience, the importance of engagement as an engineering leader, and mentoring vs coaching.
00:00 Gary's journey to director of engineering and learning from great managers
09:00 Coaching vs. mentoring
13:00 The importance of engagement in engineering and the importance of celebrating good work
21:00 Machine learning and the future of travel user experiences
Gary's recommendation: The Hard Fork podcast
Alicia Collymore, a Senior Engineering Manager at Incident.io joins the show to chat about entering the industry without a formal computer science degree, transitioning from tech lead to management, setting goals for people who don't want them, and her priority zero of a big Microsoft Teams integration.
03:10 From self-learning to getting her big break
06:00 Transitioning from Tech Lead to Engineering Manager
12:00 The key to good hiring
15:00 Setting goals for engineers
17:30 Delivering a big MS Teams integration project
Alicia's recommendation: Medusa by Rosie Hewlett
Rafe Colburn, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Depop joins the show to talk about his journey from a computer-loving kid to a seasoned engineering leader. We talked about the biggest lessons he learned from his time at Etsy, management by instinct, the dynamics between product and engineering teams, and his biggest priorities right now at Depop. 09:00 The evolution of engineering management and lessons from Etsy's engineering culture 15:00 Navigating product and engineering dynamics
Rafe's recommendation: beliapp.com
The James Stanier blog post we talked about: https://theengineeringmanager.substack.com/p/the-disappointment-frontier
Rob Zuber, CTO of CircleCI, joins the show to talk about his unique leadership journey, going from solving real manufacturing problems, to building software for other developers.
00:00 Rob's unconventional path to CTO
13:30 The importance of being scrappy
22:40 The Future of CircleCI
23:33 From analysis to execution: The shift in leadership roles
26:00 Running an Engineering Organization: Learning, reading, and seeking feedback
31:30 Improving developer experience iteratively
Rob's recommended: 'Greatness' by David Marquet
Annie Vella, a distinguished engineer at Westpac New Zealand, joins the podcast to talk about her incredibly varied career journey, repeatedly ending up working alongside her husband, and riding the manager to individual contributor pendulum.
08:00 Working in Different Domains and Embracing Change
20:00 Transitioning into Management Roles
25:00 The Value of Embracing Change and New Opportunities
35:30 Transitioning to Engineering Manager Roles
46:00 The Impact of AI Tools on Software Engineers
In this episode, Scott Carey sat down with Nick Means, VP of Engineering at MedScout, ahead of his talk at LeadDev London 2024 about the history of the Barbican estate. We talked about the value of 1:1 meetings, storytelling as a leadership tool, spotting people's superpowers, struggling with bureaucracy, and how to build an AI team. "Software engineering is sort of like a character-building video game. You've got all of these people on your group that's traversing through this environment and everybody's got different skill alignments." 01:00 The importance of 1:1 meetings and storytelling in leadership 05:30 Building a culture of autonomy and leveraging individual superpowers 11:30 The challenges of working in a larger organization (GitHub 👀) 20:00 Building an AI team and verifying outputs
Nick's recommendation: Perplexity AI
Katerina Iliakopoulou, a senior machine learning engineer at Meta, joins the show to talk about leaving her dream job at the New York Times, the importance of deep domain knowledge as an engineer, and what’s around the corner in machine learning.
02:10 Why domain knowledge is vital for engineers
04:45 Leaving the New York Times for Meta
08:45 Choosing the IC track and what makes a great manager
14:44 The art of prioritization and building impactful solutions
18:00 PriorityZero: Scaling ML models for Facebook Reels
34:24 The future of recommendation systems
Katerina's recommendation: Chip War by Chris Miller
Welcome to PriorityZero, an engineering leadership podcast from LeadDev. I'm your host, Scott Carey, the editor in chief at LeadDev. I've been covering the software business for the best part of a decade, and I love to hear how engineering leaders are solving big people and technical problems.
Subscribe to this podcast to hear how the best software engineering leaders in the business made their start in the industry, how they think about leadership, and their biggest priority right now.
In this first season you will hear from:
