Shows / The Tech Trek
The Tech Trek
The Tech Trek is a podcast about how founders, operators, and technology leaders build and scale technology companies. Each episode explores the decisions behind building products, teams, and technical organizations, with conversations spanning engineering, AI, data, product, hiring, leadership, and growth. Guests share what they are building, what they are learning, and how they are navigating the challenges that come with turning technology into a successful company.
Episodes
The Tech TrekMoving into a management role with Bren Briggs
On the show, I have on with me Bren Briggs, the VP of DevSecOps at Hypergiant. Bren talks about some of the realities of moving into a role in management, what…
The Tech TrekBuilding Business-Focused Machine Learning Teams with Yash Desai
Today Yash Desai is on the show, the Head of B2B Machine Learning @ Wayfair. He’ll be diving into how he manages a team that stretches across multiple business…
The Tech TrekNurturing Engineering Skills and Talents with Rajeev Nanda
Nurturing engineering talent is an art, not science. My guest, Rajeev Nanda, the Director of Engineering Operations at Unlearn.ai. dives in to talk about…
The Tech TrekEmpowering DevOps teams with Quentin Hartman
In today’s show, we have our guest, Quentin Hartman, VP of Infrastructure and DevOps Engineering, at Velocity Global, LLC. We cover a lot of DevOps ground…
The Tech TrekBuilding high performing engineering focused GRC functions with Terry O'Daniel
Our guest is Terry O'Daniel, the Director of Security Governance, Risk, and Compliance at Instacart. Terry talks about building high-performing…
The Tech TrekThe Business Value of Identity and Access Management with Grant Reveal
In this episode, Grant Reveal, the Director of Identity and Access Management at Micron Technology, talks about how we can demonstrate the business value of…
The Tech TrekScaling Within The Biomedical Industry with Matthew Clemente
In today’s episode, Matthew Clemente talks about the product and engineering scaling challenges working in the biomedical industry. Key Takeaways: An overview…
The Tech TrekBuilding Data Governance Strategy with Solomon Madadha
What Is Data Governance and why does it matter? On the show, we have Solomon Madadha, the SVP of Data Analytics & Governance Wealth Management at Regions Bank…
The Tech TrekPredictability vs Forecasting Empowers Decision Making with Philip Gollucci
Today’s guest is Philip Gollucci. Philip is an Executive Engineering Leader, a servant leader focused on building high-performing teams. Listen to the full…
The Tech TrekEmpowering Autonomous Teams with Cory Thomas
Today’s guest, Cory Thomas, is a VP of Engineering at Secureframe. A highly effective Leader with the ability to engage and inspire Software Development Teams…
The Tech TrekImprove your engineering quality through documentation with Jordan Stone
We’re very excited to welcome our special guest for today’s episode, Jordan Stone, the VP of Engineering at Paytient, a company on a mission to make paying for…
The Tech TrekRaj Madan - How to build empowered teams
Highlights of my conversation with Raj: Allowing teams to make decisions at the lowest possible level Empowerment is coupled with responsibility Make sure only…
The Tech TrekClarence Chio - Being a cofounder and an engineering leader at the same time
Highlights of my conversation with Clarence: Moving from a lead IC role to a co-founder Leading through influence Giving up the building hat Realizing that you…
The Tech TrekClay Alvord - Organizing and managing the work to get done
Highlights of my conversation with Clay: What does a full stack DevOps Developer do Managing SW engineers as a non-SW engineer Engaging your employees to…
The Tech TrekAna Lebron - SRE is an engineering function with a strategic business focus
Highlights of my conversation with Ana: The intersection of SRE/business Complex systems always fail Reliability is a feature of the system SLAs are a…
The Tech TrekMoitree Rahman - Building a cross-functional analytics team
Highlights of my conversation with Moitree: Building an analytics team to support the company's digital transformation initiatives The skill sets of an…
The Tech TrekLaku Adedoyin - Communicating the “why of engineering work”
Highlights of my conversation with Laku: Aligning work to the broader company goals Engineers like to work on things that actually get used CTO should focus on…
The Tech TrekCindy Chu - Growing your engineering team with diversity in mind
Highlights of my conversation with Cindy: Starting as the only female engineering hire in a startup Bring up diversity hiring plans before you are hired…
The Tech TrekAlonzo Benavides - Growing an engineering team at a (crypto-focused) information services company
Highlights of my conversation with Alonzo: Drivers for leaving a large public company for a startup Moving into the blockchain information space Trying to…
The Tech TrekJeff Gabriel - Balancing research and coding in the research (machine learning) space
Highlights of my conversation with Jeff: An idea can come from a one-off problem or a long-term strategic issue to tackle Relationship between research and…
The Tech TrekFabian Frank - Planning for and hiring the right mix of technical talent
Highlights of my conversation with Fabian: Hiring the best talent vs a specific seniority level Hiring “scrappy” technologists Allowing your senior engineers…
The Tech TrekDehron Hite-Benson - Spirit vs letter of the law in Agile
Highlights of my conversation with Dehron: Be an advocate for your engineers Typing methodology changes to values People want scrum to drive autonomy and…
The Tech TrekJose Asuncion - Growing your team from startup stage to publicly-traded company
Highlights of my conversation with Jose: Being promoted into a role too quickly Continuing education to grow and enhance leadership skills It's important to…
The Tech TrekAmin Lakhani - Should you elevate your best engineer to be a manager?
Highlights of my conversation with Amin: Attributes of a strong engineer Technical excellence doesn’t always mean being the best coder Impacting the overall…
The Tech TrekLeon Fayer - Navigating engineering career and leadership growth
Highlights of my conversation with Leon: Is moving into management the right next step for an employee Create opportunities for an employee to gain some…
The Tech TrekNeil Bhay - Evolving from smaller to larger engineering teams
Highlights of my conversation with Neil: Stakeholder’s level of technical sophistication impacts the level of planning Importance of the relationship with the…
The Tech TrekRound Table 1 - Focusing on hiring while retaining your talent
Topics we covered: Retaining Top Talent Understanding your employees before it's too late Safe Spaces Are more Engineering Managers better? Hypergrowth Hiring…
The Tech TrekFelix Sargent - How to deal with “code smell” ie technical debt
Highlights of my conversation with Felix: Technical debt is a warning sign Liability in the code is not the same as technical debt Dealing with “code smell”…
The Tech TrekJeff Smith - Understanding how the CTO role will evolve as the team scales and grows
Highlights of my conversation with Jeff: Wanting to join a company to impact individual lives Adjusting to a HIPAA regulated industry Understanding all aspects…
The Tech TrekNikhil Desai - Employee engagement in the engineering space
Highlights of my conversation with Nikhil: It takes a village (people, executives, everyone) for employee engagement to be successful Providing employees with…
The Tech TrekRay Espinoza - Surveying and assessing the confidence in your security team
Highlights of my conversation with Ray: Historically security was done in the shadows Everyone is a partner to the security team Give people a sense of…
The Tech TrekDhara Patel - Visibility and ROI of internal platforms/shared services
Highlights of my conversation with Dhara: Try to adopt a product mindset for shared services Measure value in a tangible way Focus on developer adoption as a…
The Tech TrekJohn Wilson - Establishing an analytics Center of Excellence
Highlights of my conversation with John: Establishing an analytics Center of Excellence Using a hub and spoke model as a service provider to the business…
The Tech TrekJoshua White - SRE: Getting involved in business discussions earlier
Highlights of my conversation with Joshua: Educating the organization on the benefits of improved reliability and observability capabilities Setting up an SRE…
The Tech TrekSagar Anand - Different personas have their own definition of quality within the software development process
Highlights of my conversation with Sagar: Different personas have their own definition of quality Quality is baked in by shifting the process left The QA team…
The Tech TrekKen Pickering - Preparing to scale: Being deliberate about who and what you are
Highlights from my chat with Ken: Being deliberate about who and what you are Doubling a team and the change in how a team operates Incorporating different…
The Tech TrekBrian Jackson - Determining which technical skills you can be more flexible filtering on
Highlights from my conversation with Brian: Niche industry but not niche skills Working with other teams to partner where there is a skills gap Realizing which…
The Tech TrekKinshuk Mishra - Leading engineering teams in a strategic way while your startup is on a hyper-growth trajectory
Highlights of my conversation with Kinshuk: Bell curve of seniority on the team Monitoring the manager to engineering ratio; targetting 1:5 Promoting people…
The Tech TrekArie Polycarpou - Managing digital analytics and AB testing at a major consumer facing business
Some of what Arie covers: The rising importance of AB testing Measuring the impact of localization AB testing relationship with product management Archive…
The Tech TrekChristian Yang - Building predictable roadmaps
Some of what Christian covers: Horizontal service teams enable and collaborate The balancing point between innovation and confidence in roadmaps Timeboxing…
The Tech TrekDina Bruzek - Building safe spaces to allow people to be heard
Some of what Dina talks about: Finding a way to connect with your team in a way you haven’t before Building safe spaces to allow people to be heard All slack…
The Tech TrekCliff Kim - Data as an indicator & storytelling in analytics
What Cliff covers: Data as an indicator Don’t put process above purpose Data-driven culture Using analytics to frame the story Storytelling in analytics Time…
The Tech TrekNilesh Nimkar - Joining a fast-growing NFT startup
Some of what Nilesh talks about: Joining a fast-growing NFT startup Managing blockchain at scale More freedom to build Greenfield Factors to consider selecting…
The Tech TrekGuillaume Binet - How to write safer code
Some of what Guillaume talks about: Equilibrium between people and process Culture of safety What happens when you don’t know how to test something Balancing…
The Tech TrekSwarna Mani - DevOps maturity affects the skill sets you need to hire for
Some of what Swarna talks about: Understanding DevOps maturity prior to starting a new position Defining separation between backend and DevOps teams DevOps…
The Tech TrekBrian Hosie - Technical asset development not technical debt
Some of what Brian talks about: Developers own the QA process Adding sand in the gears Technical asset development (technical debt) explained as a positive…
The Tech TrekJeff Vier - Upscaling the relationship between testing and SRE
Some of what Jeff talks about: Upscaling the relationship between testing and SRE Ensuring the quality of the platform Being error-free is the lowest bar The…
The Tech TrekJeff Byrnes - Leaving the startup world for an enterprise organization
Some of what Jeff talks about: Making the decision to move to a larger organization Making decisions when things aren’t greenfield Finding interesting…
The Tech TrekAli Hosseinkhani - Moving from Scrum to Kanban; Factoring remote into the hiring process
Some of what Ali talks about: Handling the hiring process to overcome the challenges of hiring remote Adjusting the software development process to minimize…
The Tech TrekChad Sanderson - The growth of the data platform product manager role
Chad dives into everything data platform product management including: Why does your org need a data product manager Origin of where the role comes from…
The Tech TrekJuan Pablo Buriticá - People grow linearly; organizations grow exponentially
Some of what Juan Pablo talks about: Lean into potential An early-stage startup can take risks to let people grow into roles Hiring someone with experience…
The Tech TrekTrenton Huey - Managing and executing within a highly matrixed environment
Key takeaways: Gap analysis to forecast data pipeline needs Work backward from the end-user point of view Every system has to have some human involvement Going…
The Tech TrekAniket Soneji - Focus your team's activities on work that can't be outsourced via third-party services
Key takeaways: Optimize resource allocation by examining maturing applications Find ways to offload activities to 3rd party services to help scale Being remote…
The Tech TrekBrent Goldman - Treating engineering management as a type of engineering
Some of what Brent talks about: Engineering management is made up of complex systems Provide your team with a playbook and make sure the playbook is being…
The Tech TrekGil Feig - Integrations have expanded opportunities for end users and software companies
In this episode, Gil talks about the impact that prebuilt integrations have on an organization and how these integrations have expanded opportunities for both…
The Tech TrekKirby Frugia - Developer autonomy to drive process improvement
What we talk about on this episode: “Ship Wow, Ship Now” mantra Developer autonomy to drive process improvement Using your “I intend to” voice Focus on…
The Tech TrekChris White - When do you start a formal product organization?
Key takeaways: Define when you should look to formalize the product role Look for a bottleneck in the decision-making process Creating an opportunity for…
The Tech TrekHamed Ahmadi - Scaling engineering teams within Life Sciences Industry
Key takeaways: Overcoming the perceptions of the healthcare and life sciences industry Mission-driven aspects of the industry is a massive draw from high-tech…
The Tech TrekBill Press - Product velocity and delivering with quality
Key takeaways: Product velocity and delivering with quality Strategic technical debt - making the trade-off of customer acquisition vs robust code Focusing on…
The Tech TrekDaniel Hood - Talk about process changes and explain the reasons behind them
Key takeaways: Talk about process changes and explain the reasons behind them Going through acquisition and staying agile Looking to managers as the canary in…