We explored practical AI tool adoption strategies, addressed team upskilling challenges, and examined how engineering managers' roles are evolving in response. Key takeaways included the critical importance of continuous learning frameworks, heightened value of emotional intelligence in leadership, and maintaining a problem-solving mindset while navigating technological disruption.

In this episode, we explore how to accelerate your AI learning journey with Maher Hanafi, SVPE @ Betterworks! Maher shares his progression from using LLMs as a proof of concept to tackling real-world use cases and complex challenges like data governance, data flow, enterprise AI, and AI agents. Maher also dissects the importance of team experimentation with real use cases, revisiting AI decisions with your team, when to go horizontal vs. vertical with AI learning, overcoming POC-to-production challenges; and evaluating the ROI of your AI decisions. Special thanks to our guest co-host Corey Coto, a local leader of ELC Seattle!

Jim Palmer (Chief AI Officer @ Dialpad) discusses the current state and future of data governance, scaling AI responsibly, and practical strategies for companies at different stages of AI adoption. We break down the impact of red-teaming / adversarial testing on AI governance, mitigating risk, unexpected positive outcomes from red-teaming, and how to launch and scale adversarial testing efforts. Plus investments in data & governance you should be focusing on, structured data as a cheat code to durability & adaptability, building in data deletion systems and other essential tips & strategies for an evolving AI regulatory and governance environment.

Anurag Agarwal (VP, Engineering @ Google Workspace) returns to debrief the latest integrations and rapid releases of AI product experiences across Google Workspace. We discuss strategies to help teams execute / iterate faster; streamlining the decision-making process; questions to ask during prioritization conversations; identifying bottlenecks of inefficiency; gaining user insights & iterating based on that feedback. Plus how to enable easier feature discovery in your product experience. Anurag also shares insights into Google Workspace’s current projects & what he’s most looking forward to in the future!

In this episode, we explore building an AI-first company and engineering org with Rong Yan (CTO @ HeyGen)! We dive into the potential of HeyGen’s interactive avatars, imagining how they can help engineering leaders scale their impact, foster team alignment, coach effectively, and accelerate decision-making. Rong shares insights on the structure of an AI-first company and optimizing for AI teams with engineering capabilities. Plus what it means to “lead with speed” and balance product quality and velocity in an AI-first company and key leadership principles, like why it’s crucial to invest in your top performers and how to act as a productivity multiplier.

The video introduces the Entelligence platform, which enhances engineering workflows by providing deep context awareness and planning. It offers AI-powered features like automated code reviews, real-time integration with tools like Slack and VS Code, and visualizations to help teams understand their codebase. The platform aims to solve common problems such as onboarding, code review inefficiencies, and system understanding, with a focus on collaboration and mentorship. It simplifies onboarding, reduces code review time, and integrates various data sources to improve team productivity. More info: "Entelligence is dedicated to dismantling knowledge silos in large engineering teams. Our platform streamlines and expedites onboarding, automates code reviews, and offers actionable solutions to issues, all while providing managers with valuable insights into their teams' progress. Our platform gathers context across all engineering content—tickets, pull requests, documentation, and code—with meeting and video support coming soon. We integrate into Slack and VS Code, as well as our own UI, empowering engineers with the answers, guidance and reviews they need, when they need them."