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The Engineering Leadership Podcast

The Engineering Leadership Podcast

By: The Engineering Leadership Community (ELC)
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 We share the most critical perspectives, habits & examples of great software engineering leaders to help evolve leadership in the tech industry. Join our community of software engineering leaders @ www.sfelc.com!327413 Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • The End-to-End Engineer: How WorkOS Collapsed the Talent Stack for Extreme Velocity & Alignment w/ Michael Grinich #228

    The End-to-End Engineer: How WorkOS Collapsed the Talent Stack for Extreme Velocity & Alignment w/ Michael Grinich #228
    Aug 5 2025

    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 leads, only one PM, and engineers who own product end-to-end. Michael breaks down how they teach product thinking, build with deep customer insight, and why his most important job is often to "cut scope." You’ll learn how to remove the "lossy translation layers" between teams, build a culture of curiosity and customer obsession, and ship higher-quality products, faster.

    ABOUT MICHAEL GRINICH

    Michael is the founder and CEO of WorkOS, a developer platform that enables companies to become Enterprise Ready through features like Single Sign-On (SAML). Their customers include many of the fastest-growing startups including Webflow, Drata, Loom, and +200 others. Before WorkOS, Michael co-founded Nylas and studied CS at MIT.

    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:
    • Marketing technical products exclusively to other tech companies (2:39)
    • Building products end-to-end without PMs (6:36)
    • How WorkOS utilizes fun, user feedback, and cohesive storytelling in their product-building process (9:31)
    • Hiring engineers for curiosity & comfort operating in ambiguity (12:48)
    • How engineers owning product discovery & directly engaging w/ users improve product insights (16:31)
    • Using Slack for real-time integrated support & rapid product iteration (19:38)
    • The complexities of creating simple, elegant products and marketing messaging (21:54)
    • Cut scope ruthlessly to ship faster and better (26:20)
    • Small, simple, deeply useful features make the biggest impact (30:30)
    • The weekly cadence that keeps engineering aligned (32:52)
    • Behind the scenes of MCP Night: A protocol party for devs (38:20)
    • Rapid fire questions (41:29)
    LINKS AND RESOURCES
    • MCP Night
    • **WorkOS Launch Week**
    • WorkOS AuthKit
    • The Business Value of Computers: An Executive's Guide - Paul A. Strassmann addresses the practical needs of executives responsible for planning, budgeting and justifying information technology expenditures. It shows that there is no direct relation between spending on computers, profits or productivity.
    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/
    Show More Show Less
    45 mins
  • Influencing without authority: What every engineering leader can learn from security w/ Srinath Kuruvadi #227

    Influencing without authority: What every engineering leader can learn from security w/ Srinath Kuruvadi #227
    Jul 22 2025
    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 when ROI isn’t immediately clear. We cover tactics for shaping problems from the POV of other stakeholders, Plus, strategies to establish shared outcomes, insights on optimizing your time, emerging AI x security trends, and how his team is operationalizing curiosity & experimentation through The Innovation Lab.ABOUT SRINATH KURUVADISrinath Kuruvadi is a globally recognized cybersecurity executive and cloud security leader with over two decades of experience driving security innovation at some of the world’s most influential technology companies, including Netflix, Meta, Google, Lyft, and JPMorgan Chase. Currently serving as Managing Director and Head of Cloud Security at JPMorgan Chase, he leads the enterprise-wide security strategy across APIs, containers, and cloud platforms, shaping the future of banking technology.Srinath’s approach blends deep technical expertise with executive-level risk management. At Netflix, he headed cloud security for one of the largest AWS environments globally, pioneering scalable governance and identity systems that supported massive data throughput. At Meta and Google, he led the development of custom infrastructure security systems protecting billions of users, including Facebook’s Blackbird SIEM+SOAR platform.Beyond his executive roles, Srinath is a strategic advisor and angel investor, with five successful startup exits including Bridgecrew, Lightspin, Oxeye, Gem Security, and Kivera. He is also a trusted advisor to venture capital firms like YL Ventures and Glilot Capital Partners, and served on Amazon’s Global CISO Advisory Council.He holds multiple patents in web application security, database protection, and abuse detection, and has authored research on algorithmic solutions in industrial systems. Srinath is also multilingual and committed to lifelong learning, exemplified by a sabbatical that took him to over 35 countries for cultural, linguistic, and creative growth.With a Master’s degree in Computer Science from North Carolina State University and a Bachelor's from BITS Pilani, Srinath is known for transforming security from a blocker into a business accelerator.Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC 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 hidden art of influencing without authority in security leadership (3:29)Why influencing remains an underestimated skill (5:08)Shifting from accidental to intentional influencing (6:53)Frameworks for aligning problems from other stakeholder’s POV (8:40)How to effectively influence without formal authority (11:14)Common pitfalls in identifying & aligning shared outcomes - and how to avoid them (14:10)Srinath’s strategy for clearly defining and aligning on shared outcomes from the start (15:42)Making a compelling case when immediate ROI isn’t clear (17:47)Practical prioritization frameworks for assessing security needs (20:55)Insights on personal time management for engineering leaders (22:53)Navigating current trends and potential pitfalls in AI for security (26:29)Inside the Innovation Lab: Operationalizing curiosity and AI experimentation (29:57)Rapid fire questions (33:47)LINKS AND RESOURCESFAIR methodology risk assessment - a research-driven not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline of cyber and operational risk management through education, standards and collaboration.The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels - Michael D. Watkins gives you the keys to successfully negotiating your next move—whether you’re onboarding into a new company, being promoted internally, or embarking on an international assignment.Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World - David Epstein’s compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Dr. Robert Cialdini explains the psychology of why people say "yes"—and how to apply these understandings. You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself ...
    Show More Show Less
    37 mins
  • Vision-first leadership & reimagining product w/ “Shift Out,” Do-It-as-a-Service & Jobs-to-Be-Done w/ John Amaral #226

    Vision-first leadership & reimagining product w/ “Shift Out,” Do-It-as-a-Service & Jobs-to-Be-Done w/ John Amaral #226
    Jul 8 2025

    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 service. John also unpacks how to think in outcomes, apply the Jobs-To-Be-Done framework to eliminate toil, and reimagine product experiences. Plus, we look inside Root.io’s approach to building AI-native security products that ship daily. Whether you’re rethinking your org design or exploring the frontier of AI-powered engineering, this episode will reshape how you think about building, leading, and scaling teams.

    ABOUT JOHN AMARAL

    John Amaral, CTO and co-founder of Root.io, is a veteran cybersecurity leader with a proven track record of scaling and exiting successful companies. At Cisco, he led Product for Cloud Security—its fastest-growing Security and SaaS business. Before that, he ran product and engineering at CloudLock through its acquisition by Cisco in 2016. Earlier, as SVP of Product at Trustwave, John led its industry-leading security portfolio, culminating in a strategic acquisition by Singtel. Today, he’s building Root.io—a next-gen cybersecurity platform pioneering Agentic Vulnerability Remediation (AVR) to automate and eliminate software vulnerabilities at scale.

    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 evolving role of engineering leaders (2:13)
    • “Shift Left is Dead” - Why it’s time to “Shift Out” (5:59)
    • Applying Jobs-To-Be-Done & offloading toil with AI (11:00)
    • Root.io’s AI-driven approach to security (15:03)
    • Vision First Leadership (22:36)
    • Empowering developers & shipping daily (27:38)
    • Rethinking product & engineering orgs and building your vision muscle (30:47)
    • Unlocking creativity through hobbies (36:37)
    • Rapid fire questions (41:14)
    LINKS AND RESOURCES
    • The All-In Podcast - When the pandemic prevented four friends from convening their weekly poker game, they took to the airwaves to socialize and discuss the news of the day. What started on a whim has quickly become one of the top-ranked podcasts in the world.
    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/
    Show More Show Less
    45 mins
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