Level-up Engineering

Transforming teams doesn’t go without its challenges.
Let’s look at Tinder’s example.
In this episode, Chris O'Brien, Director of Engineering at Tinder, shares his insights on building and leading engineering teams, particularly focusing on turning around existing teams. He discusses transforming teams, transitioning into a leadership role, Tinder’s culture and hiring process and a lot more.
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In this interview we're covering:
Building a new team by turning another one around
Transitioning into a leadership role
Tinder’s culture
Keeping business, customer and team needs aligned
Tinder’s hiring process

Excerpt from the interview:
“Change isn't easy for anyone, especially in the workplace where stability and predictability matter. Switching teams suddenly can be unsettling, and it takes time for people to adapt and build trust with their new colleagues. That's why I've always believed in prioritizing relationship-building. It's something my mentor taught me early on, and it's proven to be invaluable. When there's already a foundation of trust and camaraderie, transitions become smoother, and teams become stronger.”

Scaling engineering teams can happen in a lot of different ways. Let’s take a look at a real-life example, how Fleetio scaled their product and team over the years.
Their Principal Software Engineer, Richard Young shares what challenges they faced, the strategies they implemented and gives valuable tips to those who consider joining or scaling a startup.
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In this interview we're covering:
Fleetio’s approach to scaling
Fleetio’s approach to hiring
Mentorship programs
Scaling as a startup
Cross-functional collaboration
Bonus advice for scaling engineering teams
Advice for engineers joining startups

Excerpt from the interview:
“Unlike many startups driven by external investor pressure to rapidly expand, Fleetio charted its own course, prioritizing autonomy and organic growth. This autonomy allowed us to make decisions aligned with our vision and pace of development, a significant draw for me when I joined the company.
Navigating the demands of a small engineering team posed its own set of challenges. With just a handful of us, balancing the delivery of customer features with support across various departments like sales, marketing, and product marketing became crucial. Our engineering efforts weren't limited to coding; we had to be nimble in assisting other teams to ensure customer satisfaction and sustained growth.”

Liam Martin, Co-Founder of Time Doctor, debunks myths around remote work and shares valuable tips on managing remote engineering teams so they remain well-aligned in an asynchronous environment.
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In this interview we're covering:
Finding unbiased information
Social implications
State of remote working
Asynchronous team management
Remote work is here to stay

Excerpt from the interview:
"If you try to force employees back to the office, you'll likely end up with a team of B players, as the top talent will have the freedom to choose how they want to work. Right now, it's a seller's market, especially for engineers.
For managers uncomfortable with leading a remote engineering team, I don't have any comforting solutions. The reality is, if you insist on running your engineering team from the office, it's likely to fail. It's a tough truth, but there's no way around it."

Ian Tien, CEO and Co-Founder of Mattermost, talks about these core principles and their impact on his company. He highlights the importance of customer obsession, self-awareness, transparency and earning trust, just to name a few.
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In this interview we're covering:
Customer-centric approach and its impact
Engineering principles
Following the engineering principles in day-to-day processes
Stories of the engineering principles in real life
The role of managers
Finding the right engineering principles for Mattermost
Are engineering principles set in stone?

Excerpt from the interview:
“Great companies are always changing and improving. We never reach a point where we say, "That's it, we've learned everything we need to know." Our values and principles are always evolving as we learn more and as our needs change. For example, we used to have a principle called high standards. It was important when we were struggling with quality issues early on. But as we improved our quality and introduced other principles like earned trust, having high standards started to cause confusion.
High standards were sometimes in conflict with our other values. For instance, it clashed with customer obsession when we needed to release features quickly. It also conflicted with high impact when we focused too much on polishing things instead of delivering important changes. So, we decided to remove high standards from our principles. We realized that its role could be filled by other values and that it was causing more confusion than clarity.
This shows that our values aren't set in stone. We're always willing to reassess and make changes when needed. Our goal is to create a culture that meets the needs of our team and our customers both now and in the future.”

Gil Broza, Value Delivery & Agile Leadership Expert, gives actionable advice for leaders who want truly great product development. He emphasizes the importance of putting people first, creating a culture of continuous improvement and a lot more.
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In this interview we're covering:
Why isn’t product development great yet?
Improving your software delivery system step by step
Putting people first in practice
The right mindset for better product delivery
Value delivery system - Next steps
Fitness for purpose
Revising your value delivery system
Real-life examples of the strategies

Excerpt from the interview:
"Success in software development requires continuous improvement, yet many companies seem to plateau after adopting certain methodologies. Few actively strive to enhance their practices throughout the development lifecycle. New methodologies like Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps emerge, but their adoption is often partial and not fully effective. Implementing changes can create unintended consequences, leading to stalled progress. (...)
Oftentimes, there's no unified approach to developing successful products, which is concerning for the industry's future success."