Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg)

January 7, 2024

AI Summary

5 min read

Will Larson, CTO at Carta and former engineering leader at Stripe, Uber, and Calm, discusses shifts in engineering leadership amid tighter markets, systems thinking for problem-solving, and principles for strategy, productivity, and team dynamics.

Post-ZIRP engineering realities

Engineering leaders now spend far less time hiring—down from half their effort to zero or two interviews monthly—and more on team sizing, allocation, and consolidation, skills unneeded in the prior growth era. Engineers lose internal leverage, but this enables treating them as peers: assigning hard problems, holding them accountable, and promoting them to senior roles without coddling, which Larson sees as essential for their growth. Previously, retention fears led to sheltering, harming efficiency; now, accountability unlocks staff engineer paths.

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What you'll learn

1 `* (00:35) **Intro and Market Shifts in Engineering**`
2 `* (04:32) **Treating Engineers as Peers and Accountability**`
3 `* (08:33) **Systems Thinking: Principles and Pitfalls**`
4 `* (13:14) **Systems Thinking in Hiring Pipelines**`
5 `* (16:17) **Engineering Strategy: Writing and Examples**`
6 `* (41:18) **PM-Eng Relationships and Shared Incentives**`
7 `* (48:24) **Measuring Eng Productivity**`

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Will Larson is Chief Technology Officer at Carta. Prior to joining Carta, he was the CTO at Calm and held engineering leadership roles at Stripe, Uber, and Digg. He is the author of two foundational engineering career books, An Elegant Puzzle and Staff Engineer, and The Engineering Executive’s Primer, which will be released in February. In our conversation, we discuss:

• Systems thinking: what it is and how to apply it

• Advice for product managers on fostering productive relationships with engineering managers

• Why companies should treat engineers like adults

• How to best measure developer productivity

• Writing and its impact on his career

• How to balance writing with a demanding job

• How to develop your company values

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-engineering-mindset-will-larson

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Where to find Will Larson:

• X: https://twitter.com/Lethain

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-larson-a44b543/

• Website: https://lethain.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/