Level-up Engineering

Interview with Radoslav Stankov, Head of Engineering at Product Hunt. He tells stories about him going from IC to Head of Engineering, the different stages he led through Product Hunt, the challenges he faces in product development, his leadership journal and much more. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The evolution of Product Hunt's structure Going...

Interview with Tom Sommer, Director of Engineering at Redbubble about creating an internship program for software engineers. Tom tells stories about setting up the internship program at Redbubble and the iterations they've gone through over the years to give you a headstart at building your own program. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Mistakes whil...

Interview with Lara Hogan, legendary leadership coach and former engineering leader about building a performance review process. Lara goes into detail about building a process from the bottom up and takes a deep dive into synthesizing and delivering feedback to your direct reports for maximum effectiveness. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definitio...

Interview with Greg Dick, Senior Engineering Manager at Hudl about building engagement with remote employees in distributed teams. They miss out on a lot of professional and personal interactions, and don't integrate well into the team. Check out Greg's tips to learn how you can kickstart that process as a manager! Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: D...

Interview with Michael Lopp, Rands about his time as VP of Product Engineering at Slack. He tells stories about the darkest day of Slack, the mistakes he made along the way and how he grew into his executive role. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Leadership takeaways from Slack The darkest day of Slack Tactical vs strategic focus as VP of Product En...

Interview with Mark Kinsella, VP of Engineering at Opendoor about what makes entrepreneurial engineers great and how to lead them. We go in-depth from the definition through the key qualities of entrepreneurial engineers, hiring and retaining them, and much more. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: Definition and qualities of entrepreneurial engineers...

Interview with Jean Hsu, VP of Engineering at Range about structuring, scheduling and making your remote meetings productive. Learn from her stories about handling an avalanche of remote meetings, and what she's learned along the way about transforming these meetings and supporting her team. Sign up for the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're covering: The optimal number of re...

Interview with Mike Seavers, former CTO at Riot Games about building self-managed teams for high performance. Learn from a seasoned leader about making sure you have the right people, and coach them the right way to empower them so you can stop holding their hands. Unlock your team's potential and unleash them to do great work! Sign up for the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we'...

State of Software Development 2021 report Interview with John Ford, VP of Engineering and Country Leader at LogMeIn discussing emerging industry trends based on data from the State of Software Development 2021 report. We touch on the effects of COVID-19 on the industry, old and new challenges, hiring, retention and more. Sign up for the Level-up Engineering newsletter! In this interview we're cove...

Interview with Ellen Wong , Director of Engineering at Calm about leading partially remote and partially on-site hybrid teams. She shares her experience in hiring the right people for hybrid teams, creating processes, and handling all the day-to-day difficulties of the hybrid environment. In this interview we're covering: Advantages and disadvantages of a hybrid team Leadership challenges in a hyb...

Interview with Ákos Kapui, VP of Engineering at Shapr3D. He talks about running an engineering organization in hypergrowth, doubling its employee count every year. Pick up his tips, tricks, and learn from his experience as he goes into detail on recruitment, decision making at scale, and planning while in hypergrowth. In this interview we're covering: Challenges in hypergrowth Finding the right em...

Interview with Taavi Rehemägi, co-founder and CEO of Dashbird. He tells the story of founding Dashbird, and what it took for him to go from software engineer to CEO. Learn how he built his network and found success in a completely different role! In this interview we're covering: How they came up with the idea of Dashbird Challenges of going from engineer to CEO Essential skills for a CEO How his...

Interview with Gergely Hodicska "Felhő", VP of Engineering at Bitrise. We take a deep dive with him into leadership soft skills and his story about finding his weaknesses and turning them into superpowers. We cover common weaknesses, methods to improve yourself and others around you, and more. In this interview we're covering: Importance of soft skills in engineering leadership Essential leadershi...

Interview with Jerie Shaw, Senior Technical Program Manager at Shopify about building a remote onboarding process to suit the needs of remote software engineers. Coming up with new ways to get developers familiar with the job, keep energy and engagement high, and integrate them into the team while they're often continents apart. This is how Shopify deals with onboarding remotely. In this interview...

Interview with John Ford, VP of Engineering and Site Leader at LogMeIn about his management framework to turn around underachieving teams and improve overall team performance. Learn from his practical tips and tricks while listening to some of the stories from his decades worth of engineering leadership experience! In this interview we're covering: Assessing team performance Velocity goals for a p...

Interview with Balázs Balázs, former Engineering Manager at Facebook about the knowledge sharing strategies he's used over the years with his engineering teams. You'll get tips, tricks and real stories from behind the scenes about how knowledge sharing works with real people, rather than how it should work in an ideal situation. In this interview we're covering: Picking the right methods for shari...

Panel discussion interview with Sarah Milstein, Sr. Director of Engineering at Mailchimp, and Tanisha Barnett, Director of Engineering at Mailchimp. They get into the details of holding skip level meetings, let them be one-on-ones or group meetings. Here's everything you'll ever need to know about why you want to have your own skip level meetings, what they look like, what questions to ask, how to...

Interview with Jurgen Appelo, leadership speaker, writer and entrepreneur. He is an expert on the topic of managing teams to maximize happiness, which heavily bolsters productivity. Learn his tips, tricks and strategies in making it happen, and make your own team happier so you all win. In this interview we're covering: Connection between happiness and performance Prerequisites for high performanc...

Interview with Gergely Orosz, self-employed author of ' The Tech Resume Inside Out ', former Engineering Manager at Uber. He shares unique insight into the process of hiring for a big tech company. We also look at tips to stand out from the crowd with your software engineer resume, and what companies should do differently to find talent more effectively. Giveaway ended. In this interview we're cov...

Interview with Jonathan Rasmusson, ex-Spotify engineer and author of ' Competing with Unicorns ' about the key elements of making the Spotify model work. Squads, tribes and guilds are the essential elements of the Spotify model, but there is a lot more to it. Leadership is the force that drives all the elements, makes the model come alive and deliver a great product. You get all the answers here a...

Interview with Tim Olshansky, EVP of Product & Engineering at Zenput on creating a software engineer career ladder for your own team. This isn't a template you can just copy and paste, then forget it ever even existed. This is a guide to creating a meaningful engineering career ladder from Tim, who has been through it more than once. In this interview we're covering: Building a software engine...

Interview with Ola Sitarska, Engineering Lead at Onfido about addressing diversity and inclusion at the base level: integrating these values into your recruitment process. Why do you want to put up the effort? How do you balance it with hiring the most competent developers? What goals are realistic? You get these answers and more right here. In this interview we're covering: The difference be...

Software engineers, like any other person can get stuck. Their personal development slows down, their career may not move in the direction they want to go to. Great engineering managers and leaders can do a lot to stop that from happening, facilitate growth for their developers and advancement from junior engineer to the senior level and beyond that. Get the know-how from Farhan Thawar, VP of Engi...

GitHub versus Facebook feedback culture comparison with a breakdown of their key elements and cultural differences. Learn the secrets of a healthy feedback culture both on an organizational and personal level from Ryan Nystrom, Director of Engineering at GitHub. In this interview we're covering: The essential elements of a big company's feedback culture GitHub vs Facebook feedback culture comparis...

Avoid the rookie mistakes engineering managers and engineering leaders make at running one-on-one meetings. James Stanier, SVP of Engineering at Brandwatch, and author of "Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager" will teach you how to handle one-on-ones with both introverts, and people who complain all the time, along with many more tips and tricks. The raffle is closed. In this inte...