Diary of a CTO

Shailesh Hegde went from QA engineer to CEO of Hubilo. He knows both sides of the table. In this episode, he breaks down what CEOs expect from CTOs, how to report without losing trust, and where most engineering leaders get alignment wrong. Topics: CEO-CTO alignment, CTO communication, engineering leadership, technical debt, startup scaling. Hosted by Himanshu Saxena | Diary of a CTO

Alper, Head of Platform Engineering at Choco, built his career from freelance game dev to leading infrastructure at a Berlin food-tech startup. In this episode, he breaks down cost capitalisation, what metrics actually matter in platform engineering, and how to improve developer experience without adding complexity. Topics: platform engineering, cost capitalisation, developer experience, infrastru...

Nathen Harvey leads the DORA research program at Google Cloud. In this episode, he cuts through the noise on engineering productivity, explains why rework rate and change failure rate matter more than velocity, and shares how AI is reshaping software delivery performance. Practical and research-backed. Topics: DORA metrics, engineering productivity, DevOps, developer experience, software delivery...

Junglee Games handles traffic spikes every single day that most companies only see on Black Friday. Pranabjyoti Bordoloi, AVP of Engineering, breaks down how they build for speed, quality, and scale simultaneously, what real-money gaming demands from engineering leaders, and why business acumen is now non-negotiable for senior engineers. Topics: gaming engineering, high-traffic systems, real-money...

Daniel Barrow went from a quiet university student to leading multiple engineering teams across Australia and New Zealand at Valocity. In this episode, he shares how feedback shaped his leadership style, what it takes to manage managers, and how to keep remote teams engaged and high-performing. Topics: engineering leadership, people-first leadership, remote team management, feedback culture, agile...

Varun Pandey had no business becoming a CTO. He studied mining engineering. Then he built a citizen journalism platform, scaled FieldAssist's engineering team from a handful to 100+, and led a full microservices overhaul mid-pandemic. In this episode, he shares what actually works when scaling teams fast and why he's all-in on AI and open source. Topics: CTO journey, engineering team scaling, micr...

Every engineering leader drowns in urgent work. Few protect what's actually important. Toshita Pandey, who has led teams across startups and MNCs, shares how she draws that line, keeps her team focused on high-impact work, and builds a culture that doesn't burn out under pressure. Topics: engineering prioritisation, urgent vs important, engineering management, team culture, tech leadership. Hosted...

Most engineering teams need constant direction. Shalabh Aggarwal, CTO of CredFlow, has figured out how to build teams that don't. In this episode, he shares how he went from hands-on engineer to CTO, what it actually takes to build autonomous high-performing teams, and how to tie engineering work directly to business outcomes. Topics: self-organising teams, engineering leadership, CTO journey, tea...

Dhanush Hetti has spent over two decades leading engineering teams across the U.S. and Southeast Asia. In this episode, he breaks down cost capitalisation, why engineering flow metrics matter more than most leaders realise, and what it actually takes to scale startups without losing engineering fundamentals. Topics: cost capitalisation, engineering flow metrics, startup scaling, engineering team g...

Headcount isn't the answer. Shira Haddad went from QA to engineering leadership across health tech and maritime shipping, and she's mastered keeping distributed teams productive without growing the team. In this episode, she shares how small engineering teams can consistently punch above their weight. Topics: engineering productivity, distributed teams, team management, do more with less, engineer...

Speed is not productivity. Nathan Dench has founded multiple startups and now leads engineering at ProcurePro in construction tech. In this episode, he breaks down how to build long-term engineering productivity with small teams, limited resources, and high expectations — and why most engineering leaders confuse output with outcomes. Topics: engineering productivity, startup engineering, small tea...

Sundi Myint went from writing Elixir to managing the people who write it. In this episode, she shares how engineering managers can stay connected to their technical roots, build real trust in remote teams, and create a culture where engineers step up as leaders without being pushed. Topics: engineering management, building trust in teams, remote team culture, developer to manager transition, engin...

Brad Taylor climbed from systems administrator to CTO at Nursa, then moved into consulting for health tech and climate tech. In this episode, he gets honest about what the transition to leadership really requires, how to keep teams healthy while moving fast, and where most companies get AI adoption wrong. Topics: CTO journey, team health, tech leadership transitions, AI adoption, remote team manag...

Hunter Powers has seen enough tech cycles to know what actually matters. In this episode, he shares what the shift from coding to leadership really looks like, how to integrate AI strategically rather than reactively, and the career moves most engineers overlook when trying to grow into leadership. Topics: AI in software development, engineering career growth, developer to leader transition, tech...

Anton Zaides went from building games to using AI and drone technology to transform agriculture at Taranis. In this episode, he talks about leading engineering in a traditional industry resistant to change, aligning tech projects with business goals, and managing remote and hybrid teams effectively. Topics: ag-tech engineering, AI in agriculture, engineering leadership, remote team management, gam...

Mitch Pirtle co-founded Joomla, contributed to Postgres, and has spent 20+ years building engineering teams across startups and Capital One. In this episode, he shares what separates good engineering teams from great ones, how the CTO role is evolving with AI, and why strategy matters more than technology in senior leadership. Topics: 10x engineering teams, CTO role, AI in engineering management,...

Sebastiano Armeli has led engineering at Snapchat, Pinterest, PayPal, and Upwork across three continents. In this episode, he breaks down how engineering leaders earn real influence in business decisions, what KPIs actually matter at the leadership level, and how to manage high-performing remote teams across time zones. Topics: engineering and business alignment, engineering leadership, KPIs for e...

The zero interest rate party is over. Shreyas Balakrishna, Engineering Manager at Culture Amp, breaks down what engineering culture and management look like in the post-ZIRP reset. He shares how to stay technically engaged as a leader, build psychological safety without losing accountability, and why being product-obsessed is now non-negotiable. Topics: engineering culture, post-ZIRP engineering,...

AI isn't just changing what engineers build — it's changing how engineering leaders lead. Manas P., Head of Engineering at Loopr AI, shares how AI is shifting the focus toward architecture and design, what it takes to build high-performance teams in this new era, and how to keep engineering aligned with business outcomes when the technology is moving this fast. Topics: AI in engineering leadership...

Sarvesh made the jump from Silicon Valley to leading AI and tech teams in India. In this episode, he shares what that shift reveals about how AI is actually being built and deployed, where product development is heading, and what engineering leaders on both sides of the world are getting wrong. Topics: AI trends, Silicon Valley vs India tech, product development, engineering leadership, future of...

Varun Bhanot has worked across BlackRock, Fidelity International, Grip, and now Tata Digital. In this episode, he makes the case for why technical skills alone are not enough in fintech — and how engineers who understand finance build fundamentally better products. Plus, what AI actually means for the future of financial services. Topics: fintech engineering, domain expertise in tech, engineering...