LeadDev’s PriorityZero

Allison Malloy, Director of Engineering at Shopify, joins the show to chat about her journey from aspiring astronaut to a successful career in software engineering. We talked about her unintentional path to management, the challenges of running a remote team, and her Priority Zero of unifying services across Shopify.

08:40 Transitioning to management: The unintentional leader

14:00 Managing managers and the importance of letting go

17:30 What makes a great technical manager

19:50 Working fully remote from Canada

24:00 Unification of teams and features at Shopify and expanding future capabilities

33:00 Setting the right goals for major projects and launches

Allison's recommendation: The Acquired podcast and The Art of Storytelling by John D. Walsh.

Author of The Manager's Path, Camille Fournier, joins the podcast to talk about her varied career in software engineering, the evolution of management practices in tech, Founder mode vs Manager mode, and her recent interest in platform engineering. 02:00 Doing it for the money vs the passion 07:00 Management in startups vs. big companies 14:45 The qualities of good managers 23:00 The legacy of The Manager's Path 7 years on 31:00 Camille's current focus on platform engineering 39:00 Priority Zero: effectively offboarding as an executive Camille's recommendation: Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner Camille will also be speaking on stage LDX3 London on June 15-16, 2025. ⁠Tickets are available now.

Anil Dash, VP of developer experience at Fastly, joins the show to talk about the decline of community in software circles, the value of following your passions as a developer, what he learned working with Joel Spolsky on Stack Overflow and Glitch, and the evolution of developer tools.

6:00 Going from hobbyist to professional developer

11:00 The decline of software communities

18:00 The importance of following your passion as a developer

29:00 Working with Joel Spolsky

47:00 Adapting to a more corporate role and the pitfalls of 'founder mode'

53:00 Anil's Priority Zero: Making Fastly tools more accessible to developers by focusing on the experience

Anil's recommendation: Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz

Melissa DePuydt, Director of Engineering at Medium, joins the show to talk about making the switch from journalism to software engineering, her experiences with imposter syndrome, and a Scrappy vs. Scale framework for adapting your management approach to different contexts.

06:00 Transitioning from journalism to engineering 13:00 Learning to live with imposter syndrome 21:00 The Scrappy vs. Scale framework (Check out Melissa's LeadDev New York talk on the Scrappy/Scale Mindset) 31:20 Establishing stability at Medium

Melissa's recommendation: Horseback riding (yes, horseback riding)

Matt Boyle, an engineering manager at Cloudflare, joins the show to talk about joining the tech giant during the pandemic, how that influences his management style, and the vital importance of regular retrospectives.

06:00 The difference between working at big and small companies

09:00 The terrifying transition from IC to manager

15:00 The vital importance of retrospectives

18:00 Managing distributed teams and the importance of asynchronous work

21:00 Matt's Priority Zero: Ensuring high availability

24:00 The importance of continuous improvement after incidents

Matt's recommendation: Acquired podcast

Dan Blundell, Engineering Director at Gymshark, joins the show to talk about his journey from an aspiring musician to self-taught developer.

He reflects on his experiences in the public sector, including working on the UK's Covid-19 test and trace application, and his transition to the fast-growing retailer Gymshark, where he has learned the importance of understanding business needs, hiring for culture, and the significance of maintaining leadership capacity during periods of rapid change.

00:00 The MySpace years and discovering the spark

09:00 Becoming an accidental manager

12:00 Lessons learned from the public sector

15:00 The fear of joining Gymshark and navigating leadership challenges

21:00 The importance of understanding business needs

24:00 Dan's Priority Zero: Scaling at Gymshark

27:00 Hiring for culture and values

Dan's recommendation: The Engineering Leader by Cate Huston

Director of Engineering at Trainline, Gary Stevens, joins the show to talk about the role of machine learning in the travel booking experience, the importance of engagement as an engineering leader, and mentoring vs coaching.

00:00 Gary's journey to director of engineering and learning from great managers

09:00 Coaching vs. mentoring

13:00 The importance of engagement in engineering and the importance of celebrating good work

21:00 Machine learning and the future of travel user experiences

Gary's recommendation: The Hard Fork podcast

Alicia Collymore, a Senior Engineering Manager at Incident.io joins the show to chat about entering the industry without a formal computer science degree, transitioning from tech lead to management, setting goals for people who don't want them, and her priority zero of a big Microsoft Teams integration.

03:10 From self-learning to getting her big break

06:00 Transitioning from Tech Lead to Engineering Manager

12:00 The key to good hiring

15:00 Setting goals for engineers

17:30 Delivering a big MS Teams integration project

Alicia's recommendation: Medusa by Rosie Hewlett

Rafe Colburn, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Depop joins the show to talk about his journey from a computer-loving kid to a seasoned engineering leader. We talked about the biggest lessons he learned from his time at Etsy, management by instinct, the dynamics between product and engineering teams, and his biggest priorities right now at Depop. 09:00 The evolution of engineering management and lessons from Etsy's engineering culture 15:00 Navigating product and engineering dynamics

Rafe's recommendation: beliapp.com

The James Stanier blog post we talked about: https://theengineeringmanager.substack.com/p/the-disappointment-frontier

Rob Zuber, CTO of CircleCI, joins the show to talk about his unique leadership journey, going from solving real manufacturing problems, to building software for other developers.

00:00 Rob's unconventional path to CTO

13:30 The importance of being scrappy

22:40 The Future of CircleCI

23:33 From analysis to execution: The shift in leadership roles

26:00 Running an Engineering Organization: Learning, reading, and seeking feedback

31:30 Improving developer experience iteratively

Rob's recommended: 'Greatness' by David Marquet

Annie Vella, a distinguished engineer at Westpac New Zealand, joins the podcast to talk about her incredibly varied career journey, repeatedly ending up working alongside her husband, and riding the manager to individual contributor pendulum.

08:00 Working in Different Domains and Embracing Change

20:00 Transitioning into Management Roles

25:00 The Value of Embracing Change and New Opportunities

35:30 Transitioning to Engineering Manager Roles

46:00 The Impact of AI Tools on Software Engineers

In this episode, Scott Carey sat down with Nick Means, VP of Engineering at MedScout, ahead of his ⁠talk at LeadDev London 2024 about the history of the Barbican estate⁠. We talked about the value of 1:1 meetings, storytelling as a leadership tool, spotting people's superpowers, struggling with bureaucracy, and how to build an AI team. "Software engineering is sort of like a character-building video game. You've got all of these people on your group that's traversing through this environment and everybody's got different skill alignments." 01:00 The importance of 1:1 meetings and storytelling in leadership 05:30 Building a culture of autonomy and leveraging individual superpowers 11:30 The challenges of working in a larger organization (GitHub 👀) 20:00 Building an AI team and verifying outputs

Nick's recommendation: ⁠Perplexity AI

Katerina Iliakopoulou, a senior machine learning engineer at Meta, joins the show to talk about leaving her dream job at the New York Times, the importance of deep domain knowledge as an engineer, and what’s around the corner in machine learning.

02:10 Why domain knowledge is vital for engineers

04:45 Leaving the New York Times for Meta

08:45 Choosing the IC track and what makes a great manager

14:44 The art of prioritization and building impactful solutions

18:00 PriorityZero: Scaling ML models for Facebook Reels

34:24 The future of recommendation systems

Katerina's recommendation: Chip War by Chris Miller

Welcome to PriorityZero, an engineering leadership podcast from LeadDev. I'm your host, Scott Carey, the editor in chief at LeadDev. I've been covering the software business for the best part of a decade, and I love to hear how engineering leaders are solving big people and technical problems.

Subscribe to this podcast to hear how the best software engineering leaders in the business made their start in the industry, how they think about leadership, and their biggest priority right now.

In this first season you will hear from:

• Katerina Iliakopoulou, Senior ML engineer at Meta
• Nick Means, VP of Engineering at MedScout
• Dan Blundell, Engineering Director at Gymshark
• Rob Zuber, CTO at CircleCI
• Annie Vella, Distinguished Engineer at Westpac
• Alicia Collymore, Engineering Manager at Incident.io
• Rafe Colburn, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Depop
• Gary Stevens, Director of Engineering at Trainline
• Matt Boyle, Engineering Manager, Cloudflare