Farnaz is the CTO at Linktree, the leading social platform for creators and small businesses. Linktree enables its users to unify, curate, and monetize their online presence. Farnaz started her career at Google, focusing on the ad tech space. Farnaz then joined Snap, leading Snap's AR monetization team before scaling to run Snap's Platform and product engineering. Farnaz earned her bachelor's degree in computer science from Sharif University of Technology before moving to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Southern California. After fulfilling the credits for a master’s degree, she decided to enter the tech industry where she could contribute to human progress by bringing products to millions of users.

ElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.

Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.

• Taking on product & design 3 months into a new role (3:01)
• Going from delivery to discovery: mindset shifts for eng leaders (5:58)
• Identifying the current state of engineering, product & design (10:59)
• Decision-making based on anecdotes vs. data (12:50)
• Pivoting strategies to optimize for small, fast teams to improve cross-functional collaboration (15:04)
• Signals to pivot your product approach & ****make different bets (16:59)
• Complementary skill sets for rapid iteration (19:14)
• How to avoid silencing critical input & transform team frustration into product insight (20:41)
• Applying the 80/20 rule to complex product surfaces (23:46)
• Case Study: Reprioritizing the LinkTree product w/ 80/20 approach (25:46)
• Bringing on a strategic product partner & kicking off org change (27:28)
• Be honest about your knowledge gaps (29:09)
• How Farnaz’s experiences at Snap inform her leadership as CTO (33:21)
• When pattern matching fails: frameworks for checking assumptions (35:22)
• Where EPD Is headed: cross-functional evolution in the age of AI (38:10)
• Rapid fire questions (38:58)

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/

Wade Chambers will be leading Engineering at Amplitude. Amplitude is the leading digital analytics platform that helps companies unlock the power of their products. Wade has over 25 years of engineering leadership experience, both advising companies and being hands-on in key leadership positions at companies such as Included Health, Twitter, TellApart, Proofpoint, Yahoo, and Opsware. He is a deep technical expert with a proven track record of scaling teams, leaders, market-defining technology innovations, and business growth.

ElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.

Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.

• Why empowering engineering teams to own their mission matters (3:16)
• Common traps that prevent eng leaders from empowering teams (5:15)
• Understanding the “why” behind ownership & systemizing individual ownership (7:09)
• Systems change for empowerment: Aligning company vision, outcomes, competencies & behaviors (9:48)
• How to bring someone from low ownership back to high ownership (13:49)
• Developing trust & having tough conversations around ownership (15:17)
• Nonobvious factors to that erode ownership over time (17:42)
• Empowering teams through meaningful missions, clear expectations, defining success, & ongoing check-ins (20:55)
• Identifying engineers w/ competencies & behaviors that align w/ your org’s vision & goals (24:00)
• When having too much ownership becomes a problem (27:22)
• Wade’s process for officially transferring ownership (28:47)
• Coaching and navigating conversations around ownership (32:01)
• Impactful questions to ask during the coaching / check in process (34:08)
• Closing gaps in leadership competencies & behaviors (37:27)
• Coaching leaders to align personal growth with org goals (39:25)
• Rapid fire questions (41:34)

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/