Level-up Engineering

Apex Lab

Level-up Engineering reveals actionable management secrets from some of the most successful engineering leaders (VP of Engineering, Director of Engineering, CTO). This podcast brings you key insights from fellow engineering managers, to level-up your management skills and to take your software development team to the next level. The podcast covers the biggest challenges engineering leaders face, showing exactly how others overcame these challenges. Learn the best practices on management and leadership to understand people and organizations as much as you understand code. We interview engineering leaders and dive into the fundamentals behind hiring and retaining developers, motivating developers, scaling dev teams, mentoring developers, and much more! The episodes are brought to you by Apex Lab, a digital product development agency offering end-to-end, stress-free product delivery. Check them out on https://www.apexlab.io/ If you have any feedback or would like to be featured on Level-up Engineering please, drop us a line at podcast@apexlab.io read less
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Episodes

Core Engineering Principles for Customer-Centric Design
Apr 17 2024
Core Engineering Principles for Customer-Centric Design
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.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Customer-centric approach and its impactEngineering principlesFollowing the engineering principles in day-to-day processesStories of the engineering principles in real life The role of managersFinding the right engineering principles for MattermostAre 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.”
Implementing Agile in Big Corporations - Proven Tips from Salesforce
Jan 10 2024
Implementing Agile in Big Corporations - Proven Tips from Salesforce
Mayakrishnan Chakkarapani, Senior Director of Software Engineering at Salesforce, shares interesting insights on how his organization uses Agile to meet business goals and empower developers while doing so. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Agile in SalesforceSome benefits of implementing Agile What to keep in mind when implementing AgileHow to empower developers when following AgileSetting up and managing virtual teamsExcerpt from the interview:"View your organization as a doctor and your customers as patients; getting your customers’ desired business outcomes means you treated a patient. If one of your patients needs surgery, you need to focus on ensuring they recover as quickly as possible. Agile is nothing but an operational procedure ensuring you’re doing the operation methodically and iteratively.  It means you’re running a diagnosis first, then you come up with various techniques, and finally, you perform the operation the best way possible.  But just because you have a thorough pre-surgery process, it doesn’t mean you can neglect postoperative care. You still have to monitor the patient, and if something seems off, you have to do the process all over again. A lot of times, I’ve seen people taking Agile for granted, thinking it’ll solve everything on its own without thinking about the culture or empowering their teams. It leads them to just force people to do more, causing lots of engineers to burn out eventually. What happens with these dysfunctional organizations is that the operation may succeed because they followed Agile, but the patient still died."
Open Source Stories: How OSS Developers and Communities Shape the Future of Software Engineering
Dec 13 2023
Open Source Stories: How OSS Developers and Communities Shape the Future of Software Engineering
Robert Hodges, CEO of Altinity, discusses various important aspects of open source software development. He talks about the decisions every company should make before embarking on an open source journey, the unresolved issues within the community, some interesting predictions about the future of OSS, and a lot more. Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Robert’s open source journeyEarly vs. current principlesThe benefits of open sourceCurrent trends in the open source communityOpen source concerns & adviceMain challenges in the future of open sourceExcerpt from the interview:"Releasing your software openly and letting people do anything they want to do with it definitely scares some people. Maybe it’s less of an issue for developers who are just writing a piece of code - as an individual, if someone finds my work useful, I’m pretty happy about it. However, when businesses make their software open source, they might worry about others using it to build a competing product.The problem is, open source software is typically licensed in a way that you can do anything you want with it. You can build a new business out of it, competing against the people who wrote the code in the first place. This can cause real tension, and it’s not fully resolved at this point within the community. To grasp this issue from a philosophical standpoint, Cicero claims that there’s never a conflict between your own interests and doing the right thing. If you shape the problem the correct way, you can do the right thing, and that can also serve you at the same time."
How to Choose the Right Tech Stack - A Leader’s Guide to Digital Transformation
Oct 26 2022
How to Choose the Right Tech Stack - A Leader’s Guide to Digital Transformation
Interview with Steven Lopez, VP of Engineering, Technology and Operations at Deem. We go through real life examples and take a deep dive into choosing the right tech stack for your business and team, especially while leading a digital transformation.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Parts of a tech stackChoosing a tech stack for a project vs. digital transformationOther tools to consider when choosing a tech stackHow to choose a tech stack connected to company valuesThe process of digital transformationCommon mistakes in digital transformationStory of choosing Deem’s tech stackExcerpt from the interview:"You need to make sure to customize the tech stack according to the company’s industry. Each industry has different needs when it comes to choosing the right tech stack. For example, in fields that use credit cards, you have to take PCI security standards into account.Ten to 15 years ago, digital transformations were different. People came up with a tech stack, and they would implement it right away. Technologies are moving so fast nowadays that I recommend defining the tech stack only after you do your due diligence and digital transformation experts have looked at your company thoroughly.In the age of agile implementations, we have to be flexible enough to try new things. We set hypotheses, and we try out whether they work, and we make necessary updates."Click here to read the full interview!