Diary of a CTO

Headcount isn't the answer. Shira Haddad went from QA to engineering leadership across health tech and maritime shipping, and she's mastered keeping distributed teams productive without growing the team. In this episode, she shares how small engineering teams can consistently punch above their weight.

Topics: engineering productivity, distributed teams, team management, do more with less, engineering leadership.

Hosted by Himanshu Saxena | Diary of a CTO

Speed is not productivity. Nathan Dench has founded multiple startups and now leads engineering at ProcurePro in construction tech. In this episode, he breaks down how to build long-term engineering productivity with small teams, limited resources, and high expectations — and why most engineering leaders confuse output with outcomes.

Topics: engineering productivity, startup engineering, small team management, resource allocation, construction tech.

Hosted by Himanshu Saxena | Diary of a CTO

Sundi Myint went from writing Elixir to managing the people who write it. In this episode, she shares how engineering managers can stay connected to their technical roots, build real trust in remote teams, and create a culture where engineers step up as leaders without being pushed.

Topics: engineering management, building trust in teams, remote team culture, developer to manager transition, engineering leadership.

Hosted by Himanshu Saxena | Diary of a CTO

Brad Taylor climbed from systems administrator to CTO at Nursa, then moved into consulting for health tech and climate tech. In this episode, he gets honest about what the transition to leadership really requires, how to keep teams healthy while moving fast, and where most companies get AI adoption wrong.

Topics: CTO journey, team health, tech leadership transitions, AI adoption, remote team management.

Hosted by Himanshu Saxena | Diary of a CTO

Hunter Powers has seen enough tech cycles to know what actually matters. In this episode, he shares what the shift from coding to leadership really looks like, how to integrate AI strategically rather than reactively, and the career moves most engineers overlook when trying to grow into leadership.

Topics: AI in software development, engineering career growth, developer to leader transition, tech leadership, continuous learning.

Hosted by Himanshu Saxena | Diary of a CTO

Anton Zaides went from building games to using AI and drone technology to transform agriculture at Taranis. In this episode, he talks about leading engineering in a traditional industry resistant to change, aligning tech projects with business goals, and managing remote and hybrid teams effectively.

Topics: ag-tech engineering, AI in agriculture, engineering leadership, remote team management, game development to tech leadership.

Guest hosted by Daniel Morgan | Diary of a CTO

Mitch Pirtle co-founded Joomla, contributed to Postgres, and has spent 20+ years building engineering teams across startups and Capital One. In this episode, he shares what separates good engineering teams from great ones, how the CTO role is evolving with AI, and why strategy matters more than technology in senior leadership.

Topics: 10x engineering teams, CTO role, AI in engineering management, open source leadership, startup to enterprise.

Hosted by Himanshu Saxena | Diary of a CTO

Sebastiano Armeli has led engineering at Snapchat, Pinterest, PayPal, and Upwork across three continents. In this episode, he breaks down how engineering leaders earn real influence in business decisions, what KPIs actually matter at the leadership level, and how to manage high-performing remote teams across time zones.

Topics: engineering and business alignment, engineering leadership, KPIs for engineering leaders, remote team management, global engineering careers.

Guest hosted by Pru | Diary of a CTO

The zero interest rate party is over. Shreyas Balakrishna, Engineering Manager at Culture Amp, breaks down what engineering culture and management look like in the post-ZIRP reset. He shares how to stay technically engaged as a leader, build psychological safety without losing accountability, and why being product-obsessed is now non-negotiable.

Topics: engineering culture, post-ZIRP engineering, engineering management, psychological safety, product-obsessed teams. 

Guest hosted by Pru | Diary of a CTO

AI isn't just changing what engineers build — it's changing how engineering leaders lead. Manas P., Head of Engineering at Loopr AI, shares how AI is shifting the focus toward architecture and design, what it takes to build high-performance teams in this new era, and how to keep engineering aligned with business outcomes when the technology is moving this fast.

Topics: AI in engineering leadership, engineering architecture, high performance teams, business and engineering alignment, innovation in tech.

Guest hosted by Pru | Diary of a CTO