The Tech Trek

In this episode, Hrishank Jhildiyal, the Head of Analytics at Rokt, discusses the impact and growth of engineering in data. He explains how data is becoming more software engineering and how data is becoming more complex to deliver. Tune in to learn more about the evolving role of engineering in data. Highlights: 00:04:33 Analytics drives business impact. 00:09:56 Metrics drive team performance an...

In this episode, Amir Bormand speaks with Vikas Kumar, the Head of Data, AI, and ML at CNA Insurance. Vikas discusses the importance of a holistic approach to data transformation in moving from legacy to cloud systems. He emphasizes the need to tie this journey to business value, starting with small KPIs, metrics, and OKRs, and involving the business from the beginning to get the best value from t...

In this episode, Amir Bormand interviews Utkarsh Sengar, the Director of Engineering at Webflow, about growth engineering and measuring customer behavior. They discuss Webflow's mission to make website building accessible to everyone, regardless of their coding skills, through their no-code platform. Utkarsh explains his role in managing the growth team and building the third-party ecosystem....

In this podcast episode, the VP of Engineering at Fond, Srividhya “Vidhya” Chandrasekaran, shares her insights on getting the best out of engineers. She discusses the importance of empowerment, accountability, and mentorship. Vidhya emphasizes the need for leaders to lead the way of their teams rather than telling them what to do. She encourages empowering engineers to come up with their own solut...

In this episode, Nav's VP of Engineering, Gian Perrone, joins Amir Bormand to discuss organizational design and leadership styles. The discussion focuses on how leaders can adapt to the company's culture or change the organization to fit their leadership style. They discuss the importance of assessing the organization before making any changes and the potential pitfalls of imposing a leade...

In this episode, Amir Bormand interviews Prabhath Karanth (PK), the Global Head of Security & Trust at Navan, an all-in-one travel and expense management SaaS platform. They discuss the growth and evolution of the security function and how it interacts with engineering and technology. PK shares insights into how security is scaling and taking on more functions, with everything becoming "a...

In this episode of Tech Trek, Amir Bormand interviews Andy Foglia, the Director of Engineering at JupiterOne, to discuss adjusting management styles after joining a new company. Andy talks about his experience of transitioning from a big company to a startup and gives insights on how to adapt to new management styles. He also sheds light on the Jupiter One product that helps security practitioners...

Rebecca Greene, Co-Founder and CTO of Regal.ai, shares her unconventional journey from financial services to leading engineering and product at a fast growing SaaS company. In this episode, she opens up about what it takes to build a product led organization without a computer science background, how she balances technical leadership with business vision, and why hiring great people early changes...

In this episode, the host interviews Peter Kapur, the Head of Data Governance and Data Quality at CarMax. They discuss the importance of data governance as an offensive strategy rather than just a defensive one. Peter explains his role in making data an asset that drives business and improves profitability, customer experience, and associate experience. They also touch on privacy as a component of...

In this episode of the podcast, Peter Teitelbaum, director of site reliability engineering at Peacock, discusses the SRE function and the business impact of building it out. Peacock is a TV streaming service that offers both video-on-demand and live offerings. Peter's role at Peacock was to build out the SRE team and define what SRE meant at Peacock. The discussion covers the importance of res...

In this episode, Amir Bormand interviews Karan Uppal, EVP of Engineering at Evolution IQ, about building AI native products. They discuss the difference between building AI native products and what goes into it. Karan's responsibilities include hiring and growing the engineering team, ensuring technology strategy aligns with business goals, and ensuring the organization can execute and deliver...

In this episode, the host interviews Jordan Adler, Head of Product Engineering at OneSignal, a customer engagement platform. Jordan discusses how his team sets up and measures objectives and key results (OKRs) from a team, company, and personal perspective. OKRs are used to drive retention, revenue, re-engagement, resurrection, and other major kinds of lifecycle marketing metrics. Jordan also expl...

In this episode, Amir Bormand talks with Ashu Agte, the CTO at Artera, about dealing with an exit and its impact on organizational transformation and design. Artera is a messaging platform for health systems that aims to improve patient experience and satisfaction. Ashu shares his experience and insights on the responsibilities of an engineering leader, organizational restructuring, and the challe...

In this episode, the host interviews Chris Majka, staff VP of Business Intelligence at FM Global, a commercial property insurer. Chris shares insights about his team's structure, which includes ten analysts with a mix of experience levels. He also explains how they approach working with stakeholders with a centralized and advanced data analytics team. The discussion also touches on onboarding...

In this episode of the podcast, the host interviews Anna Chalon, Head of People at Runway, a content creation platform powered by machine learning. The discussion focuses on building a feedback culture, with Anna defining it as ingrained in the day-to-day without additional efforts. Topics covered include the benefits of a feedback culture, the steps to building one, and lessons learned from imple...

In this episode, Amir Bormand interviews Aruneesh Salhotra, Nomura's global head of application security. They discuss the future of attack surface management (ASM) and the additional risks posed by shadow IT. Aruneesh explains the differences between ASM and other components of security and shares his experience as a fractional CISO for his own consulting company, S&M Consulting, where he...

In this episode, Amir Bormand interviews James Turnbull, SVP of Engineering at Sotheby's, about organizational design. James shares his experience working with early-stage startups and emphasizes the importance of scaling best practices. He also talks about dealing with cultural changes and logistics while working with legacy companies. James explains his role as the owner of all engineering f...

In this episode of the podcast, Amir interviews Matt Drozdz, the Engineering Manager of Observability at Okta. They discuss best practices for observability, differentiation with SRE teams, and hiring challenges. Matt explains Okta's role in simplifying security for developers and shares his journey as a new observability manager at the company. Highlights: [00:01:43] Observability and its imp...

In this episode of the podcast, Amir talks to Vlad Eidelman. Vlad is the CTO of Fiscal Note and joins this podcast to discuss his journey toward becoming CTO. Fiscal Note is a software-as-a-service company that collects, analyzes, and refines policy and regulation data from local to global levels to help its customers understand how laws and regulations can impact their businesses and nonprofits....

On this episode of Tech Trek, Amir asks Suresh Teckchandani, the VP of Product and Engineering at Ancestry, how to balance the need for speed with quality when delivering value at scale. As companies grow and expectations increase, quality becomes crucial to making or breaking a product. Suresh explains that the key is to focus on automation and establishing good communication channels between tea...

On this episode of Tech Trek, Lisa Hall, Chief Information Security Officer, talks about her experiences building a security program at the genetic testing company. The program covers infrastructure security, application security, product security, governance, risk, and compliance. Lisa discusses the challenges and strategies in building and maintaining a security program in a constantly evolving...

In this episode of Tech Trek, the host interviews AJ Wasserman, Portfolio Product Owner of Cloud FinOps & Tech Data Insights at Liberty Mutual Insurance, about the financial aspects of cloud computing. She discusses the challenges and cost considerations that come with cloud migration and the importance of monitoring and optimizing cloud usage to maximize cost savings. She provides valuable in...

On this episode of The Tech Trek, Shiva Parinandi, SVP of Cloud Infrastructure and Advancement at Paramount+, joins as a guest to discuss the challenges of dealing with the cloud at a large scale. He discusses the scale of his company and how they handle the technical aspects of dealing with cloud operations at a large scale. He explains that the amount of preparation needed depends on the size of...

In this episode of Tech Trek, Amir interviews Charlie Greene, the co-founder, and CEO of Rimento. This mobile app allows users to collect and enrich their family's most treasured stories and memories. Charlie talks about his journey of chasing his passion and turning it into a business. He shares details about Rimento's science-backed framework for uncovering stories and how it provides th...

This episode of Tech Trek features Susan Dikramanjan, a member of the IT leadership team at John Hancock, a Manulife company, who shares her insights on upskilling and ensuring optimal team efficiency, performance, and execution. Susan discusses her experience setting up an upskilling program at Manulife and the benefits of promoting a culture of lifelong learning within a team. As a lifelong lear...