As engineering leaders we're often expected to grow the team rapidly, improve productivity, improve quality, upgrade the culture and/or talent, and otherwise make things better. How do you do it purposefully, intentionally, and effectively? Are you good at it? Are you actually making things better? How do you know?

In this Circle, participants will learn how to drive improvements and change in high-growth engineering environments. This Circle will introduce participants to defining ideal end states, how to know whether you're making a difference, and how to create positive changes toward those end states that stick and endure. You will learn to define your job along the lines of both general manager and coach, determine what "good" is, create a roadmap for change, and learn to how consistency, influencers, habits, directives, and even a formula help you create changes that are positive and become self-sustaining.

In this session, participants will be introduced to the topic, each other, and the mentor. This session will provide an overview of the Circle and its objectives.

Seth will share stories of high change from TeamSnap, Envoy, TuneIn about upgrading talent, rapidly growing teams, evolving the tech stack, improving productivity and quality, and improving the internal and external perceptions of the Engineering organization.

Introduction

In this session, participants will discuss different goals and measures needed to successfully lead change in a high-growth or high-change environment. Participants will learn how to identify the necessary goals and measures for effective change.

Defining Goals and Measures

In this session, participants will explore different techniques for driving change. Participants will implement these techniques effectively in their respective companies. 

Implementing Techniques for Change

In this session, participants are free to bring their own challenges and the mentor will be able to provide guidance and advice in real-time.

Live Office Hours

Leveling up your engineering organization and leadership

Seth Sakamoto

CTO/VPE Advisor

This Circle will guide technical co-founders through the process of building an early technical team. It will include sessions on the types of roles to hire for, the best ways to source talent, and the common pitfalls to avoid. At the end of the Circle, participants will have the knowledge and confidence to hire the first several Engineers and Product people for their startup.

All payments will be donated to Girls Who Code, an organization working toward closing the gender employment difference in computing.

Let's get to know each other and set the ground rules for the discussion. I'd like to have an interactive and collaborative discussion on the challenges and best practices of hiring technical talent for startups. Let's make sure we're aligned on what we're looking for from the Circle.

Introduction to the Circle

In this session, we'll focus on the challenges of hiring the first engineer for your startup. We'll discuss the importance of finding the right fit, both technically and culturally, and explore best practices for sourcing talent and assessing technical skills. We'll also provide insights on compensating the first engineer. Additionally, we'll touch on some key tradeoffs of early technical architecture.

Hiring Your First Engineer

In this session, we'll dive into the challenges of expanding your technical team. We'll discuss strategies for balancing your time between coding, management, and hiring, and provide best practices for sourcing and assessing talent for your next hires, including your first PMs and Designers. We'll also cover important topics such as structuring sprints and using collaboration tools effectively for early teams

Scaling Your Tech Team

In this session, we'll discuss the challenges of hiring managers and other technical leaders as your team expands from one to multiple teams. We'll cover the importance of evolving your technical architecture in line with your business and team goals and explore common issues that arise during this process. We'll provide insights on how to combat these challenges and help participants navigate the complexities of scaling their technical team.

Hiring Managers and Technical Leaders

Hiring Early Technical Teams

Gordon Wintrob

Co-founder and CTO

This course aims to empower engineering leaders to become security and privacy conscious when consuming services and partnering with security & privacy teams. Leaders will get to understand the basics of security & privacy, the risks associated with it, and how to take action to protect their companies and users. Throughout the course, participants will gain the necessary competencies to make their engineering teams and development processes secure. This course is for you if one of your new responsibilities is to tackle security & privacy challenges or as an engineering leader partnering effectively with security & privacy teams.

In this first session, we will introduce ourselves and discuss the goals of the course. We will overview the basics of security & privacy and the risks associated with them. We will also discuss the different roles within engineering and security teams, and how to effectively collaborate with those teams for greater security with an eye towards risks management for the business.

Introduction and Overview

In this session, we will discuss the best practices for security & privacy when consuming services and partnering with security teams. We will explore the different functional domains within security and strategies/tools to protect our companies and the users of our services.

Security & Privacy Engineering Practices

In this session, we will discuss how to setup security operations to proactively reduce risks and reactively be prepared for incidents. Effectively partnering up with engineering teams to appropriately prioritize security architecture & guardrails in products used by customers. We will briefly discuss different laws and compliance standards that engineering leaders must adhere to and support the business to stay compliant in regulated industries.

Security Operations & Partnerships

In the last session, we will open up the floor for participants to ask their own questions and challenges, and the mentor will be able to answer them. This will be a great opportunity for participants to share their own experiences and to learn from each other.

Q&A and Challenges

Becoming a security conscious leader

Srinath Kuruvadi

Head of Cloud Security

Technical debt is something that all technology leaders have to deal with and manage. If ignored, it can cripple productivity and quality. This course offers a comprehensive introduction to managing technical debt and explaining it to non-technical leadership teams.

Introduce participants to the concept of technical debt, its implications and how to manage it. 

Introduction to Technical Debt

Explore how to explain and justify technical debt to non-technical leadership teams.

Explaining Technical Debt to Non-Technical Leadership

Discuss the importance of prioritizing technical debt and strategies for doing so.

Prioritizing Technical Debt

Allow participants to ask their own questions and challenges and the mentor will be able to answer them.

Circles