A senior engineer at Harley-Davidson walked into a town hall and the CEO told him he expected questions. He’s not a manager. He earned that in the meeting most engineers skip to clear their inbox. Pramit breaks down how he did it, and how you can get noticed by executives without adding hours.
Pete Wilson built one of America’s fastest-growing churches while quietly running on empty. Then it all came down in public. We dig into high achiever burnout, the created life vs. the default life, and the one question that helped Pete climb back out.
Having 1,600 contacts doesn’t mean anyone is rowing with you. In this episode, I share the life raft framework. You’ll learn the four situations engineering leaders get stuck in (empty, riding, resisting, rowing), the five seats your crew needs (peers, breadth builders, mentors, sponsors, and coaches), and a 5-step plan to add your next rower this week.
Director by 35 was the plan. Now every missed milestone feels like proof something’s wrong with you. MIT engineer and CTO Mark Herschberg shows why your career plan should work like a project plan: clear up front, fuzzy further out, and built to change when you make a better trade-off.
Looking up the org chart usually leads to two big mistakes: blindly imitating your boss’s 70-hour workweek or walking away from promotions you actually want. But what’s visible up top isn’t what’s valuable to executives. Here is how to scale your impact, set real boundaries, and step into senior engineering leadership on your own terms.
You’ve said it: “when I hit that number, then I’ll slow down.” James Reid calls this the runner-up mindset, and he lived it until a car accident forced him to stop. Winning isn’t a result. It’s a lifestyle — and most of us are optimizing for the wrong one.