The Main Thread
The Main Thread
Brian Ogilvie & Alex Gaiser
Discussions around how to grow your software engineering career from mid-senior to Staff level. Brian Ogilvie and Alex Gaiser interview top engineers and senior leaders from Big Tech and Mid-size companies to get to the bottom of what makes an effective Staff-level engineer.
Episode 10: The Journey So Far
We’ve reached the end of Season 1! In this final episode, Alex and Brian take some time to reflect on what we’ve learned so far, what themes tend to keep coming up across episodes, areas we’re targeting for personal growth, and finally, what you can expect from Season 2. Thanks for being a part of our first season! We’ll be back in 2024 with all new guests, insights, and stories from the Staff Engineer’s Journey.
Nov 22, 2023
33 min
Episode 9: Security Priorities
We’re joined by Amirali Shahinpour, Head of Security Data Platform at Twitch to discuss driving security priorities across your organization.
Nov 10, 2023
36 min
Episode 8, Part 2: Empathy and Inclusion
Part 2 of our discussion with Lee McKeeman, Staff Engineer at Google, on empathy and inclusion. Why do companies struggle to prioritize efforts around inclusion and accessibility? And what can we, as technical leaders, do about it?
Oct 6, 2023
35 min
Episode 8, Part 1: Empathy and Inclusion
Lee McKeeman is currently a staff engineer at Google, who’s also spent time at Amazon and Meta. Lee is passionate about how we as technical leaders can influence our work environments to be more empathetic and inclusive so that people of varying races, genders, creeds, ages, and neruodiversities, all feel empowered to contribute their best ideas to the work that we do. Part 1.
Sep 29, 2023
32 min
Episode 7: Community Building
Think about the roles you play in your community. Social planner, Little League coach, Dungeon Master. Did anyone explicitly give you that authority? Or did you just gravitate towards your interests and put yourself out there? Can we do that at work, too? Are we defined by the title given to us by our companies, or can we put ourselves out there to take on broader roles that align with our strengths? David Cunningham, Sr Engineer with The New York Times, joins us to discuss how to do both.
Sep 15, 2023
36 min
Episode 6: Evaluating New Technologies
How do you decide whether that shiny new frontend framework or that highly performant, memory-safe backend language is really going to solve your problems? Join our guest Eric Justusson, as we talk about about how to leverage quick experiments, tracer bullets, greenfield projects, and hackathons to responsibly evaluate the benefits and costs of onboarding new tech for your team.
Sep 1, 2023
37 min
Episode 5: AI Madness
Will AI fundamentally change the way we as engineers interact with our work and our world? Or is it mostly hype? We’re joined today by David Ashe-- Senior Software Engineer with American Express--to explore the benefits, risks, practical uses, and downright bizarre results of AI.
Aug 18, 2023
38 min
Episode 4: Technical Vision and Strategy
How do you establish a vision of the future that addresses a specific business need for your company? And how do you turn that vision into a concrete strategy to execute? Brian Jones shares his expertise.
Aug 4, 2023
32 min
Episode 3: The Cake Analogy
Get out your aprons, prep your mixers, and welcome our guest Andrew Preece, as we whip up: ”The Cake Analogy.”
Jul 21, 2023
37 min
Episode 2: What is a Staff Engineer Anyway?
What is a Staff Engineer anyway? What even is the job description? In this episode, we’re joined by Abhishek Mistry–Engineering Leader at Hudson River Trading–to discuss exactly that.
Jul 21, 2023
35 min
Load more