logo
episode-header-image
Aug 19
23m 9s

Rewriting the Engineering Leadership Pla...

The Engineering Leadership Community (ELC)
About this episode

Engineering leadership is undergoing a seismic shift, requiring playbooks to be rewritten, in real-time. In this special episode, hosts Patrick Gallagher and Jerry Li give you an inside look at the ELC Annual 2025 experience, and how the two-day conference will equip you with new mental models, skills, and frameworks required to lead.

Get a preview of tactical takeaways from deep operational dives into companies like OpenAI, Amplitude, and HeyGen. Discover how the conference will help you redesign your innovation engine, transform your team's workflows, and blur the lines between engineering, product, and business to drive impactful change. Through a unique mix of tactical sessions, peer-led roundtables, and curated mentorship, you'll learn how to find the community and coaching needed to lead through uncertainty and invest in your own career growth.

To learn more & get tickets, go to sfelc.com/annual2025

Use code podcast15 for 15% off tickets - group tickets / discounts available.

 

ABOUT ELC ANNUAL

The playbook for engineering leadership is being rewritten. ELC Annual 2025, happening September 10-11 in San Francisco, is where you'll gain the insights, strategies, and deep connections needed to lead in this new era. 50+ speakers, 50+ peer-led roundtables discussions, 1:1 matching to expand your network. Insights, connections & support.

Join the community of engineering leaders who are co-creating the future of our field.

Listener Discount → Use code podcast15 for 15% off

Group Tix → For teams looking to attend together, special group discounts can be found under the 'Tickets' section of our website!

Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2025

 

ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI Agents

So you’ve invested in AI agents for code generation, but they’re limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.

ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.

Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.

ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev

 

Join us at ELC Annual 2025

ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections!

🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025

 

SHOW NOTES:

  • The ground is shifting: Why the old playbooks for engineering leaders are being rewritten (0:55)
  • Moving beyond AI hype to harnessing its real power in your products and workflows (2:44)
  • How are teams & workflows changing? Redefining roles and upskilling your team for the AI era (9:06)
  • Why the smartest insights don't come from the stage, but from deep, honest conversations with peers in roundtables (13:36)
  • How curated one-on-one matches help you build a trusted network to rely on for years to come (16:08)
  • ELC Annual isn't a tech conference; it's a career conference to invest in yourself and your leaders (17:49)

 

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

Up next
Aug 5
The End-to-End Engineer: How WorkOS Collapsed the Talent Stack for High-Velocity Execution, Ownership & Better Product Decisions w/ Michael Grinich
What if your engineering team didn’t just write code, but owned product discovery, wrote the launch messaging, and handled early sales? In this episode, Michael Grinich, CEO and founder of WorkOS, deconstructs their playbook for collapsing the product/engineering stack: no design ... Show More
44m 55s
Jul 22
Influencing without authority: What every engineering leader can learn from security w/ Srinath Kuruvadi #227
Influencing without authority is the hidden superpower of security leadership—and a crucial skill every engineering leader must master. In this episode, Srinath Kuruvadi (Head of Cloud Security @ JPMorgan Chase) breaks down how to influence without formal authority and advocate w ... Show More
37m 2s
Jul 8
Vision-first leadership & reimagining product w/ “Shift Out,” Do-It-as-a-Service & Jobs-to-Be-Done w/ John Amaral #226
John Amaral (CTO and co-founder @ Root.io) joins us to discuss the evolving role of engineering leaders and why vision-first leadership & building your “vision” muscle is more critical than ever. We dive into why “shift left” is dead and why SaaS is being replaced by “do-it” as a ... Show More
44m 54s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2024
Becoming more strategic, navigating difficult colleagues, harnessing founder mode, and more | Anneka Gupta (Chief Product Officer at Rubrik)
Anneka Gupta is the Chief Product Officer at Rubrik, a leading B2B cybersecurity company. She previously spent 11 years at LiveRamp, where she was the President and Head of Product and Platforms leading product development and go-to-market operations and strategy. Anneka also sit ... Show More
1h 8m
Sep 2024
Transforming a 27-Year-Old Business into an AI Powerhouse | Vinod Suresh, US Chief Product Officer at GoDaddy | E237
In this episode of The Product Podcast, we sit down with Vinod Suresh, US Chief Product Officer at GoDaddy, to dive deep into his journey from moving across 13 schools as a child to leading major product teams at GoDaddy. Vinod shares his passion for lifelong learning, explaining ... Show More
59m 23s
Jan 2025
How a 160-Year-Old Startup Uses AI: The Heineken Company’s Ronald den Elzen
After trying his luck at the stock market, Ronald den Elzen, pursued a career in technology leadership instead. Today, as the chief technology and digital officer of The Heineken Company, he encourages his team to think about the legacy beverage company as a 160-year-old startup ... Show More
28m 54s
Sep 2024
Lessons in product leadership and AI strategy from Glean, Google, Amazon, and Slack | Tamar Yehoshua (Product at Glean, ex-Google and Slack)
Tamar Yehoshua is the president of product and technology at Glean. Prior to joining Glean, Tamar was chief product officer at Slack, where she led product, design, and research as the company scaled, including a 10x increase in revenue, its public listing, and an acquisition by ... Show More
1h 17m
May 4
Inside Devin: The world’s first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company’s code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition)
Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin—the world’s first autonomous AI software engineer. Unlike other AI coding tools, Devin works like an autonomous engineer that you can interact with through Slack, Linear, and GitHub, just like with a remote ... Show More
1h 32m
Jun 12
What Smart Manufacturing Leaders Consider Before Adopting AI - with Tim Burge of Aquant
Today’s guest is Tim Burge, Director at Aquant. Aquant is an AI platform built for service teams that maintain and repair complex equipment. It gives clear, accurate answers to service questions — from basic fixes to deep diagnostics — so field techs, call centers, managers, and ... Show More
28m 47s
Jan 2025
Inside Gong: How teams work with design partners, their pod structure, autonomy, trust, and more | Eilon Reshef (co-founder and CPO)
Eilon Reshef is the co-founder and chief product officer at Gong, one of the most ubiquitous B2B products in the world. In our conversation, we discuss:• Gong’s unique approach to working with design partners• Their unique pod model• Why Eilon makes big decisions quickly• Lessons ... Show More
56m 42s
Mar 2025
How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can't copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions)
Gaurav Misra is the co-founder and CEO of Captions, an AI-powered video creation company and one of the most successful consumer AI products in the world today. Previously he was a product leader at Snap, where he created the design engineering function and spent years helping de ... Show More
1h 25m
Oct 2024
Becoming a conscious leader: Leading without fear, finding your life’s objective function, and getting better at vision and strategy | John Mark Nickels (Uber, Waymo, DoorDash)
JM Nickels is a Senior Director of Product Management at Uber. Previously, he was Head of Product for Commercialization at Waymo and led product teams at DoorDash. JM is also a coach and advisor focused on conscious leadership. In our conversation, we discuss:• How to sharpen you ... Show More
1h 18m
Sep 2024
1,036: The Power of AI in Shaping Strategic Finance Leadership | Zane Rowe, CFO, Workday
In 2012, after nearly two decades in the airline industry, Zane Rowe made a bold career pivot. Leaving behind his role as CFO at United Airlines, Rowe stepped into the tech world, joining Apple in a sales role—a move many saw as risky but one that would ultimately shape his persp ... Show More
36m 17s