Speaker
Abstract
Most productivity research happens in large tech companies. Many of the lessons learned there apply to the world of Startups as well, but some don't carry over.
After years in big tech leading organizations at GitHub and Google, Rachel will discuss her transition to leading engineering for a fast-growing Startup. She has spent years focused on developer productivity including managing the team focused on Engineering Productivity Research at Google. She now spends her time as SVP leading Engineering for Sanity.io and doing Startup advising.
This talk includes tips on how adjusting your leadership style to meet the challenge of building productive and happy teams in the fast moving world of Startups.
Interview
I'm now leading engineering for a fast growing startup - Sanity.io
In my 1.5 years at Sanity and over 2 years engaging in startup advising I've found it fascinating to reflect on how many things that I took for granted with respect to productivity in big tech (11.5 years at Google and 4 years at GitHub/Microsoft) don't always apply in smaller and faster moving environments. Preparing and giving a talk helps me crystallize my thinking and learnings, and is something I find enjoyable!
My talk is on the leadership track, and it's going to be best suited to tech leads, managers, or senior leaders who are working in smaller, faster moving environments, or who are interested in what that might be like.
I know a lot of great leaders who are kind of stuck in big tech, and who have worked for one of the big tech companies for the majority of their careers. I'd love to help motivate those folks to think about what else is out there. I'd also like to help folks who are working in startups or smaller companies today think about productivity for their software developers. Most of the research out there comes from big tech, and it isn't always directly applicable in a smaller environment.
I'm interested in how much more code people are writing with AI assist and what that means for code review, code quality, and the entire build, test, deploy flow. I'd love to see disruptions in this space that make it easier to move quickly with confidence.
Topics
QCon San Francisco 2024 is a three day conference for senior software engineers, architects and team leads. An international program committee of working engineers selects every session. Patterns and practices, not products and pitches.
Part of the track
Engineering Productivity Hosted by Jennifer Bevan Senior Staff Software Engineer @Google, Previously at the Jet Propulsion LaboratoryFrom the same track
Tuesday 19 November
10:35 Seacliff ABC Session Productivity Productivity Lessons in Moving from Big Tech to Scaling a Startup Rachel Potvin SVP Eng @Sanity.io with 25 Years in Tech, Previously @Google and @GitHub, Engineering Leader Focused on Building Productive Happy Teams Most productivity research happens in large tech companies. Many of the lessons learned there apply to the world of Startups as well, but some don't carry over. 11:45 Seacliff ABC Session Engineering productivity Inflection Points in Engineering Productivity as Amazon Grew 30x Carlos Arguelles Senior Principal Engineer @Amazon, 27 Years Experience in Developer Productivity Engineering, Previously @Google and @Microsoft I joined Amazon in 2009, when we were a 3000-engineer company, and got to experience its fast growth from 3k to 90k engineers over a 15-yr period. During that time, our engineering productivity needs had a number of interesting inflection points. 13:35 Seacliff ABC Session Security or Convenience - Why Not Both? Dorota Parad CEO @Authress, Product and Team Builder, Test Enthusiast Traditionally, security is all about creating obstacles and making it difficult to access data. This is at odds with our drive for a more smooth and faster development process. How can we keep the software we’re building secure without adding friction for engineers? 14:45 Ballroom BC Session Research Supporting Engineering Productivity for All Emerson Murphy-Hill Research Scientist at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction, Former Googler and Professor Understanding what drives software development productivity is the key to making high-impact investments in engineering productivity. 15:55 Ballroom BC Session Engineering Efficiency Shifting Left for Better Engineering Efficiency Ying Dai Principal Software Engineer @Roblox, Working on Improving Engineering Efficiency. Previously @Google & @LinkedIn In this presentation, I will share two critical migration stories - one focuses on production monitoring and the other on production deployments with automated validations. 17:05 Ballroom A Session AI/LLMs Slack's AI-Powered, Hybrid Approach for Large-Scale Migration from Enzyme to React Testing Library Sergii Gorbachov Staff Software Engineer @Slack, Specializing in AI-Driven Tools for Automating Code Migrations and Test Authorship With the Enzyme test framework no longer supporting React 18, migrating to React Testing Library (RTL) became imperative.