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:
What is the focus of your work?
I'm now leading engineering for a fast growing startup - Sanity.io
What’s the motivation for your talk?
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!
Who is your talk for?
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.
What do you want someone to walk away with from your presentation?
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.
What do you think is the next big disruption in software?
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.
Speaker
Rachel Potvin
SVP Eng @Sanity.io with 25 Years in Tech, Previously @Google and @GitHub, Engineering Leader Focused on Building Productive Happy Teams
Rachel Potvin is an engineering leader with 25 years of experience working in the technology sector. She’s spent the bulk of her career working on developer focused infrastructure and is passionate about building and investing in systems that improve developer productivity and happiness. She has a lot of experience building, growing, and sustaining healthy, productive engineering organizations.
After a long career in big tech, Rachel is currently enjoying being deeply immersed in the world of startups. As SVP and the head of Engineering for Sanity.io she’s having fun building a world class engineering organization to meet the challenge of creating an innovative and highly scalable platform for content management in the age of AI. She’s also an advisor for fast moving startups including Substack, EngFlow, and Graphite.
Before diving into the world of startups, Rachel worked at GitHub as a VP of Engineering for 4 years where she grew her organization to over 500 developers working on products such as GitHub Advanced Security, Codespaces, Copilot, Code Productivity (CodeSearch and Navigation), the GitHub Data Platform and more.
Before GitHub, Rachel worked at Google for 11 years. There, she most recently ran the Google Cloud Insights organization, responsible for managing and building data products and a recommendations engine leveraging Google Cloud's customer and product data. Prior to that she worked in Infrastructure, running Google’s DevOps teams focused on source control, workflow management, and developer productivity.
Rachel also spent six years in the video game industry and two years in the financial services sector. She is originally from Montreal, Canada and in her spare time she enjoys hiking, running, cooking, and building things with her children.
Find Rachel Potvin at:
Date
Tuesday Nov 19 / 10:35AM PST ( 50 minutes )
Location
Seacliff ABC
