Great technical leadership requires more than just great coding skills. It requires a variety of other skills that are not well-defined, and they are not something that we can fully learn in any school or book. Hear from experienced technical leaders sharing their journey and philosophy for building great technical teams and achieving technical excellence. Find out what makes them great and how to apply those lessons to your work and team.

Latest episodes

The IT/OT Handbook: From Silos to Sustainable Digitalization - David Ariens & Willem van Lammeren

September 28, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min

Why can’t you “move fast and break things” in a factory? Because a small software bug doesn’t just crash an app, it can shut down a plant the size of a small city. David and Willem explain the hidden world of operational technology, where…
Don't Outsource Your Thinking: How to Lead in the AI-Native Era - Emilie Schario

September 7, 2026 · 59 min

What’s the one rule that matters most when AI writes most of your code? Emilie says it comes down to a single line: don’t outsource your thinking. In this episode, Emilie Schario, co-founder of Kilo Code, unpacks what it actually means to…
The Father of AI Assistant on Why Joy Comes Before Success - Kevin Surace

August 24, 2026 · 56 min

If you’re not using AI five times an hour, you’re already behind, says the man who built the first AI assistant back in 1998. Kevin explains why that pace is now the baseline, not the exception, for developers who want to stay employed. In…
Software Engineering Laws Every Developer Must Know in the AI Era - Milan Milanovic

August 10, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

Does moving faster with AI mean you get to skip the laws that governed every software project before it? Milan Milanovic argues the opposite, the old laws of software engineering now apply twice as hard. In this episode, Milan Milanovic…
Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking to Navigate Software Delivery Illusions - Elisabeth Hendrickson & Joel Tosi

August 3, 2026 · 1 hr 17 min

(04:48) Brought to you by SpeechifyAI Tired of text-to-speech that sounds robotic or costs too much at scale? SpeechifyAI's new Simba 3.2 model ranks #1 on Artificial Analysis for realness, priced under $10 per million characters. Building…
From Technical Debt to Triple Debt: The Hidden Cost of AI-Generated Code

July 27, 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

Is vibe coding quietly draining the thing that makes teams effective: their shared understanding? Margaret breaks down her new “triple debt” model, and why cognitive debt might be the one nobody’s tracking. In this episode, Margaret-Anne…
Ex-Gojek CTO: Why the Age of AI Rewards Builders as Judgment Becomes Expensive

July 13, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min

If expertise is becoming almost free, why is judgment becoming the most expensive skill in tech? Ajey Gore, former Gojek CTO, explains why the age of AI agents rewards builders over typists. In this episode, Ajey Gore, former Group CTO of…
The AI Productivity Paradox: Why 10X Output Doesn't Mean 10X Business Outcome

June 29, 2026 · 1 hr 6 min

What if optimizing for AI output is actually slowing your company down? When code becomes nearly free to produce, the organizations still measuring productivity by output are solving the wrong problem. In this episode, Mik Kersten, author…